Author Archives: susanjustwrites

Pockets!

Posted on January 25, 2018 | 4 comments

Women’s clothes should all have pockets. 

(A bit later in this post, I’ll explain why.)

I admit it.  I’m a pocket-freak.

When I shop for new pants, I don’t bother buying new pants, no matter how appealing, if they don’t have pockets.  Why?

Because when I formerly bought pants that didn’t have pockets, I discovered over time that I never wore them. They languished forever in a shameful pile of unworn clothes.

It became clear that I liked the benefits of wearing pants with pockets.  Why then would I buy new pants without pockets when those I already had were languishing unworn?

Result:  I simply don’t buy no-pocket pants anymore

Most jeans have pockets, often multiple pockets, and I like wearing them for that reason, among others.  (Please see “They’re My Blue Jeans, and I’ll Wear Them If I Want To,” published in this blog in May 2017.)

Most jackets, but not all, have pockets.  Why not?  They all need pockets.  How useful is a jacket if it doesn’t have even one pocket to stash your stuff?

Dresses and skirts should also have pockets.  Maybe an occasional event, like a fancy gala, seems to require a form-fitting dress that doesn’t have pockets.  But how many women actually go to galas like that?  Looking back over my lifetime of clothes-wearing, I can think of very few occasions when I had to wear a no-pocket dress.  As for skirts, I lump them in the same category as pants.  Unless you feel compelled for some bizarre reason to wear a skin-tight pencil skirt, what good is a skirt without pockets?

Cardigan sweaters, like jackets, should also have pockets.  So should robes.  Pajamas. Even nightgowns.  I wear nightgowns, and I relish being able to stick something like a facial tissue into the pocket of my nightgown!   You never know when you’re going to sneeze, right?

Did you ever watch a TV program called “Project Runway?”  It features largely unknown fashion designers competing for approval from judges, primarily high-profile insiders in the fashion industry.  Here’s what I’ve noticed when I’ve watched an occasional episode:  Whenever a competing designer puts pockets in her or his designs, the judges enthusiastically applaud that design.  They clearly recognize the value of pockets and the desire by women to wear clothes that include them.

(By the way, fake pockets are an abomination.  Why do designers think it’s a good idea to put a fake pocket on their designs?  Sewing what looks like a pocket but isn’t a real pocket adds insult to injury.  Either put a real pocket there, or forget the whole thing.  Fake pockets?  Boo!)

Despite the longing for pockets by women like me, it can be challenging to find women’s clothes with pockets.  Why?

Several women writers have speculated about this challenge, generally railing against sexist attitudes that have led to no-pocket clothing for women.

Those who’ve traced the evolution of pockets throughout history discovered that neither men nor women wore clothing with pockets until the 17th century.  Pockets in menswear began appearing in the late 1600s.  But women?  To carry anything, they were forced to wrap a sack with a string worn around their waists and tuck the sack under their petticoats.

These sacks eventually evolved into small purses called reticules that women would carry in their hands.  But reticules were so small that they limited what women could carry.  As the twentieth century loomed, women rebelled.  According to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, dress patterns started to include instructions for sewing pockets into skirts.  And when women began wearing pants, they would finally have pockets.

But things soon switched back to no-pocket pants.  The fashion industry wasn’t a big fan of pockets, insisting on featuring “slimming” designs for women, while men’s clothes still had scads of pockets.  The result has been the rise of bigger and bigger handbags (interestingly, handbags are often called “pocketbooks” on the East Coast).

Enormous handbags create a tremendous burden for women.  Their size and weight can literally weigh a woman down, impeding her ability to move through her busy life the way men can.  (I’ve eschewed bulky handbags, often wearing a backpack instead.  Unfortunately, backpacks are not always appropriate in a particular setting.)

Today, many women are demanding pockets.  Some have advocated pockets with the specific goal of enabling women to carry their iPhones or other cell phones that way.  I’m a pocket-freak, but according to recent scientific research, cell phones emit dangerous radiation, and this kind of radiation exposure is a major risk to your health.  Some experts in the field have therefore advised against keeping a cell phone adjacent to your body.  In December 2017, the California Department of Public Health specifically warned against keeping a cell phone in your pocket.  So, in my view, advocating pockets for that reason is not a good idea.

We need pockets in our clothes for a much more important and fundamental reason:  Freedom.

Pockets give women the kind of freedom men have:  The freedom to carry possessions close to their bodies, allowing them to reach for essentials like keys without fumbling through a clumsy handbag.

I propose a boycott on no-pocket clothes.  If enough women boycott no-pocket pants, for example, designers and manufacturers will have to pay attention.  Their new clothing lines will undoubtedly include more pockets.

I hereby pledge not to purchase any clothes without pockets.

Will you join me?

 

 

4 Comments

Posted in American culture, backpacks, blue jeans, boycott, California, cell phones, clothes, clothing, clothing, denim, fashion, fashion designers, fashion industry, freedom, gender equality, gender-equity, handbags, health, jeans, Levi's, London, museums, pockets, pockets in women's clothes, radiation exposure, science, sexist attitudes, smartphones, television, Victorian London, women, women"s interests, women's clothing

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy Holidays! Well, maybe…

Posted on December 22, 2017 | Leave a comment

 

As the greeting “Happy Holidays” hits your ears over and over during the holiday season, doesn’t it raise a question or two?

At a time when greed and acquisitiveness appear to be boundless, at least among certain segments of the American population, the most relevant questions seem to be:

  • Does money buy happiness?
  • If not, what does?

These questions have been the subject of countless studies.  Let’s review a few of the answers they’ve come up with.

To begin, exactly what is it that makes us “happy”?

A couple of articles published in the past two years in The Wall Street Journal—a publication certainly focused on the acquisition of money—summarized some results.

Wealth alone doesn’t guarantee a good life.  According to the Journal, what matters a lot more than a big income is how people spend it.  For instance, giving money away makes people much happier than spending it on themselves.  But when they do spend it on themselves, they’re a lot happier when they use it for experiences like travel rather than material goods.

The Journal looked at a study by Ryan Howell, an associate professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, which found that people may at first think material purchases offer better value for their money because they’re tangible and they last longer, while experiences are fleeting.  But Howell found that when people looked back at their purchases, they realized that experiences actually provided better value.  We even get more pleasure out of anticipating experiences than we do from anticipating the acquisition of material things.

Another psychology professor, Thomas Gilovich at Cornell, reached similar conclusions.  He found that people make a rational calculation:  “I can either go there, or I can have this.  Going there may be great, but it’ll be over fast.  But if I buy something, I’ll always have it.”  According to Gilovich, that’s factually true, but not psychologically true, because we “adapt to our material goods.”

We “adapt” to our material goods?  How?  Psychologists like Gilovich talk about “hedonic adaptation.”  Buying a new coat or a new car may provide a brief thrill, but we soon come to take it for granted.  Experiences, on the other hand, meet more of our “underlying psychological needs.”

Why?  Because they’re often shared with others, giving us a greater sense of connection, and they form a bigger part of our sense of identity.  You also don’t feel that you’re trying to keep up with the Joneses quite so much.  While it may bother you when you compare your material things to others’ things, comparing your vacation to someone else’s won’t bug you as much because “you still have your own experiences and your own memories.”

Another article in the Journal, published in 2015, focused on the findings of economists rather than psychologists.  A group of economists like John Helliwell, a professor at the University of British Columbia, concluded that happiness—overall well-being–should not be measured by how much money we have by using metrics like per-capita income and gross domestic product (GDP).  “GDP is not even a very good measure of economic well-being,” he said.

Instead, the World Happiness Report, which Helliwell co-authored, ranked countries based on how people viewed the quality of their lives. It noted that six factors account for 75 percent of the differences between countries.  The six factors:  GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom, and corruption.  Although GDP and life expectancy relate directly to income, the other four factors reflect a sense of security, trust, and autonomy.  So although the U.S. ranked first in overall GDP, it ranked only 15th in happiness because it was weaker in the other five variables.

According to Jeffrey D. Sachs, a professor at Columbia and co-author of the World Happiness Report, incomes in the U.S. have risen, but the country’s sense of “social cohesion” has declined.  The biggest factor contributing to this result is “distrust.”  Although the U.S. is very rich, we’re not getting the benefits of all this affluence.

If you ask people whether they can trust other people, Sachs said, “the American answer has been in significant decline.”   Forward to 2017.  Today, when many of our political leaders shamelessly lie to us, our trust in others has no doubt eroded even further.

Even life expectancy is going downhill in the U.S.  According to the AP, U.S. life expectancy was on the upswing for decades, but 2016 marked the first time in more than a half-century that it fell in two consecutive years.

Let’s return to our original question:  whether money can buy happiness.  The most recent research I’ve come across is a study done at Harvard Business School, noted in the November-December 2017 issue of Harvard Magazine.  Led by assistant professor of business administration Ashley Whillans, it found that, in developed countries, people who trade money for time—by choosing to live closer to work, or to hire a housecleaner, for example–are happier. This was true across the socioeconomic spectrum.

According to Whillans, extensive research elsewhere has confirmed the positive emotional effects of taking vacations and going to the movies.  But the Harvard researchers wanted to explore a new idea:  whether buying ourselves out of negative experiences was another pathway to happiness.

Guess what:  it was.  One thing researchers focused on was “time stress” and how it affects happiness.  They knew that higher-earners feel that every hour of their time is financially valuable.  Like most things viewed as valuable, time is also perceived as scarce, and that scarcity translates into time stress, which can easily contribute to unhappiness.

The Harvard team surveyed U.S., Canadian, Danish, and Dutch residents, ranging from those who earned $30,000 a year to middle-class earners and millionaires. Canadian participants were given a sum of money—half to spend on a service that would save one to two hours, and half to spend on a material purchase like clothing or jewelry.  Participants who made a time-saving purchase (like buying take-out food) were more likely to report positive feelings, and less likely to report feelings of time stress, than they did after their shopping sprees.

Whillans noted that in both Canada and the U.S., where busyness is “often flaunted as a status symbol,” opting for outsourcing jobs like cooking and cleaning can be culturally challenging.  Why?  Because people like to pretend they can do it all.  Women in particular find themselves stuck in this situation.  They have more educational opportunities and are likely to be making more money and holding more high-powered jobs, but their happiness is not increasing commensurately.

The Harvard team wants to explore this in the future.  According to Whillans, the initial evidence shows that among couples who buy time, “both men and women feel less pulled between the demands of work and home life,” and that has a positive effect on their relationship.  She hopes that her research will ameliorate some of the guilt both women and men may feel about paying a housekeeper or hiring someone to mow the law—or ordering Chinese take-out on Thursday nights.

Gee, Ashley, I’ve never felt guilty about doing any of that.  Maybe that’s one reason why I’m a pretty happy person.

How about you?

Whatever your answer may be, I’ll join the throng and wish you HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in American culture, clothes, clothing, clothing, distrust, economists, food, happiness, Harvard, hedonic adaptation, holidays, lying, morale-boosters, movies, politics, psychological research, shopping, social cohesion, telling lies, time stress, travel, trust, well-being, women, women workers, women"s interests

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Battle of the Sexes: One more take on it

Posted on November 20, 2017 | 2 comments

When Billie Jean King met Bobby Riggs on a tennis court at the Houston Astrodome on September 20, 1973, I was miles away in San Diego.  I’d just finished teaching a class of law school students about Poverty Law, and I was blissfully pregnant with my first child.

I was watching the clock, assessing the time it would take me to drive from the law school on the beautiful campus of the University of San Diego to our recently-rented apartment in seaside La Jolla.  Waiting at home for me was my handsome and super-smart husband (I’ll call him Marv), finished for the day with teaching math students at UCSD, the University of California at San Diego.

We were both Professors Alexander that year, and I took delight in answering our phone and hearing a student ask to speak to “Professor Alexander.”  My somewhat amused response:  “Which one?”

Marv had snacks and drinks ready for the two of us to munch on and imbibe during the televised tennis match.  The drinks included nothing alcoholic for me.  Not because the medical profession had pronounced that alcohol was detrimental for growing fetuses.  As I recall, that came later.  I avoided alcoholic drinks simply because I had no desire to drink them during my pregnancy.

Was it instinct or just dumb luck?  When we later that year saw the film “Cinderella Liberty,” in which an often-drunk woman’s pregnancy ends in tragedy, my choice to avoid alcohol was clearly vindicated.

I drove home from USD with as much speed as I could safely muster, arriving in time to watch the much-hyped tennis match dubbed the “Battle of the Sexes.”  In the 2017 film that tells the story of the match, Emma Stone captures the Billie Jean King role perfectly.  She portrays with aplomb not only King’s triumph over Riggs in that tennis match but also her initial uncertainty over her decision to compete against him and her continuing struggle to ensure that women’s tennis be given equal status with men’s.

As one of the estimated 50 million viewers who watched King on ABC television that night, I can’t imagine any other Hollywood star assuming the role with greater success.  Emma Stone embodies Billie Jean King to perfection, and I hope her performance garners the attention of countless moviegoers, including many too young to remember  the match that took place in 1973.

Steve Carell carries off his role as Bobby Riggs in the film equally well, depicting the outrageous antics of the 55-year-old Riggs, who initiated the concept of the “Battle of the Sexes.”  But the focus here has to be on Billie Jean, the Wonder-Woman-like heroine of her day.  By accepting Riggs’s challenge, and then defeating him, she became the mid-twentieth-century symbol of women’s strength and perseverance, advancing the cause of women in sports (and in American culture at large) as much as she advanced her own.  Watching the battle on TV with my adored husband, my hoped-for child growing inside me, I was ecstatic when Billie Jean defeated Riggs before 90 million viewers worldwide.

As my pregnancy advanced, I was frequently asked by complete strangers, “Do you want a boy or a girl?”  I took pleasure in answering “a girl” just to see the reaction on the faces of the nosey parkers who clearly expected another response.

I was in fact hoping I would give birth to a healthy child of either sex, but I knew that I would treasure having a daughter.  When my beautiful daughter was born about seven months after the Battle of the Sexes, and when her equally beautiful sister arrived three years later, Marv and I were both on top of the world.

Maybe watching Billie Jean King in September of 1973 sealed our fate.  We really wanted her to win that battle.

Did the endorphins circulating inside me as we watched Billie Jean triumph produce a feeling of euphoria?  Euphoria that later led us to produce two Wonder-Woman-like heroines of our own?

Maybe.

Tennis, anyone?

2 Comments

Posted in alcoholic drinks, American culture, American history, Battle of the Sexes film, Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, California, daughters, endorphins, euphoria, fair pay, films, gender equality, gender-equity, La Jolla, law, legal assistance to the poor, mathematicians, movie stars, movies, pregnancy, San Diego, teaching, television, tennis, UCSD, University of San Diego, Wonder Woman

Tagged , , , , , ,

Reunion-worthy clothes: A follow-up

Posted on November 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

In my last post, I described my new strategy for purchasing clothes:  I ask myself whether they’re reunion-worthy.

I adopted this strategy for the first time before a class reunion a few years ago. Pondering what to wear to the reunion, I decided to no longer fill my closets with clothes I wouldn’t wear to an event like a reunion, where I wanted to look my absolute best.

Recently, when another class reunion loomed, the issue was once again front and center.

Now that (more recent) reunion has come and gone, and my strategy proved to be a huge success.  When I packed for my flight to Reunion City, USA, I selected only reunion-worthy clothes to wear during the reunion weekend.  And I think I accomplished my goal.

In photos taken during that weekend, I look simply smashing.

Now let’s focus on another question:  What about those duds you and I still own that are NOT reunion-worthy?

I have two suggestions.  My hope is that you’ll adopt your own version of one or both of them.

  1. Donate non-reunion-worthy clothes to charity.

I have a longstanding policy of donating to charity those clothes I’m no longer wearing.  I  donate still-attractive and wearable items of clothes (as well as shoes, costume jewelry, household items, books, and a whole host of miscellaneous stuff).

I prefer two nearby charities.  One favorite is Goodwill.  This is a venerable charity organization that channels clothing and other items by selling them in their stores to those who want to acquire these items at rock-bottom prices.  Goodwill also plays another role:  It will happily take possession of almost any electronic device you no longer find useful.  It apparently hires people who know how to extract usable parts from these devices, working or not, and repurpose them for the greater good of humankind.  Bravo!

My other favorite charity?  The Discovery Shops that dot the landscape in the Bay Area.  Discovery Shops are attractive stores filled with beautiful things donated by people who decide to pass them along to others and, at the same time, support an important goal.   Because Discovery Shops are affiliated with the American Cancer Society, the money raised in their shops supports research aimed at defeating the scourge of cancer.  I donate to Discovery Shops the most desirable items I no longer wish to keep but sincerely believe would enhance someone else’s wardrobe or home.  Passing them along this way makes me feel great.

  1. Create a “jettison pile.”

Some years ago I created what I call my “jettison pile.”

My jettison pile serves a valuable purpose, a purpose that benefits not only me but others as well.  The end result resembles donating to charity, but in practice it operates somewhat differently.

First, I periodically review my wardrobe and set aside clothing that has become less and less useful to me.  These are usually clothes that are somewhat ill-fitting or no longer suit my lifestyle but are okay to wear one more time when I’m traveling.  I’ll add clothes like these to the jettison pile, and next time I prepare for a trip, I’ll throw some of them into my suitcase.

Then, when I arrive at a destination, I jettison them.

I often jettison them as I depart from a hotel room.  I’ll leave them in a neat stack for the cleaning staff with a note that clearly states something like the following:  “These items are for you if you want them.  I no longer need them.”

In a foreign country where I know the basics of the language, I’ll try to write my note in that language.  If I don’t know the language, I’ll ask English-speaking staff at the front desk to help me write my message.

Jettisoning clothes (and sometimes other small items, like an extra flashlight) serves a double purpose.  I’m leaving things for cleaning-staff people who may be able to use them, or who know someone else who can use them.  (Of course, they have the option of dumping my stuff in the trash.)

I benefit as well.   When I leave these things behind, I make room in my suitcase for new things I acquire during my trip, like souvenir t-shirts or books about local sites or……well, you get the idea.

On a recent river cruise, a young woman from a not-very-prosperous country was assigned to clean my cabin.  I’d prepared for the cruise by bringing very nice but no-longer-wanted-by-me tops, pants, skirts, nightgowns, and miscellaneous stuff.  When the cruise ended, I left my cleaning woman two shopping bags full of things she could either use herself or pass along to her family and friends.  And I now had newly freed-up space in my cases for things I’d acquired during the trip.

Passing things along this way seems to be another good choice.

Please decide what works best for you.  Just remember to make choices that bring you joy!

 

Leave a comment

Posted in charities, clothes, clothing, clothing, donations to charity, Uncategorized

Tagged ,

But Is It Reunion-Worthy? (updated for 2017)

Posted on October 12, 2017 | 2 comments

 

I’m fed up with closets stuffed with unwearable clothes.  Before I make another purchase, I’m asking myself:  “Is it reunion-worthy?”

Let me explain.

I’ve never been a big spender.  Au contraire.  I’ve always relished hunting for earth-shattering bargains.

But things have changed.  When I go shopping, I have a compelling new reason to think carefully before I buy.

My class reunion.

With a class reunion looming, the prospect of seeing my classmates has led me to rethink how I shop for clothes.

That’s led me to scrutinize my entire wardrobe.  After browsing through a closetful of things I wouldn’t dream of wearing to my reunion, I’m launching a whole new wardrobe strategy.

The new standard for my purchases? Are they reunion-worthy?

I’m a lifelong bargain-hunter, and a favorite pursuit was scouring the racks of reduced apparel at stores ranging from Macy’s and Nordstrom to small local boutiques.  The result?  My closets are filled with bargains that I never wear.

Not that they don’t fit me.  Okay, I’ll admit that a few of them don’t.  I bought some of them in those giddy moments when I actually thought I was going to wear a size 4 again.  (I can dream, can’t I?)

But even those that fit me perfectly tend to inhabit my closet, unworn.  They looked terrific in the dressing room.  Was it the soft lighting?  Was it the “skinny mirrors”?  (Remember how Elaine on the ‘90s sitcom “Seinfeld” accused Barney’s of having skinny mirrors?)

I happily toted my bargains home.  Then came the moment of truth.  I emptied my shopping bags and tried everything on again.

Sadly, by the time I stood in front of my bedroom mirror and concluded that some items didn’t flatter me, the time for returning them had expired, and I was permanently and unalterably stuck with them.

Now with my class reunion coming up, and with closets full of things I wouldn’t dream of wearing when I get there, I’ve launched my new wardrobe strategy.

Here how it works:  I’ll view each potential purchase as something I’d actually wear to my class reunion.

We all know how we want to look at a class reunion.  Whether it’s high school, college, or any other reunion, we want to look fabulous.  Every item has to show us off to our best advantage.

Remember those classmates who were slim and sleek when you were kind of puffy?  Mercifully, thanks to your fitness regime and a healthier diet, you’ve pared down your poundage, and you want everyone to know it.  Is there any question you’ll view every possible purchase with that in mind?  Just ask yourself, “Does this make me look as slim as possible?”  If not, don’t buy it.  It’s simply not reunion-worthy.

Then there’s the question of style.  Take a good look at those clothes that haven’t been stylish for a while.  Do you really want to wear them at the reunion?  Doubtful.  They’re not reunion-worthy.

This awakening has taught me a lesson, and you might benefit from it as well.  Just start taking this approach to everything you buy.  So what if an outfit’s been reduced from $200 to a rock-bottom 39 bucks.  Don’t buy it unless it’s reunion-worthy.  That sweater or jacket you fell in love with at the store?  Even though it’s terribly chic, it’s styled for someone with a totally different shape.  Forget it.  It’s not reunion-worthy.

Shopping online might present a challenge.  You have to take a chance that something will look great…and willing to send it back if it doesn’t.

It’s probably easier to hunt for clothes in your favorite brick-and-mortar stores.  But when you do, try to remember our newly-minted wardrobe strategy.  You’ll finally have closets no longer stuffed with unwearable clothes.  They’ll be filled instead with only those clothes that make you look terrific.

I hope to have a great time at my reunion.  Just in case you’re wondering, I plan to look smashing–garbed in my reunion-worthy duds!

 

[Earlier versions of this post appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and on this blog.]

 

 

2 Comments

Posted in class reunions, exercise, fashion, high-fat diet, reunion-worthy clothes, San Francisco Chronicle

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Of Mice and Chocolate (with apologies to John Steinbeck)

Posted on September 28, 2017 | 2 comments

Have you ever struggled with your weight?  If you have, here’s another question:  How’s your sense of smell?

Get ready for some startling news.  A study by researchers at UC Berkeley recently found that one’s sense of smell can influence an important decision by the brain:  whether to burn fat or to store it.

In other words, just smelling food could cause you to gain weight.

But hold on.  The researchers didn’t study humans.  They studied mice.

The researchers, Andrew Dillin and Celine Riera, studied three groups of mice.  They categorized the mice as “normal” mice, “super-smellers,” and those without any sense of smell.  Dillin and Riera found a direct correlation between the ability to smell and how much weight the mice gained from a high-fat diet.

Each mouse ate the same amount of food, but the super-smellers gained the most weight.

The normal mice gained some weight, too.  But the mice who couldn’t smell anything gained very little.

The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism in July 2017 was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.  It concluded that outside influences, like smell, can affect the brain’s functions that relate to appetite and metabolism.

According to the researchers, extrapolating their results to humans is possible.  People who are obese could have their sense of smell wiped out or temporarily reduced to help them control cravings and burn calories and fat faster.  But Dillin and Riera warned about risks.

People who lose their sense of smell “can get depressed” because they lose the pleasure of eating, Riera said.  Even the mice who lost their sense of smell had a stress response that could lead to a heart attack.  So eliminating a human’s sense of smell would be a radical step, said Dillin.  But for those who are considering surgery to deal with obesity, it might be an option.

Here comes another mighty mouse study to save the day.  Maybe it offers an even better way to deal with being overweight.

This study, published in the journal Cell Reports in September 2017, also focused on creating more effective treatments for obesity and diabetes.  A team of researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found a way to convert bad white fact into good brown fat—in mice.

Researcher Irfan J. Lodhi noted that by targeting a protein in white fat, we can convert bad fat into a type of fat (beige fat) that fights obesity.  Beige fat (yes, beige fat) was discovered in adult humans in 2015.  It functions more like brown fat, which burns calories, and can therefore protect against obesity.

When Lodhi’s team blocked a protein called PexRAP, the mice were able to convert white fat into beige fat.  If this protein could be blocked safely in white fat cells in humans, people might have an easier time losing weight.

Just when we learned about these new efforts to fight obesity, the high-fat world came out with some news of its own.  A Swiss chocolate manufacturer, Barry Callebaut, unveiled a new kind of chocolate it calls “ruby chocolate.”  The company said its new product offers “a totally new taste experience…a tension between berry-fruitiness and luscious smoothness.”

The “ruby bean,” grown in countries like Ecuador, Brazil, and Ivory Coast, apparently comes from the same species of cacao plant found in other chocolates.  But the Swiss company claims that ruby chocolate has a special mix of compounds that lend it a distinctive pink hue and fruity taste.

A company officer told The New York Times that “hedonistic indulgence” is a consumer need and that ruby chocolate addresses that need, more than any other kind of chocolate, because it’s so flavorful and exciting.

So let’s sum up:  Medical researchers are exploring whether the scent of chocolate or any other high-fat food might cause weight-gain (at least for those of us who are “super-smellers”), and whether high-fat food like chocolate could possibly lead to white fat cells “going beige.”

In light of these efforts by medical researchers, shouldn’t we ask ourselves this question:  Do we really need another kind of chocolate?

2 Comments

Posted in brain, cheap indulgences, chocolate, depression, food, health, heart attacks, high-fat diet, human biology, medical research, mice, nutrition, obesity, San Francisco Chronicle, science, The New York Times, University of California, Berkeley, Washington University in St. Louis

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The Last Straw(s)

Posted on August 29, 2017 | 1 comment

A crusade against plastic drinking straws?  Huh?

At first glance, it may strike you as frivolous.  But it’s not.  In fact, it’s pretty darned serious.

In California, the city of Berkeley may kick off such a crusade.   In June, the city council directed its staff to research what would be California’s first city ordinance prohibiting the use of plastic drinking straws in bars, restaurants, and coffee shops.

Berkeley is responding to efforts by nonprofit groups like the Surfrider Foundation that want to eliminate a significant source of pollution in our oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water. According to the conservation group Save the Bay, the annual cleanup days held on California beaches have found that plastic straws and stirrers are the sixth most common kind of litter.  If they’re on our beaches, they’re flowing into the San Francisco Bay, into the Pacific Ocean, and ultimately into oceans all over the world.

As City Councilwoman Sophie Hahn, a co-author of the proposal to study the ban, has noted, “They are not biodegradable, and there are alternatives.”

I’ve been told that plastic straws aren’t recyclable, either.  So whenever I find myself using a plastic straw to slurp my drink, I conscientiously separate my waste:  my can of Coke Zero goes into the recycling bin; my plastic straw goes into the landfill bin.  This is nuts.  Banning plastic straws in favor of paper ones is the answer.

Realistically, it may be a tough fight to ban plastic straws because business interests (like the Monster Straw Co. in Laguna Beach) want to keep making and selling them.  And business owners claim that they’re more cost-effective, leading customers to prefer them.  As Monster’s founder and owner, Natalie Buketov, told the SF Chronicle, “right now the public wants cheap plastic straws.”

Berkeley could vote on a ban by early 2018.

On the restaurant front, some chefs would like to see the end of plastic straws.  Spearheading a growing movement to steer eateries away from serving straws is Marcel Vigneron, owner-chef of Wolf Restaurant on Melrose Avenue in L.A.  Vigneron, who’s appeared on TV’s “Top Chef” and “Iron Chef,” is also an enthusiastic surfer, and he’s seen the impact of straw-pollution on the beaches and marine wildlife.  He likes the moniker “Straws Suck” to promote his effort to move away from straws, especially the play on words:  “You actually use straws to suck, and they suck because they pollute the oceans,” he told CBS in July.

Vigneron added that if a customer wants a straw, his restaurant has them.  But servers ask customers whether they want a straw instead of automatically putting them into customers’ drinks.  He notes that every day, 500 million straws are used in the U.S., and they could “fill up 127 school buses.”  He wants to change all that.

Drinking straws have a long history.  Their origins were apparently actual straw, or other straw-like grasses and plants.  The first paper straw, made from paper coated with paraffin wax, was patented in 1888 by Marvin Stone, who didn’t like the flavor of a rye grass straw added to his mint julep.  The “bendy” paper straw was patented in 1937.  But the plastic straw took off, along with many other plastic innovations, in the 1960s, and nowadays they’re difficult to avoid.

Campaigns like Surfrider’s have taken off because of mounting concern with plastic pollution.  Surfrider, which has also campaigned against other threats to our oceans, like plastic bags and cigarette butts, supports the “Straws Suck” effort, and according to author David Suzuki, Bacardi has joined with Surfrider in the movement to ban plastic straws.

Our neighbors to the north have already leaped ahead of California.  The town of Tofino in British Columbia claims that it mounted the very first “Straws Suck” campaign in 2016.  By Earth Day in April that year, almost every local business had banned plastic straws.  A fascinating story describing this effort appeared in the Vancouver Sun on April 22, 2016.

All of us in the U.S., indeed the world, need to pay attention to what plastic is doing to our environment.  “At the current rate, we are really headed toward a plastic planet,” according to the author of a study reported in the journal Science Advances, reported by AP in July.  Roland Geyer, an industrial ecologist at UC Santa Barbara, noted that there’s enough discarded plastic to bury Manhattan under more than 2 miles of trash.

Geyer used the plastics industry’s own data to find that the amount of plastics made and thrown out is accelerating.  In 2015, the world created more than twice as much as it made in 1998.

The plastics industry has fought back, relying on the standard of cost-effectiveness.  It claims that alternatives to plastic, like glass, paper, or aluminum, would require more energy to produce.  But even if that’s true, the energy difference in the case of items like drinking straws would probably be minimal.  If we substitute paper straws for plastic ones, the cost difference would likely be negligible, while the difference for our environment—eliminating all those plastic straws floating around in our waterways–could be significant.

Aside from city bans and eco-conscious restaurateurs, we need to challenge entities like Starbucks.  The mega-coffee-company and coffeehouse-chain prominently offers, even flaunts, brightly-colored plastic straws for customers sipping its cold drinks.  What’s worse:  they happily sell them to others!  Just check out the Starbucks straws for sale on Amazon.com.  Knowing what we know about plastic pollution, I think Starbucks’s choice to further pollute our environment by selling its plastic straws on the Internet is unforgivable.

At the end of the day, isn’t this really the last straw?

 

1 Comment

Posted in Associated Press, California, dining, drinking straws, environment, health, law, opinion pieces, plastic pollution, politics, restaurants, science

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Summer of Love and Other Random Thoughts

Posted on July 31, 2017 | Leave a comment
  1.  The CEO pay ratio is now 271-to-1.

 According to the Economic Policy Institute’s annual report on executive compensation, released on July 20, chief executives of America’s 350 largest companies made an average of $15.6 million in 2016, or 271 times more than what the typical worker made last year.

The number was slightly lower than it was in 2015, when the average pay was $16.3 million, and the ratio was 286-to-1.   And it was even lower than the highest ratio calculated, 376-to-1 in 2000.

But before we pop any champagne corks because of the slightly lower number, let’s recall that in 1989, after eight years of Ronald Reagan in the White House, the ratio was 59-to-1, and in 1965, in the midst of the Vietnam War and civil rights turmoil, it was 20-to-1.

Let’s reflect on those numbers for a moment.  Just think about how distorted these ratios are and what they say about our country.

Did somebody say “income inequality”?

[This report appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 21, 2017.]

 

  1. Smiling

 I’ve written in this blog, at least once before, about the positive results of smiling.  [Please see “If You’re Getting Older, You May Be Getting Nicer,” published on May 30, 2014.]

But I can’t resist adding one more item about smiling.  In a story in The Wall Street Journal in June, a cardiologist named Dr. John Day wrote about a woman, aged 107, whom he met in the small city of Bapan, China.  Bapan is known as “Longevity Village” because so many of its people are centenarians (one for every 100 who live there; the average in the U.S. is one in 5,780).

Day asked the 107-year-old woman how she reached her advanced age.  Noting that she was always smiling, he asked if she smiled even through the hard times in her life.  She replied, “Those are the times in which smiling is most important, don’t you agree?”

Day added the results of a study published in Psychological Science in 2010.  It showed that baseball players who smiled in their playing-card photographs lived seven years longer, on average, than those who looked stern.

So, he wrote, “The next time you’re standing in front of a mirror, grin at yourself.  Then make that a habit.”

[Dr. Day’s article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on June 24-25, 2017.]

 

  1. The Summer of Love

This summer, San Francisco is awash in celebrations of the “Summer of Love,” the name attached to the city’s summer of 1967.   Fifty years later, the SF Symphony, the SF Jazz Center, a bunch of local theaters, even the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, have all presented their own take on it.

Most notably, “The Summer of Love Experience,” an exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, is a vivid display of the music, artwork, and fashions that popped up in San Francisco that summer.

As a happy denizen of San Francisco for the past 12 years, I showed up at the de Young to see the exhibit for myself.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the sometimes outrageous fashions artfully displayed on an array of mannequins.  Not surprisingly, they included a healthy representation of denim.  Some items were even donated by the Levi’s archives in San Francisco.  [Please see the reference to Levi’s in my post, “They’re My Blue Jeans and I’ll Wear Them If I Want To,” published in May.]

Other fashions featured colorful beads, crochet, appliqué, and embroidery, often on silk, velvet, leather, and suede.  Maybe it was my favorite part of the exhibit because I’ve donated clothing from the same era to the Chicago History Museum, although my own clothing choices back then were considerably different.

Other highlights in the exhibit were perfectly preserved psychedelic posters featuring rock groups like The Grateful Dead, The Doors, and Moby Grape, along with record album covers and many photographs taken in San Francisco during the summer of 1967.  Joan Baez made an appearance as well, notably with her two sisters in a prominently displayed anti-Vietnam War poster.  Rock and roll music of the time is the constant background music for the entire exhibit.

In 1967, I may have been vaguely aware of San Francisco’s Summer of Love, but I was totally removed from it.  I’d just graduated from law school, and back in Chicago, I was immersed in studying for the Illinois bar exam.  I’d also begun to show up in the chambers of Judge Julius J. Hoffman, the federal district judge for whom I’d be a law clerk for the next two years.  [Judge Hoffman will be the subject of a future post or two.]

So although the whole country was hearing news stories about the antics of the thousands of hippies who flocked to Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, my focus was on my life in Chicago, with minimal interest in what was happening 2000 miles away.  For that reason, much of the exhibit at the de Young was brand-new to me.

The curators of the exhibit clearly chose to emphasize the creativity of the art, fashion, and music of the time.  At the same time, the exhibit largely ignores the downside of the Summer of Love—the widespread use of drugs, the unpleasant changes that took place in the quiet neighborhood around Haight-Ashbury, the problems created by the hordes of young people who filled Golden Gate Park.

But I was glad I saw it–twice.

You may decide to come to San Francisco to see this exhibit for yourself.

If you do, please don’t forget:  “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.”

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in 1960s, 1960s television, aging, art museums, art, artists,, blue jeans, centenarians, CEO pay-ratio, Chicago, Chicago History Museum, creativity, de Young Museum, denim, fashion, getting older, Golden Gate Park, jeans, law, lawyers, Levi's, long life, museums, nostalgia, psychedelic posters, psychological research, psychology, record albums, rock and roll music, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle, smiling, Summer of Love, television, The Wall Street Journal

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Declare Your Independence: Those High Heels Are Killers

Posted on June 28, 2017 | 3 comments

I’ve long maintained that high heels are killers.  I never used that term literally, of course.  I merely viewed high-heeled shoes as distinctly uncomfortable and an outrageous concession to the dictates of fashion that can lead to both pain and permanent damage to a woman’s body.

A few years ago, however, high heels proved to be actual killers.  The Associated Press reported that two women, ages 18 and 23, were killed in Riverside, California, as they struggled in high heels to get away from a train.  With their car stuck on the tracks, the women attempted to flee as the train approached.  A police spokesman later said, “It appears they were in high heels and [had] a hard time getting away quickly.”

Like those young women, I was sucked into wearing high heels when I was a teenager.  It was de rigueur for girls at my high school to seek out the trendy shoe stores on State Street in downtown Chicago and purchase whichever high-heeled offerings our wallets could afford.  On my first visit, I was entranced by the three-inch-heeled numbers that pushed my toes into a too-narrow space and revealed them in what I thought was a highly provocative position.  If feet can have cleavage, those shoes gave me cleavage.

Never mind that my feet were encased in a vise-like grip.  Never mind that I walked unsteadily on the stilts beneath my soles.  And never mind that my whole body was pitched forward in an ungainly manner as I propelled myself around the store.  I liked the way my legs looked in those shoes, and I had just enough baby-sitting money to pay for them.  Now I could stride with pride to the next Sweet Sixteen luncheon on my calendar, wearing footwear like all the other girls’.

That luncheon revealed what an unwise purchase I’d made.  When the event was over, I found myself stranded in a distant location with no ride home, and I started walking to the nearest bus stop.  After a few steps, it was clear that my shoes were killers.  I could barely put one foot in front of the other, and the pain became so great that I removed my shoes and walked in stocking feet the rest of the way.

After that painful lesson, I abandoned three-inch high-heeled shoes and resorted to wearing lower ones.   Sure, I couldn’t flaunt my shapely legs quite as effectively, but I managed to secure male attention nevertheless.

Instead of conforming to the modern-day equivalent of Chinese foot-binding, I successfully and happily fended off the back pain, foot pain, bunions, and corns that my fashion-victim sisters suffer in spades.

The recent trend toward higher and higher heels is disturbing.  I’m baffled by women, especially young women, who buy into the mindset that they must follow the dictates of fashion and the need to look “sexy” by wearing extremely high heels.

When I watch TV, I see too many women wearing stilettos that force them into the ungainly walk I briefly sported so long ago.  I can’t help noticing the women on late-night TV shows who are otherwise smartly attired and often very smart (in the other sense of the word), yet wear ridiculously high heels that force them to greet their hosts with that same ungainly walk.  Some appear on the verge of toppling over.  And at a recent Oscar awards telecast, women tottered to the stage in ultra-high heels, often accompanied by escorts who kindly held onto them to prevent their embarrassing descent into the orchestra pit.

The women who, like me, have adopted lower-heeled shoes strike me as much smarter and much less likely to fall on their attractive (and sometimes surgically-enhanced) faces.

Here’s another example.  When I sat on the stage of Zellerbach Hall at the Berkeley commencement for math students a few years ago, I was astonished that many if not most of the women graduates hobbled across the stage to receive their diplomas in three- and four-inch-high sandals.  I was terrified that these super-smart math students would trip and fall before they could grasp the document their mighty brain-power had earned.  (Fortunately, none of them tripped, but I could nevertheless imagine the foot-pain that accompanied the joy of receiving their degrees.)

Foot-care professionals soundly support my view.   According to the American Podiatric Medical Association, a heel that’s more than 2 or 3 inches makes comfort just about impossible.  Why?  Because a 3-inch heel creates seven times more stress than a 1-inch heel.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently questioned Dr. Amol Saxena, a podiatrist and foot and ankle surgeon who practices in Palo Alto (and assists Nike’s running team).  He explained that after 1.5 inches, the pressure increases on the ball of the foot and can lead to “ball-of-the-foot numbness.”  (Yikes!)  He doesn’t endorse 3-inch heels and points out that celebrities wear them for only a short time (for example, on the red carpet), not all day.  To ensure a truly comfortable shoe, he adds, don’t go above a 1.5 inch heel.  If you insist on wearing higher heels, limit how much time you spend in them.

Some encouraging changes may be afoot.  The latest catalog from Nordstrom, one of America’s major shoe-sellers, features a large number of lower-heeled styles along with higher-heeled numbers.  Because Nordstrom is a bellwether in the fashion world, its choices can influence shoe-seekers.  Or is Nordstrom reflecting what its shoppers have already told the stores’ decision-makers?  The almighty power of the purse—how shoppers are choosing to spend their money–probably plays a big role here.

Beyond the issue of comfort, let’s remember that high heels present a far more urgent problem.  As the deaths in Riverside demonstrate, women who wear high heels can be putting their lives at risk.  When women need to flee a dangerous situation, it’s pretty obvious that high heels can handicap their ability to escape.

How many other needless deaths have resulted from hobbled feet?

The Fourth of July is fast approaching.  As we celebrate the holiday this year, I urge the women of America to declare their independence from high-heeled shoes.

If you’re currently wearing painful footwear, bravely throw those shoes away, or at the very least, toss them into the back of your closet.   Shod yourself instead in shoes that allow you to walk—and if need be, run—in comfort.

Your wretched appendages, yearning to be free, will be forever grateful.

 

[Earlier versions of this commentary appeared on Susan Just Writes and the San Francisco Chronicle.]

3 Comments

Posted in 1950s, Associated Press, Chicago, feet, foot pain, Fourth of July, health, high school, high-heeled shoes, high heels, mathematicians, Nordstrom, Oscar awards, Riverside, California, San Francisco Chronicle, shoes, shopping, TV late-night, University of California, Berkeley, walking, women, women"s interests

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Proms and “The Twelfth of Never”

Posted on June 17, 2017 | 2 comments

It’s prom season in America.

Do you remember your senior prom?

The twelfth of June never fails to remind me of mine.

The prom committee named our prom “The Twelfth of Never,” and it’s easy to remember why.  The prom took place on June 12th.  The name was also that of a popular song recorded by Johnny Mathis–one of my favorites on his album, “Johnny’s Greatest Hits.”

As one of Johnny’s fans, I owned this album and played it over and over till I knew the words to all of the songs, including this one.  Many of his songs became standards, and PBS has recently been showcasing his music in one of its most appealing fund-raising lures.

I immortalized the song title in my own small way by writing in my novel Jealous Mistress that the protagonist, Alison Ross, hears it playing while she shops in her supermarket in 1981: “My fellow shoppers were gliding up and down the aisles of the Jewel, picking items off shelves to the tune of ‘The Twelfth of Never.’”

When I was 11 or 12, my favorite crooner was Eddie Fisher, who was then at the top of his game.  But by my last year of high school, I’d shifted my loyalties to Johnny Mathis and Harry Belafonte.  In addition to Johnny’s album, I treasured Belafonte’s astonishing “Belafonte” LP and played it, like Johnny’s, over and over, learning those words, too.

Although I wasn’t part of the prom committee (I was busy chairing the luncheon committee), and “the twelfth of never” referred to a date when something was never going to happen, I was okay with the name the committee chose.  My more pressing concern was who would be my date.  Would it be my current crush, a friend since first grade who’d metamorphosed into the man of my dreams?  (I hoped so.)  Would it be last year’s junior prom date?  (I hoped not.)  Who exactly would it be?

As luck would have it, an amiable and very bright classmate named Allen stepped forward and asked me to go to the prom.  I could finally relax on that score.  But we weren’t really on the same wave length.  When we went on a few other dates before prom, they became increasingly awkward.

On one date we saw “Some Like It Hot” at a filled-to-capacity downtown Chicago movie theater, where we sat in the last row of the balcony.  The film was terrific (it’s been judged the top comedy film of all time by the American Film Institute), and Allen clearly loved it.  His delight unfortunately ended in an ache or two.  When he heard the last line, spoken by Joe E. Brown to Jack Lemmon (“Well, nobody’s perfect”), Allen laughed uproariously, threw his head back, and hit it on the wall behind our seats.  I felt sorry for him—it must have hurt—but it was still pretty hard to stifle a laugh.  (I don’t think it hurt his brainpower, though.  As I recall, Allen went on to enroll at MIT.)

Although the bloom was off the rose by the time the prom came along, Allen and I went off happily together to dance on the ballroom floor of the downtown Knickerbocker Hotel, noted for the floor’s colored lights.  (The Knickerbocker spent the 1970s as the icky Playboy Towers but since then reverted to its original name.)  We then proceeded to celebrate some more by watching the remarkable ice-skating show offered on a tiny rink surrounded by tables filled with patrons, like a bunch of us prom-goers, at still another big hotel downtown.

Most of us were unknowingly living through an era of innocence.  For some of my classmates, the prom may have involved heavy kissing, but I doubt that much more than that happened.  In my case, absolutely nothing happened except for a chaste kiss at the end of the evening.

For better or worse, proms have evolved into a whole different scene.  In April, The Wall Street Journal noted that although the rules of prom used to be simple, they’re more complicated today.  At Boylan Catholic High School in Illinois, for example, a 21-page rulebook governs acceptable prom-wear.  Other schools require pre-approval of the prom dresses students plan to wear–in one school by a coach, in another by a three-person committee.

Administrators add new rules every year “to address new trends and safety concerns.” These have included banning canes, boys’ ponytails, and saggy pants, as well as two-piece dresses that might reveal midriffs and dresses with mesh cutouts that suggest bare skin.

But students have begun to revolt.  The students at Boylan Catholic have organized their own prom, arguing that the 21-page dress code contributed to body-shaming.  They point to a rule that states: “Some girls may wear the same dress, but due to body types, one dress may be acceptable while the other is not.”  A male student who helped organize Morp (the alternative prom) said that “girls were offended…. Somebody needed to step up and do something.”

At a school in Alabama, one student hoped to take his grandmother to his prom since she’d never been to one, but her age exceeded the maximum of 20, so she wasn’t allowed to go.  The student was “mad,” skipped the school prom, and celebrated at his grandmother’s home instead.  Not surprisingly, the school defended its rule, stating that it wanted to discourage students’ inviting older relatives who might present a safety issue by drinking alcohol:  “It just causes problems.”  But the school district later joined with a senior center to host an annual prom for senior citizens.  Presumably, Granny went to a prom after all.

According to the Journal, New York City students have another option altogether.  The New York Public Library hosts an annual free “Anti-Prom” in June for students 12 to 18, who can attend in any garb they choose.

In the Bay Area, another phenomenon has occurred:  “promposals”–photos and videos posted on social media in which one student asks another one to prom.  The San Francisco Chronicle views these as a way for kids “to turn themselves into YouTube, Twitter and Instagram sensations.”  In 2014, a boy trotted up to school on a horse, holding a sign that asked his girlfriend to “ride to prom” with him.  Last year, a kid built a makeshift “castle” and wrote a Shakespearean-style play to ask a friend to prom.  And in Berkeley, a boy choreographed a hip-hop dance routine with a bunch of other kids and performed it for his hoped-for date in front of 200 classmates.

In April, the Chronicle reported data on the national emergence of promposals.  From only 17 on Twitter in 2009, the number grew to 764,000 in 2015, while on YouTube, videos went from 56,000 in 2009 to 180,000 last year.  (Millions of teens also post pictures about the prom itself on Instagram.)  The promposal phenomenon may be dying down, with fewer elaborate ones noted this year at a school in Oakland.  But who knows?

One thing we know for certain:  The high school prom-scene has changed.

But even though things have changed, prom-goers today are still teenagers much like us when we went to prom, with all of the insecurities and anxieties that go along with being a teen.

For me, mostly-happy memories of “The Twelfth of Never” return every year on the twelfth of June.   Maybe mostly-happy, or not-so-happy, memories of your prom return every year as well.

As Johnny’s song reminds us, our memories of prom can endure for “a long, long time.”

2 Comments

Posted in 1950s, 1960s, alcoholic drinks, Chicago, high school, human memory, Johnny Mathis, memory, movies, nostalgia, record albums, senior proms, The Twelfth of Never

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,