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The Mindless Brutes of Any Gym, USA

I would divide my body weight into three life sections:

Years 0 – 4: Typical skin and bones Indian girl
Years 4 – 18: Oh look, I found sugar. Sad owner of Lane Bryant catalogs.
Years 18 – present: Healthy alterations between very fit, fit, and “eh.”

For the past eight years, I have been an avid gym buff. My workouts are both thorough and well calculated, and I easily spend 10 hours a week, every week, burning the sugary calories I so happily consume. I am no stranger to cardio equipment, stretch mats, swimming pools, and yes, the weight room. Yet in my time at the five gyms to which I’ve belonged, I’ve found that as a woman, it takes a stoic attitude to command the respect from men that any patron (let alone a regular one) ought to automatically be given. In the gym, I have heard more than my fair share of sexist comments from men about women, despite the fact that mindless brutes of Any Gym, USA prove to be the most pathetic example of possible patrons.

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Fabulous Friday Morning Headlines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l6KBoltOnE&feature=player_embedded

Mammals have been around for over 200 million years; they’ve expanded into a diverse array of species, they’ve evolved to live in many different habitats, from burrowing underground to hanging out high up in the tree tops.  And as David Attenborough well tell you, there are some pretty crazy mammals out there, some even lay eggs! However, no mammal is perhaps as insane and crazy as the Human. There’s tons of insanity today in the headlines, really you should look, it’s crazy the things we get up to. Continue reading

The New York Times Would Like You To Know That Bernie Madoff is a Mexican Party Favor

Each day, we open up our digital copy of The New York Times and absurdly mock it (and ourselves) for its insanity. Today we learn that Bernie Madoff is a piñata.

Bernard “Oopsie!” Madoff has 148 years left in his white collar prison for his white collar crime, but you know what? He’s been jilted! Jilted! By who? By the bloodthirsty mobs who think what he did was bad. He didn’t murder anyone for chrissakes, he just had a bad week accounting wise.  Haven’t we all been in the same situation? No? No one here ever lost a small nation’s GDP (the Dominican Republic to be precise) before? Whoa. You must be saints. Someone call the Vatican. Continue reading

Be More Awesome: Volunteer

Some of the most illustrious, talented people to grace this earth have walked the halls of Northwestern University: Dick Gephardt, the drummer from Arcade Fire, the girl from Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride II: Martin Short Is a Crazy Foreign Gay Man!, me.  But perhaps my most important and influential fellow alumnus is none other than Stephen Colbert.  Colbert returned to campus a few weeks ago to give the university’s commencement speech. Continue reading

Kentucky Fried Food Stamps?

Do you know what four things I never thought would go together? KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Food Stamps. Somehow, I thought that when it came right down to what offerings we’d give to the poorest among us, fast food items just wouldn’t be on that list. Apparently I’d be wrong — so very wrong since Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, is lobbying to allow their restaurants in Kentucky, America’s seventh most overweight state, to accept food stamps. Continue reading

New York Ruined Every Other City in America For Me

For those of you who know me, you know that I have done a good deal of living, working, and studying abroad. In fact, I’ve spent almost two years of my life outside of the States. But every time I travel domestically, it becomes painfully obvious that New York has ruined the every other city in America for me. It’s not hard to see why Paris or West Africa or South India cannot be realistically compared to New York – those cities are different worlds, and as the old saying goes, “I want a damn apple, why did you give me an orange?” Well, it’s something like that. It is also not hard to separate New York from American suburbia, where the vast majority of people think it’s bizarre to use one’s own feet as a means of transportation. What is hard, I’ve discovered, is figuring out how to not apply the New York standard to any other urban metropolis in the 50 US states (and maybe Canada).
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Warm Oceans Causing Largest Migration of Marine Life in Two Million Years

We live in crazy times, we do. Sure, every generation thinks that their era represents some unprecedented moment in history, but our current state of affairs seems to be especially whacky. And when the oceans start going haywire, we land-dwelling creatures should probably sit up and take notice. Recently, marine biologists from 17 marine institutes in 10 European countries have synthesized the results of almost 300 EU-funded climate change-related research projects from the past 13 years. Their findings? Weird things are happening in our oceans. Continue reading

How Much Crap Will You Allow on the Lawn of Your Life?

Bots has kindly invited me to crosspost articles from my blog www.daisysagesays.wordpress.com .
Here is my latest post. Please drop by my site sometime, and write to [email protected] to be included in the upcoming advice column, “Ask Daisy Sage”.

I took this photo some time this past February or March I think, when I was taking my daily walk in the general environs of my home.

Don't hold back; tell us how you really feel.

I think what made me want a record of this charming little wooden sign was not only its daring dual meaning expression of hostility, ( did the writer literally merely mean dog crap, or metaphorical crap or both?), followed by the polite “Thank you” but the fact that as I walked down the street, and then turned the corner, I discovered 5 IDENTICAL SIGNS in front of other houses. This was no mere whim; this was an anti-crap campaign.

Before the “Tired of your crap” campaign ended, I saw one more sign on someone’s lawn. It said “Please keep your dog off my grass.” The author decided to forego the “tired of your crap” bit. It was written on a flimsy piece of cardboard instead of wood. It could easily have dissolved under the next batch of precipitation. Continue reading

Diet Soda Can Make You Fat

Yes, diet soda is probably as bad, if not worse, for your waistline as regular soda with high-fructose corn syrup or sugar.

Two separate studies released at a recent meeting of the American Diabetes Association have similar findings. One study followed humans drinking two or more diet sodas a day who developed larger waistlines than a control group. The second study followed mice that maintained significantly higher blood sugar levels than the control group. Continue reading