Rumi Nations

Pharam companies have tried for years to come up with a wonder drug to fight obesity in America. Mostly, that effort has been fruitless for various reasons. The human body simply seems to be reluctant to let go of its weight. Three California companies seem to be having some success in developing drugs. Let's see whether the FDA gives them the go-ahead and how well they fare in the marketplace. Of course, eating less food and exercising would appear to be the best medicines. In wealthy countries, food being relatively cheap compared to the incomes of people, it's easy to overeat. In poor countries, people tend to be lean as food is quite an expensive proposition and people have to spend their incomes judiciously and decide what to eat and not spend money needlessly on excess food. It would be great if people in rich countries were to donate their extra money to people in poor countries but I don't think people would be inclined to do that. And that includes me as well. I th...

I read in a Bob Herbert column in the New York Times that UC Berkeley is suffering from all the woes afflicting California's budget. I saw once that California has an economy that's larger than Russia's. UC Berkeley is apparently the pinnacle of California's public higher education system. When governments face budget deficits, they often look at education expenditures as a low-hanging fruit. This is unfortunate, but perhaps pure 'research' into the origins of the human race or into the private life of some long-dead writer seems to be rather academic to budget planners compared to, say, unemployment allowance or health-related expenditures. Again, within the broad umbrella of education, it's topics such as music education in schools which is often the first one to bear the brunt of budget cuts when times are tough. There is this wonderful movie called Mr. Holland's Opus starring Richard Dreyfus that depicts something of this over a 30 year period. The ...