Eyes On The Prize

Lately, I have started to really worry that Obama and Clinton supporters are prepared to cut off their noses (ie, vote for McCain) to spite their own faces should their preferred candidate not get the nomination. I have started to worry about Clinton’s attacks on Obama, and the possibility that she will weaken him enough enough that he would be too weak a nominee to defeat McCain. And I worry that, should Clinton be the nominee, the people who already loathe her plus the Democrats she is currently alienating will come to the polls in droves just for the pleasure of giving her the finger.

This gives me a little comfort, even though I know they are both only saying it because they must. I just hope they and their respective supporters actually take it to heart. Up until about a month before the Texas primary, I was leaning toward Clinton. But I finally decided Obama might just be sincere about doing things differently, which greatly appeals to me. Clinton knows how to play the current game, which is good if she is getting things done that you support, but doesn’t do anything to change the stinky way the game is played or restore people’s trust in government. When it comes to policy, Clinton is very different than Bush, but I think the two of them share some fundamental approaches to governance that I vehemently dislike.

The thing is, if Clinton is the nominee, there is no question that I will vote for her. Somebody’s got to dig us out of the mess we are in and I know a Republican can’t and won’t do it. So I will hold my nose and vote for Clinton if it comes to that. Democrats can’t let themselves lose sight of the overriding priority in November, which is to get a Democrat back in the White House to fix what Bush has so thoroughly broken. What I fear is that many people are focused on their idealism (which I completely share in this regard) to the exclusion of practicality.

Get Rid Of The Jelly Bellies

No, not the candy. The ones some of us are struggling to button our pants around.

People who have big bellies in their 40s are much more likely to get Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia in their 70s, according to new research that links the middle-aged spread to a fading mind for the first time.

 

The study of more than 6,000 people found that the more fat they had in their guts in their early to mid-40s, the greater their chances of becoming forgetful and confused and showing other signs of senility as they aged. Those who had the most expansive midsections faced more than twice the risk of the leanest.

 

Surprisingly, a sizable stomach seems to increase the risk even among those who are not obese or even overweight, the researchers reported in a paper published online yesterday by the journal Neurology.

 

“A large belly, independent of total weight, is a potent predictor of dementia,” said Rachel A. Whitmer, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif., who led the new study.

Scientists aren’t sure exactly what the relationship is between belly fat and later dementia. But there are already indications that Alzheimer’s may be a type of diabetes, and having an apple weight gain pattern (ie, the tendency to store fat in the abdomen) puts you at higher risk for diabetes.

I, of course, am hosed. I am an apple. Even when I am really good about eating and exercise and get to an ideal weight for my height, I still have a belly and not much of a waist. And now that I am older, it will get even harder to get rid of abdominal fat. When I look at my parents, I see what my genes have in store for me…I should be at the gym lifting weights instead of sitting here in front of a computer.