Month: March 2012

Don’t smash your food. Unless it happens to be Sashimi Napolean (aka Hali’imaile).

Enjoyed recently with the Happy Wife at Jens. A delightful restaurant tucked away in what might be regarded as a strip mall in the midtown area of our quirky city. I like it for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is its afternoon coziness that permits, nay invites, guilt-free wine consumption at an early afternoon hour, which, I realize, may raise a puritanical eyebrow or two. It’s adjacent to a Scandinavian design furniture store where Happy Wife wanted to show me a desk, a shopping experience that doubles as an irresistible segue to afternoon wine consumption. Actually, knowing us, WalMart would probably do the trick too.

It’s rare at 3:30 to find the bar full at Jens. On this day it was empty save for one patron who I thought looked a bit like John Goodman, although neither the Happy Wife nor the bartender thought so. I couldn’t let it go so I asked him if anyone had told him he looked like John Goodman. No, he said, but some have said Bill Clinton. Okay, I could see that, the thick rough of silver-gray hair, but his cheek pouch and drawn features said Goodman all the way.

Yesterday the Happy Wife and I mounted our mountain bikes and set out on the snow packed trails that weave through our neighborhood and beyond. It may have been the last time we’ll be able to do that this year. We’re off to Seattle for a few days on Thursday (getting fitted for a new road bike! and Happy Wife (birthday girl) is looking to buy a new Sea Kayak) and given the temperature is expected to be in the forties while we’re gone the snow won’t last too much longer.

On the way to Jens, a minute from our house, looking east at the Chugach mountains.

Forecaster said to expect three to four inches to fall on the hillside today. Maybe a dusting to an inch in town. Uh huh. We live in town, and so far at least four inches of snow have fallen here, for a seasonal total in Anchorage of about eleven feet. Yes feet. Oh, the science of forecasting. Like red blouses on Bonobos be skeptical. Be very very skeptical.

I half expect the roof covering the deck on the house across the street to collapse any time now. Actually, the whole house may go if the roof isn’t shoveled, and I mean soon. It’s an old stick frame ranch with 2×4 construction, which overall appears pretty shabby. One of the walls on the attached carport doesn’t look like its very plumb anymore, like its been forced slightly outward. We built a cantilevered roof over our deck a couple years ago but I bet you could park a 797 Cat on it with no worries. Last week a few miles from here the roof on a large church collapsed. Fortunately nobody was inside. In a news report some people claimed they were just about to go inside. Trying to exaggerate their brush with death I suppose. They say God works in mysterious ways.

Left and right structures used to be connected.

Here.

Occasionally I am asked to contribute to the scientific peer review process. A glance at my cv shows about a dozen times in the past three years. Never in the field of experimental psychology however. End disclaimer.

Still, I considered this: “Men Think Sex After Seeing Red Dress.“

First let me agree with what one commenter to the article said, anything after Men Think Sex, is unnecessary.

But let’s get serious for a minute.

The article refers to a research paper published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (5-yr impact factor 2.9. So-so). I downloaded the paper and read it.

A social psychologist working in this field had this to say about the paper:

“It suggests to me that humans as they exist today exhibit these somewhat odd evolutionary artifacts that haven’t been applicable for some time.”

Readers who know me well know I am deeply suspicious of these so-called evolutionary “artifacts” said to be guiding human behavior just below the level of conscious detection and supposedly lurking (somewhere) inside our genome.

Nevertheless, let’s grant for the sake of argument that the color red is an ancestral cue that triggers a response in men, effectively increasing a man’s estimate of the female’s “sexual receptivity”, the actual measure used by the authors in this paper, scored on a scale 1-9.

People who buy into this hypothesis say this: That when men see red on a woman it is subconsciously interpreted by way of an ancient biological cue to indicate she is in estrus, and thus ready — even eager — for sex, specifically sex that will lead to reproduction. Indeed, one reason why women have for decades applied pink blush to their cheeks, they say, is to give the impression of being “in heat”. Surely, they further conclude, the countless shades of red lipstick at the cosmetic counter support this hypothesis as well.

But wait, if this is true then it must be that modern women are conscious of this ancestral cue in men, and know how to activate it through the application of makeup. In other words, women are (consciously) in on it too. So an “artifact” no longer applicable? Evidently not. Plus it doesn’t explain why elderly women continue to wear blush long after they have given up trying to attract men to have sex with them in order to have more babies.

And I see another problem, leading me to suggest a control experiment. The hypothesis would predict a woman with Rosacea to rank high on the sexual receptivity index, the measure used in the paper. Instead of (or in addition to) showing twenty five men a picture of an attractive woman wearing a white top or a red top, as was done in this research, create two pictures of the same woman wearing a white top, one with a normal complexion, the other with a mild case of Rosacea. Now we have a more realistic phenotype of estrus (ever see a Bonobo in a red blouse?), the ancestral cue modern men are supposedly still sensitive to. Survey the men and report the result.

My suspicion is the result of this experiment would be roughly opposite of what the authors would expect, and contradict their hypothesis.

A remarkable turnout to see Ron Paul tonight in Anchorage. He was in Fairbanks last night. I estimated twenty-five hundred to three thousand. Standing room only in the Dena’ina convention center downtown. We didn’t expect this many people to come. We arrived late and had to wait in line outside (15 degrees) for over a half hour. Security was wanding everyone. Poor Happy Wife got cold feet — she wore ankle boots and no socks. Once inside she kicked off her boots and I draped my cashmere scarf over her bare feet. I got the Oh That Feels Good look. After the rally we walked to Orso for wine and dinner at the bar.

Monday am update: A local news person who was at the rally last night estimated fifteen hundred present, considerably lower than my estimate, which, thinking back on it, was high because I doubled the number of rows of chairs in my calculation. Fifteen hundred is probably about right.

In the event your current sleep aids are failing you, close your eyes and listen to this. Twenty-seven minutes.

(If you don’t see an audio control with a play button leave a comment and let me know what browser you’re using, plus the version number if you can.)

Yours truly speaking at the Molecular Medicine Tri-Con conference in San Francisco last month.

Either because the audience was overwhelmed by my clarity or anxious for lunch, there were no questions. Quite unusual, based on prior conferences where I presented this material. As I walked back to my chair a couple people congratulated me on a nice presentation. I started toward the lunch table and a woman stops me and asks me if I had tried using the approaches I discussed to identify the role viruses play in gastrointestinal cancers. I politely said I had not, and tried to continue toward the lunch table but she stepped in front of me again and proceeded to give me a lengthy (I’m being polite) explanation of how one might do so.

Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
— Groucho Marx

We may never know if these dogs would prefer, even if we assume dogs can prefer, to be at rest on a comfy bed of sawdust munchin a Milk Bone. The question usually arises in the context of what’s best for the dog. I don’t claim to know the answer to that or even to have a particularly insightful one. But judging from their apparent alacrity on the gangline these doggies want to run, yes all one thousand miles to Nome. Others will see anxiety, not alacrity, and conclude abuse. When faced to make a judgment about a matter you little understand, if you count a lack of consensus as evidence then be assured the latter viewpoint is in the minority. At least here in Alaska. And Alaskans rarely give a flip what some Cheechako from Outside thinks.

The Happy Wife and I visited the mock start in Anchorage yesterday morning. Today in Willow, AK the real race begins.

Enjoy!

Hugh Neff’s Team

Travis Cooper’s Team

Lance Mackey’s Team

Ramey Smyth’s Team

The Happy Wife in her Faux Fur Helmet.

Probably a veteran — “I don’t do no stinkin mock starts.”