Eideard

The intense battle that public health advocates have waged against trans fats appears to be working: A new report shows that since 2000, levels of trans fats in Americans’ bloodstreams have plummeted nearly 60 percent.

Once widely found in fried, baked and packaged foods, trans fats have been slowly removed from the food supply after studies linked them to heart disease and obesity. Many cities have banned their use in restaurants, and public health experts have pressed companies to strip them from processed foods like cookies, soups, crackers and frozen foods.

In a research letter published in the latest issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association today, researchers found that as trans fats have disappeared from supermarket shelves and restaurant kitchens, they have also been disappearing from Americans’ bloodstreams. The study showed that in a nationally representative sample of middle-aged Americans, levels of trans fats fell 58 percent from 2000 to 2009…

Trans fats have been widely vilified since the late 1990s, when large studies showed that even slight increases in their intake could significantly elevate heart risks. Advocacy groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the most vocal opponents of trans fats, sued fast food companies that used them in their foods, and cities including New York and Philadelphia have prohibited restaurants from cooking with them.

As controversy grew, many food manufacturers and restaurants gave in to pressure to remove trans fats — also known as partially hydrogenated oils — and began using alternatives like canola or sunflower oil.

In the new study…trans fat levels fell 58 percent, but there were also improvements in cholesterol and triglycerides. Levels of LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, fell almost 10 units on average, to 119.2 milligrams per deciliter of blood from 128.2 milligrams. Meanwhile, levels of HDL, or “good” cholesterol, rose to 55.8 milligrams from an average of 49.6 milligrams.

At the same time, triglyceride levels, a measure of fat in the blood, fell on average about 20 units, to 109 milligrams from roughly 131 milligrams. The American Heart Association considers triglyceride levels of 100 milligrams to be “optimal.” Health authorities say HDL should be above 40 milligrams in men and higher than 50 milligrams in women, while LDL levels in men and women should ideally be lower than 100 milligrams…

Partially hydrogenated oils could be removed pretty much entirely from supermarkets, processed foods – and our bloodstreams – by an order from the FDA. I know every one has kept the heat on this medical/political enclave since the election of Obama. But, the pressure hasn’t been sufficient. Maybe we relented too soon when we started to get some movement on food quality, food safety.

Maybe it’s time to ask questions, try to turn the attention of our elected representative from oil-bearing sands in Canada to those partially-hydrogenated oils still being stuffed into our circulatory systems?

You have to feel sorry for the police officers who are required to frisk people for guns or knives – after all, if someone who doesn’t want to be arrested is carrying a lethal weapon, the last thing that most of us would want to do is get close enough to that person to touch them. That’s why the New York Police Department teamed up with the United States Department of Defense three years ago, and began developing a portable scanner that can remotely detect the presence of a gun on a person’s body. The NYPD announced the project yesterday.

The device uses infrared light rays to image radiation being emitted by a person’s body. Wherever a solid metal object such as a gun is blocking those rays from reaching the body, a silhouette of that object will appear on the scanner’s screen. So far, the technology only works from a distance of about 1 meter, although NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly hopes that its range can ultimately be extended to at least 25 meters.

The plan is for the scanner to be mounted on a van, then used on suspects who would otherwise have to be physically searched.

Har. Long way to go, folks.

Coppers will not only follow your every step – they’ll count the number of zipper teeth on your fly.

Passengers on the Warsaw Underground take part in the flashmob

People take part in the 2012 No Pants Subway Ride…Started by Improv Everywhere, the goal is for riders to get on public transport dressed in normal winter clothes, but without trousers, and keep a straight face.

Looks like fun. Though it would take a warm subway to get me to take part.

In recent years, city governments have increasingly used that model to spur software developers to build apps they do not have the budget or brainpower to create themselves. Public agencies put data online and offer cash prizes. Developers write code. The resulting apps help guide residents through city government, or around the city. New York, with its wealth of data sets and developers, has taken to this enthusiastically with its BigApps competition, currently in Version 3.0.

Now it is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s turn. Last year, the authority posted information about train and agency performance, escalator status, turnstile traffic on the subways, bridge and tunnel plaza traffic, and more, then invited app developers to do what they could with it. The ensuing contest, called the M.T.A. App Quest, spawned 42 projects competing for $15,000 in cash prizes. The entries include apps for every major mobile platform (yes, even BlackBerry and Windows Mobile), e-mail services and Web sites. A panel of judges will pick most of the winners, but there are two popular choice awards…

Some of the apps are clearly in the early stages of development. This is common for app contests, said Brandon Kessler of ChallengePost, which is running the authority’s competition and has handled more than 200 similar contests. Software developers often say it is best to release an imperfect product and improve it gradually with feedback from users…

Some of the most intriguing apps are for regular old computers. The Web site 88 Yards allows you to click on any subway station and see Yelp’s highest-ranked bar and restaurant within a block. Convenient, but if ever a service screamed out to be a mobile app rather than a Web site, this is it.

RailBandit has other apps, but its contest entry is a hypnotic simulation of 24 hours on the New York subways, with hundreds of dots representing trains shooting up and down the lines of the subway map. The dots plod along in the early morning, gain steam as the city wakes up, speed through the afternoon and slow down after dark. I could find no practical purpose for it, but found it very satisfying to sit back and let the subways roll by.

Apps which encourage you to sit on your butt and observe the labors of others are always popular.

Singer Lady Gaga and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg kiss each other during celebrations at the New Year Eve ball in Times Square in New York, January 1, 2012.

Actually – if I lived in NYC, I’d probably vote for either one of ‘em.

Fewer than 2 percent of the 47,000 members of the United States Chess Federation are masters — and just 13 of them are under the age of 14.

Among that select group of prodigies are three black players from the New York City area — Justus Williams, Joshua Colas and James Black Jr. — who each became masters before their 13th birthdays.

“Masters don’t happen every day, and African-American masters who are 12 never happen,” said Maurice Ashley, 45, the only African-American to earn the top title of grandmaster. “To have three young players do what they have done is something of an amazing curiosity. You normally wouldn’t get something like that in any city of any race.”

The chess federation, the game’s governing body, does not keep records on the ethnicity of its members. But a Web site called the Chess Drum — which chronicles the achievements of black chess players and is run by Daaim Shabazz, an associate professor of business at Florida A&M University — lists 85 African-American masters. Shabazz said many of them no longer compete regularly.

Ashley, who became a master at age 20 and a grandmaster 14 years later, said the rarity was not surprising. “Chess just isn’t that big in the African-American community,” he said…That wasn’t my experience at least among Black musicians when I spent a significant chunk of my life on the jazz scene.

The three New Yorkers met several years ago during competitions. Justus has an edge over James, mostly because he won many of their early games, before James caught up. Head to head, James and Joshua each have several wins against the other. Justus and Joshua have rarely competed against each other.

Although they are rivals, the boys are also friends and share a sense that they are role models…

Supporting the boys’ interest is not easy financially. Though there are many tournaments in the New York City area, the boys must travel to play in more prestigious competitions, sometimes overseas. This week, they are set to play in the World Youth Chess Championship in Brazil.

They study the game with professional coaches who are grandmasters. The lessons are expensive — $100 an hour is not unusual — and the boys’ families have either found sponsors or have paid for the instruction themselves.

A very special Bravo from a blog that appreciates chess.

Commissioner Ray Kelly, Chief Charles Campisi – ultimately responsible

Seven narcotics investigators are convicted of planting drugs on people to meet arrest quotas. Eight current and former patrol officers are charged with smuggling guns into the state. Another is charged with making a false arrest, apparently as a favor for his cousin. Three more are convicted of robbing a perfume warehouse.

All these cases involved New York City police officers and unfolded or were resolved in recent months. But beyond the fact of criminal charges against those sworn to protect the public, they all had another thing in common: Each case was uncovered by an outside agency, not the Internal Affairs Bureau of the New York Police Department, the unit responsible for unearthing and investigating officers’ wrongdoing.

This spate of unrelated corruption prosecutions, and what some see as the Internal Affairs Bureau’s spotty record of uncovering major cases involving crooked officers, raise questions about the department’s ability to police itself, said nearly a dozen current and former prosecutors who have handled corruption cases, as well as some current and former Internal Affairs supervisors and investigators.

Several of them blamed a lack of effective outside oversight of the department’s anticorruption program, characterizing the monitoring as weak at best in recent years, with monitors having neither the political will to press the department nor support from City Hall. They also cited low starting salaries for new officers, poor morale, recruits drawn from a smaller pool of qualified candidates and a hidebound Internal Affairs Bureau bureaucracy.

RTFA. If you’re as cynical as I am, there will be no surprises. You might have expected better from one of the best police departments in the country – or experience may have suggested to you that coppers, today, sometimes join the force as just another kind of civil service gig. And they spend their time staying out of the way of trouble – or looking for a take.

Doesn’t have to be that way, of course. I had kin in the NYPD. They were honest and hard-working. They also knew officers who weren’t. Cripes, I had one co-worker join the force in a major Connecticut city – he told me it was a guarantee he could get drugs for free.

New York City authorities said they will shut down a city bus service run by Orthodox Jews if the group doesn’t stop making women sit at the back of the bus.

The Private Transportation Corp, which operates the city’s public B110 bus under a franchise arrangement, has come under criticism following publicity about its practice of making women give up their seats in the front to promote Hasidic customs of gender separation.

New York City’s Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Gastel said the agency’s executive director Anne Koenig has asked the company to respond to the allegations and was waiting to hear back…If such a violation is found, the franchise could be revoked, the DOT said in a statement…

The B110 bus runs through the sections of the borough of Brooklyn that are heavily populated by Orthodox Jews.

A student reporter at Columbia University in New York published a story about a woman told by other riders to give up her seat in the front. Other news organizations then sent reporters who encountered similar situations…

Cripes. This franchise is 38 years old. No one noticed? No one complained before now?

Sorry; but, I find that hard to believe. Can there really be an overwhelming number of women in Brooklyn who rode that bus line and never noticed anything this backward going on?

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

An artist arrested for applying body paint to a nude model in New York’s Times Square will have charges against him dropped if his models strip naked only after dark, according to a court agreement.

Police arrested Andy Golub, 45, in July and charged him with violating public exposure and lewdness laws. He has been painting nude models for about three years.

Golub’s lawyer, Ronald Kuby, argued that New York laws do not prohibit public nudity in the name of art, and a compromise was reached that was the basis of the court ruling. Under the agreement, “he is permitted to paint bare breasts any time, anywhere, but the G-strings have to stay on until daylight goes out,” Kuby said after a hearing in Manhattan criminal court…

Golub, of Nyack, New York, said he likes to paint nude models because their bodies have energy and dynamism that he finds lacking in canvas.

“I feel that when I do live body painting it’s a good thing, a positive thing,” he said.

Charges against Golub will be dropped in six months if he abides by the terms of the agreement and is not arrested again. Charges against Karla Storie, a model from Texas arrested with him, will be dismissed if she too is not arrested again in the next six months.

Golub said he was planning to return to criminal court today and paint a nude model in a park near the courthouse. After the sun sets.

 
Same as it ever was.

Though I have obvious reasons to remember a few coppers who beat and attacked demonstrators – scars – I always smile remembering the state troopers assigned to follow the car I was in in a southern border state on the way to a sit-in in 1959 who pulled alongside to offer directions to the town while we were gazing blankly at a road map by the side of the road.