Holodomor. It’s not a place in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter’s world – it’s the name for the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine that killed 3.9 million people by one of history’s most prolific murderers – Joseph Stalin. At the time, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia and not going back to starve under Russian domination may be the reason that the Ukrainians fight so hard today.

States, cities and towns work hard to lure both large and small businesses to their area. There are numerous tools they employ including tax breaks, public/private partnerships, education policies that attract young people, available financing, fewer restrictive regulations, and friendly transportation policies. Unfortunately, they may not pay enough attention to the competing factors that drive businesses away.

We have a scarcity of writers like Tamar Haspel, a food writer, who apparently understands what many columnists, activists, and politicians do not. For a lot of big problems we face, like obesity, global climate change, and Putin, we have theories and ideas in research papers, but most of them don’t pan out. When science is working well, most studies will, or should, fall by the wayside (into trash heap) and only a few should make it to a policy, particularly a national policy. 

Science has been solving one problem only to have another, perhaps worse, thrust upon it. They are beginning to solve the problem of poor incentives leading to non-reproducible or even fraudulent papers at the same time as having Critical Theory thrust upon them which, ultimately, tends to reject science outright.

It’s been 78 years since the farm animals’ revolution, documented by George Orwell, that took place on Manor Farm, which was renamed Animal Farm. Because of mistreatment, they rebelled, took over the farm, and tossed out the people. After finally figuring out that their revolution led to an even worse state, they relented and things were restored to the previous order. Nevertheless, they continue griping. 

here are millions of tiny bacteria who fight it out between themselves every second of every day to determine what we eat. They also have a two-way communication system between their home in our guts and the hypothalamus. In the brain, the hypothalamus makes the big decisions about what to eat and what to store in fat or expend in energy. It also talks to the other sectors of the brain. What if, for any food decision we make, there is a conversation between other parts of the brain, lobby coalitions of bacteria, and the hypothalamus. Here are the players in a typical conversation at a restaurant.

Technology will make it increasingly difficult for the state to control the information its people receive. . . . The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip. 

— Ronald Reagan, speech at London’s Guildhall (1989)

Is it a sign of progress for a society to go relatively quickly from objectionable human behavior to celebrate that same behavior? Is there another choice between objectionable and celebrational? There are a number of examples of these stark choices but let’s start this week with one of the most obvious – overeating behavior.

Interview with Santa Claus, December 24, 2023

Me: First, I want to start off by telling you that I think you did a wonderful job, and I don’t think you deserved this.

SC: Thanks. It feels strange to be sitting here in Restaurant Nansen (in the city closest to the North Pole) instead of delivering presents.

Me: So, let’s talk about how you lost your job.

It’s almost 2023, the year that at least some people will remember as the year we lost glyphosate. Most people probably won’t notice, unless you think of it as RoundUp. RoundUp is an incredible plant killer used on weeds that kills them right down to the root. It’s the most popular herbicide ever discovered and is cheap, safe and highly effective. Other than farmers and the makers of RoundUp, who suffers the most from its loss?