Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Highlands Hammock for Thanksgiving?

It may not be too late to get a couple of spots, side by side. We take pop-top and tents, and/or maybe a camping trailer. Carol and I go up Tuesday afternoon, maybe in both SUVs, and get things set. Kith & Kin fly into ORL next day, say, and we pick them up there. (Early birds could come on Tuesday.) We take everyone back to ORL from HH on Sunday sometime. (Is ORL cheaper, closer, than FLL, WPB, TPA, or MIA? I was thinking it would be.)

Monday, August 29, 2011

Hello, Dragon!

Several months ago, I installed Dragon Naturally Speaking, version 11.0 (Premium), on my desktop at the office. I have been working Dragon into my practice since then, slowly but effectively. It is a remarkable program. Its adaptation involves a significant learning curve, but I've made my way up it to a meaningful extent, certainly enough to know that it is for me a very practical and useful innovation.

Recently I discovered that my trusty Olympus Digital Voice Recorder (the DS–4000), when loaded into its cradle on my desktop, can be linked into the Dragon software. Usually, my dictation travels by way of that cradle hookup to our office network. From there, one of the secretaries picks it up for transcription. She can either print out her transciption and walk it back to my office or let me know via email that I can look at it via the network. Now I have learned that instead of sending the recorder's digital file to the office network, I can direct that the Dragon software perform the transcription right my desktop.

This morning, then, I took my dictating device with me on my walk. When I take that walk, which is nearly 2 miles long, my mind is fresh, the blood is flowing through my brain, and all sorts of ideas and plans begin to hatch, especially on a Monday morning when I am well-rested. So as I walked, I dictated a "To Do" list. Later, when I arrived at the office, I popped the recorder into its cradle and had Dragon do the transcribing. I saw the text emerge on my screen before my very eyes. When Dragon completed the work in a matter of a minute or two, I blocked and pasted the Dragon document into a Word document, one that was already pre-formatted for my "to-do" lists. (I could have had Dragon transcribe directly into the Word document, but I am progressing slowly with this.) In just a few more minutes, using the keyboard in the traditional way, I made the list look like the ones that I prepare three or four times during the week to help me keep things straight.

I am interested to know whether any of the other Kith and Kin is using Dragon or is interested in doing so.

(By the way, using Dragon, I dictated directly into Blogger the first draft of this post.)

Sunday, August 28, 2011

The Broncos beat the Seahawks, 23-20


Kyle Orton led Denver back from a shaky start with two TD drives and Tim Tebow put the Broncos in position to win it after Jeff Reed tied it at 20 with a 53-yard field goal with 1:16 left in regulation. Tebow had a 19-yard scramble in leading the Broncos downfield for Steven Haushka’s 51-yarder as time expired.

- from this morning's AP report on the game.

Denver Post NFL reporter Mike Klis said this about Tebow's role in the game:

Having received heavy criticism from several former players in recent weeks, backup quarterback Tim Tebow threw a 20-yard dart to TE Julius Thomas, as well as an exciting scramble and throw to RB Jeremiah Johnson for 23 yards.

Like I said, we'll see.

The Fellowship of Presbyterians

As we continue to grow in number and begin to clarify our focus . . . it may be confusing to keep “PC(USA)” in our name, as our core commitment is not to renewing the structure and systems of our denominational bureaucracy, nor is our sole focus on congregations remaining within the PC(USA). At the same time, we honor and claim our theological and confessional heritage as Presbyterians. And so, as we complete the final stages of incorporation as a 501(c)3 organization, we officially announce our name: “The Fellowship of Presbyterians.”

-From "What's in a Name? Announcing our New Name and Logo."

The three day "Gathering," called by the Fellowship in Minneapolis, began this past Thursday with "[n]early 2,000 Presbyterian pastors, elders, and lay leaders, representing more than 830 U.S. congregations . . . ," and wound up Friday.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

¡Hombre! Las Delicias is Back!

¡Agui!

(Mmmm. May take a vacacion de me vida de salud. No te diga a Dr. McDougall, por favor.)

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Boomer on Tebow

Boomer Esiason, the former Bengals quarterback and current CBS analyst, says Tebow has no business being an NFL quarterback, and just because Tebow was successful at Florida, that’s no reason to think he’ll ever be any good with the Broncos.

“He can’t play. He can’t throw,” Esiason said, via Mike McCarthy of USA Today. “I’m not here to insult him. The reality is he was a great college football player, maybe the greatest college football player of his time. But he’s not an NFL quarterback right now. Just because he’s God-fearing, and a great person off the field, and was a winner with the team that had the best athletes in college football, doesn’t mean his game is going to translate to the NFL.”


-from NBC Sports

I guess we'll see.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Taking Tri-Rail Semi-Private

The Herald reports today that the Florida Department of Transportation is in talks with the FEC (Florida East Coast Railway) about transferring operations responsibility to the FEC.

First, I would like to concede that my throwing rocks at Tri-Rail is like someone living in a glass house (Metro-Rail) throwing stones.

That being said, Tri-Rail exists thanks to $61 million of annual capital and operating subsidies from the federal government, the state government, and the three counties through which it runs. Riders contribute $11 million a year. Let me restate that. For everyone $1 a Tri-Rail rider pays, the taxpayers of the United States, Florida, and the tri-county area, pay $6.

Furthermore, the Tri-Rail riders transfer to Metro-Rail to complete their commuting trips, and there we have another set of tax-payer subsidies. Tri-Rail riders pay nothing for their Metro-Rail ride.

In addition, as far as I can tell when the noisy Tri-Rail riders join us Miami-Dade riders on Metro-Rail, they consist of Broward County and Palm Beach residents who ride down to go work at the county, veterans, and UM hospitals and the state offices at Civic Center, and the Metro-Dade County offices at Government Center. That is, their employment is also government subsidized. It is also interesting to note that Metro Rail was designed so that their desks are but a few steps away from the Metro-Rail stations where they finish their commute.

(Yes, I've ranted about this before.)

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

First Day of First Grade

I don't have time to post anything but pictures, but since that is the most fun part anyway, I figure you readers won't mind.
;-)










Al Gore and Barack Obama won Nobel Peace Prizes

Catherine Hamlin was nominated one year. (She didn't get it.)

The Story Behind the UM Football Scandal Story

In the Herald this morning.

Charles Robinson, the Yahoo! sportswriter who broke the story, sounds very straight. Most interesting to me are his comments about the ex-UM players, now in the NFL, who justify their actions on the basis of "all the money that the UM had been making off of them."

When life is reduced to dollars and cents, it's not very pretty.

(I don't mean to confine this observation to the students, by any means. I am simply saying that when relationships are evaluated as transactions that can be quantified in gold, then disaster will finally follow.)

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Clinton and his Vegan Conversion

We've all seen this by now, and I have posted on his conversion before. But I think it is just great. I hope he keeps talking about it. And I wish him well personally.

(By the way, he and I are the same age. Class of '68. What do you think?)

A Crisis of Confidence, Not of Fundamentals

Mackin Pulsifer is the Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Fiduciary Trust International. One can access his excellent discussion of the "Recent Market Turmoil" here.

Chipolte Disappoints (OK, Ciphotle) (But see the Comments)

Not so candid about the bacon grease in its dishes that vegans and those who observe dietary restrictions on religious grounds might choose.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The End of NCAA Athletics at the U?

Yahoo Sports alleges a sickening tale of moral and ethical corruption lasting over a decade and involving a 'Canes booster, who is now a convicted and imprisoned felon, UM players and recruits, and, perhaps to a profound extent, employees of the U's athletic program.

Miami Herald Sportswriter Greg Cote's title of his column today, "The Smoke You See at the University of Miami is a Five-Alarm Blaze" doesn't strike me as hyperbole. From Cote's column:

But Shapiro’s [the booster's] claims involve so many players over such a long period that an entire decade could be tainted – virtually all the years of coaches Larry Coker and Randy Shannon. An irony is that Shapiro’s work in the shadows is said to have started just as UM down-turned from its most recent national championship-game appearance into a decade of declining success, reminding us, perhaps, that money can buy you neither love nor BCS hardware.

I should emphasize the obvious here: That none of Shapiro’s claims outlined in detail in the Yahoo.com report have been proven to be gospel. But circumstantial indications of truth appear mountainous. The UM fan who honestly believes none of this is true might be a potential customer to buy sand at the beach.

Yahoo’s chief investigator, Charles Robinson, is respected. Over nearly a year, he conducted 100 hours of interviews with Shapiro, reviewed 20,000 pages of Shapiro’s business records available via his bankruptcy case, scanned 5,000 pages of cellphone records and reviewed 1,000 photographs . . .

The conclusion, the allegation, is that 72 former and current UM players — alphabetically, Ray-Ray Armstrong to Kellen Winslow Jr. — received at least some form of illegal benefit from Shapiro. The allegations ensnare a dozen current players, including quarterback Jacory Harris.

Documentation indicates Shapiro’s gifts to UM athletes variously included cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his home and on his yacht, trips to restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bonuses for on-field plays — including injuring an opponent — travel and, in one case, an abortion for a player’s girlfriend.

Further allegations are that seven former UM coaches in football and basketball (including Frank Haith) were aware of Shapiro’s “generosity” and turned a blind eye. If proved, that could be especially felonious.


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Women Elders? How about a Woman Apostle!

N.T. Wright, in his Paul for Everyone - Romans: Part Two, uses a just-unearthed, ancient chest, full of fascinating objects, as a metaphor for verses one through 16 of Chapter 16 of Romans. This is the section at the end of his letter where Paul identifies "no fewer than twenty-four names of Christians in Rome, plus one other (Rufus' mother) who isn't named . . . [italics Wright's]." The metaphor is apt. And the most fascinating objects to me are the pair of names in verse 7, which verse Wright translates as follows:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and fellow prisoners, who are well known among the apostles, and who were in the Messiah before I was.

Although Wright translates the pair as Andronicus and Junia, others translate the pair as Andronicus and Junius. The 2011 edition of the NIV translates the second name as Junia, the feminine form of the name, but the NIV, 1984 edition, the NIV edition that Jesus and the disciples used (just kidding), translates the second name as Junias, the masculine form. The NASB gives us the masculine form in the text but it footnotes the feminine. Same with the NET. But the KJV, which, of course, Jesus and the disciples did use, gives us the feminine, as does the RSV, the NRSV, and the NKJV.

Here's what Wright says about translators who don't concede the feminine form of the name:

"We note . . . the importance of women in the list. Paul names them as follow-workers, without any sense that they hold a secondary position to the men. One of them, Junia in verse 7, is an apostle: the phrase 'well known among the apostles' doesn't mean that the apostles know her and Andronicus (probably wife and husband) but that they are apostles, that is, they were among those who saw the risen Lord. She has the same status as all the other apostles, including Paul himself. Don't be put off by some translations which call her 'Junias,' as if she were a man. There is no reason for this except the anxiety of some about recognizing that women could be apostles too."

Sunday, August 14, 2011

UM Middle Linebacker, Jimmy Gaines

Along with the Giant's Mark Herzlich, Jimmy's on my coveted Fall 2011 Football Watch list. The sophomore from western NY, with the "ability to diagnose plays quickly" and "fly all over the field," sings.

Rahe on Yesterday's Events among the Republicans; and On the Right to Defend One's Self.

Professor Rahe's take on what happened yesterday in Iowa.

Here's another good column by Professor Rahe, this one on the London riots and the right, now largely lost in Britain, to defend one's person and property. He conludes his column with this:

In times like these, it is useful to remember the immortal words of John Adams: “We talk of liberty and property, but, if we cut up the law of self-defence, we cut up the foundation of both. . . . If a robber meets me in the street, and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions.”

Saturday, August 13, 2011

More on Medical Missions that Treat Fistulas and the Work of the Hamlins


The Fistula Foundation has a website worth exploring to learn more about helping women overseas with the pregnancy-related fistula problem.

The Fistula Foundation website states that for the past five years they have been the largest supporter of the work that the Hamlins introduced in Ethiopia. The "Hamlin Fistula Relief and Aid Fund" has its own website and it includes a good discussion of the history of the Hamlins' work in Ethiopia.

The Hamlin Fistula Relief and Aid Fund link refers to Dr. Catherine Hamlin's book, The Hospital by the River, available on Amazon.

Friday, August 12, 2011

A Walk to Beautiful. A Walk to Emaus.


The most frequently watched video around our house is A Walk to Beautiful, a NOVA documentary about the work of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. The film tells the story of such a walk taken by three young women, virtual outcasts in their villages because of injury done them by a prolonged, obstructed labor. They walk to the hospital started by two Christian surgeons from Australia, Catherine Hamlin and her late husband, Reginald, and are healed.

The story that the film tells is completed in an article in the April 23 issue of World Magazine written by Emily Belz, entitled "Delivery from Shame." The article completes the story because the film is extremely light on the central fact that the hospital is a Christ centered mission. The article makes that fact very clear.

I thought this sidebar to the Belz article was quite interesting, especially for people who think that all medical advances are invented in the US:

A reliable surgery to repair fistula wasn't developed until the 19th century. Hamlin and her husband drew advice from an Egyptian doctor, Pasha Naguib Mahfouz, a Coptic Christian who was one of the pioneers of fistula repair in the first half of the 20th century and helped eradicate the condition in Egypt. He sent them drawings of his surgeries. The Hamlins wrote anyone around the world who had tried fistula surgeries to get their advice, and began developing their own techniques for the difficult operation.

The Hamlins had never seen a fistula until they arrived in Ethiopia. Reginald Hamlin performed his first attempted fistula repair on a 17-year-old whose husband had abandoned her, and he succeeded. The Hamlins were working under difficult circumstances: A blood bank, so vital for surgeries, was nowhere to be found when they arrived in Ethiopia in 1959. The refrigerator at the hospital where they first started usually had one or two pints of blood in it, according to Hamlin, and they had difficulty convincing suspicious staff and able patients to give blood. That's changed over the last 50 years.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

A Middle Way Out of the Social Security Problem

A client sent us earlier this year a gift subscription to the Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine. I didn't have high expectations for the magazine, but it turned out to be really pretty good, and seems to be especially oriented toward middle-agers. One of the columnists, Mary Beth Franklin, the Senior Editor, very competently addresses the Social Security problem in this month's issue, and she had this to say about a middle-way solution to the grid-lock between the Dems (no reduction in benefits!) and the Repubs (no increase in taxes!):

A middle ground. A think tank called Third Way has staked out some middle ground. It has developed a proposal to increase Social Security benefits slightly for the most vulnerable, trim benefits for the wealthy and eliminate them altogether for the super rich. (That means Derek Jeter would have to forfeit his Social Security.) It also proposes to adjust taxes in a way that won’t be burdensome for a workforce that will have to support a large and aging population of retirees.

The proposal—which reflects many of the concepts outlined by the bi­partisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in its December 2010 report—would gradually increase the retirement age to 68 for today’s 38-year-olds and eventually set it at 70 for today’s 4-year-olds, with hardship exemptions for those who need to retire sooner. Pegging the retirement age to reflect increased longevity will close slightly more than one-third of Social Security’s projected 75-year shortfall.

The Third Way proposal also tinkers with the consumer price index formula that is used to set annual cost-of-living adjustments for retirement benefits. Using this alternative COLA formula to slow annual increases could close another one-third of the program’s projected funding gap.

On the revenue side, the group proposes that by 2020 the government extend the payroll tax to those earning up to $190,000 a year—up from today’s $106,800 cap. It would also tax 100% of Social Security benefits received by high-income retirees, up from 85% today. Together, the revenue changes would close the remaining third of the program’s projected shortfall.


This makes a lot of sense to me. But read the entire article here. Also, the homepage of the Third Way website, to which Ms. Franklin's article links, also invites a further look.

Raquel Publishes a New Cook Book!


Raquel Roque, who owns Downtown Book Center, has just published The Cuban Kitchen. She is one of those people who makes Downtown Miami a great place to be. (I've posted on Raquel before: aqui y aqui.)

This morning the Herald published a good article by Ana Veciana-Surez about Raquel and her book.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The City of Miami with its own "Financial Urgency"

Miami city commissioners met in a lengthy executive session at City Hall Tuesday in a last-ditch attempt to avoid unilaterally cutting union contracts – their fallback position if they don’t get deep-enough concessions to balance the city’s sinking budget.

Meanwhile, across town at the Little Havana headquarters of the Fraternal Order of Police, nearly half of its 900 members voted to support a petition recall of Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado. They oppose the mayor’s plan to plug a $61 million budget hole with givebacks from most of the city’s 4,100 employees.

-from this morning's Miami Herald.

Is it too late to point out the conflict-of-interest where a labor union for public employees organizes a recall to remove the city officials with which it is negotiating salaries?

(Not a government, then, "of the people, by the people, and for the people," but one "of the public employees, by the public employees, and for the public employees, except in the matter of government revenue, which remains of the people." Now I understand.)

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Fiduciary Trust Company on the Downgrade

Our view is that the downgrade does matter, but not for the reasons the headlines shout. It matters because the political choices before our leaders are now stark. The U.S. cannot continue to borrow $0.40 for every dollar it spends. We hold on to the view that politicians will place reality above ideology and work to devise policies that lead to a less-intrusive government, that promote growth policies guided by clear regulations, and that strengthen the U.S.' long-held comparative advantages in technology, finance, education, healthcare and industrial processes, among others. The markets and their constituents will no doubt help to focus this clarity.

-from Fiduciary Trust Company International's Perspective of 8/8/2011.

I hope the optimism is well-founded.

Cornell Axes Dr. Campbell's Nutrition Course

So much for academic freedom. (Thanks to Carol, who picked this up this link to the Ithaca Journal from the Forks over Knives page on facebook.)

Cornell's dropping Dr. Campbell's course is mentioned in the documentary "Forks over Knives", so the fact of Cornell's action against Dr. Campbell isn't exactly today's news. But it is interesting that the The Ithaca Journal (A Gannett Company) published this column just recently.

"Pensions are swallowing up the city."

So states City of Hollywood (FL) Commissioner Beam Furr, as quoted this morning in the Miami Herald. The main lament of that article is that the city is cutting $200,000 of social service grants.

The Herald has been following the city's struggles with its three unions over the city's pension obligations. The negotiations have not been going well for the city. Accordingly, the city commission declared "financial urgency," which it believes authorized it to slash the salaries of general city employees by 7.5 percent and police and fire employees by 12 percent. The matter of cutting those salaries is before Florida Public Employee Relations Commission, and there will be an evidentiary hearing in a month or two.

The city has a $10 million deficit running for the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30, and, according to the Herald, for "the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, the city must close a $38 million gap."

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Contemplative Christians/Activist Christians

This dichotomy has come to my attention lately. I knew it was there, but I've been challenged by it recently. As a loved one and I struggled to understand each other as we spoke of Kingdom things, I seemed to the activist and she the contemplative.

In Romans 15:18, Paul writes:

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done . . .

John Stott comments that when Paul writes "by what I have said and done" he means, literally "by word and deed." Stott goes on:

This combination of words and works, the verbal and the visual, is a recognition that human beings often learn more through their eyes than through their ears. Words explain works, but works dramatize words. The public ministry of Jesus is the best example of this, and after his ascension into heaven he continued "to do and to teach" through his apostles. [footnote Acts 1:1] One of Jesus' most powerful visual aids was to take a child into his arms, and one of the early church's was their common life and care for the needy.

-Stott, The Message of Romans: God's Good News for the World, pp. 380-381.

As I consider my contemplative friend's Christian life, what strikes me is her Christlike activism, her good works. I can also see that her activism takes its toll on her. But I also see that her activist life drives her to return to contemplative moments with Christ. She is on both sides of that divide after all, and each side of the contemplative/activist dichotomy nourishes both her and, through her, the objects of her love.

The Return of U.S. Manufacturing

This is the title of several articles that are currently circulating. The latest one that came to my attention is in the July 2011 Economic Bulletin published by the American Institute for Economic Research. (You need to be a member to access the complete article or buy it. I have enjoyed my membership.)

Articles one can read without charge on this subject include this press release in May by the Boston Consulting Group, this one in the Fiscal Times, and this article from Fortune Magazine.

With all the gloom and doom that the media poisons us with (none of whose writers, I would guess, ever had to meet a payroll) , it is refreshing to consider the way the American market responds to global market changes. If I had some extra time, I would spend it researching domestic low- and mid-cap manufacturing firms and acquiring as much stock as I could in the ones that looked especially promising. If I were a young man starting out in life, I would look at them as places to work.

People Make Fun of My 3D Sun App

This one.

But Glenn Reynolds understands.
(See this also.)

Today's WSJ Interview of US Representative Cantor

Worth reading.

Friday, August 05, 2011

Counterfeit Cigarette Sales Big in Miami

Phillip Morris is suing local retailers. Our nephew Bob is an assistant prosecutor with a special statewide state attorney dealing with the problem on the criminal side. (Bob is visiting us and going to our Friday morning breakfast today.) Florida loses $1.34 in taxes per pack on the counterfeits.

Weary of Evangelicalism? Me too.

But read this.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

PC(USA)'s General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission Ducks Ruling on Ordination Vows

The GAPJC, a sort of "Supreme Court" for the denomination, entered rulings in two cases that have upset the orthodox but, to me at least, are understandable and inevitable. Instead of addressing the merits of the ordination of practicing homosexuals at the congregational level in those cases, the GAPJC bounced one of the cases back to the pertinent Synod for its determination of the issues and affirmed the other case on technical grounds.

As the August "Fellowship PC(USA)" meeting in Minneapolis of orthodox leaders from around the country approaches, the rulings are timely. That is to say, they are fuel for the fire.

Law School as the University's Cash Cow

TaxProf Blog addresses a controversy where a university allegedly rakes off 45% of its law school's revenue. This is nothing new.

In the mid-70s, the U hired one of my former law professors at UChi as its dean in order to catapult the 'Canes into at least the second tier of national law schools. (This effort, I believe, was successful.) She asked me to come on as Dean of Students. In our discussions, she said just exactly what is alleged in the TaxProf post, that law schools make big money for the university. (I declined the offer.)

Our experience with Mary indicates that med school costs for the student are not all that much higher than law school costs, but the resources that UR pours into its med students dwarf those of anything I saw at UChi. The major expense of the law school, apart from the library and a thin layer of faculty, are the class rooms and lecture halls, furnished mainly with desks. The laboratory class rooms and their furnishings and equipment for the med students are more costly by several factors. The teaching teams for the med students are deep and dense, PhDs, MDs, and more. Class sizes are smaller. I don't think I have ever heard of universities making money off their med schools.

Monday, August 01, 2011

More of McDougall on Starch

Until you realize that you are a starch-eater, the solution to your health and weight problems will remain elusive. Once you understand that the bulk of your diet must come from starches, like rice, corn, beans, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, everything will fall into place. You will now think: It just makes so much sense now. The program is easy to follow, the foods are delicious and satisfying, the excess body fat disappears, the bowels work, my laboratory test results are now great, and my mental and physical energy have become boundless. Most importantly, with starches at the center of your meals, you feel a sense of wellbeing and control. You have finally come home to your food. This way of eating is for life.

Starches Are Plants, but Not All Plants Are Starches

Referring to my dietary recommendations as vegetarian, vegan, plant-food-based, or high-carbohydrate is correct, but not sufficiently specific.

Vegetarian means that meat is eliminated. Most people would include eggs and dairy products in a vegetarian diet and many would also allow fish (or chicken).

A vegan diet avoids all foods from animal origin, but can still be based on Cokes, potato chips, and vegan cheesecake. At least half the vegetarians and vegans I know are overweight and unhealthy because of all the soy meats and cheeses, olive oil, nuts and seeds, simple sugars and refined flours they eat.

A plant-food-based diet could mean lettuce, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower, and therefore, a lifetime of hunger pains and fatigue from lack of energy.

And table sugar is a high-carbohydrate food: enough said.

The word “starch” conveys exactly what you are supposed to eat.


-from the McDougall Newsletter - July 2011 The quote above is only part of the article to which I link. If the quote has your attention, then I suggest you read entire article.

At the risk of some indelicacy, I will affirm in particular what Dr. M says about "the bowels work." Just prior to adopting Dr. McDougall's approach, there was a five year period during which I had became very involved with a fine gastroenterologist. Since my diet change, I haven't had any of the problems that sent me to him and, of course, haven't called him or been to his office. I don't expect to do so again.

Rooting this Year for Mark Herzlich

Mark is the NY Giants' rookie from BC, who was last year's ACC Defensive Player of the Year after taking the prior year off to deal with Ewing's sarcoma. (Two years ago, the physicians at UPenn hospital said they could probably save his leg, but that "his athletic days are over.")