David Ernst Chats with the World

Do you remember my dad’s theory about weight management that I cited in this post?

“I don’t care how much you weigh, but you should weigh that amount every year.”

I realized last night that I use the exact same philosophy to trying to manage my inbox. I was well aware that I had a conscious approach, but I didn’t realize that it’s just about exactly the same idea:

“I don’t care how big my inbox is, but it should be that size every day.”

Ok, I gotta work on the wording… but, yeah, for me the number is 38, because that’s how many I can see on the screen of my mail program at one time. After announcing HoosierNet‘s demise on July 20, my inbox got out of control. Sunday night, I whittled it down from about 800 to 38. It’s remarkable how much more “together” I feel having done that. I just took care of a few emails to get it back under 38, and along with it came a good send of getting things done promptly! I think that big fat inbox was weighing on my psyche… But, look! I’ve lost weight!! Can you tell?? :)

I was a chubby kid, but ever since puberty, I’ve been fortunate that the mix of recreational interests that I’ve had have apparently been enough exercise to keep my weight under control, even for as much as I like to eat (and you can read that “as much…” clause in two different ways, both of which are true). I’ve never engaged in exercise specifically for my health, although I’m certainly glad that there are activities that I enjoy doing (dancing, biking, frisbee…) that count as exercise even if I’m doing them for fun. So, I don’t think about my weight that much. I’m lucky.

Having said all of that, I do realize that not being focused on something is a good recipe for letting it get out of one’s control, and memories of having problems with my weight as a child keep me worried that I could have trouble in the future. Fortunately for me, my own father has a theory about healthy weight-management with which I’ve really jumped on board: “I don’t care how much you weigh, but you should weigh that amount every year.” Suppose you gain two pounds per year. That works out to less than three ounces per month, basically imperceptable. But, if you did that for 25 years, you’d weigh 50 pounds more than you do now. I will not feel at all good about my weight in 25 years if I weight 50 pound more than I do now.

So, the theory says, you’ve got to have a baseline that you keep coming back to. You’ve got to make sure that you don’t fall into this imperceptable creep. Once a year you’ve got to weigh the baseline amount. You pick the date. You pick the weight. But, if you’re not there, do something to get there, every year.

Ok. Now, again, I’m not worried about weighing too much now, so I decided a couple of years ago to set my baseline weight a few pounds more than I weighed at that moment. (Out of respect for the idea that one’s weight is a private matter, I shall not give any absolutely numbers in this public forum. Suffice it to say that the baseline was an amount I’d be perfectly comfortable weighing for the rest of my life). So, I signed up for the plan, and started weight myself more often, which turned out to be about once every three months.

What I found was that my weight varied more than I would have expected it to. The first winter after I started paying attention, I was actually a few pounds over my baseline, which surprised me. I thought “I might actually have to go on a diet”. I decided that I’d set my date for the summer, when it’d be easy to convince myself to increase my exercise level, and lots of fresh vegetables are in season.

What I found, though, was that in the Spring, without even trying, I had dropped back down in weight to a few pounds under my baseline. And, I stayed at about that rate until the next winter, when it went up again.

I don’t know how long this has been going on, but this year I felt motivated to pay some attention to it. Somewhere around the beginning of 2006, I found myself weighing about five pound over my baseline. That caused me some concern. I decided I’d reduce my intake of pop (man, what a fast way to ingest calories pop is!) and have been doing that for months. I don’t know how many, but enough that’d I’d weighed myself a couple of times since then (and I’d say never twice within three weeks), and didn’t notice any real change.

Then suddenly, this past week I weighed myself and I was about three pounds under my baseline. So, something like 6-8 pounds lost, with practically no variation in diet or exercise habits. What gives? And the pattern seems pretty clearly defined: every Winter I put on weight, every Spring it comes back off.

So, I can’t help but ask the question: could there be a seasonal thing going on in humans with their weight?

I did a cursory web search, but this is a hard subject to study on the web. The problem, of course, is that it’s hard to get past the countless self-help weight-loss guides and stuff. Basically, I found a lot of articles about the food served at Xmas parties, but practically nothing about biology.

It’s certainly possible that the holidays have something to do with my weight fluctuation. But, it just doesn’t seem that likely. Yes, my family feasts over the holidays, but that’s only a couple of meals, and I certainly do a fair amount of feasting in my normal existence. Yes, I attend holiday parties, but I attend parties all the time, and there’s always fat-filled finger food and alcohol there, and I don’t feel that I indulge any differently in November and December than I do normally. I could be wrong. Maybe I do and don’t realize it.

But, here’s the opposing case. I’m a relatively good sample set for this experiement. I weigh myself on the same scale, and do my best to keep it well zeroed (it is a pretty crappy scale, so that’s one weakness of my research methods). I eat two meals a day with limited snacking. For lunch, I typically eat at one of the many restaurants near where I work, and this is true throughout the year, and they certainly don’t vary their portion sizes in accord with the season. Dinners are more often than not food that I prepared, and I like eating until I feel a sensation of being “full”. Some things change about the kinds of foods that I eat in the Winter vs. the Spring, but I don’t know how much they’d matter. The most obvious thing is that in the Winter I make more soup, which I don’t consider to be at all bad for me. Throughout the year, but especially when vegetables are good, I make a lot of “stir fries” (interpretting that broadly), and while many people think that vegetable oil is not really bad for you, there’s no question that there’s more fat in my home-fried food than there is in soup, right?

As for activity, well, I haven’t been particularly active recently. As I just wrote in a previous post, I biked more in January and February than I did in March and April. I did some serious binge-dancing at the Pigtown Fling in late March, but come on… And besides, I danced just as hard at Winter Warmup in December, and in general my dance habits haven’t changed much.

So, what I’m suggesting (totally without proof) is that there’s something else going on inside me. I’m not suggesting anything supernatural. But, I think scientists tend to model our bodies as machines more than as animals, and I think this evidences itself in attitudes about nutrition and exercise. I do believe that one will lose weight if one burns more calories than one ingests, but it’s hard to know how many calories one is burning. And, in general, I think many people maintain a stable weight even while ingesting more than they burn. One simple possibility would be that we don’t actually digest all that we ingest. Our GI tract could just let some calories pass through us through its involuntary work. And, if it did that, it doesn’t seem at all unresonable to me that it might vary the amount based on the season. Many if not most living things native to non-equatorial regions have some instinctual sense of the season. Why could this not be true of humans? It doesn’t have to be the GI tract thing, that’s just a random speculation. But, my body does all kinds of things in digesting foods, and I don’t understand them, and there would seem to be countless ways that my cells could do different things with the nutrition I present then that would cause fluctuations in my weight.

I don’t know if this is true or not. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. For all I know, it may even be accepted fact among scientists, and I just can’t find their work. I doubt it, though. But, I invite everyone to offer evidence and theory of any kind in support of or opposition to this proto-theory.

[](http://www.newsobserver.com/cgi-bin/nao/obits/show_details.cgi?id=115948)
Last night I called a [contra dance in Indianapolis](http://indycontra.org). A few days earlier, a friend of mine from Indy emailed me pointing out that legendary contra dance choreographer, caller, and dancer [Gene Hubert had died](http://www.newsobserver.com/cgi-bin/nao/obits/show_details.cgi?id=115948). I had heard that he had been diagnosed with [pancreatic cancer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancreatic_Cancer) and was very ill, but I had not heard about his death on March 6. He was 51 years of age. This is obviously a terribly sad event for Gene’s family, but I don’t know any of them. What I do know is that Gene’s dances are some of the most frequently called in modern contradancing (at least in the Midwest), and that this stems immediately from the fact that they are so smooth and so fun.

Glenn Augenstein called an entire program of dances by Gene at the [contra dance in Louisville](http://www.louisvillecontradancers.org) on Monday night, and I decided to follow his lead and the suggestion of my friend and do the same last night. It’s caused a good deal reflection for me about everything from what makes Gene’s dances so good to how the great people in the American contra dance community have contributed to the joy of others. Gene was a member of a very small group of contra dancers about whom I am prone to use the word “legendary”. The fact that he is gone at age 51 is a tragedy. At the same time, his dances are likely to be part of my life for as long as I continue to live.

Thank you, Gene. On behalf of all of us.

As I was about to roll out of town for the ~4 hour drive to Chicago, I visited the library, in a last ditched effort to listen to *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* before the movie comes out in November. They didn’t have it. Dang. Well, I still needed something to listen to, so I just browsed.

I saw the audio version of [Ann Coulter](http://www.anncoulter.org/cgi-local/welcome.cgi)’s book [*How to talk to a Liberal (if you must)*](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400054184/qid%3D1105923271/sr%3D8-1/ref%3Dpd%5Fcsp%5F1/002-3137557-8036860?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). I had seen this book on some best-seller shelf a while ago, and thought “Woah, apparently I should know who this person is”. So, I thought I should learn more. Of course, here was my opportunity, and I didn’t really feel like it. After all, my real goal here was to ease the lonely drive, not to educate myself on current public figures. If it was bad, annoying, etc., what was I going to do?

I kept browsing, and then found [*Michael Moore*](http://www.michaelmoore.com/)’s *Stupid White Men*. To be honest, I never thought I would read this book. Although Moore is certainly a hero to many of my friends, and while I certainly am more inclined to agree with him on political issues than I am someone like Ms. Coulter, he is not a hero of mine… I find many of his tactics offensive, and many of his fundamental ideas don’t appeal to me at all…

But, I thought, maybe I should try an experiment… I’d get both of these books on tape, and then alternate listening to them. They represent what most Americans view as the far, opposite ends of the political spectrum, so much so that I think many people on the left and the right don’t really want to be associated with the one people might naturally associate them with. So, I decided to go for it, also picking up *In the Time of the Comet* by H. G. Wells, in case I couldn’t take it.

Well, basically, I couldn’t take it. I did make it through one tape of each one on the way up there before it just got to be too much, though, so I’ll say a bit about the first couple of chapters of these books and what it was like to listen to them “side-by-side” like that.

Oh, and before the start, in case it’s not obvious, I’m aware that I’m biased in this review, so if you’re tempted to write and tell me that I’m biased, don’t expect a reply.

The first chapter of Coulter’s book was certainly more annoying than what followed. I think the most troublesome thing about it to me is that she talked about liberals as if they are all exactly the same, so if Ted Kennedy did something wrong, then so did I, because she would consider me a liberal. Some of her assertions made me laugh out loud, like that liberals won’t engage in a real argument but instead will only focus on a catch phrase like “Bush Lied”. I can’t help but wonder if she can’t tell if a liberal will argue or not because she wouldn’t give them time to speak. I imagined myself on a talk show with her, and had trouble imagining how I’d be allowed to get a word in edgewise. The official amazon.com review summarizes some of her advice as “don’t be defensive, always outrage the enemy, and never apologize to, compliment, or show graciousness to a Democrat” and while I can’t say that’s an exact quote, I bet she’d think it was at least a fair summation. She offered a few examples of how some Democrats had been rude to Republicans who had shown graciousness. I agree that some of those were rude, but I was not at all convinced that this was the rule rather than the exception.

What’s certainly more striking — and, I must say, more interesting — about her writing is her actual positions on some of the issues of the day. It’s a bit hard to tell her position sometimes, because she is mixing humor with political commentary, which doesn’t bother me, but it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s hyperbole and what’s her actual position (turns out there doesn’t appear to be a website called “ihateanncoulterwithahothothate.com” (I tried google and several variations in case I was remembering it wrong, but I certainly couldn’t find it. If someone can correct me, I’d be most appreciative), but if there was, I’m sure she wouldn’t be seriously believe that the author was trying to present something unbiased).

So, for instance, I bet she doesn’t really think that the US should invade France… Like, I don’t *think* she’d support sending actual American troops to France and actually trying to topple their government. But, it doesn’t matter, because this is a good lead-in to what I have to say that’s positive about her: she presented a nice, thorough argument for why France is not a good friend to the US. I don’t agree with her, but I do respect her for presenting a historical account of all the ways that she thinks that France has hurt the US. During the whole “Freedom Fries” thing, with right-wing Americans pouring french wine down sewers and stuff, I took it as very simplistic frustration with France opposing the Bush administration’s intent to invade Iraq. Coulter’s presentation certainly made more sense than anything I heard anyone say at the time. I could say the same thing, actually, about the case for invading Iraq: I listened to most of Colin Powell’s speech before the UN, to all of Bush’s “Cincinnati” speech talking of the urgency of going into Iraq, and read/heard countless essays advocating that position. None of those made as much sense as Coulter’s presentations. So, nice work, Ann.

But, at the end of the day, I do not feel bad about not ascribing to her feelings about how to deal with Islamic nations: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” I don’t recall any lip service in what I heard to respecting Islam, or that the majority of Muslims are not terrorists. Her case really seems to be that we should irradicate the religion, not by killing all Muslims, but I guess by killing enough of them to control Islamic countries, and then deliberately converting them to Christianity. No, I don’t see that as good. I believe in the freedom of religion, not just for Americans, but for everyone. Furthermore, I do not see the survival or prosperity of the United States as being fundamentally threatened by this religion. And, I guess I just need a really good reason to think that we should be risking American troops and overthrowing other nations. So, I guess I’m definitely a liberal to her. For this, according to her, I hate my country (I even hate homosexuals!) and I don’t want to engage in reasoned debate. I don’t know, maybe she’d make an exception for me. *chuckle*

Ok, after finishing the first tape of Coulter’s book, I put in Michael Moore. It’s a difficult comparison. I think Moore is probably just as set in his ways as is Coulter, I’m not sure I could say which one is more fundamentally biased. But, the parts of Moore’s book that I heard were much more about bashing the Bush administration specifically, not conservatives in general.

I liked both books best when they were being specific, and the least when they were generalizing. So, Moore went into detail about his understanding of how the Bush team won the 2000 election illegitimately. I don’t know if all of his facts are true or not (I suspect that at least some of them aren’t). But as with Coulter’s France presentation, I appreciated that he was at least presenting a thorough case. And, what can I say, I do think there’s real reason to question the legitimacy of that election. But, hey, that’s ancient history at this point.

I admit that I listened to more of Moore than of Coulter… it is really difficult to listen to someone insult and belittle you for your beliefs and those of people who you associate with. I’d be much more inclined to hear people like Coulter out if I didn’t have to feel like I was being whipped at the same time. But, she’s not writing to me, she’s writing to people who already hate liberals. Perhaps this is why it doesn’t feel like real political discourse.

And, of course, that exact same criticism is true of Moore. I don’t know how many conservatives actually sat through *Farenheit 9/11*, but if they did, they knew that this movie was not made to get them to defect from the GOP… it is an opinion piece, created for people who are already inclined to agree with the author. *Stupid White Men* is the same way. So is *How to talk to a Liberal*.

My favorite part of what I head in *Stupid White Men* was Moore’s talk about black Americans. It was definitely not the standard Democratic party line, or any other standard line. It was quite a bit different than any treatment of the issue I’ve ever heard. Thought-provoking.

Well, anyway, the end of the story is that as I entered Chicago it was time to turn on the radio to hear the results of Patrick Fitzgerald’s news conference, which turned out to be the indictment of Libby, who subsequently resigned. I actually got to hear a good deal of the actual news conference, which totally triggered my “CSPAN Syndrome” (the feeling I get when I’m seeing original political sources live). I loved it. Compared with what I’d just been hearing, it sounded so… calm, so rational, so predictable in its reason. I didn’t feel like I was trying to be convinced to believe something, I felt like I was hearing a report on something. Patrick Fitzgerald did a great job dealing with the press, I thought, giving very consistent answers and refusals to answer all of their questions. I also thought the press did a great job of probing him, trying to get a sense of the things he didn’t want to tell them about.

So, what can I say? I prefer to learn about politics in less venomous ways. I don’t think many people are stupid. I don’t like being called stupid, nor do I like people calling people I disagree with stupid. I do like the American political process. I like it when the press *presses* politicians for information, and I like watching politicians handle these encounters with grace. I like hearing political opinion, too, but I definitely prefer it when it’s presented civily rather than with lots of belittlement of others in the public debate. But, I guess, in the abstract, I’m glad that it all exists. I just know what I prefer.

If you don’t live around here (or if you live here but never leave
your bomb shelter) then you might not know that the [Lotus World Music
& Arts Festival](http://lotusfest.org/) is this big deal music
festival in Bloomington. Definitely the biggest event anything like
it in town, they close off streets and get about six venues to all
open their doors to whatever music gets scheduled by the Lotus
organizers. The town starts buzzing. Everyone in my circle of
friends gets really really excited.

Well, almost everyone…

(more…)

Jeremy recently passed along to me a conjecture that he’d heard:

>if you shuffle a deck of cards well, then it’s likely that never in history has a deck of cards been in that exact order.

I mentioned this to Sue, Michael and Megan in Portland, and there was general disbelief. I hadn’t done the math, but was inclined to believe it, because I knew 52 factorial was a really big number. Well, here’s the math, I believe the conjecture.

(more…)

Last Friday I was invited on short notice to a game of poker, hosted by some of Kynthia’s friends from the IU School of Informatics. It’s hard for me to ever turn down a game of cards. I accepted happily. Playing cards is a deep experience for me. I’m going to take this opportunity to expound profusely on the role that cards played in my upbringing.
(more…)