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Obesity Research Must Find a Cure for Junk Food Addiction
Tweet Share on Facebook March 29, 2010 Comment (25)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
We now have scientific proof that something most of us suspected for a long time actually exists: an addiction to junk food. According to an article on foodconsumer.org:
"...The worst part is that the rats became so addicted to the junk food, they began compulsively eating it, despite the fact that they received an unpleasant electric shock to their feet if they consumed more than was allowed.
In contrast, rats that were given a healthy diet and only limited access to junk food did not gain much weight; more impressively, they knew when they needed to stop to avoid a junk food hangover.
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Catholic Sex Scandal Raises Question: How Do You Remove a Pope?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 26, 2010 Comment (133)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The pope's involvement in and even sanctioning of the priest pedophilia scandal continues to grow, as reporting by the New York Times of formerly secret church memos shows. According to the U.K.'s Times Online:
Contrary to statements released by the Church in Germany, a memorandum uncovered by The New York Times suggests that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was told that a priest had gone back to pastoral duties in Munich a few days after he started psychiatric treatment. The priest went on to commit further offences.
The latest child abuse scandal to hit the Catholic Church involves a German priest, Father Peter Hullermann, who was convicted of molesting boys in 1986. Victims have complained that repeated warnings were ignored by the Church over decades of abuse.
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Joe Biden's Big Deal--He Should Know Better By Now
Tweet Share on Facebook March 24, 2010 Comment (98)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
This is by far the best one-liner I've seen used in the media in quite some time. As CBS News reports, one Tweeter quipped:
"FDR had the New Deal. Truman had the Fair Deal. J-Biden gives us the Big F***ing Deal."
And Vice President Joe Biden's unfortunate (but not unpreventable) recorded utterance while he was congratulating the president yesterday for getting healthcare reform legislation through Congress, has gone viral and is guaranteed a place in history as part of what he will be remembered by. Biden is certainly not the first politician to say something inept in front of a microphone. Ronald Reagan joked once that the United States would begin bombing Russia "in five minutes" and it didn't seem too funny to political leaders in Moscow.
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Healthcare Reform Is Only a Partial Victory for Women
Tweet Share on Facebook March 22, 2010 Comment (11)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests," Mr. Obama said. "We didn't give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things."
Well, that's the president's characterization of his victory on healthcare reform, according to the New York Times. There are a couple of things I like about this bill. But the final verdict will come a year or more from now when insurance companies raise rates to cover all the newly insured. This, I predict, will not be a happy or historic day for middle-class Americans who are already paying for their own health insurance.
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Bipartisan Immigration Reform Bill: Too Forgiving on Lawbreakers?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2010 Comment (75)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Will we have immigration reform this year? It did not look like Congress and the Obama administration would come anywhere near close to compromising on an immigration reform bill--that was until this week when two influential U.S. senators announced the framework "for a bipartisan immigration bill that would increase resources for border enforcement, create a biometric Social Security card to prevent forgeries, and legalize millions of undocumented immigrants."
In an unlikely political marriage, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham believe it's time for action and that a resolution to the most difficult of issues should not be postponed beyond November's election.
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Catholic Church Can Blame Itself for Sex Scandals, Declining Confidence
Tweet Share on Facebook March 17, 2010 Comment (41)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If someone set out to destroy the image of the Catholic Church hierarchy as god-like and beyond reproach, that person could not possibly do a better job of destroying that veneer than what is being done by church leaders themselves. Sex scandal after sex scandal after pedophilia scandal has dogged the church leadership for the past two decades or more, and the pope and his close advisers have yet to catch up with how to handle a 21st-century public relations gaffe, much less trying to piece back together the lives of so many people ruined by priests’ actions.
First, there were the priest pedophilia incidents that came to light in the mid-1980s and rocked the American church to the point where whole dioceses filed for bankruptcy as lawsuits for sexual abuse skyrocketed.
Now similar cases seem to be appearing all over Europe, including Germany, where the pope’s own brother is linked to a nasty and growing scandal. According to Reuters:
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Delaware State Axes Equestrian Team, Possibly Violating Title IX
Tweet Share on Facebook March 15, 2010 Comment (14)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Now here's a Title IX lawsuit after my own heart. The Women's Law Project, a Philadelphia-based group suing in behalf of women's rights, has filed suit against Delaware State University for deciding to eliminate its equestrian team at the end of this school year.
This suit resonates with me because I, too, compete in equestrian sports and I know what an incredible confidence-builder it can be for young women. But here's where the plot thickens. Delaware State is a Historically Black College/University or HBCU. African-Americans participate in the kind of equestrian sport in which I participate, hunter-jumper shows--in percentages much lower than their representation in the general U.S. population. So why Delaware State would have an equestrian team is somewhat of a mystery to me.
