DadTalk

How Looming Economic Woes Will Trickle Down to American Families

Debates are raging across the blogosphere about whether there should be a bailout for the housing crises. In American politics, it’s already been decided there needs to be one; the debate is how big and for whom.

Here’s what we’ve seen so far:

• A Bush plan to freeze mortgage interest rates for a very limited number of homeowners. It will be amazing if this plan helps more than 100,000 Americans out of the roughly 2 million facing mortgage resets. (Failure out of the starting gate.)
• A Federal Reserve plan designed to allow banks wider access to credit via international credit auctions. The Term Auction Facility, as this plan is being called, allows cash-strapped banks to borrow money at a slightly better rate than they currently can. (A small solution for a HUGE problem.)
• A super Structured Investment Vehicle Fund that allows banks to sell their highest-quality junk before writing off their worst quality junk. (Starting to look like a failure.)
• The Fed has lowered the lending rate several times. (This has failed to help the credit markets, but has done much to devalue the dollar and our homes via inflation even further. Total failure.)

So dear parent, I bet you are wondering what all this means to you. Nothing. And everything.

Good News, Bad News, Obesity Studies Find

A number of studies are offering mixed messages about obesity. First the good news:

Adult Obesity Growth Rates Stalling

The Centers for Disease Control are reporting that women’s obesity rates have leveled off and remained steady since 1999, reports The New York Times. I’m not sure what that means in terms of all the studies that claim otherwise, but the CDC is the most official source of health data in the United States.

The obesity rate even seems to be stabilizing for men, who may have topped out in 2003. In the glass is half-empty category, researchers are dismayed that the obesity rate has not gone done. More than 72 million – one-third – of Americans adults are overweight.

Click here (pdf) for more details on the study.

Fitness Is Better Gauge of Lifespan

Confirming previous research, seniors who are fit but overweight are more likely to outlive thinner, more sedentary peers, reports U.S. News & Report. This study focuses on adults over 60  years of age.

“Cardio-respiratory fitness is a strong determinate of mortality in older men and women,” researcher Steven N. Blair, a professor at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, tells U.S News. “Older individuals need to be concerned about their fitness level. There is perhaps too much focus on body weight, and fitness is only an afterthought.”

Now the bad news:

Preservatives, Colorings Increase Hyperactivity in Kids, Study Finds

I love coffee but haven’t touched the stuff since 1989. It used to make me so hyper that I could perform two people’s job at the same time. In fact, I often did.

Even decaf will leave me unable to sleep at night. Same thing with green and black teas.

The only caffeine I allow in my diet is small bits of dark chocolate, which I must eat in early morning. Otherwise, I won’t be able to sleep.

Because of my experiences with caffeine, it’s easy for me to understand how drastically food products can impact one’s mood. So when I read about studies that claim food additives can increase a child’s hyperactivity, I’m not the least bit surprise.

I first reported on the phenomenon early in the life of this blog. The British, though, are clearly leaders in this area of research.

Now, a follow-up study, financed by Britain’s Food Standards Agency, has further reinforced the idea that certain food additives, colorings and preservatives contribute to hyperactivity in children, reports The New York Times.

Is This Candy A Rotten Egg?

I just received an e-mail that I can’t get out of my head. Although I don’t know the complete circumstances yet, this British dad lost a child to choking on a chocolate egg. A chocolate egg that contains another plastic egg inside. Inside that is a toy or parts of a toy.

I can’t begin to picture what it must have been like for this dad: His child died from a chocolate egg.

I really didn’t know much about these eggs, but after a few minutes of research, I learned that Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs are extremely popular in Europe. Americans like them too, even though they were recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission back in 1997 and illegal since 1938.

These eggs have repeatedly returned to America’s shores via importers and travelers returning from Canada and many European nations, reports Consumer Reports and The Washington Post.

“Retailers who are unaware that the product has been banned for sale should remove it from store shelves, and parents should take them away from children,” CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese told the Washington Post in April.

Although the biggest maker of the candy – Ferrero Group of Italy – honors the U.S. ban, other manufacturers find ways of getting the colorfully packaged products into the states. This New Jersey firm, for example, still seems to be selling the candy.

The bereaved dad who e-mailed me also mentioned he is part of an effort to get the candies banned throughout Europe. This dad says there have been over 100 injury-related incidents in the last few years, including three deaths in the United Kingdom.

I suspect this dad is fighting a huge uphill battle, because of the products’ huge popularity. As you read the comments left by American fans of the candy, you can see the intense devotion that surrounds the things:

U.S. Places 2nd to Last in Caring for Children When Compared With Wealthy Nations

“The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.”
– UNICEF’s report Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries (pdf)

One day after complaining that modern society is hurting the parent-child relationship, UNICEF comes out with the report mentioned above, though it’s taken me a week to finish this post. Out of industrialized nations, UNICEF deems Britain the worst place for kids to grow up, but the United States places second worst. The best place for kids to grow up overall is the Netherlands.

Here is UNICEF’s report card.

Are Courts Right to Force Cancer Treatment on Teen?

I’m a strong believer in science. As far as I’m concerned, there is a rational explanation for everything, even if it seems unsolvable at first.

So growing up, I naturally identified with technology and medicine, which fit my logical and orderly ways of thinking. When my dad died at the hands of mistakes made by doctors, I rationalized it wasn’t the science that was bad, but incompetent, egotistical practitioners that explained failures in medicine.

While individual doctors may be to blame in my dad’s case, I’m only just beginning to grasp that Western medical science is seriously flawed. Let me rephrase that: the politics of money distort medical science to such an extent that the Western medical complex exists to serve its own interests rather than patients.

Can I prove this? Not easily. I would have to dedicate years of my life to show how the most revealing medical research gets buried by arcane publishing rules and how the industry becomes distorted by powerful interests such as the food industry.

A good example of this is Thomas Campbell’s book, The China Study. Campbell’s thesis is that the more artificial chemicals and meat we eat, the sicker we get. A second, more insidious argument goes like this: medical and nutritional experts have known what was wrong with food for decades, but allowed business interests to simply ignore the science.

Campbell is a Cornell expert on nutrition who is strongly linked to the vegan movement. Campbell’s research has led him to believe there is little to no safe amount of animal protein in our diets.

Campbell is part of a growing, yet disparate movement, that recognizes “accepted” medical science and nutrition are deeply flawed. While those on the vanguard of this movement range from journalists to doctors, the essential thesis is the same: eating organic whole foods, with a small or no amount of meat, is better medicine than waiting until illness steals away good health. While Western medicine may help us fight off cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, it is far preferable to never get them in the first place. Some of these authors also believe that these diseases can be better treated through a change in diet rather than through Western medicine.

I don’t recall seeing any studies comparing efficacy of a whole foods diet against modern medicine in treating cancer in humans. (Though Campbell does present a study that shows cancer in rats can be stopped by cutting animal protein from their diet.) Probably such studies exist, but my access to medical research is limited because of time and money (these journals are expen$ive.)

If I was to develop cancer, I am not sure what my treatment course would be. After all, I already eat an organic, whole foods diet. I’m even less sure what I would do if my children developed one of these horrible diseases.

One Virginia family made their choice, preferring to not rely on Western medicine. Instead, they traveled to a Mexico clinic that relies on herbal supplements and an organic diet, reports Food Consumer.org. The 16-year-old boy, Abraham Cherrix, underwent painful treatment once before for Hodgkin’s disease, but he insisted on herbal treatment after the disease returned.

A judge did not like that one bit, and ordered the Accomack County Department of Social Services take partial custody of Abraham. The judge determined the parents were neglectful by allowing the teen to pursue alternative treatment.

That’s interesting, because I presume the cost of this treatment was completely out of pocket for the Cherrix family. Abraham has appeared on several TV news networks – which I have not seen – to make his case, reports Virginia Pilot.

Here’s what the boy told the UK Mirror last week:

The first round of chemo almost killed me. There were nights when I didn’t know if I’d make it. Another round at higher doses would kill me, no joke about it.

To be honest, I don’t know which route is the best for the boy. As several stories mentioned, Western treatment of this illness has been more successful than other treatments. Studies indicate that children suffering from cancer seem to fair better under Western treatment than adults. Doctors report Abraham’s cancer worsened while in Mexico.

But I wonder about forcing a 16-year-old to suffer incredibly painful treatments through court fiat. The courts have rarely hesitated to force life-saving antibiotics into children when parents balked, but forcing a severely painful regimen is another matter.

In the meantime, it seems incumbent on Western medicine to fully explore whether diet can be used to control some cancers. I’m not sure that can happen with the pharmaceutical and food industries throwing money at bureaucrats, politicians and scientists, but the research needs to be done, and right quick.

Governments Clear the Air With Strict Smoking Bans

One of the best things about living in California is the comprehensive ban on indoor smoking. Cigarettes are even disallowed from restaurants and most bars.

While Libertarians may disagree with such laws because it interferes with the rights of individuals, I like to argue it frees the rest of us from the tyranny of smokers. Best of all, I can take my kids to a restaurant without them or us coming home smelling like a smoky bar.

It seems cities, states, provinces and nations around the world have been following California’s lead. Britain’s Parliament, for example, just voted for a total ban on smoking in indoor places, reports The New York Times. Ireland banned smoking in public places in 2004.

Other places that have legal restrictions on public smoking include: most Canadian provinces, India, New Zealand, Norway, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Chicago, New Jersey, New York and Washington. For a more complete list, check out this Wikipedia entry.

California cities have gone one step further in recent years by banning smoking on beaches. Why? Even though the health benefits are limited, our beaches were looking more and more like a giant ashtray, which costs these cities millions of dollars to clean up each year.

These bans on public smoking greatly improve the quality of life; I hope governments continue to extend their scope.

Dad Disbands Fathers 4 Justice After Blair Kidnap Plot Revealed

Fathers 4 Justice imploded today after it was revealed that some of its former members allegedly planned to kidnap the son of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, reports The Guardian.

Matt O’Connor, the group’s founder, said the negative publicity surrounding the plot is causing serious harm to the movement, which focuses on father’s rights in divorce and separation cases.

O’Connor posted this statement on the Fathers 4 Justice website:

After peacefully campaigning for three years to ensure children get to see their fathers, we condemn any individual who planned this appalling outrage which is anathema to our campaign.

I have three young boys myself and couldn’t think of anything more traumatic for Mr Blair, his family and his son than what is reported in this morning’s Sun newspaper, however we should approach the story with caution as it carries very little information in it.

Sketchy details of the alleged conspiracy surfaced a few days ago in The Sun, which reported that O’Connor also may have been threatened by militant members of the group he founded.

DadTalk worried in earlier posts that Fathers 4 Justice was harming its own cause with some of its more outlandish stunts, such as throwing purple flour on Blair and invading a church.

It’s unclear whether Fathers 4 Justice USA and Fathers 4 Justice Canada will continue functioning after this incident, but even if they do, it will be much more difficult for them to be taken seriously. As a result, today is a sad day for fathers’ rights worldwide.

Bad Parents Face Fines, Counseling in Scotland

Should government regulate parenting? Edinburgh, Scotland, is going to try, reports the Scotsman.

Laws that kick in Spring 2006 will hold parents responsible for antisocial youths. These parents, who have drinking, drug abuse or discipline issues, will be forced to go to classes, rehab or counseling.

Parents also will have to walk their troublesome children to and from school. If parents fail to follow the orders, they will be fined about $1,770. If children fail to reform after following court instructions, however, the parents are off the hook.

I suppose with American’s strong Libertarian values, such laws would never get passed in the states or survive a Constitutional challenge, but it will be interesting to see if Edinburgh’s plan succeeds or fails.

Additional:
A mother of two in Bury, England, was electronically tagged for failing to get her truant teen daughters to attend school.

Letters to Seth How I Would Explain Terrorism, Human Nature to My Children

It’s eerie that just five weeks ago I was in London for my first-ever visit. Although I was never in the exact locations where the four subway and bus bombs went off, I had been in the general vicinity. We’re still waiting to hear from a friend, who works in the area, that she’s 0kay.

So far, Londoners are dealing with the terrorist attack with the steely calm they are famous for, reports the Los Angeles Times. “We are clearly shocked at what has happened today, but we are not surprised,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick of the Metropolitan Police, tells the Times.

Back in the United States and especially in Los Angeles, security has been beefed up along public transit routes. The terrorist alert level is being raised to orange.

Amidst all this horrifying news, it’s important to consider how we explain these events to our children. In a way, I’m lucky because my son is only 3 and he’s not quite yet aware of world events, but here’s what I think I would say if he was old enough to understand:

“Seth,

“There is no justification for people who are committing these acts of terrorism. There is no great underlying principle behind their actions, just hate and the desire for power.

“People who hurt innocent bystanders just to invoke terror and fear are morally bankrupt. There is no great cause here because these people are not oppressed victims of the people they are attacking.

“Instead, a handful of wealthy ideologues are recruiting losers and malcontents to satisfy their own desires for power and control over society. The underlings who carry out attacks believe their religion and cause with such fervor, they’re willing to hurt and kill innocent people. And they are willing to listen to unscrupulous leaders who simply seek power themselves.

“Harboring and manipulating an extremist viewpoint has threatened civilization throughout history. Tragedies such as the Crusades and Holocaust illustrate the dangers of letting extremists gain power and control.

“But you must remember, that the goal of terrorists is to create fear in your heart and mind. If we succumb, another sort of extremist takes hold: those who feed fear to achieve their own sordid goals of wealth and power. As a result, hard-won freedoms and rights are discarded, which means the extremists on both sides win, and people like us, the folk in the middle, are the big losers.

“As you grow up, Seth, you will see extremist behavior not only in the world arena, but also your personal one. It might be something as annoying as evangelicals telling you what God to believe in to something as simple as peers pressuring you to get a tattoo. Or you might date someone who insists you bathe her in luxury and wealth.

“While these things may seem small when compared to the scope of today’s and past attacks, it’s important to remember that these terrorists – like the Nazis were – are actually small people, living small lives trying to becomes important or famous, even if by incredibly vicious means. They’ve gone beyond pushing their beliefs to punishing all those who do not agree.

“This is why it is essential that you approach life with flexibility. While you may believe you have found some inner truth, you may later discover some flaw that proves it is at least partially incorrect. That’s the way it should be. But had you pushed your “incorrect” truth on other people, you’ve done them a disservice that may last long beyond the time that you’ve realized your own mistake.

“On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with speaking up about your beliefs. We would never learn from one another if we didn’t share our knowledge and wisdom with friends. But share that knowledge to enrich lives, not to control or manipulate them. And when you listen to the knowledge and wisdom of those same people, your own life will be enriched.

“So as you grow up, remember always to look at the bigger picture of events such as the London terrorist attack and realize that a lot more is going on than just a battle against good and evil. We’re talking about human behavior and how it works. We’re talking about power. We’re talking about your own life. We’re talking about the future of mankind.”