Easy Chicken Masala

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast portions
2 tbs olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 tbs chopped garlic
3 tbs garam masala
1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
3/4 cup light coconut milk
1/2 cup cream of chicken soup

Dice chicken and brown in olive oil. Remove from pan and set aside. Saute onion and garlic until softened; add garam masala. Add tomatoes, coconut milk, and soup. Return chicken to the pan and simmer on low for 30 minutes.

Serve over basmati rice.

The Bush administration rewrites history.

Talking about a negative emotion, even as inconsequentially as giving the feeling a name, can ease the pangs of sadness and anger, a study published in Psychological Science concludes.

From Reuters:

[Los Angeles researcher Matthew Lieberman] and colleagues scanned the brains of 30 people — 18 women and 12 men between 18 and 36 — who were shown pictures of faces expressing strong emotions.

They were asked to categorize the feelings in words like sad or angry, or to choose between two gender-specific names like “Sally or Harry” that matched the face.

What they found is that when people attached a word like angry to an angry-looking face, the response in the amygdala portion of the brain that handles fear, panic and other strong emotions decreased.

“This seems to dampen down the response in these basic emotional circuits in the brain — in this case the amygdala,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview.

So it appears there is some physiological basis for the improvement people find in talk therapy with a psychologist, or even in informal conversations with friends. I suspect the same holds true of writing as well. Blogging combines both; a talk with friends in written form.

Naming our demons can set us free.

As if the $177.5 billion trade deficit weren’t bad enough, now we have to worry about the safety of imports from China. First it was pet food. Then it was toothpaste, followed by toys, followed by tires. Now it’s something near and dear to my heart: seafood. The FDA has blocked the sale of fish and shrimp coming from China, citing contamination with unapproved animal drugs and food additives. Those banned are catfish, eel, basa, dace, and worst of all, shrimp. The problem is not new. It’s been brewing for years.

From the NY Times:

The F.D.A. maintains a database of imported products that are prevented from entering the United States because they do not comply with American standards. In May, for instance, the agency turned away 165 shipments from China, 49 of them seafood.

Monkfish was rejected for being filthy and unfit to be eaten, the records show. Frozen catfish nuggets were turned away because they contained animal drugs. Tilapia fillets were contaminated with salmonella.

The problems were even worse in April, when 257 shipments from China were rejected, including 68 of seafood. Frozen eel contained pesticides, frozen channel catfish had salmonella and frozen yellowfin steaks were filthy, the records show.

In a report on the F.D.A.’s oversight released in May, Food and Water Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit group, found that more than 60 percent of the seafood that was rejected at the border by the F.D.A. came from China.

But testing and banning food shipments is not enough. We need to demand Country Of Origin labeling, particularly on produce and meat/seafood so that we may make an informed decision on what to buy. Right now the only thing I’m sure is local is the Copper River Salmon in my fresh meat case once a year. If we’re going to eat locally, at least from this continent, we need information to do that. Informed consumers are healthier consumers.

In related news: U.S. family tries living without China

From ESPN:

It was expected to be old-timers’ day in the major leagues on Wednesday, when a record seven pitchers in their 40s were scheduled to start. Until Mother Nature interfered.

The New York Yankees’ Roger Clemens (44), Philadelphia’s Jamie Moyer (44), San Diego’s Greg Maddux (41), the New York Mets’ Tom Glavine (41), Houston’s Woody Williams (40) and Atlanta’s John Smoltz (40) are set to pitch on the same day.

Kenny Rogers (42) was scheduled to start for Detroit, but the Tigers’ home game against the Texas Rangers was postponed because of rain.

The record of six was set last Friday, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, when all but Clemens started.

“I guess it means it’s not a kid’s game anymore,” Maddux said.

It never should have been in the first place.

Meredith found this one the other day when we were out of sour cream for my usual chocolate cake recipe. I now have a new favorite. It tastes like an extra moist Hostess Cupcake.

Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup fair trade cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Stir together dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla and mix. Add boiling water and stir. Pour into 9X13 or 2 9″ round cake pans and bake 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees. Frost with Dream Whip Chocolate Mousse or top with whipped cream.

Dream Whip Chocolate Mousse

1 envelope Dream Whip
1 4 serving package of instant chocolate pudding
1 1/2 cup cold milk

Whip together until firm

Cool animated map showing how America voted from 1960-2004. Pay particular attention to the shift in the south. Blue = Democrat, Red = Republican, Green = Other.

Who should be allowed to vote? That question has haunted the US from the inception of the Constitution. In 1787, only white males over the age of 21 had the right. The 15th Amendment, in 1870, added African-American men to the voting pool. In 1920 the 19th Amendment granted suffrage to women. In 1971 the 26th Amendment gave the vote to 18-20-year-olds. But the legal rights of those with mental illnesses or developmental delays has been left to the will of the individual states. Some, such as New Jersey and Ohio, constitutionally forbid an “idiot or insane person” to vote. The problem, aside from the obvious distastefulness of the labels, is who applies the labels, and to whom.

Jill at Writes Like She Talks writes about the efforts in Ohio to have “idiot” and “insane” removed from the state constitution and laws, replacing it with “incompetent person.” She quotes the definition of the latter:

The bill defines this term to mean “a person who is so mentally impaired as a result of a mental or physical illness or disability, mental retardation, or as a result of chronic substance abuse, that the person is incapable of taking proper care of the person’s self or property or fails to provide for the person’s family or other persons for whom the person is charged by law to provide.” This definition is the same as the definition of “incompetent” in R.C. 2111.01 (the law governing guardianships), except that it excludes “any person confined to a correctional institution within this state.”

While “incompetent,” a word of choice in more states as laws are updated, is an improvement, the problem with the Ohio definition is this phrase: “fails to provide for the person’s family or other persons for who the person is charged by law to provide.” That sounds like poverty to me. Do they really intend to correlate that with incompetency? It sounds uncomfortably close to the old poll taxes once used to keep the poor and minorities from casting ballots.

But who is to judge who is “mentally impaired?” This is the crux of the problem for me.

Guardianship is one way of defining incompetence, and is the standard used in about 18 states. This does not take into account that many guardianships are established voluntarily for a single aspect of a person’s life, such as finances. While an individual may be unable to make sound decisions in paying bills or avoiding scams, he may be perfectly able to read a newspaper, watch television or discuss politics with others and come to a decision of who to vote for.

Enforcement is also a huge issue here. Would we require states to keep a list of all those with guardianship agreements and forward it to the state election commissioners to be purged from the voter rolls, as is done with felons? What process would be in place to allow voting rights to be restored when the guardianship is revoked?

Guardianship is not the only measure of competence. Could individuals voting rights be challenged by a stranger? That’s happened in Washington state, with lists of suspected illegal aliens turned over to the state by one man who challenged their right to vote. Given the stigma of mental illness, it’s not a stretch to imagine someone doing the same thing to those who act odd or look different.

Or do we assign poll workers to make a judgment on the competency of those wishing to vote? If so, we’re allowing challenges could be issued on the basis of appearance or neighborhood gossip, and the person so judged would be placed in the position of “incompetent until proven otherwise,” either denied outright or given a provisional ballot to be considered later. Do we wish that power in the hands of neither doctors nor lawyers, but untrained volunteers who may have prejudices and motives of their own?

And what about age? The chances of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease increase with advancing age and most of those afflicted are not assigned legal guardians, instead being cared for by a spouse, a child, or a paid aide of the patient’s choosing. Should there be a cut-off age after which a person must take a test to prove competency to vote, as some states have for driver’s licenses? The AARP would have a field day with that.

Finally, this sets a standard which is applied arbitrarily and unevenly. My next door neighbor may chose which candidate to support based on who has better hair or what God tells him to do. Is he more competent that someone who was once hospitalized for bipolar disorder? Is he more competent than the 80-year-old woman down the street who sometimes forgets to turn off her oven but who reads the newspaper every morning? Is he more competent than the young man with Downs Syndrome who lives on his own and who watched all the debates on television?

Are there people who are truly incompetent to vote? Of course there are. But we cannot legally mandate an informed electorate. Some people are always going to make lousy decisions for lousy reasons, or be influenced by those around them, and in a free country, that’s their right. To judge only a portion of the population is wrong.

Inspired by the NY Times, with a hat tip to Ahistoricality, who brought it to my attention.

These cliches were once fresh … in the 16th century.

• green eyed monster
• hot-blooded
• more sinned against than sinning
• strange bedfellows
• wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve
• pitched battle
• clothes make the man
• method in his madness
• to thine own self be true
• towering passion

Read more words and phrases coined by The Bard.

I remember when the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) passed in 2003. My pharmacist gave me a written copy of the pharmacy’s privacy policy, and the store put a tape line 10 feet back from the cash register so that those behind me in the queue couldn’t listen in on my discussions while I picked up my meds. The changes lulled me into thinking my pharmacy records were private. I was wrong. A loophole in the federal law allows my pharmacy to treat my records as a business asset and sell them, including my drug history, insurance information, address, phone number, and social security number, without my knowledge or consent.

Witness this account from (Long Island, NY) Newsday:

Randee Lonergan filled prescriptions at the same pharmacy for years. But a month ago, she was shocked to find the pharmacy closed - and all her family’s medical records sold to a nearby Target store in Levittown.

Shockingly, her information was sold legally, due to a loophole in medical privacy law that allows pharmacies to “auction off” years of customer records — including prescriptions, information about medical conditions, social security numbers and insurance records — “to the highest bidder,” Senator Charles Schumer said Monday.

“I’m outraged,” said Lonergan, 34. “I felt that my right to privacy and my right to choose had been taken away from me.”

Not only were her records sold, so were her husband’s and 8-year-old daughter’s.

Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers’ records may have already been sold, Schumer said, and the problem is nationwide. Federal law requires doctors to let patients know when their medical history is being shared. But the law explicitly allows pharmacies to sell patient information to other pharmacies, Schumer said.

That means my records could go into a new company’s database, available at thousands of locations across the country, open to the scrutiny of employees in all those locations. Should I chose to withdraw my business from the company who purchased my records, they would remain in that system indefinitely, outside my control. While this exception to the law is billed as being for the convenience of the customer, it is intrusive and a violation of my privacy.

Choosing a pharmacist is akin to choosing a doctor; it’s a relationship that depends on trust. That trust is not for sale. My records should be transfered only to a pharmacy of my choosing, at my express request.

If you haven’t saved the copy of the privacy statement provided to you, ask for a new copy. Read it over and look for a phrase similar to “company’s successors.” Then file a formal protest, in writing. Lobby your state legislators to enact tougher statutes than the federal requirements, such as California’s. Something needs to be done about this.