Why people prefer certain foods over others depends largely on a combination of taste and texture. While taste sensations are fairly well understood, scientists are just beginning to unravel the mystery of food texture.
Now, researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia have found that an enzyme in saliva called amylase, which breaks down starch into liquid, could play a key role in determining the appeal of various textures of food. A new genetic study shows that people produce strikingly different amounts of amylase, and that the more of the enzyme people have in their mouth the faster they can liquefy starchy foods….
Magnificent and wild, the grizzly bear of the American west has a fearsome reputation. But as a population boom forces them from their deep wilderness habitat of the Rocky Mountains, their increasingly close encounters with humans are altering their lifestyles, making them lazy and fat, conservation experts say.
Following a house party at which over one-hundred people were cited for underage drinking, Whitewater’s long-tenured police chief, James Coan, announced that two people hosting the party would be cited for violations amounting to six-thousand dollars apiece. (What they’ll actually pay may be a different matter.) See, Residents fined $12,000 from party bust.
Twelve thousand, or one-hundred twenty-thousand — it won’t matter. Coan’s approach is a useful case only of bad enforcement policies that will do little to stop underage drinking. Sporadic enforcement, using civilians in foolish ways, with supposedly harsh punishments that are only useful to grab headlines and impress people into thinking that something’s happening. Below, at the bottom of this post, I have embedded a video that I posted previously, in which noted UCLA Professor of Public Affairs Mark Kleiman explains that approaches like these are failures.
(Kleiman is talking about incarceration as a punishment, but his remarks on sporadic punishment are apt in many situations.)
In fact, Whitewater’s citations are a fine example of what not to do to solve a chronic problem. Too much show, with declarations that — this time — there will be a stop to this, until the next time, when the same things happen, and the cycle starts all over again.
I do have a question, though:
How long has Jim Coan been Whitewater’s police chief?
It’s not been a few years, but now nearly two decades’ time.
For all that time, Coan’s made no headway against substance crimes in the city, and certainly not a problem like underage drinking. Big parties, drinking, big raids, headlines, drinking, dispersal to smaller parties, drinking, smaller raids, smaller headlines, same drinking: that’s Coan’s spin cycle.
Each effort and each headline is the one that’s going to turn it all around.
Except it never does.
These unsolved problems are not borne by a few police leaders, but by residents and officers for whom these efforts are ineffectual.
There’s no effort at education, at outreach, because Coan shows no aptitude for those key elements of community policing. It’s just a big headline here, years passing, and then another one. He’s less like a tenured leader than like someone inexperienced and just starting out.
There are still a few — now only a few — who will trumpet these fines and raids as progress. Like a one-party state whose doctrine is overemphasized by a few, yet disbelieved by most, there’s no longer credibility to these claims.
UCLA Professor of Public Affairs Mark Kleiman is “angry about having too much crime….”
In his book, When Brute Force Fails, Kleiman explains that, when it comes to punishment, there is a trade-off between severity and swiftness. For too long the U.S. has erred heavily on the side of severity… .
Quick note: Kleiman’s book is available in hardcover, paperback, or Kindle editions. more >>
Whitewater’s forecast calls for a mostly sunny day, with a high temperature of sixty-four degrees.
In the CIty of Whitewater, the library board meets tonight at 6:30 p.m. That agenda is available online.
Whitewater’s district administrator will conduct two listening sessions today, at the district’s Central Office, in English from 5:00-5:45 p.m. and Spanish from 5:45 to 6:30 p.m. Central Office is located at 419 South Elizabeth Street.
Lakeview School has a book fair this week, as does the Middle School.
The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1870,
First National Weather Forecast Published
On this date Increase Lapham recorded the first published national weather forecast, calling for “high winds and falling temperatures for Chicago, Detroit and the Eastern cities.” [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride]
We’ve come a long way, as Alexandra Witze at ScienceNews.org reports, in a story entitled, “Hurricane forecasts can be made years in advance,” that
The parade of storms that pummels the western fringe of the North Atlantic every year just got a bit more predictable. Scientists say they have developed a way to forecast how many Atlantic hurricanes there will be — not just for the upcoming year, as some groups already do each spring, but for several years out.
“This is the first time anyone has reported skill in predicting the number of hurricanes beyond the seasonal time scale,” says Doug Smith, a climate modeler at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, England. A paper by Smith and his colleagues appeared online Nov. 7 in Nature Geoscience.
Here’s a post from Slashdot, about Queen Elizabeth —
The Queen is set to have an official presence on Facebook when a British Monarchy page launches on the internet-based social networking site. Buckingham Palace says it is not a personal profile page, but users can ‘like’ the service and receive updates on their news feed….
I’m not on Facebook, but then if I were, I wouldn’t ‘like’ the Queen’s page anymore than I’d like the woman who lives the life of an hereditary monarch.
Congress may fail to reach agreement on the Bush tax cuts by Dec. 31, and that means most Americans will see higher withholding on their paychecks starting in January. Also, the Making Work Pay credit ends, and that will shrink paychecks, too.
The rabbits are from Washington State, near the decommissioned Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Admittedly, this may suggest a drawback to my longstanding proposal to build a nuclear reactor at 312 W. Whitewater Street, in Whitewater, Wisconsin. (See, Go Nuclear!)
There’s no reason residents, and animals, of the Whippet City couldn’t be issued protective apparel.
Downtown Whitewater, Inc. Hosts Retail Workshop
Presented by Margie Johnson
Whitewater, Wisconsin (November 5, 2010) – Downtown Whitewater welcomes Margie Johnson and her Sustainable Success Strategies Workshop. Margie is a highly acclaimed speaker, trainer, author and consultant. She continues to provide entrepreneurs with the strategies to help their retail business endeavors survive in the competitive market as well as increase performance and profitability levels.
Margie’s firm, Shop Talk, has 25 years of expertise directed at consultations and research in retail, hospitality, health care, and financial industries. She has received numerous accolades including; The Fred Lazarus National Retail Federation Award and Inside Business 2006 Women in Business Achievement Award as well as coverage in the National Retail Federation, WHRO Public Television and NBC’s Today Show. Shop Talk has many clients some of whom include, Dallas Market Center, Denver Merchandise Mart, Farm Fresh Supermarkets, Lord and Taylor, Gray’s Department Stores, Prime outlets and Mayo Clinic. A more comprehensive list may be found on her website; www.shoptalk.org.
The Sustainable Success Strategies Workshop will cover topics that concern independent businesses and the situations that they face. The session will target such focuses as an update on retail sales by industry segments, trends concerning the consumer and the impact of the Internet, issues with customer service, marketing ideas and resources, sales and promotional ideas.
The free workshop will be held November 17, 2010 at the Cravath Lakefront Community Building from 8:00 am to 9:30 am. The workshop is being sponsored by the Wisconsin Main Street program as continuing assistance in recognition of Downtown Whitewater’s Main Street status. The Sustainable Success Strategies Workshop is being offered for the benefit of Main Street District Businesses in an effort to provide skill sets to survive and thrive in a demanding and dynamic marketplace.
Downtown Whitewater was formed in 2006 to Preserve, improve and promote Whitewater’s quality of life by strengthening our historic downtown as the heartbeat of the community.
