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The United States of Mind
Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian.
But the conscientious Floridian? The neurotic Kentuckian?
You bet -- at least, according to new research on the geography of personality. Based on more than 600,000 questionnaires and published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, the study maps regional clusters of personality traits, then overlays state-by-state data on crime, health and economic development in search of correlations.
Even after controlling for variables such as race, income and education levels, a state's dominant personality turns out to be strongly linked to certain outcomes. Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime. Dutiful states -- an eclectic bunch that includes New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah -- produce a disproportionate share of mathematicians. States that rank high in openness to new ideas are quite creative, as measured by per-capita patent production. But they're also high-crime and a bit aloof. Apparently, Californians don't much like socializing, the research suggests.
As for high-anxiety states, that group includes not just Type A New York and New Jersey, but also states stressed by poverty, such as West Virginia and Mississippi. As a group, these neurotic states tend to have higher rates of heart disease and lower life expectancy.
Lead researcher Peter Jason Rentfrow, lecturer at the University of Cambridge in England, said he was startled to find such correlations. "That just blew me away," he said.
Psychologists unaffiliated with the study say it's intriguing but limited. There's no way to unravel the chicken-and-egg question: Do states tend to nurture specific personalities because of their histories, cultures, even climates? Or do Americans, seeking kindred spirits, migrate to the states where they feel at home? Maybe both forces are at work -- but in what balance?
Another issue: The personality maps may reinforce stereotypes and tempt us to draw overly simplistic conclusions, said Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of Arizona. Knowing Arizona ranks low in neuroticism, Ms. Schmader said, she might conclude that sunny weather makes for sunny dispositions. But if the data had turned out the other way, the sun could just as easily be blamed for high neuroticism -- for driving Arizonans stir crazy by keeping them cooped up in air conditioning.
"We tend to reject information that doesn't agree with our stereotypes," Ms. Schmader said.
Cross-cultural psychology was all the rage in the 1930s and 1940s, driven by a craze among anthropologists for comparing child-rearing practices in modern and pre-industrial societies. But the discipline fell out of favor, partly because of concerns that the comparisons were driven more by value judgments than standardized assessments.
In the past decade, the field has been reinvigorated by the development of a 44-question personality test that evaluates five traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. Some psychologists disagree with this matrix; others would add traits such as honesty. But the assessment, called the Big Five Inventory, has been widely used in scientific research.
Mr. Rentfrow came to the field full of questions gleaned from a life spent hop-scotching across America. Why were his neighbors in Texas so relaxed, so courteous, so obsessed with sports? Why did New Yorkers seem so tense and inward-focused, often brusque to the point of rudeness?
For more click the link. Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian. ... more -
United Kingdom Talk Tuesday 16th September 2008
Tuesday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats.
In today's show :
Helping the little ones.
Trying to look nice.
Always thinking of others.
Florida or Paris ?
Matty has big plans.
Fireworks.
Ash has lost his job.
It's much smaller than you think.
My niece has an idea.
Disney.
They keep losing things.
Susan gets the cat food right.
I didn't notice the air coming out.
Watching the sun kiss the sea.
Not getting the whole story.
Cute.
A special blanket.
Give up smoking.
More news on Joy.
Trevor needs our help.
Trouble ironing.
Dragon's Den.
Tender little hair follicles.
It's not all bad after all.
Blue tack.
chris@unitedkingdomtalk.co.uk
WWW.UNITEDKINGDOMTALK.CO.UK Tuesday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats. ... more -
Scientists fear impact of Asian pollutants on U.S.
From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as they stream across the Pacific and take dead aim at the western U.S.
A fleet of tiny, specially equipped unmanned aerial vehicles, launched from an island in the East China Sea 700 or so miles downwind of Beijing, are flying through the projected paths of the pollution taking chemical samples and recording temperatures, humidity levels and sunlight intensity in the clouds of smog.
On the summit of 9,000-foot Mt. Bachelor in central Oregon and near sea level at Cheeka Peak on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula, monitors track the pollution as it arrives in America.
By some estimates more than 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia - ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone - reach the U.S. annually. The problem is only expected to worsen: Some Chinese officials have warned that pollution in their country could quadruple in the next 15 years.
While some scientists are less certain, others say the Asian pollution could destabilize weather patterns across the North Pacific, mask the effects of global warming, reduce rainfall in the American West and compromise efforts to meet air-pollution standards.
"East Asia pollution aerosols could impose far reaching environmental impacts at continental, hemispheric and global scales because of long-range transport," according to a report earlier this year in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The report said that a "warm conveyor belt" lifts the pollutants into the upper troposphere - the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere - over Asia, where winds can bring it to the U.S. in a week or less.
The National Academies of Science, at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and in consultation with the State Department, has assembled a panel to examine the problem and its impact. Its report is due next summer.
"Everyone realizes this is an issue of growing importance," said Laurie Geller of the National Academies of Science. "This is very challenging science with lots of complexities and a lot of uncertainties."
Though the problem of Asian air pollution has been known for years, no one has a handle on how much is blown in and what it includes. Scientists say Washington state and Oregon might be feeling the brunt of the effects.
"This pollution is distributed on average equally from northern California to British Columbia," said Dan Jaffe, a professor of environmental science at the University of Washington's Bothell campus. "Anyone who has gone out to measure it has found something."
Particulates such as dust and soot, along with heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs, mercury, ozone, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide have all been found. Jaffe said the pollutants can't be tracked to a single source such as a particular coal-burning plant, but their "chemical fingerprints" can point to a specific country.
Viruses, bacteria and fungi also can be transported on dust particles, though, so far, they've been found only on the dust and sand blowing off African deserts, not Asian ones.
Mercury, one of the most hazardous pollutants from the hundreds of coal-burning electricity generating plants in China and elsewhere in Asia, is of particular concern. One study estimated a fifth of the mercury entering Oregon's Willamette River comes from overseas, with China as the mostly likely source.
(continued)
-By LES BLUMENTHAL From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as th... more -
Imagine What Comes After
The greatest opportunity of our generation: that's what could be waiting for us, after we leave "green" behind. Saving the biosphere and spreading sustainable prosperity is going to take a lot more than doing things in a more environmentally-conscious manner; it's going to demand we remake much of our material civilization.
And that's good news. It frees us up to think in really new ways, to innovate, to create, to re-invent. Our day is almost defined by the exploding number of people who have access to tools and models and ways of thinking that were previously rare or expert or unimagined. If we live in an age of stark ecological limits, we also live in an age of widespread potential innovation.
We can see on the horizon the silhouette of something incredibly hopeful and exciting: a world of people whose boundless creativity within natural limits uplifts humanity and remakes civilization to be first sustainable, even restorative. This crisis could end up being the greatest opportunity of our generation.
In this work, though, we have two enemies: time and outdated thinking.
We must go fast now. We have possibilities today that we'll lose with every passing year, and the tipping points loom ahead: beyond those, only disaster awaits.
We've also got to toss aside the mindset that the status quo is reasonable. The very first step in bringing on a better future is acknowledging that our ideas of what's normal, or even what's possible, will not outlast the next decade. If we take radical change as a given, we'll quickly see that a number of solutions are already within our grasp.
Free our minds and our footprints will follow.
The movement towards planetary sanity has already accelerated to the point where it's now dragging "green" (in its shallow pop-culture sense) along behind it like an anchor. We're way past the stage of voluntary half-measures and into an era of widespread innovation, high standards and systemic change. Anything less merely distracts us from the goal.
Imagine a future that works -- that's what we must do! Not in a mushy, vague, feel-good sense, but in a concrete way; in a way that proclaims the transience of the world around us and the possibility before us.
(continued)
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Lets come together on Current right now and start a movement of our own!
Share, in words, images or sounds, your idea for the end of some outdated aspect of contemporary society and its replacement with a better way of doing things.
Start with the phrase, "Imagine no..."
or "Imagine..."
And if you need some inspiration:
Imagine no garbage cans
Imagine no warning labels
Imagine no smokestacks
Imagine no air conditioners
Imagine no sidewalks
Imagine no sprawl
Imagine no recession
Imagine no maintenance
Imagine no storm sewers
Imagine no hurry
Imagine no power bills
Imagine no recalls
Imagine no yard sales The greatest opportunity of our generation: that's what could be waiting for us, after we leave "green" behind. Saving ... more -
All U.S. Adults Could Be Overweight In 40 Years
If the trends of the past three decades continue, it's possible that every American adult could be overweight 40 years from now, a government-funded study projects.
The figure might sound alarming, or impossible, but researchers say that even if the actual rate never reaches the 100-percent mark, any upward movement is worrying; two-thirds of the population is already overweight.
"Genetically and physiologically, it should be impossible" for all U.S. adults to become overweight, said Dr. Lan Liang of the federal government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of the researchers on the study.
However, she told Reuters Health, the data suggest that if the trends of the past 30 years persist, "that is the direction we're going."
Already, she and her colleagues point out, some groups of U.S. adults have extremely high rates of overweight and obesity; among African- American women, for instance, 78 percent are currently overweight or obese.
The new projections, published in the journal Obesity, are based on government survey data collected between the 1970s and 2004.
If the trends of those years continue, the researchers estimate that 86 percent of American adults will be overweight by 2030, with an obesity rate of 51 percent. By 2048, all U.S. adults could be at least mildly overweight.
Weight problems will be most acute among African-Americans and Mexican- Americans, the study projects. All black women could be overweight by 2034, according to the researchers, as could more than 90 percent of Mexican-American men.
All of this rests on the "big assumption" that the trends of recent decades will march on unabated, Liang acknowledged.
"This is really intended as a wake-up call to show what could happen if nothing changes," she said.
Waistlines aren't the only thing poised to balloon in the future, according to Liang and her colleagues. They estimate that the healthcare costs directly related to excess pounds will double each decade, reaching $957 billion in 2030 -- accounting for one of every six healthcare dollars spent in the U.S.
Those financial projections are based on Census data and published estimates of the current healthcare costs attributed to excess weight -- and they are probably a "huge underestimate" of what the actual costs will be, Liang said.
The findings highlight a need for widespread efforts to improve Americans' lifestyles and keep their weight in check, according to the researchers. Simply telling people to eat less and exercise more is not enough, Liang noted.
Broader social changes are needed as well, she said -- such as making communities more pedestrian-friendly so that people can walk regularly, or getting the food industry to offer healthier, calorie-conscious choices.
"It really needs to be more than an individual effort," Liang said. "It needs to be a societal effort." If the trends of the past three decades continue, it's possible that every American adult could be overweight 40 years from now, ... more -
U.S. Wins Men's 4x400 Meter Relay
BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States won the gold medal in the men's 4x400 meters relay on Saturday in the last athletic event on the Beijing Olympic track.
The American quartet of LaShawn Merritt, Angelo Taylor, David Neville and Jeremy Wariner clocked a combined time of two minutes 55.39 seconds.
Bahamas, represented by Andretti Bain, Michael Mathieu, Andrae Williams and Christopher Brown, finished second in 2:58.03.
The Russian team of Maksim Dyldin, Vladislav Frolov, Anton Kokorin and Denis Alexeev were third in 2:58.06. BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States won the gold medal in the men's 4x400 meters relay on Saturday in the last athletic event o... more -
Poll Zeroes In On Weak Spots For McCain, Obama
An NPR poll of likely voters in 19 battleground states finds about half consider Illinois Sen. Barack Obama too risky. Those polled rank Arizona Sen. John McCain slightly behind Obama in terms of independence.
The poll results reveal voter doubts about both candidates' presidential qualities that may explain why neither seems to be able to break through a kind of ceiling this summer. In the national head-to-head matchups, Obama can't seem to break 50 percent, and McCain is stuck somewhere in the low to mid-40s.
The poll, conducted Aug. 12-14 by a bipartisan team of pollsters, surveyed voters in 19 states where the polling shows the race is very close or where the candidates have decided to make major investments of time and money, says Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. An NPR poll of likely voters in 19 battleground states finds about half consider Illinois Sen. Barack Obama too risky. Those polled ra... more -
U.S. misery continues in relays
BEIJING (Reuters) - Tyson Gay's miserable Olympics continued on Thursday when he and U.S. team mate Darvis Patton contrived to drop the baton in their 4x100 meters relay heat.
The U.S. were cruising towards the final and a shot at a 16th gold medal in the event when Patton bore down on Gay for the last changeover, but a mix-up ended with the baton tumbling to the rain-soaked track.
"I don't know what happened," triple world champion Gay told reporters. "The stick was in my hand. I think I felt it hit my hand, but I don't think it was in all the way before I grabbed. It's probably my fault, I take the blame for it."
Gay had also been bidding to make up for his failure to reach the 100m final.
On a night of mishaps in the sprint relay heats, Britain's men, surprise winners in Athens four years ago, were disqualified from heat two after completing their third change outside the box. BEIJING (Reuters) - Tyson Gay's miserable Olympics continued on Thursday when he and U.S. team mate Darvis Patton contrived to dr... more -
Girl from polygamist group ordered into state care
SAN ANGELO, Texas - A 14-year-old girl allegedly married to jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs with her parents' blessing at age 12 was ordered back into foster care Tuesday by a Texas judge.
District Judge Barbara Walther said that there was "uncontroverted evidence of the underage marriage" and that the girl's mother, Barbara Jessop, refused to guarantee the girl's safety. The girl, shown in photographs submitted to the court kissing Jeffs, must immediately enter foster care.
Her 11-year-old brother, whom Texas child welfare authorities also wanted placed in foster care, will be allowed to stay with his mother but will have to undergo psychological evaluation in the next month.
The girl's case marked the first effort by Child Protective Services to retake custody of a child who lived at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado before the April raid that resulted in 440 children being placed in foster care for six weeks. The Texas Supreme Court later struck down that early custody decision, saying the state failed to show any more than a handful of teenage girls might have been abused.
The children were returned to their parents in June. Since then, the child welfare agency has asked for custody of seven children, including the 14-year-old girl and her brother. It sought the dismissal of cases involving 76 children, including nine who have turned 18. The rest of the cases remain under investigation.
Lawyers reached settlements Tuesday in three of the cases in which state officials had sought custody, according to court filings. The three girls in those cases can stay with their mothers, provided that the women restrict contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages and comply with other, more routine custody-related court orders.
Hearings on the other two children the agency still wants in foster care were under way Tuesday afternoon. Both are daughters of Dr. Lloyd Hammon Barlow, who was indicted on three misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse. Authorities allege that he didn't report the babies he delivered to underage girls and that he married a 16-year-old.
In the case of the 14-year-old allegedly married to Jeffs, Walther said she felt she had to place the girl in foster care because Jessop "was unable to provide assurances that she'd be able to protect the child in the future."
On Monday, Jessop refused to answer roughly 50 questions asked by attorneys for Child Protective Services, including what constituted abuse, the names of her children and her relationship with their father.
"I stand on the Fifth (Amendment)," she said repeatedly.
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To read more, click on the link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080819/ap_on_re_us/polygam... SAN ANGELO, Texas - A 14-year-old girl allegedly married to jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs with her parents' blessing... more -
United Kingdom Talk Saturday 26th July 2008
Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats.
In today's show :
We are now more current.
The best salesperson ever !
Back Home.
Women in shops.
Deep thought.
Tips are assumed.
Susan's slow downloads.
Encroaching into someone else's life.
A big fish.
Where have the lines gone ?
Are you in the kitchen ?
Monica's back !
Robert in Iceland on Americans.
"Hello, is it me you're looking for ?"
A little bit of attention.
Go and see Loch Ness.
Reading a book.
Ryan says I am not fat.
Joe is taxing.
A tumble dryer is for drying clothes.
A gift for Tiny.
"You look lovely in that madam."
Where are the cuddly toys ?
Ivona is here in the UK - and loves Asda !
I am staying put.
Email :
chris@unitedkingdomtalk.co.uk
WWW.UNITEDKINGDOMTALK.CO.UK Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats. ... more -
U.S. cities, states not prepared for small nuke attack
It is a grim, almost unthinkable scenario
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DNA Testing Company Stops Direct-to-Consumer Sales in California
A genetic testing company has stopped direct-to-consumer sales in California as a result of receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the state's health department.
HairDX, which offers a genetic test that claims to predict clients' risk of hair loss, has decided, on advice of legal counsel, to require California (and New York) residents to order their tests through a doctor.
Other companies targeted by California continue to sell their services in the state, but HairDX's CEO, Andy Gores, said closing down their Internet orders in the market was an easy decision.
"It's not our mainstay business," Gores said. "We are focused mainly on [selling through] doctors."
Still, the company's decision to stop offering its genetic test to California residents is a sign that the Public Health Department's cease-and-desist letters are already having an impact on the nascent genetic testing industry.
On June 9th, the Laboratory Field Services division sent the letters to thirteen genetic testing companies. So far, in addition to HairDX, only Navigenics, 23andMe and DNATraits have confirmed they received a letter.
The Health Department requested responses to the letters by today, June 23, containing plans for coming into compliance with the department's interpretation of California state clinical laboratory testing laws.
Gores, like representatives from other genetic testing companies Wired.com has spoken with, voiced frustration with the health department's one-letter-fits-all regulatory action.
"I think their letter is a shotgun approach," he said. "The 23andMes of the world are more in the entertainment realm... We're on the opposite end of the spectrum."
The company's attorney, Elliott J. Stein, said he was preparing a response for the state, but was unsure of exactly what type of compliance plan the state desired.
"I don't know how all of this is supposed to play out," he said, but was confident that his client's business would ultimately prove acceptable to the health department.
In the meantime, Laboratory Field Services' chief Karen Nickel's declaration that California is "no longer tolerating direct to consumer genetic testing," has already succeeded in pushing one company out of the state. A genetic testing company has stopped direct-to-consumer sales in California as a result of receiving a cease-and-desist letter from t... more -
Graffiti Writer falls from a Freeway overpass in East Los Angeles
Witnesses say he fell onto the interstate near the Main Street off-ramp with a can of spray paint in his hands.
A man apparently spray painting graffiti on an overpass fell Saturday night onto the 5 Freeway in East Los Angeles, authorities said.
Several motorists told authorities that the man had possibly broken his back at about 9:45 p.m. and had a can of spray paint clutched in his hands as he lay on the freeway near the Main Street off-ramp, said California Highway Patrol spokesman David Porter. Porter said the man was taken to a nearby hospital where he was being treated.
The accident comes about three weeks after prolific tagger Cyrus Yazdani — who goes by the moniker “Buket” — was arrested for causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage.
Yazdani is perhaps most recognized for a YouTube video that shows him climbing and spray painting behind the Hollywood Freeway sign near Melrose Avenue as traffic speeds below.
[Via:Latimes] Witnesses say he fell onto the interstate near the Main Street off-ramp with a can of spray paint in his hands. ... more -
US calls for action on Mugabe
The US says it will go to the UN to see what "additional steps" can be taken to stop Robert Mugabe suppressing the Zimbabwean people.
The statement came after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the race, virtually handing victory to Mugabe.
"The Mugabe regime reinforces its illegitimacy everyday. The senseless acts of violence against the opposition as well as election monitors must stop," White House spokesman Carlton Carroll said in a statement.
"The United States is prepared to go to the United Nations Security Council early this week to look at additional steps that can be taken. Mugabe cannot be allowed to repress the Zimbabwean people forever."
The UN Security Council is due to meet tomorrow to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon today called Morgan Tsvangirai's decision to quit therun-off election a "deeply distressing development" and a bad omen for the country's future, his spokesman said.
"The circumstances that led to the withdrawal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai today from the Presidential elections represents a deeply distressing development that does not bode well for the future of democracy in Zimbabwe," the spokesman said in a statement.
"The campaign of violence and intimidation that has marred this election has done a great disservice to the people of the country and must end immediately," he added.
The UN Secretary General "deeply regrets" the international community's failed attempts to bring about a fair run-off election, and "strongly supports" a statement of the Southern African Development Community chairman that the vote should be postponed, his office said.
The statement said the United Nations was prepared to "work urgently with SADC and the African Union to help resolve this political impasse," adding that the UN boss' envoy, Assistant Secretary-General Menkerios, "remains in the region to assist".
Tsvangirai quit Zimbabwe's run-off election, saying violence had made a fair vote impossible, in a move that virtually hands victory to President Robert Mugabe.
Australia Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Southern African nations should exert intense pressure on Mugabe, who says "only God" could remove him from office.
"What it does do now is that it places maximum pressure on the South African Development Community states and the African Union to now put considerable pressure on Mr Mugabe to try and get an outcome where the will of the Zimbabwean people is respected," Mr Smith told ABC Radio.
Mr Smith denied Mr Tsvangirai's withdrawal would provide Mr Mugabe with a legitimate election victory.
"I don't think on any analysis here can we conclude anything other than a brutal regime seeking to, in the first round, steal an election by rorting the count, and in the second round stealing it by violence and Mr Tsvangirai's come to the conclusion he can't overcome the violence.
"The violence now needs to be overcome by the African and international community."
Mr Smith said "one possibility" was negotiations between Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change and the Mugabe regime to create a coalition government. The US says it will go to the UN to see what "additional steps" can be taken to stop Robert Mugabe suppressing the Zimbabwea... more -
Crazy new sport - running up skysrapers!
The agonies people are prepared to inflict upon themselves in the name of fitness and fun are often baffling, but "tower running" takes endurance to a whole new dimension. It is a sport of few rules: you run up a skyscraper's stairwell, you collapse and the fastest time wins. Despite the fact that it sounds about as enjoyable as gargling with magma, it is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world. In America, there are countless competitions, with the three majors being the US Bank Tower in LA, the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building in New York. There are races, too, all over Europe, Asia and South America, though none yet of any significance in Britain.
The elite athletes who pioneer this new craze are, unsurpisingly, a rum bunch. There's 55-year-old Kurt Hess, who holds the world record for altitude climbed in 24 hours (30,000m) and who trains for 12 hours a day at weekends. There's Ed McCall, a successful broker, who liked running up stairs so much he introduced his teenage sons to it: the three now combine school and work with travelling to races all over the world. And there's Tim Van Orden, who feels compelled to break records in a host of athletic endeavours, and to show the world (via his website runningraw.com) that all of this can be done on a raw vegan diet.
Their motives for taking up the sport may differ, but tower runners all talk of one universally shared experience - the pain. "It's not all that pleasant," says Ed McCall. His son, Colin, adds: "After my first race, I puked in a garbage can. Everyone high-fived me." "Think about the most painful thing you've ever done, then multiply by 10," says his elder brother Colin.
Most tower runners seem to have found the sport by accident. "I was a mountain runner training for the US team back in the fall of 2006," says Van Orden. "At the time, mountain running was the most gruelling sport I could find. But I injured my knee, and thought I was going to be out for a few months, until I discovered that I could climb stairs without aggravating it. A friend had mentioned that they held a stair climb race in the US Bank Tower in downtown LA and suggested that I give it a try. Somehow I managed to get third place overall. I had never experienced so much pain in my life - but I was hooked." Not everyone achieves such success in their first event. Tower runners love to relate stories of elite marathon runners who assume they'll cruise to the top, only to drop out in a crumpled heap on the 43rd floor.
One "flat" athlete who has succeeded at more vertical pursuits is Austrian Andrea Mayr. As well as being the Austrian record holder for the women's 3,000m steeplechase, Mayr is a multiple winner of the Empire State Run Up and the Taipei 101, the sport's most prestigious events, and sees it as useful endurance training on a road that she hopes will take her to Beijing this summer. Even she - a seasoned athlete - complains of the pain of tower running: "After the first half your legs get tired, and at the end the muscles really burn. It's really, really tough." The agonies people are prepared to inflict upon themselves in the name of fitness and fun are often baffling, but "tower running&... more -
Life in the U.S.A.
A visual journey through one person's view of the United States, in particular Southern California. I have been lucky enough to do some world traveling in my life and I brought those experiences with me into this project. A visual journey through one person's view of the United States, in particular Southern California. I have been lucky enough to d... more
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Harold and Kumar have a romantic dinner at White Castle
Face it, couples: Valentine’s Day is a crock. It’s not celebrating of worth, outside of how much money can you spend proving your love to somebody. Since when did two-dozen roses and an expensive dinner once a year constitute a healthy, loving relationship?
This Valentine’s Day save yourself a few hundred-thousand dollars and treat your significant other to a candlelit dinner at White Castle. It’s uber-romantico, and as tasteful as the microwaved mush you’ll be served. What’s not to like?
Reservations are being taken now, so act quick. That’s right - you need a reservation. Genius!
Corporate America, I'm totally in love with you. Face it, couples: Valentine’s Day is a crock. It’s not celebrating of worth, outside of how much money can you spend proving your love... more -
NH Primary Special
A rebroadcast of the LIVE finale of our coverage from the New Hampshire Primary, featuring Laura Ling, Kaj Larsen and all their issues. A rebroadcast of the LIVE finale of our coverage from the New Hampshire Primary, featuring Laura Ling, Kaj Larsen and all their issues... more
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