Asians, Jews, and the Legacy of Midas

In much of the U.S. media today, Asian-Americans are being hailed as the new wonder group. Local newspapers seem to be filled with articles about how this student from Pakistan won the spelling bee and that student from Japan won the math contest. Weekly news magazines carry articles extolling this phenomenon, and many liberals and conservatives alike enthusiastically promote the stereotype: liberals because it combats the racist myth that people of color are intellectually inferior to Euro-Americans ( whites ) and conservatives because it can be used to promote the idea that any ethnic group can make it if only they work hard.[1] Therein lies one of the negative aspects of this media campaign

[Review of] Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics, A Conceptual Framework

Whether ethnicity stems from certain intrinsic group characteristics or whether it is a definition conferred upon various groups because of their political, social, and economic environment has been a fundamental debate within the field of ethnic studies. Most students of ethnic studies would agree that ethnicity today embraces both factors, and more, that it is the result of the interactions between both sets of influences. How these factors interact in the political sphere is the core of Rothschild\u27s ambitious new book

[Review of] D. L. Crockett-Smith. Cow boy Amok

Politically-oriented poetry is difficult to do well. Many politically oriented writers resist displaying a certain type of passion, the type of intense commitment that helps a writer convey ideas without being didactic, because displaying such intensity may make the writer feel vulnerable or weak in public. Conversely, many poets and artists use their art to grasp and convey what they see as profound dichotomy need not hold firm, however. Art, including poetry, has shown itself to be an effective way to convey important ideas, and the political struggles that surround issues of racial violence, oppression, war, famine, and the destruction of human freedom and potential are as profound as any other subjects for artistic expression

Critique [of Oral Traditions Under Threat: The Australian Aboriginal Experience by Christine Morris]

Christine Morris stimulates, provokes, and challenges some fundamental axioms about culture and literature in her intriguing essay. The absolutism of her position forces readers to critically examine their own ideas about the transmission and preservation of culture. Ultimately, I have some skepticism about the absolutism of her position, but her paper moved me several steps towards her position and caused me to evaluate my ideas on other issues as well

Meal Patterns and Food Choices of Female Rats Fed a Cafeteria-Style Diet Are Altered by Gastric Bypass Surgery

After Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (RYGB), rats tend to reduce consumption of high-sugar and/or high-fat foods over time. Here, we sought to investigate the behavioral mechanisms underlying these intake outcomes. Adult female rats were provided a cafeteria diet comprised of five palatable foodstuffs varying in sugar and fat content and intake was monitored continuously. Rats were then assigned to either RYGB, or one of two control (CTL) groups: sham surgery or a nonsurgical control group receiving the same prophylactic iron treatments as RYGB rats. Post-sur-gically, all rats consumed a large first meal of the cafeteria diet. After the first meal, RYGB rats reduced intake primarily by decreasing the meal sizes relative to CTL rats, ate meals more slowly, and displayed altered nycthemeral timing of intake yielding more daytime meals and fewer nighttime meals. Collectively, these meal patterns indicate that despite being motivated to consume a cafeteria diet after RYGB, rats rapidly learn to modify eating behaviors to consume foods more slowly across the entire day. RYGB rats also altered food preferences, but more slowly than the changes in meal patterns, and ate proportionally more energy from complex carbohydrates and protein and proportionally less fat. Overall, the pattern of results suggests that after RYGB rats quickly learn to adjust their size, eating rate, and distribution of meals without altering meal number and to shift their macronutrient intake away from fat; these changes appear to be more related to postingestive events than to a fundamental decline in the palatability of food choices

Early Postoperative Exposure to High-Fat Diet Does Not Increase Long-Term Weight Loss or Fat Avoidance After Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass in Rats

BackgroundBariatric surgery alters food preferences in rats and reportedly decreases desire to consume high-fat high-sugar food in humans. The aim of this study was to investigate whether early post-operative exposure to high-fat food could increase body weight loss after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) by triggering fat avoidance.MethodsMale Wistar rats underwent either RYGB (n = 15) or sham-operations (n = 16). Preoperatively a standardized 4-choice cafeteria diet [dietary options: low-fat/low-sugar (LFLS), low-fat/high-sugar (LFHS), high-fat/low-sugar (HFLS), high-fat/high-sugar (HFHS)] was offered. First, each option was available for 4 days, thereafter rats were offered the 4 options simultaneously for 3 days preoperatively. Post-surgery, 8 rats in the RYGB- and 8 in the sham-group were exposed to a high-fat content diet (Oatmeal + 30% lard, OM+L) for 10 days, while 7 RYGB rats and 8 sham-rats received OM alone. From the 11th postoperative day, the 4-choice cafeteria diet was reintroduced for 55-days. The intake of all available food items, macronutrients and body weight changes were monitored over 8 weeks. Main outcomes were long-term body-weight and daily change in relative caloric intake during the postoperative cafeteria period compared to the preoperative cafeteria.ResultsDuring the first 12 days of postoperative cafeteria access, RYGB-rats exposed to OM+L had a higher mean caloric intake per day than RYGB rats exposed to OM alone (Δ10 kCal, P$_{adj}$ = 0.004), but this difference between the RYGB groups disappeared thereafter. Consequently, in the last 33 days of the postoperative cafeteria diet, the mean body weight of the RYGB+OM+L group was higher compared to RYGB+OM (Δ51 g, P$_{adj}$ < 0.001). RYGB rats, independently from the nutritional intervention, presented a progressive decrease in daily consumption of calories from fat and increased their daily energy intake mainly from non-sugar carbohydrates. No such differences were detected in sham-operated controls exposed to low- or high fat postoperative interventions.ConclusionA progressive decrease in daily fat intake over time was observed after RYGB, independently from the nutritional intervention. This finding confirms that macronutrient preferences undergo progressive changes over time after RYGB and supports the role of ingestive adaptation and learning. Early postoperative exposure to high-fat food failed to accentuate fat avoidance and did not lead to superior weight loss in the long-term