Move to Marin County--Live Longer

Bay Area Life spans (in years)

                           Men Women
Alameda County     78.6 82.8
Contra Costa Cty   78.5 82.7
Marin County         81.6 85.1
San Francisco Cty  78.5 84.4
San Mateo County 80.4 84.9
Solano County       76.7 81.8
Sonoma County     78.2 82.3
— Source: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

The Marin IJ's  article, Marin County men have the highest life expectancy in the nation, women rank No. 2 illustrates the benefits of wealth despite scientists arguing otherwise.

Dr. Ali Mokdad who heads the research team that prepared the report, said Marin life expectancy rates are high and getting higher because most residents don't smoke, aren't obese, are physically active and eat a healthy diet.

The wealthy can afford to add more fruits and vegetables in their diet. The rich tend to be better educated, and, as a whole, avoid tobacco and get more checkups (and better health care overall) than the poor. The rich also have more time to exercise and can afford gym memberships. It's true that the warm Northern California sun begs residents to go for a run or a bike ride, but income counts. Mokdad disagrees with me.

"Income has an impact on health but it's not a big player in terms of this variation of life expectancy." Some countries where life expectancy is increasing do not have high incomes.

Life expectancy may increase in middle income areas as word gets out about proper lifestyle changes but there is no substitute for wealth. I find the link between affluence and life expectancy to be quite strong. Look at the chart (Bay Area Life spans) at the top of the page. The top two richest counties, Marin and San Mateo, have the highest lifespans. The poorest, Solano County, has the shortest lifespan average. The difference for males is close to five years. Solano County weather isn't bad--one can run just as many days in Vallejo as in Novato. The difference between the two counties is lifestyle, and that is greatly affected by income.

Why Obama and Netanyahu Don't Get Along

2012 photo/jta-ron kampeas

Douglas Bloomfield's Op/Ed piece, Playing the "Holocaust card" could backfire on Netanyahu, bemoans the lack of warmth between the American and Israeli leaders.

His [Netanyahu's] barely concealed personal antipathy toward the president of the United States was on display throughout his visit to Washington last month. He had high (deserved) praise for Congress and for some select members, and he thanked the president for his speech of support for Israel and the American government’s help for Israel.
But there was not a single kind word personally for the man who has hosted him eight times in the Oval Office. No foreign leader has made as many visits to the White House in this administration, and none has had such a rocky relationship with the president.

 Bloomfield thinks that Netanyahu should be more grateful for American support and should be willing to support US policies as strongly as the US supports Israel's. Bloomfield misses the fact that Netanyahu got along famously with George W. Bush and has a strong relationship with Mitt Romney stretching back to 1976.

Part of the problem is politics.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said Netanyahu is “much more of a Republican than he is a Likudnik.” The PM himself once told an interviewer, “I speak Republican.”

Part of the problem is style.

Former Ambassador Dennis Ross wrote in “The Missing Peace,” his memoir of the Clinton years: “In the meeting with President Clinton, Netanyahu was nearly insufferable, lecturing and telling us how to deal with the Arabs. … After Netanyahu was gone, President Clinton observed, ‘He thinks he is the superpower and we are here to do whatever he requires.’ No one on our side disagreed with that assessment.”

Obama is also known for lecturing people. Put two "lecturers" in a room and no one is a listener. That doesn't make for a good relationship. Obama and Netanyahu have enough combined ego and narcissism to fill Madison Square Garden. Each thinks that the world should just shut up and listen. That doesn't help their relationship either. However, I believe their partnership was poisoned by their very first meeting on May 18, 2009. Obama, hoping to reshape the middle east, demanded that Netanyahu agree to an immediate settlement freeze. I would guess that was not a good opener. Offering Netanyahu a ham sandwich would have worked better! Netanyahu's team, quite upset by this tactic met and decided to go home rather quickly.

Later we had the infamous interchange with the French president.

"I can't stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy said of Netanyahu, according to the website [Arret Sur Images]. Obama replied, "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day," the site reported.

I'll bet that Netanyahu will be hoping Romney wins in November.

Update: Obama takes the politically-risky move of snubbing Netanyahu in September of an election year. See the Haaretz article here.

Was Bin Laden a Leftist at Heart?

Steve Coll in the New Yorker piece, The Outlaw, writes that Osama bin Laden

issued about half a dozen audiotapes during each of the past two years. Occasionally there were gaps of many months between releases, but he seemed eager to speak about Al Qaeda-related headlines, as well as to promote authors he happened to be reading--these included Noam Chomsky and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, co-authors of "The Israel Lobby."

These authors are anti-Israel (Mearsheimer and Walt) or anti-Israel and anti-Jewish (Chomsky) so it makes sense that bin Laden was reading their books. Chomsky has gone as far as appearing in Syrian media as supporting Iranian interests over those of America and Israel and writing the forward to Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson's book, Memoire en defense contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire. 

Osama bin Laden was portrayed as a reactionary that would lead us back to the rule of the Caliphates. Yet the secular section of his book shelf resembled that of a Berkeley radical with a violent streak. Perhaps the thought processes of totalitarians on the far right and far left, like Hitler and Mao, are more or less the same.