A Day To Think About Food Even More

It’s tough to get excited about another awareness day. In case you hadn’t heard, October is National Protect Your Hearing Month. Sept. 21 was National School Backpack Day. There is a Hug Your Hound Day. These are all worthy causes, of course, but at a certain point, one wonders whether any good can come from [...]

BPA And Behavior: More Questions Than Answers

When it comes to worries about raising kids in our modern age, the effects of chemicals in the environment are near the top of the list. Unfortunately for those looking for definitive answers about BPA, the latest study doesn’t have them. Critics of bisphenol A say it can cause health problems by mimicking the hormone [...]

Obama’s Executive-Power Use Shows He Still Holds Some Cards

An advantage of being an Oval Office incumbent seeking re-election was readily evident Monday in President Obama’s roll-out of his administration’s latest effort to help struggling homeowners. With many Americans either facing foreclosure and others, because of declining property values or much tighter lending standards, unable to refinance their mortgages to take advantage of lower [...]

The Osprey: Good Reviews, But A Costly Program

Over three decades, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars and lost 30 lives creating a unique aircraft, the Osprey, which lifts off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. After all these problems, the Marines are now using them widely in Afghanistan and the Osprey is getting excellent reviews. But the aircraft now [...]

‘Deadly Monopolies’? Patenting The Human Body

In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that living, human-made microorganisms could be patented by their developers. The ruling opened the gateway for cells, tissues, genetically modified plants and animals, and genes to be patented. In the past 30 years, over 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone, says medical ethicist Harriet Washington. In her [...]

Moreno, Leguizamo Talk Latin Life In ‘Hollywouldn’t’

Rita Moreno — the only Latino performer to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony — is reprising some of her most memorable characters in a solo show at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Up the coast in Los Angeles, John Leguizamo, who co-starred opposite Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way and voiced Sid [...]

Going Under The ‘Boardwalk’ With Michael Shannon

HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, set in Atlantic City in the 1920s, is about organized crime in the era of Prohibition. The show stars Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson, an Atlantic City politician who sees the coming of Prohibition as an opportunity to make even more money from illegal activities and kickbacks. Buscemi’s costar, Michael Shannon, tells [...]

How We Become Sports Fans: The Tyranny Of Fathers

It’s World Series time, time to meet a triple threat: he’s young, he’s fierce, he’s new to sports, and we find him in a kitchen with his dad. They are discussing baseball. More specifically, they are addressing the topic, “What’s our family’s favorite baseball team?” Dad is a Red Sox fan. The son — who [...]

Crews Dig For Survivors After Deadly Quake In Turkey

Rescue workers in eastern Turkey pulled a handful of survivors Monday from the rubble of Sunday’s powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake, which killed at least 270 people and injured hundreds more. As aftershocks continued to rock the area, four people in worst-hit Ercis were extracted from the mounds of debris left by Sunday’s quake. Dozens more were [...]

Jindal Wins Smashing Re-Election In Louisiana; Nevada Blinks On Caucus Date

The only noteworthy thing about Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s re-election victory on Saturday was the margin. With nine opponents on the ballot (none well funded or even heard of), Jindal got 66% of the vote, the biggest total anyone has received since the state initiated its so-called “jungle primary” (where all candidates run on the [...]