Source: http://www.americanpapist.com/2009/11/blog-post.html

“I love picking up stories that reveal the humanity of unborn babies.  Now a new study shows that babies, even before they are born, are learning how to talk just like their mothers sound.

In this study, the scientists compared recordings of 30 French and 30 German infants aged between two and five days old. While the French newborns more frequently produced rising crying tones, German babies cried with falling intonation. The reason for this is presumably the differing intonation patterns in the two languages, which are already perceived in the uterus and are later reproduced.  Or to put it in simple English: before they are even born, babies start learning from their mommies.”

Source: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/10/download_the_bay_bridge_fail_w.php

If you haven’t heard about our Bay Area traffic nightmare, the Bay Bridge has been closed since Tuesday when a 5,000 pound steel beam decided to crash onto the upper deck. They are building a new bridge but it isn’t expected to be completed until 2013.  People are having to use BART (love BART) now and according to sfgate.com, records were broken on Thursday with 442,000 passengers, using the trains.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/

Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/27/do-chimps-grieve.html

“Look at this photograph and just try to tell me the answer is no.  This incredible image was shot for National Geographic by Monica Szczupider, and shows chimpanzees at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon. They’re observing as the body of an elder troop member named Dorothy is taken to burial. She died at 40 years of age, which is pretty old for a chimpanzee.

The photo appears in the November issue of National Geographic Magazine, in the “Visions of Earth” section. [ Thanks, Marilyn Terrell ]“

This is an amazing yet true story from bitsofwisdom.com about our societies perception about life and priorities:

“Something to think about….
Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:
The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.  This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

The questions raised:

• In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
• Do we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.

How many other things are we missing?”

Friends Forever – An orangutan was in a rescue and not doing well.  This old hound wandered in absolutely emaciated and the orangutan snapped to like his buddy had arrived. He stayed with the hound night and day until he was well and in the whole scenario found a reason to live.  Suryla and Roscoe are now inseparable.

Where you lead, I will follow...best friends Suryia the orangutan and Roscoe the Blue Tick hound.

Doggy paddle's the order of the day here for the couple who live at the Tiger's Sanctuary in Myrtle Beach , SC.

Suryia and Roscoe spend hours together every day - they're particularly keen on swimming.

There's always time to chill.

For once, Roscoe's letting it all hang out.

A dog's not just a man's best friend, he's an orangutan's too.

A former co-worker posted the above video about healthcare on Facebook which brought up some discussions I have been having with people.  Lots of people have been saying Canada’s healthcare is lacking and according the the video above that seems to be the case.  I think we instantly look to Canada’s healthcare because it is the closest socialized medicine nation to what we could compare ourselves with (besides they are our friendly neighbors to the north).  Any time someone has talked about Canada’s healthcare I point them to the list of life expectancy by country on Wikipedia.  The US is #50 and Canada is #8 (see below).  Obviously healthcare can’t be the only contributing factor but what other factors can you think of?

Rank by entity	Entity	Overall life expectancy at birth
1	Macau ( China)	84.36
2	Andorra	82.51
3	Japan	82.12
4	Singapore	81.98
5	San Marino	81.97
6	Hong Kong ( China)	81.86
7	Australia	81.63
8	Canada	81.23
9	France (metropolitan)	80.98
10	Sweden	80.86
11	Switzerland	80.85
12	Guernsey	80.77
13	Israel	80.73
14	Iceland	80.67
15	Anguilla	80.65
16	Cayman Islands	80.43
17	Bermuda	80.65
18	New Zealand	80.36
19	Italy	80.2
20	Gibraltar	80.19
21	Monaco	80.09
22	Liechtenstein	80.06
23	Spain	80.05
24	Norway	79.95
25	Jersey	79.75
26	Greece	79.66
27	Austria	79.5
28	Faroe Islands	79.44
29	Malta	79.44
30	Netherlands	79.4
31	Luxembourg	79.33
32	Germany	79.26
33	Belgium	79.22
34	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	79.07
35	U.S. Virgin Islands	79.05
36	United Kingdom	79.01
37	Finland	78.97
38	Jordan	78.87
39	Isle of Man	78.82
40	South Korea	78.72
41	European Union	78.67
42	Puerto Rico ( US)	78.53
43	Bosnia and Herzegovina	78.5
44	Saint Helena	78.44
45	Cyprus	78.33
46	Denmark	78.3
47	Ireland	78.24
48	Portugal	78.21
49	Wallis and Futuna	78.2
50	United States	78.11

She (my former co-worker) pointed to health statistics on BMI which was smart, I never would have thought to do that.  As you will see below, America is an overweight nation.  The US is #1 and Canada is #11 but I don’t think there is too much of a correlation to show that correlation equals causation (my sociology professor would be so proud) here which is exactly my point.  If our healthcare is so great, and our BMI levels not that far off from other nations with much better life expectancy, why are we #50?

I’m sending this to a Canadian counterpart to get his take on healthcare as well.  I mean afterall “Canadians strongly support the health system’s public rather than for-profit private basis, and a 2009 poll by Nanos Research found 86.2% of Canadians surveyed supported or strongly supported “public solutions to make our public health care stronger.”^[4][5]

A 2009 Harris/Decima poll found 82% of Canadians preferred their healthcare system to the one in the United States, more than ten times as many as the 8% stating a preference for a US-style health care system for Canada^[6] while a Strategic Counsel survey in 2008 found 91% of Canadians preferring their healthcare system to that of the U.S.^[7][8]. In the same poll, when asked “overall the Canadian health care system was performing very well, fairly well, not very well or not at all?” 70% of Canadians rated their system as working either “well” or “very well” ^[9] A 2003 Gallup poll found only 25% of Americans are either “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with “the availability of affordable healthcare in the nation,” versus 50% of those in the UK and 57% of Canadians. Those “very dissatisfied” made up 44% of Americans, 25% of respondents of Britons, and 17% of Canadians^[10]

In November 2004, Canadians voted Tommy Douglas, Canada’s ‘father of Medicare’”) the Greatest Canadian of all time following a nationwide contest.^[11][12]

I want to open the conversation up to you.  What other data can we look at to show why the US would have a lower life expectancy than our neighbors to the north if not obesity, or healthcare?  If you send data, please site your sources for everyone to benefit from.  Thank you!

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity