Toledo Talk User Profile for robertbrundage

• Member since: Jul 31, 2006
• Last logged-in visit: Oct 08, 2008
• robertbrundage has contributed to no articles and has submitted 23 comments at the new version of Toledo Talk.
• At the old version of Toledo Talk, robertbrundage posted 1 topic(s) and 10 comment(s).

He didn't post a lot, but he commented on a variety of subjects. Here are Robert's words :

Sep 9, 2006 Comment

Comment in thread titled "Harvest Theatre presents the play 'The Guys'"

Saw a fabubulous performance last night. The two actors have critically thought thru the extremely well crafted lines to put across a really live performance.
I liked the Harvest Theater quality so much, I bought a season ticket.
All Saturday eves in Sept. they're doing 40 one page plays @ Artomatic 419 on Adams Street/ Uptown. Hear them after 6:30pm while you see the artwork.

Sep 16, 2006 Comment

Comment in thread titled "As if things aren't odd enough - 'Prozac pollutes Ohio waterways'"

Most waterlife testing by federal agencies was defunded soon after Bush II. Last Monday we placed a call to federal headquarters for an updated list on current waterlife research [on vacation, yet to receive callback]. Last 2nd Thursday we had the monthly meeting of Maumee Bay Waterkeepers Association at UT Lake Erie Environmental Center, 7pm each month.
Pissing patented FDA approved pharmaceuticals into our drinking water is a frightening scenario - just look at OurStolenFuture.com and how human fetuses get differently wired nervous systems, e.g. various "Deficit Disorders", hyperactivity, etc. No wonder our kids don't learn the same way we did.
We're setting up cultural chemical signals a'la beehives and ant colonies [imagine Queen Bee Bush III].
I have a Ph.D. in Biophysics and was in the medical analysis industry as a chief engineer for 15 years.
"Our Stolen Future" is the "Silent Spring" of the '90s - one coauther spoke in Doerman Theater in 1998. Toledoans like to put their heads in the [dirty] sand.
Onwards TPS [education?].

Oct 23, 2006 Comment

Comment in thread titled "In the interest of problem solving..."

Solar electricity is most surprisingly efficient here in Toledo. Somewhere over 80% of Arizona. The needed energetic solar radiation gets thru our standard cloud cover.

I look forward to the distillation of all the ramblings above. Thanks for the topic.

Oct 25, 2006 Topic

TPS Curriculum Committee Oct..23

I attended the Curriculum Committee meeting which featured a half dozen reports on great sounding special improvement projects at maybe a dozen schools. I'll post my notes when I have time.

In a nutshell - good things can happen when principal, building TFT leader, and 2/3 of teachers get involved. But does that happen often enough?

A key word much bandied about was "alignment" of textbooks to State standards & testing [at least 3 different "brands"]. They've bought a bunch of cosly new ones, & a supplement to fill in a math gap from 7th to 8th.

Steel is in his forte knowing this jargon & acronyms. I found it time very well spent, & started getting familiar to the insider language. Barnett had to end the meeting on her soapbox hoorah.

Of couse we heard about good things - that was the agenda - it was a welldone show. BUTT - the devil is in the details -- at least one of 3 for Children has complained that these good examples fall by the wayside within a few years -- TPS shelves are littered with great trials [even if weak on measurable results].

And we need to pull Dr. Schletke's TPS Reform Report off that shelf and start taking it seriously. [TPS pulled the pretty good abstract of it off their website - perhaps Flagg can post it at TPSINFO.com, & don't forget Myers ideasfortps.com for $ ideas]

We need to get involved in this detail - I'll be posting detail later.

I'm off to hear Dr. Don Pribor, UT Biology, present some of his concepts on REFORMING higher education - critical broad conceptualization acomplished in a less costly 3 years. AT 6:30pm tonight at DownTown Latte', South St.Clair across the block from Spaghetti Warehouse -- the hub of creative Toledo networking!

Oct 25, 2006 Comment-1

Comment in thread titled "Back to the Wild"

Fabulous well done research gets done there. Worth the admission to visit there.

Oct 25, 2006 Comment-2

Comment in thread titled "Land Conservation Easement seminar"

See you there -- I'm working on one for the Manhattan Marsh.

Oct 25, 2006 Comment-3

Comment in thread titled "Stranahan Arboretum has new focus"

Great project - & Sandy Stutzenstein is a great resource there.

UT Biology lost a great one in soil biology when Deborah Neher went to U.Vermont to join other great ones.

I'm gearing up to do Manhattan Marsh restoration with MetroParks.

Tonight at 6:30pm, Dr. Don Pribor of UT Biology, is talking about creative REFORM of higher education @ DownTown Latte', the hub of creative networking in Toledo, on South St.Clair across the block from Spaghetti Warehouse.

Oct 25, 2006 Comment-4

Comment in thread titled "It Property Tax Valuation Time -- Revisited"

Having long interacted with Larry's team, their strategy is to make "crude" statistical estimates that will be corrected by you, the squeaky wheels.

It's a less costly approach to them, but you have to put in your time & research. It does raise extra money from those not in the know.

Oct 25, 2006 Comment-5

Comment in thread titled "Three Men Murdered in Toledo. Why two such different stories?"

The drug dealers on my block are unrelated to the current investigation. They've been supplying Delaware & Detroit for decades. And every year they burn another house down on my block when its about to be legally reoccupied & they're going to lose their squatters rights [2 were burned down this year].

But its OK 'cause they have relatives in the police department. Every weekday afternoon my oneway street is like a McDonald's drivethru as the independent white contractors line up for their end of the day pick-me-up.

Under Chief White the officers were finally talking reality to the residents [gangs are just role playing with ritualistic fight like dancing down the middle of the street that occasionally goes overboard -- marking their territory like a dog urinating on a marker].

But its back to Oz with Navarre apparently getting beyond his rufusal to have squad cars give Amy rides home.

One officer even told a neighbor its our fault for choosing to live in our neighborhood.

Dec 15, 2007 Comment-1

Comment in thread titled "I love astronomy"

Wednesday eve I watched reddish Mars kiss the tip top of Historic St.Pats steeple below a crescent moon with a gorgeous sunset backlighting historic buildings from the rooftop patio of the Main Library, TLCPL.

Dec 15, 2007 Comment-2

Comment in thread titled "Area Christmas Bird Counts"

It's a thrilling experience to walk near experienced birders as they share the use of all their senses. AND you get to see areas you might of thought you knew in in a whole new light [like Ottawa Park, Woodlawn Cemetary, Acme Power Plant (much destroyed)]. My Old West End backyard is virgin, never cut woods {the Delaware Woods) with 100 to 300 year old trees/ wild flowers/ nesting birds/ nighttime insect choirs/ etc. Theere's a lot of life in this city - my predecessor, John Stophlet, was much involved in these Xmas bird counts 85 years ago.

Dec 15, 2007 Comment-3

Comment in thread titled "Growing 33,000 gallons of oil per acre"

Insolution of effective energy [not your eyesight variety] in Toledo is far above "sucky", in fact it's above 80% of Tuscon's.

Dec 18, 2006 Comment

Comment in thread titled "Did you get your Christmas card from the City yet?" This comment by Robert was directed at Chris Myers who started the thread and mentioned: "Kate is also looking for people who want to become citizen reporters to go and record the meetings."

Much thanks for your effective efforts.
I'll help occasionally!

Dec 23, 2006 Comment

Comment in thread titled "Robert Torres and Darlene Fisher launch talkingtps.com"

Yes - intelligent watchdogs do talk saving & reallocating $ in all areas & levels. We do need to make comparison tables in all these categories. SFlagg probably has done them for many years.
However, important comparisons need data that cannot be easily pulled out of TPSs equivalent of "QuickBooks". This smokescreen hides & impedes most of the organizations whose finances I try to help. Contributing is some professionals attitude that we should trust them without their helping us comprehend.

Jan 5, 2008 Comment-1

Comment in thread titled "Maumee Bay Brewing"

I believe operation of the upstairs restaurant was leased out several years ago.

As illustrated above, I believe smalltown Toledoans would benefit from parking lessons & driving psychology education. I learned a great deal about my relationship to the automobile & fine food from 33 years of Boston experience. We've become Mesmerized [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesmer ] seeing our world thru a moving car window, much akin to our TV screens [both of which are addictive & dangerous to our health]. As for eating, see the Jan.5 posting about meat - http://toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/tt.pl/article/9969/Not_the_meat_not_the_fat_its_the_heavy_metals_pesticides_and_PCBs

Jan 5, 2008 Comment-2

Comment in the thread titled "Maumee Bay Brewing"

BTW, I always choose Maumee Bay [a favorite] over the "Docks" - no comparison.
The "Docks" give their all to make the food look great and overlook blending of tastes & balancing of textures. Also the "Docks" have low frequency nodal hot spots from their air-mangling eqipment, acronymed HVAC which masks a multitude of unhealthy sins [like no vibration isolation]. They don't design, understand, or build structures like they used too. Think of the leaking roofs on new TPS schools.

Jan 5, 2008 Comment-3

Comment in the thread titled "Not the meat, not the fat, it's the heavy metals, pesticides, and PCBs...."

Also remember the growth steroids, the antibiotics, & all the wee beasties that thrive in their tissue [called meat], our gums, & ground up in their feed.

Shades of Michael Pollan:

Talk of the Nation, January 4, 2008 · Author Michael Pollan discusses his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. He boils his philosophy of nutrition down to seven words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Pollan suggests that people can improve their health by following relatively simple rules, such as: "Don't eat anything that your great-grandmother would not recognize as food."

Pollan discusses his definition of "real" food, and explains why he recommends staying away from what he calls the "foodlike substances" that line grocery store shelves.

Morning Edition, January 1, 2008 · "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

That's the advice journalist and author Michael Pollan offers in his new book, In Defense of Food.

"That's it. That is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy," Pollan tells Steve Inskeep.

'Eat Food'

The implication of Pollan's advice, however, is that what we're eating now isn't food.

"Very often, it isn't," he says. "We are eating a lot of edible food-like substances, which is to say highly processed things that might be called yogurt, might be called cereals, whatever, but in fact are very intricate products of food science that are really imitations of foods."

Pollan acknowledges that distinguishing between food and "food products" takes work. His tip: "Don't eat anything that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."

Take, for example, the portable tubes of yogurt known as Go-Gurt, Pollan says. "Imagine your grandmother or your great-grandmother picking up this tube, holding it up to the light, trying to figure out how to administer it to her body — if indeed it is something that goes in your body — and then imagine her reading the ingredients," he says. "Yogurt is a very simple food. It's milk inoculated with a bacterial culture. But Go-Gurt has dozens of ingredients."

'Not Too Much'

A large part of the conversation about food — like debating low-fat and low-carb diets — serves as a way of avoiding the idea that maybe we're just eating too much, Pollan says. He says his advice about how to limit consumption is based less on science, which he says "has failed us when it comes to food, by and large," and more on culture.

"Cultures have various devices to help people moderate their appetite," he says. "Once upon a time, there was scarcity. We don't have that anymore; we have abundance. But if you go around the world, you find very interesting tricks and devices."

One is small portion sizes, Pollan says. "The French manage to eat extravagantly rich food, but they don't get fat, and the reason is that they eat it on small plates, they don't have seconds, they don't snack."

In Okinawa, Japan, a cultural principle called "Hara Hachi Bu" instructs people to eat until they are just 80 percent full, Pollan says. "You do know when you are full, and the idea of stopping eating before you reach that moment … if you do that, you will actually reduce your caloric intake quite a bit," he says.

'Mostly Plants'

Finally, eating plants is very important, Pollan says. "There is incontrovertible but boring evidence that eating your fruits and vegetables is probably the best thing you can do for preventing cancer, for weight control, for diabetes, for all the different, all the Western diseases that now afflict us," he says.

But can you follow Pollan's advice and avoid processed foods without spending a ton of time and money?

"You're going to have to spend either more time or more money, and perhaps a little bit of both," Pollan says. "And I think that's just the reality. It's really a question of priorities, and we have, in effect, devalued food. And what I'm arguing is to move it a little closer to the center of our lives, and that we are going to have to put more into it, but that it will be very rewarding if we do.

"And if we don't, by the way, we are going to suffer from this — you know, we hear this phrase so many times — this epidemic of chronic disease. But the fact is, we are at a fork in the road. We're either going to get used to chronic disease, and be … in the age of Lipitor and dialysis centers on every corner in the city, or we're going to change the way we eat. I mean, it's really that simple. Most of the things that are killing us these days — whether it's heart disease, diabetes, obesity, many, many cancers — are directly attributed to the way we're eating."

Related NPR Stories
Nov. 24, 2006
How Food Finds its Way to Your Plate
April 14, 2006
Author Michael Pollan: 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'
April 11, 2006
Dinner: An Author Considers the Source
Nov. 27, 2003
Corn's Impact on America's Diet, Health and Politics
June 6, 2001
Writer Michael Pollan
Oct. 16, 2004
Michael Pollan on the Apple in History
June 4, 2001
Michael Pollan and 'The Botany of Desire'

Excerpt: 'In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto'

by Michael Pollan

NPR.org, December 31, 2007 · Food Science's Golden Age

In the years following the 1977 Dietary Goals and the 1982 National Academy of Sciences report on diet and cancer, the food industry, armed with its regulatory absolution, set about reengineering thousands of popular food products to contain more of the nutrients that science and government had deemed the good ones and fewer of the bad. A golden age for food science dawned. Hyphens sprouted like dandelions in the supermarket aisles: low-fat, no-cholesterol, high-fiber. Ingredients labels on formerly two- or three-ingredient foods such as mayonnaise and bread and yogurt ballooned with lengthy lists of new additives — what in a more benighted age would have been called adulterants. The Year of Eating Oat Bran — also known as 1988 — served as a kind of coming-out party for the food scientists, who succeeded in getting the material into nearly every processed food sold in America. Oat bran's moment on the dietary stage didn't last long, but the pattern now was set, and every few years since then, a new oat bran has taken its star turn under the marketing lights. (Here come omega-3s!)

You would not think that common food animals could themselves be rejiggered to fit nutritionist fashion, but in fact some of them could be, and were, in response to the 1977 and 1982 dietary guidelines as animal scientists figured out how to breed leaner pigs and select for leaner beef. With widespread lipophobia taking hold of the human population, countless cattle lost their marbling and lean pork was repositioned as "the new white meat" — tasteless and tough as running shoes, perhaps, but now even a pork chop could compete with chicken as a way for eaters to "reduce saturated fat intake." In the years since then, egg producers figured out a clever way to redeem even the disreputable egg: By feeding flaxseed to hens, they could elevate levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the yolks.

Aiming to do the same thing for pork and beef fat, the animal scientists are now at work genetically engineering omega-3 fatty acids into pigs and persuading cattle to lunch on flaxseed in the hope of introducing the blessed fish fat where it had never gone before: into hot dogs and hamburgers.

But these whole foods are the exceptions. The typical whole food has much more trouble competing under the rules of nutritionism, if only because something like a banana or an avocado can't quite as readily change its nutritional stripes. (Though rest assured the genetic engineers are hard at work on the problem.) To date, at least, they can't put oat bran in a banana or omega-3s in a peach. So depending on the reigning nutritional orthodoxy, the avocado might either be a high-fat food to be assiduously avoided (Old Think) or a food high in monounsaturated fat to be embraced (New Think). The fate and supermarket sales of each whole food rises and falls with every change in the nutritional weather while the processed foods simply get reformulated and differently supplemented. That's why when the Atkins diet storm hit the food industry in 2003, bread and pasta got a quick redesign (dialing back the carbs; boosting the proteins) while poor unreconstructed potatoes and carrots were left out in the carbohydrate cold. (The low-carb indignities visited on bread and pasta, two formerly "traditional foods that everyone knows," would never have been possible had the imitation rule not been tossed out in 1973. Who would ever buy imitation spaghetti? But of course that is precisely what low-carb pasta is.)

A handful of lucky whole foods have recently gotten the "good nutrient" marketing treatment: The antioxidants in the pomegranate (a fruit formerly more trouble to eat than it was worth) now protect against cancer and erectile dysfunction, apparently, and the omega-3 fatty acids in the (formerly just fattening) walnut ward off heart disease. A whole subcategory of nutritional science — funded by industry and, according to one recent analysis,* remarkably reliable in its ability to find a health benefit in whatever food it has been commissioned to study — has sprung up to give a nutritionist sheen (and FDA-approved health claim) to all sorts of foods, including some not ordinarily thought of as healthy. The Mars Corporation recently endowed a chair in chocolate science at the University of California at Davis, where research on the antioxidant properties of cacao is making breakthroughs, so it shouldn't be long before we see chocolate bars bearing FDA-approved health claims. (When we do, nutritionism will surely have entered its baroque phase.) Fortunately for everyone playing this game, scientists can find an antioxidant in just about any plant-based food they choose to study.

Yet as a general rule it's a whole lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a raw potato or a carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over in Cereal the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming their newfound "whole-grain goodness" to the rafters. Watch out for those health claims.

*L. I. Lesser, C. B. Ebbeling, M. Goozner, D. Wypij, and D. S. Ludwig, "Relationship Between Funding Source and Conclusion Among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles," PLoS Medicine, Vol. 4, No. 1, e5 doi:10.1371/journal. pmed.0040005.

Excerpted from IN DEFENSE OF FOOD by Michael Pollan. Reprinted by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright © Michael Pollan, 2008.

Jan 5, 2008 Comment-4

Comment in thread titled "Not the meat, not the fat, it's the heavy metals, pesticides, and PCBs...."

Also, cars should be sold with warning stickers that they may be addictive & dangerous to you health [just like cigarettes, alchohol (need more carbon atoms & cross bonding to spell it wright] & seat cushions - DO NOT REMOVE under penalty of THE LAW}.

The following is pretty SHOCKing DOCTRINE. It explains the rise in lung cancer among non smokers. A non smoker living in an EPA air non attainment area, has about the same risk of lung cancer as a smoker. I want to contact this Dr. in the story and get his source of data.

#5. MOVE. That's right. Move away from the Metroplex and the polluted air that hangs over it, suggests Dr. Robert Cluck, vice president of medical affairs at Arlington Memorial Hospital, and the mayor of Arlington.

"If you are a nonsmoker and you live in an area that's a nonattainment area, such as we are, your chances of developing lung cancer are about the same as a smoker [in an attainment area]," says Cluck, who helped lead a protest against TXU plans to build new coal-burning power plants.

Wondering what "nonattainment" means? The Environmental Protection Agency sets standards for acceptable levels of six air pollutants, including ozone. The local nonattainment area, which hasn't met those standards, consists of Tarrant, Parker, Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman, Denton, Dallas, Collin and Rockwall counties.

"Asthma frequency is doubled or tripled in nonattainment areas, such as our area. It can affect the maturation of the lungs in kids."

High concentrations of ozone can also aggravate bronchitis, emphysema and other respiratory disorders.

from #5 at this website::: bk

http://www.star-telegram.com:80/family_day/story/387517.html
[something about the colon in middle that doesn't take to complete listing of link as link]

Apr 12, 2008 Comment-1

Comment in thread titled "Toledo's Media Decompression Collective -- This Wednesday"

Fascism is an apt term for the corporate personhoods now legally formed from earlier entities.

Apr 12, 2008 Comment-2

Comment in thread titled "Great Lakes area shows low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer."

Surveying the Toledo sites releasing lots of goo & gas appendixed in this report shows surprises right on my doorstep & beside Scott Park UT Campus.

Apr 12, 2008 Comment-3

Comment in thread titled "Meet & Greet #7! "Calling All Creatives!" "

I've been to all VI & enjoyed the people & spaces. Large free monitored parking at the Collingwood Arts Center with the free trolley from 6-9 & CAC open to 10. After party at Wesley's.

Jun 3, 2008 Comment-1

Comment in thread titled "Best value on mulch?"

Clean City mulch for $15 a cubic yard plus delivery from the City Forestry Dept. south of Hill Ave. west of Westwood & RR tracks [opp. Dietrich's Health Foods]. Check out the "Need Mulch" billboards & the Buckeye Cable ads. They have light [wood only] & dark [wood & leaves- provides nitrogen].

Jun 3, 2008 Comment-2

Comment in thread titled "2 types of floating wind turbines"

Nuclear does have a carbon footprint- all the concrete [heating limestone is one of our major sources], the mining of uranium [the mine tailings are radiating neighbors], plus all the manufacture of the electronics to control these plants [do we really trust Windows RC?], plus transportation to Yucca [much right thru Toledo on the Interstste & RR], plus the earthquake probabilities at Yucca- read the hearing transcrpts from 7 years ago in Cleveland!

Jun 3, 2008 Comment-3

Comment in thread titled "Run with the Bulls in Toledo"

Not to be missed! Have fun. And remember the Jazz Loop the night before until midnight.

Jun 3, 2008 Comment-4

Comment in thread titled "Valentine Theatre to unveil Toledo’s largest mural"

World class! Thanx jr for this illuminating composite.

Jun 3, 2008 Comment-5

Comment in thread titled "Ummmm....HUH?" - "Would someone explain to me exactly WHY we vote?"

Robert said:

Seems to me that the voters are not well educated on the issues & have done a second rate job. That was G.Bush that lost the popular vote, which weakens my thesis.

Aug 12, 2008 Comment-1

Comment in thread titled "Movie showing: "Who Killed the Electric Car" "

One of the MIT engineers who worked on the design will be in attendance [arriving on bicycle]. He moved to Toledo after GM axed the program.

Aug 12, 2008 Comment-2

Comment in thread titled "Anybody ever had to battle Yellowjackets?"

Thanks, Holland, for the OSU Extension link. We ought to get past stereotyping the world. The human brain used to handle more variables until we drugged ourselves.

Aug 12, 2008 Comment-3

Comment in thread titled "Bike Paths in Toledo"

As a memember of TMACOG's Bicyclist [commuting]/ Pedestrian Committee, I commend the just revised Regional Bike Guide http://www.tmacog.org/Transportation/bike_guide_08_09.pdf

We're working on one for urban commuters.

Aug 16, 2008 Comment

Comment in thread titled "More on debunking Republicons' Oily corruption"

Is TeamDub saying that global warming is only an idea in our heads? Or that if we fear [such as the government/media generated concept of terrorism] we should seek help, such as with Iraq?

Sep 30, 2008 Comment-1

Comment in thread titled "Janney's"

I still go to Ondrus Hardware just over the High Level Bridge on The East Side. They know what you're doing.
[To accomplish the left at the first light as you see them, go beyond and circle right - around the traffic triangle.]

And it's close to I75 if you know the secret.

Sep 30, 2008 Comment-2

Comment in thread titled "7% of Ohio's Land to violate endangered Species Act for 50 Years"

The way they "mistreat" current limited easements strikes fear in me as we cave in for energy at any anti-productive cost.

Sep 30, 2008 Comment-3

Comment in thread titled "Going batty over morning coffee"

Sillies - Worry about something more probable!
I've lived in several houses with bats and consider them friends, part of the creation that I'm directed to be a steward.

The largest category of death in the US is motorized vehicles. #2 is patented pharmaceuticals.

Oct 8, 2008 Comment

Robert's last post to Toledo Talk was this comment in the thread titled "Seeking Local Restaurant" I emphasized part of his last sentence.

The Budapest is actually 2 blocks east of Auburn, halfway to RR underpass on north side of Monroe, # 3314.

Closed Mondays.
Tues. thru Fri. 11am to 8:30pm
Sat. 4pm to 8:30pm
Sun. 11:30am to 6:30pm

Yes, quite good - I'm often there with my bike.