Woodstock CT Café

from John

I never pass up an opportunity to brag about my cousin Meg’s daughter and her accomplishments as an elite Marathon runner. Meg and I grew up together in Rowayton CT and only re-connected after Becki and I moved to Woodstock in 1996. Although I have not seen Meg since the early 1960s, it has been nice talking to her on the phone and receiving her notes in the mail. One of the best things about moving back to CT from California has been re-uniting with my extended family of 15 cousins and seeing all of my aunts and uncles who were/are still alive and many Rowayton friends. With myself and four siblings, I am the eldest of the 20 cousins and an uncountable number of second cousins including five grandchildren soon to be seven.

Left to right (click to enlarge): Meg with mother Lois and father Rex; sister Phoebe, brother Peter, and brother David sitting on my mother’s lap with me standing in front of my father; and cousin Suzie next to her mother Kate and father Charlie. This event was Christmas in 1952 at our grandparents house in McLean VA.

I’ve been following Meg’s daughter Heidi (now Heidi Westerling Westover at the age of 30) since I heard of her heroics in Track at the University of Rhode Island where she was a leading NCAA long-distance runner. Two years ago, Heidi finished 18th in the 2010 Boston Marathon and 3rd among American women with a time of 2 hours 39 minutes and 14 seconds (2:39:14). This was an improvement over her performance in 2009 when she finished 14th but with a time of 2:43:11. Her time in the 2010 Boston Marathon qualified her to compete for only three spots on the Olympic Marathon team in the Olympic Trials held in Houston and that finish time ranked her 46th among 225 qualifiers for the long-distance Trials this month.

Here is the layout in Houston on January 14th, Saturday, 2012:
Weather: sunny, clear
Temperature: 40F (start); 57F (finish)
Wind: WSW 9-12 mph
Qualifiers = 225
Declared = 188
Starters = 183
Finishers = 152
Prize purse = $20,000 bonus per runner for Olympic Marathon participation, with $50,000 for the Olympic Trials champion.

Heidi’s interview with NH news at WMUR.com a few days before traveling to the Olympic Trials in mid January. Skip the ad to get to her interview.

Heidi finished 15th out of 152 finishers with a time of 2:35:45 her best time in a world-class marathon. No, she didn’t make the Olympic team of three but as you can see from the ages of the top 15 finishers, there is a lot of marathon life after 30. Congrats, Heidi Westover and parents Meg and Tommy Westerling. One thing that makes Heidi stand out among these finishers is that she is a full-time 5th grade teacher in the Charlestown MA school system.

See comment below.

This is from an email I received this week. If you are able and inclined, please support this cause. Thank you. – Becki

An entertaining video about coffee, apparently NOT from Starbucks or the Coffee Lobby – provided by a frequent Cafe’er.

from John

Since I drink a large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee (2.5 cups) almost every morning and became hooked on coffee, espresso and regular, in 1981 when I moved to Palo Alto CA, I have often wondered about the health effects of coffee. To make matters worse (or better), I usually have two cups of caffeine-laden tea a day. I finally got an opportunity to look into this in the past week. Here is what I learned from reviewing a large body of clinical studies on the health effects of coffee. Everything stated below can be backed up with high level publications of clinical studies and systematic clinical reviews.

Printers’ Inc was the first Coffee House/Book store, just a few blocks from the Pauling Institute and Stanford University. This is where Becki and I hung out on Sunday mornings and where I wrote grant proposals and research papers before power books. We enjoyed the brainiacs and other interesting writers and readers that surrounded us there.

Coffee is a complex mixture of chemicals that provides significant amounts of caffeine and chlorogenic acid to the consumer. Unfiltered coffee such as boiled coffee or espresso coffee is also a significant source of cafestol and kahweol, substances discussed below which are associated with elevated cholesterol. These two latter compounds are removed during paper filtration of percolated coffee. Overall, there is little evidence of health risks and some evidence of health benefits for adults consuming moderate amounts of coffee (3–4 cups/d providing 300–400 mg/day of caffeine).

Impact of coffee drinking on risk of type-2 diabetes

Six out of nine prospective cohort studies found a significant inverse association between the risk of type-2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and coffee intake.

A prospective study of more than 17,000 Dutch men and women found that the risk of developing type-2 DM was 50% lower in those who consumed at least 7 cups of coffee daily compared to those who drank 2 cups or less.

In Finland, where coffee consumption is among the highest in the world, a study that followed more than 14,000 men and women for an average of 12 years found that men who drank at least 10 cups of coffee daily had a 55% lower risk of developing type-2 DM than men who drank 2 cups or less, while women who drank at least 10 cups daily had a risk of type-2 DM that was 79% lower.

In a cohort of more than 10,000 Finnish twins, those who consumed at least 7 cups of coffee daily had a 35% lower risk of type-2 DM than those who consumed 2 cups or less.

In a smaller cohort of Swedish women followed for 18 years, those who drank at least 3 cups of coffee daily had a risk of type-2 DM that was about 50% lower than the risk for those who consumed less than 2 cups daily.

The two largest prospective cohort studies to examine the relationship between coffee consumption and type-2 DM were the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (41,934 men) and the Nurses’ Health Study (84,276 women) in the USA. Men who drank at least 6 cups of coffee daily had a 54% lower risk of developing type-2 DM than men who did not drink coffee, and women who drank at least 6 cups of coffee daily had a 29% lower risk than women who did not drink coffee. A more modest inverse association between decaffeinated coffee consumption and the risk of type-2 DM was also observed in both men and women, suggesting that compounds other than caffeine may have protective effects. In contrast, tea consumption was not associated with type-2 DM risk in the Dutch or American cohorts.

Impact of coffee drinking on risk of Parkinson’s disease

Overall, the results of case-control studies suggest that coffee and caffeine intakes are inversely associated with the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Several large prospective cohort studies have also found inverse associations between coffee and caffeine intakes and Parkinson’s disease risk in men. A study of more than 8,000 Japanese-American men found that those who did not drink coffee were 3–5 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease over the next 24–30 years than those who drank at least 28 oz daily. Caffeine intakes from coffee and other sources were also inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease risk. Similarly, in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, men who regularly consumed at least one cup of coffee daily had a risk of developing Parkinson’s disease over the next 10 years that was about half that of men who did not drink coffee. The consumption of tea and other caffeinated beverages was also inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease risk. In contrast, inverse associations between coffee and caffeine consumption and Parkinson’s disease risk over a 16-year period were not observed in the Nurses’ Health Study. Similarly, in the Cancer Prevention Study (CPS) II cohort of more than 500,000 men and women in the US, coffee consumption was inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease mortality in men but not women. The failure of prospective studies to find an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and Parkinson’s disease in women may be due to the modifying effect of estrogen replacement therapy.

Further analysis of the Nurses’ Health Study cohort revealed that coffee consumption was inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease risk in women who had never used postmenopausal estrogen, but a significant increase in Parkinson’s disease risk was observed in postmenopausal estrogen users who drank at least 6 cups of coffee daily. In the CPS II cohort, a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and Parkinson’s disease mortality was also observed in women who had never used postmenopausal estrogen, but not in those who used postmenopausal estrogen. Caffeine is largely metabolized by hepatic CYP1A2, and the use of postmenopausal estrogen replacement therapy has been found to inhibit CYP1A2-mediated caffeine metabolism.

Possible mechanism for the effect of caffeine in Parkinson’s disease

Recent research supports the idea that chronic caffeine consumption could reduce Parkinson’s disease risk. Parkinson’s disease is characterized by the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra at the base of the brain. Studies in animal models suggest that caffeine consumption decreases the risk of Parkinson’s disease by protecting against dopaminergic neurotoxicity. The effects of caffeine in the central nervous system are related to its activity as an antagonist of the A1 and A2A subtypes of the adenosine receptor. The expression of A2A-receptors in the brain is restricted almost entirely to the striatum, the target of the dopaminergic neurons that degenerate in Parkinson’s disease. Acute toxicity with the neurotoxin, MPTP, can induce Parkinsonism in humans. This story was well documented in the book The Case of the Frozen Addicts and memorialized in the Public Television series NOVA under the same title. Dr. William Langston (a former colleague of mine), the discoverer of the link between MPTP and Parkinsonism, developed a well-established animal model of Parkinson’s disease uses MPTP to induce dopaminergic neurotoxicity in squirrel monkeys that was extended to mice. Caffeine, at doses comparable to typical human exposures, has been found to attenuate MPTP-induced losses of striatal dopamine and dopamine transporter binding sites in mice. Specific A2A-receptor antagonists mimicked the effect of caffeine as did the absence of functional A2A-receptors in A2Areceptor knockout mice. At present, it is not known exactly how A2A-receptor blockade reduces dopaminergic neurotoxicity. Read the rest of this entry »

Lawyer: [reading from Walt's will] And I’d like to leave my 1972 Gran Torino to…
[the lawyer pauses and looks up at Ashley, who smiles expectantly]
Lawyer: …my friend… Thao Vang Lor. On the condition that you don’t chop-top the roof like one of those beaners, don’t paint any idiotic flames on it like some white trash hillbilly, and don’t put a big, gay spoiler on the rear end like you see on all the other zipperheads’ cars. It just looks like hell. If you can refrain from doing any of that… it’s yours.

When delayed openings are necessary the Woodstock Public Schools will be using a 2 Hour Delay. This synchronizes the WPS and the WA.

In light of the two weather emergencies experienced in the beginning of the year, the Academy has modified their calendar as follows:

Jan. 23 – Regular school day
Jan. 31 & Feb 1 – EXAMS Dismissal 12:00 PM
Feb. 2 – Transition Day – 2 Hour Delay (start time 9:40)
Feb. 17 – PD Day – Dismissal 11:32
Feb. 21 – Regular Day
Mar. 23 – Regular Day – not PD Day

from John

I have decided that I need to write something to kick off the New Year at the Café … but what to write about? Maybe I’ll talk about a little bit of everything. Things that have been foremost in my mind lately are the Republican Presidential campaign, evolution of the species, and modern genetics. So this is where I will start.

First, why do Presidential candidates campaign with their religious beliefs? Why is it important at the national level that you have religion? Romney has a religion but doesn’t want to talk about it … or maybe he is saddled with his parents religion and doesn’t really care. The discussion revolving around his religion has mainly been that it’s the wrong religion but I don’t think that discussion is coming from agnostics and atheists. It is coming from professed Christians – the ‘right’ ones. It’s my impression that Christians can be the most critical of the religious beliefs of others – beliefs that they don’t share. I once heard a group of ‘born-again’ Christians indicting others in their flock because they didn’t speak in tongues.

What would happen if a professed agnostic or atheist ran a serious and charismatic campaign for the presidency? This could be no worse than a pizza salesman, a Morman, a black man, or an anti-gay who doesn’t believe in genetic predisposition. I would like to see an agnostic or an atheist run so we could test and learn the response of the electorate. What about a candidate who openly believes in genetic evolution and natural selection as the origin of the species? There would probably be candlelight vigils around the country to defeat the infidel. Even today, teachers who attempt to educate students on Darwin’s well-accepted theory would be run out of the teaching profession.

Darwin developed his theory on the origin of the species during the three decades between 1830 and 1859 when he published his first thesis, “Origin of the Species.” Part of his basis for this theory was his acknowledgement of the cruelty of nature in selection of the fittest. The coup de grace of his Christianity was the devastating death of his daughter, Annie, at the age of eleven. She likely died from tuberculosis but at that time, 1851, TB was not understood as a single disease because of the diversity of its symptoms. It would be interesting to see a candidate who publicly embraces Darwin’s theory pursue the Presidency. It’s my impression that Hilary is not religious, at least based on her public persona. Perhaps she could be the first; but she probably would not come forth with this belief if she has it. It’s hard to believe that Ron Paul is religious – I don’t think he has spoken about this.

Read the rest of this entry »

We need to be nastier!

Looking back at the articles of the last six years, it becomes clear that we have lost the knack of insulting people … that is, without profanity. We need to strive to do better. Maybe I need to take ‘LoadStar’ seriously although it’s not easy. If Loadstar would say something intelligent maybe I could respond, but I find his probing BORING! Yawn. Let’s try and do better next year. Let’s insult some people and maybe we will add some Clingons. HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!

Cafe Admin

Definition of “nastier” according to and un-identified Internet source:

adj. nas·ti·er, nas·ti·est
1.
a. Disgustingly dirty.
b. Physically repellent.
2. Morally offensive; indecent. See Synonyms at offensive.
3. Malicious; spiteful: “Will he say nasty things at my funeral?” (Ezra Pound).
4. Very unpleasant or annoying: nasty weather; a nasty trick.
5. Painful or dangerous; grave: a nasty accident.

The Cafe would like to thank this anonymous individual for the free advertising in the “Sound Off ” section of the Villager today. Surely this article will finally win a Pewlitzer for the Villager… And for all of the new visitors coming to the Cafe as a result of this article, WELCOME! Please file to the right as you enter and read the Key Article (on the right sidebar) entitled “Internet Hanky-Panky” for background on this prize winner and his attacks on the Board of Education. The following is the article from the Villager with a few appropriate annotations.

Title: “Disagrees with Andrzeick’s (sic) letter”

“This is in response to the letter by Mr.William E. Andrzeick (sic) about the internet Cafe.

I have been a reader/blogger at the Woodstock Cafe Web site for more than two years (every day ), and I strongly disagree with the position that the town should associate itself with the Cafe just to gain access to Woodstock citizens. It does not take one (literally one ) much time to realize that the Cafe is most certainly not an open and democratic (small d) forum for political/social debate. The Cafe and its administration are brazenly biased, spiteful and hypocritical (we’re only human ), but most of all, the Cafe is a sham of allegedly open debate (not an unbiased opinion ).

The administrators of the Cafe wave the banner of open debate when nothing could be further from the truth ( from the world’s leading expert on the truth ). The administrator of the Cafe clearly backs up his ideological lackeys (Taxpayer and Wetzel??? ) and dismisses fundamentally opposing views from the site (falsehood ). I have been unofficially banned (it’s not unofficial ) from the site with no reason or explanation (falsehood; see “Internet Hanky Panky” in the Key Articles ), and even the archives have been cleaned of my posts (falsehood except for one ). I have never used vulgarity (falsehood ) or arguments from intimidation as is the practice of many liberal bloggers there (falsehood ). And yet I have been deemed non-suitable for the open debate at the Web site (true ). I am not alone in the banned category (true ) for expressing opposing ideas other than those held by the administrator (profanities and threats ). There is a large group of banished individuals (falsehood; two is a large group? ) who argue ideas contrary to the Cafe administrator and the Cafe majority.

The Cafe loves to defend its anonymous policy with ardor (true ), yet lambasts anonymous letters in this newspaper as squeaky mice (falsehood; we never uttered “skeaky mice” except this one time; opps ) for daring to criticize the intellectual phoniness of the Web site (falsehood ). That is a common, consistent example of what the Cafe primarily does “slandering and ridiculing an opposing idea rather than argue against its merits (falsehood ). It is rampant anti-intellectual emotionalism and blatant hypocrisy (what a mouthful ). It is a shame the Cafe cannot have its cake and eat it, too (then would you like a ‘banned from the Cafe T-shirt? … or perhaps you would like a “YOU MORON” coffee mug ; we try to please) .

The Cafe web site has every right to screen its open debate forum (couldn’t have said it better ), present whatever positions it supports and use it as a launching pad for aspiring political ambitions and negative attacks upon other candidates, as it is privately owned. But for the town to associate itself with a phony free debate site merely for greater access to citizens (we reached you, didn’t we? ) is a precedent that any legitimate organization should seriously reconsider. It is the equivalent of using the National Enquirer to access a greater audience (what’s wrong with the National Inquirer? ). But unlike the National Enquirer, the biggest black mark against the Cafe is not its hypocrisy, cynicism or left wing mudslinging, but its utter sophomoric nature (true; thanks for the compliment ).”

This classic was first published April 4, 2007.

The prequel to this story is here.

The rest of the story

On November 16th an email was sent to the superintendent of Woodstock Schools and copied to members of the Board of Education from a character calling himself ‘Web Police’ with the email address ‘webpolice’ (email deleted) stating as follows:

“RE: The Cafe
Mr. Superintendent:
I find it appalling that you would submit official business statements to a website with no accountability that is not a legitimate news source. What exactly is your agenda in doing this? Is it politically motivated? Whatever the reason, it is irresponsible. How dare you add legitimacy to this abberation (sic).
Have you checked into the operator/owner of the site? If not, here is some information for you-
This is the registered owner of the site: (address deleted) and a little background on this individual: (address deleted) Nice, huh? Are you so desperate for approval that you would associate the school system with the likes of this? What is his motivation for being involved in our town? What is the motivation of the unidentified ‘Administration’ of this site? WAKE UP! This goes for other officials of this two bit town as well. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is an email that we received from Mariah today. She is working tirelessly with a small group of people toward creating a news and educational media platform to support the huge network of first responders nationwide.
Fire Rescue TV is a web based private television network for First Responders updated 24/7 and a digital signage, private television network in fire facilities. Fire Rescue TV will provide viewers with an extensive library of videos, breaking news throughout the day and an in-depth look at the latest firefighting tools and trends affecting our nation’s First Responders.

I wanted to let you know that we have been accepted into the Pepsi Refresh Project competition. From today (December 1st 2011) until December 31st Pepsi will be taking votes! If we are in the top 10 in the $50,000 bracket we will be able to donate 13 Fire Rescue TV screens to Volunteer Fire Departments across the country!

Please take a couple minutes a day to vote for us.

You can vote daily at http://www.refresheverything.com/firerescuetvgrant

and/or

You can vote daily by text messaging 110644 to 73774

The number you send the message to is 73774. The message you send is the number 110644.

Please help us make this a reality!!

Thank you,
Mariah

Mariah C. Leavitt

Fire Rescue TV
408 Investors Place – Suite 101
Virginia Beach, Virginia 23452

(757) 687-8796
www.FireRescueTV.com

First Due to the NEWS

If Fire Rescue TV gets one of $50K awards, Mariah will get to assign one of those screens to the department of her choice. Let’s blow up the numbers at the Pepsi voting site and the text message site. It’ll only take a couple of minutes a day. Vote every day yourself. Get your buddies, spouses and friends to vote too!

from John

Since this has been batted around on Facebook, I thought I should fess up.

Counter-clockwise from the top left: Tricycle, Rolly (dog), Munchie, Lilly, Button, Muffin, and Tabasco at the window sill.

from John Dlugosz

Charter will connect up to the town hall of any/all the towns they serve–but there is a cost. Several years ago they did a presentation to Woodstock on this, but the town choose not to pursue funding a connection back to Charter. Depending on a number of technical considerations, the cost can be as high as 15k, or even more. This would not include cameras, switchers, etc–or the folks to run them. In other words, the signal (picture, audio, character generation) would have to be created (live), then passed into the box from charter (located at one location in town hall), which would then convert it and send it down the fiber back to the head end in Windham, then back out to cable subscribers on Channel 13 in Woodstock. Towns have taken a variety of approaches to this–Mansfield has purchased a high quality remote studio with 3 cameras, switching, etc. Other towns, a single camcorder connects up to the system. Woodstock can request an estimate of the cost for this connection–there would be no charge for such an estimate. Note that this would be to the town hall–not the Middle School where BOE meetings typically occur. Also–as the high school for the town, WA has their own channel, CH 17. They could theoretically broadcast from there–either live or recorded–but if live, presumably events would need to take place there.

There is, potentially, grant funding available to support the sort of build-out necessary as described above. The PEGPETIA Grants (Public, Educational and Governmental Programing and Education Technology Investment Account) are available (see: http://tinyurl.com/cpapdoj which opens to a word file) via the Department of Public Utility Control. I’ve been told it can take quite a while to process proposals for this funding, and that the state typically raids these funds to make up budget shortfalls elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

See the NY Times.

“Show me a smart, competent young professional woman who is utterly derailed by a verbal unwanted sexual advance or an inappropriate comment about her appearance, and I will show you a rare spotted owl.”

First of all they see the Cafe Header and the Sidebars.
Visitors from different states and countries (click images to see the full list):

What visitors from afar see when they come to the Cafe (if they X the image they see the article):