Here’s a bunch of stuff from the New York Times (registration required):
- My favorite musical, Two Gentlemen of Verona, is being revived tonight in Central Park. This is just an incredibly fun, mixed up musical. I do hope it results in a new cast album, and perhaps a touring company. It would be great to see it again.
- Did you know that your medicine can make you fat? It appears that many drugs can cause weight gain: diabetes drugs, certain psychiatric medications, some blood pressure treatments, corticosteroids (taken by people with severe allergies, asthma or arthritis) and even over-the-counter antihistamines can cause the patients who take them to gain weight. The last interests me, for I do get the munchies after an allergy attack. Why? Quoting the article:
Antihistamines, which people usually take on their own to control allergic reactions or to help themselves get to sleep, can promote weight gain, too. This occurs only in a minority of people who take the drugs, said Dr. Linda B. Ford, director of the Asthma and Allergy Center in Omaha.
It is not known exactly how drugs cause weight gain. Antihistamines may increase hunger because histamine receptors are thought to play a role in appetite.
- There’s an interesting article about how the medical system does a wonderful job of making a person be degraded into a “patient” (this is said in the same derogatory fashion that sysadmins used to say “user”).
- Want eggs? Get a chicken. According to the referenced article, that’s what a lot of folks are doing: “a growing number of exurban and suburban Americans who keep the birds not for commercial reasons but as pets, family egg producers, show animals or some combination.” I mention this because a number of folks I know have expressed interest in that very thing, and evidently most zoning laws permit it. Me? I’d rather get my eggs at Trader Joes!
[Why the user pic? Just decided to use one of my new ones. New York and Pastrami go together anyway!]
