Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

At the moment there seem to be some interface problems.  A good number of the posts have comments. The most recent ones are in the center under “recent comments”. For each post you are looking at comments where it says “comments are closed” open the individual blog entry and the comments will appear.

A search on this issue for word press blogs shows that there are intermittent “missing comments” issues. The ones here aren’t missing but seem to be.

Spammers are one reason that those running blogs and wikis have some problems. Here are recent stats from a spam blocker. That is why comments are not left open indefinitely.

1,052 spams caught, 36 legitimate comments, and an overall accuracy rate of 99.724%.

July 4th is celebrated as Independence Day with it’s “signature event” having been the  signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was approved by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776. On July 4th, 1776 it was signed by John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress and Charles Thompson, Secretary. July 4th was also the first day after the Battle of Gettysburg concluded following a three day fight.

It is also the day on which the Peachtree Road Race is run. This year was the 40th running of the Peachtree and it was won by Sammy Kitwara of Kenya.  And of course, July 4th is the day of the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. But many are interested in famous July 4th birthdays. And we’ve compiled a list for the curious.

For musical accompaniment and to put you into the proper frame of mind, we’ve linked to a midi version of John Phillip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. (But we are polite enough not to embed and stream it. Also found was long list of Sousa’s midi works.)

July 4th Birthdays

1804 – Nathaniel Hawthorne, author
1810 – Phineas T Barnum, circus guy
1826 – Stephen Foster, Composer
1847 – James Bailey, another of a pair of circus guys
1872 – Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States
1883 – Rube Goldberg , cartoonist, designer of odd things
1885 – Louis B. Mayer, co-founder of MGM
1918 – Ann Landers and Abigain Van Buren, twin sisters, advice columnists
1911 – Mitch Miller, Conductor
1920 – Leona Helmsley, Hotel owner, Billionaire, convicted of tax fraud
1927 – Neil Simon, playwright
1928 – Gina Lollobrigida, actress
1929 – Al Davis, Oakland Raiders owner
1930 – George Steinbrenner, owner of New York Yankees
1938 – Bill Withers, Singer
1943 – Geraldo Rivera
1962 – Tennis player (retired) Pam Shriver
1963 – Matt Malley, bassist for Counting Crows
1998 – Malia Obama, daughter of president

Three former U.S. presidents on the same July 4th in 1826 John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died. James Monroe died on July 4th, 1831.

June 3, 2009 is the day for the celebration of National Running Day. This is a fine day to rededicate yourself to your fitness program. A day to set up your schedule to complete your first 5 K race or to solidify your marathon training schedule. We’ll be adding information to help you with both. In the meantime you can visit Runner’s World for a wide variety of information, programs, and inspiration.

Recent articles have highlighted the significant dangers involved in being sedentary. An article by Katzmarzyk et. al. published in MSSE May, 2009 indicated that the death rate was much higher for those who sat for longer periods of time in their jobs. This was found to be “dose” related and independent of fitness activities.

Other studies have found that sedentary behavior leads to weight gain.  Television  watching for extended hours is unhealthy. The specifics are readily found in the literature.

It is important to have 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise 5 days per week or 20 minutes for 3 days per week. And this is a bare minimum. More is required to assist weight and fat loss. A healthy diet most, if not all of the time, and strength (resistance) training at least 2 days per week for 8-10 exercises 8-12 reps is also helpful for most people.

So get out and move today, think and plan your next moves. Don’t just sit there, get out and  celebrate motion!

For more information on running and running injuries: Running Injuries (http://www.drpribut.com/sports/)

References:

1) Sitting Time and Mortality from All Causes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Cancer. Katzmarzyk PT, Church TS, Craig CL, Bouchard C Med Sci Sports Exerc 2009 Apr 3

[PubMed]    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19346988

2) Too much sitting: a novel and important predictor of chronic disease ris
N Owen, A Bauman and W Brown

2009;43;81-83; originally published online 2 Dec 2008;
Br. J. Sports Med.

Over the last week, many have despaired over the loss of safe and secure peanut butter. Peanut butter is the glue that holds together, for some of us, our dietary healthy fat requirements. It flavors our health drinks, our smoothies, our dogs eat it to take their Fish Oil capules hidden in the middle.

There is a long list of dangerous products put up by the FDA “Searchable Database of Recalled Peanut Products“. Items at risk include Icecream, gels, cookies, dog food, and many other items. Don’t give your dog those Peanut Flavored Rawhides right now. They are on the recall list. For specific details check out the FDA widget below and the link above.

In previous years peanut butter in jars, specifically Peter Pan Peanut butter was subject to a recall for Salmonella contamination. This year, the FDA stated that national brand peanut butter is considered safe. Somehow the news media didn’t think it would make a dramatic story to let you know that your Skippy or Peter Pan Chunky Peanut Butter in a jar is actually safe. Only the small print at the FDA site will let you know that. A few jars of Peanut Butter, however, are on the warning, bad bugs within list.

Direct from the main FDA page on Salmonella in Peanut Butter:

Major national brands of jarred peanut butter found in grocery stores are not affected by the PCA recall.

The infecting bacteria is Salmonella Typhimurium. This was found in peanut butter and peanut paste produced by the Peanut Corporation of America at its Blakely, Georgia plant. Reportedly some infected raw peanuts were found in close proximity to processed products.

Peanut butter sold by PCA comes in large bulk containers which weigh from 5 to 1,700 pounds.  The peanut paste is comes in a minimum size of 35 pound containers. These products are not sold to individual consumers. The FDA found that PCA  sold and distributed likely contaminated products to more than 100 different firms. These products were used as an ingredient in literally  hundreds of different consumer oriented products including cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream. Peanut flavored dog food and treats are also at risk. Other bars, cookies, etc. are on the “do not eat list”.

Vintage

If you think the FDA is not doing much of a job on inspecting prescription drug chemicals and imported food, according to articles in this weeks paper you are right. China, India, and Mexico are among companies that have had huge amounts of product returned and refused entry, in spite of admittedly weak and mostly an ineffective inspection program.

In Asia however, there have long been issues of lack of food safety. Corruption reached a sufficiently high level that in the face of potential boycotting or limitation of imports from China, the Chinese equivalent of director of the FDA was just put to death.

As Nguyen Van Ninh needles his chopsticks through a steaming bowl of Vietnam’s famous noodle soup, he knows it could be spiked with formaldehyde. But the thought of slurping up the same chemical used to preserve corpses isn’t enough to deter him.
“I think if we don’t see those chemicals being put in the food with our own eyes, then we can just smack our lips and pretend that there are no chemicals in the food,” he said, devouring a 30-cent bowl of “pho” on a busy Hanoi sidewalk. “Why worry about it?”

Here we are still worried about brushing our teeth and gargling with anti-freeze. And perhaps ranging further afield we aren’t sure about reports of spontaneous combustion and we have signs warning us not to talk on our cell phones while pumping gas. On the issues of drugs, it is estimated that 20 percent of generic drugs and up to 40 percent of the active ingredients of some medications come from India and China. It is predicted that within 15 years 80 percent of the key ingredients may come from those two countries. Soon we’ll just be making a lot of noise. But in the meantime, if it is to come in, more testing needs to be done. More testing also needs to be done on generic drugs for which there have been many cases of fraudulent testing performed over the past 20 years.

Online:

TDN

International Herald Tribune China Not Sole Source of Dubious Food