Trump’s Support Among Women Plummets To Historic Low

Trump’s Support Among Women Plummets To Historic Low

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.com

Donald Trump has never been very popular with women — and for good reason.

After decades of exploiting and objectifying women, Trump was caught on tape last year bragging about sexual assault. Around the same time, no fewer than 16 women came forward with allegations of harrassment and sexual misconduct spanning more than 20 years.

Needless to say, women weren’t impressed.

But if his approval with women was low before, it is absolutely dismal now.

According to NPR, “Women approve of Trump far less than they have approved of any other president at this point in his administration in at least the last 64 years.”

These numbers come amid a wave of resignations and allegations against members of Congress for sexual harassment.

Every time one of these incidents surfaces, it only serves to put a greater spotlight on the uncomfortable fact that the man in the Oval Office has not only been serially accused, but openly boasted on tape about being able to assault women because he is famous.

The country is experiencing a dramatic shift in the way we talk about, and tolerate, sexual misconduct, and the fact that Trump is very conspicuously a relic of the old order — a man who used his power to force himself on women as he pleased — is now impossible to ignore.

Quinnipiac has also found that fully 70 percent of Americans want Congress to investigate Trump over these allegations — something that Republicans have so far shown no willingness to do.

We can no longer ignore the elephant in the room. Trump is not just a problem for women — he is a problem for our entire culture, and it’s time to confront that.

 

For Better Or Worse, It’s Mostly About Food When It Comes To Weight Loss

By Blair Anthony Robertson, The Sacramento Bee (TNS)

As a cyclist who rides almost every day, I often think about the correlation between exercise, calories and ideal body weight. That’s because it’s simply easier to be a good cyclist if you are as light and strong as possible.

One of the misconceptions about active people, especially long-distance runners and cyclists, is that they don’t have to worry about how much they eat. They’ll stay slim and trim automatically.

Indeed, I will occasionally hear fellow cyclists, usually new ones, say that one of the reasons they enjoy riding is they can eat as much as they want. I tend to have a knee-jerk reaction — my eyes go straight to their waistline.

If you truly want to eat all you want, you need to pick foods that are low in energy density, according to Michael Greger, author of How Not To Die.

If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to get in better shape and drop some weight, your best bet is to focus on what you are eating and not rely on moderate amounts of exercise. Yes, the good news for foodies is that food is the answer to losing weight. The bad news: food — less food, better food — is the answer to losing weight.

The numbers speak for themselves. At the helpful website healthstatus.com, I took a hypothetical 35-year-old man who is 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds — a little overweight but nothing terrible.

Then I checked the calories burned for certain workouts. It’s not a lot. Jogging (a slow trot, which is reasonable for a new exerciser) burns just 286 calories in 30 minutes. Running briskly (8 mph) for 30 minutes burns 551 calories. Riding a bike for an hour rather vigorously (14-16 mph) uses up 864 calories. To lose a single pound, you have to create a caloric deficit of 3,500 calories.

The easier way is to look at food intake. For many, that’s easier said than done. But the numbers can be jarring, as you already know if you’re ever perused those mandatory nutrition charts at chain restaurants. A small fries at McDonald’s are 230 calories. If you eat them, you just wiped out your 30-minute jog through the neighborhood. Pasta carbonara (1,590 calories) and a Godiva chocolate cheesecake (1,110 calories) at The Cheesecake Factory adds up to a sobering 2,700 calories.

Experts say that the biggest factor is awareness. That’s why nearly every diet works in the beginning and why the Weight Watchers points system is so easy to follow — once you reach your allotted points, you’re done for the day. People are focused and determined. In order to make lasting changes, you usually have to change your thinking, your lifestyle and, sometimes, even your friends. While on the Healthstatus.com website, you can get a very good free booklet, “The Caloric Deficit for Weight Loss,” which lists the 27 most fattening foods and offers alternatives.

This doesn’t mean that your days of being a foodie are over (or that we won’t try to dazzle you with recipes for, say, braised short ribs or German chocolate cake in the weeks to come). It simply means that you have to pick your spots and space out your splurges if you want 2016 to be the year you reach your fitness and weight-loss goals.

©2016 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Smaller portions and healthier options are the best option. If you want to be satisfied without gaining weight, even a modest increase in fruits and vegetables makes a difference. (Blair Anthony Robertson/Sacramento Bee/TNS)

 

Beer Run: A Craft Brew Language Primer

Beer Run: A Craft Brew Language Primer

By Blair Anthony Robertson, The Sacramento Bee (TNS)

If you’re looking to become part of the thriving beer scene, it can be a lot of fun. But it can also be intimidating, especially when it comes to the language of beer. What, exactly, does your beer geek friend mean by “hoppy?” And did he say “bread” or “brett” when referring to the yeast? Session beer: Is that a good thing? And are you considered cool if you still love Pliny? Or you’ve moved on?

With excellent brews flowing around all sorts of areas, what follows is an informal primer to get you up to speed and help you feel at home at your favorite brewery or beer-centric pub.

Craft beer: This refers to the little breweries, the underdogs, the up-and-comers. But wait. Aren’t behemoths Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas craft breweries? Well, yes. Craft beer gatekeepers keep changing the definition.

The Brewers Association says any brewery that produces 6 million barrels or less annually, uses traditional brewing methods and is not more than 25 percent owned by non-craft brewing interests qualifies as craft. What about craft breweries that have been gobbled up by the giant breweries? That will probably be up to the consumer.

Do all craft breweries make well-crafted beer? No. Do all giant beer companies make bland beer? For your answer, try a head-to-dead taste test.

Barrel: A unit used to measure beer. It’s equal to 31.5 gallons or two standard kegs.

Hoppy: This adjective may refer to the bitterness you smell and taste in a beer. The term generally is associated with India pale ales and pale ales, whose hoppiness or bitterness is actually measured as international bittering units (IBUs). The higher the IBUs, the more bitterness you’re going to taste and feel raking over your palate. To some, it’s unpleasantly harsh. To others, it’s joyous. But it’s also very broad. It can mean citrus, tropical fruit, earthy, dank and more. Interestingly, the human species is not naturally fond of bitter things, likely because bitter things in the wild tend to be poisonous. Hoppy can mean so many things that it really isn’t very helpful if you use it to describe an IPA.

Hops: They grow on vines and brewers use the flowers, or cones. There are all kinds of hops used for flavoring and bittering beer, but you only have to know a few to start.

Cascade is the most popular hop and is important because it was the first American-bred variety, dating to the 1950s, and it is the hop used to brew Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Centennial hops have similar, though bolder and more bitter, characteristics.

Citra is all about creating wonderful aromas in IPAs. Take a big whiff of many an IPA and you’re likely to get notes of grapefruit, melon and more. That’s probably the Citra hop on full blast. Look no further than Knee Deep’s Citra Extra Pale Ale, a self-proclaimed citrus bomb done right.

Simcoe: This is the signature hop in Russian River’s renowned double IPA, Pliny the Elder. It’s bitter, fruity, earthy and piney, and its overall aroma is alluring and complex. You’ll find Simcoe in plenty of other robust IPAs, including Track 7’s Panic IPA.

Brett: This is a term you’re likely to hear more and more often. Not so much at breweries but at beer bars that carry certain Belgian styles. Short for Brettanomyces, brett is the wild yeast that can either contaminate beer and render it undrinkable or infuse beer with a kind of funky complexity that makes it taste magical. A very unlucky and, perhaps, careless brewer creates the former; a very skilled brewer, the latter.

Nitro: The process of using nitrogen (usually 70 percent) along with carbon dioxide to create carbonation with smaller bubbles that imparts a smooth, creamy mouthfeel. Guinness stout is the most famous nitro beer. Some beer bars have experimented with serving nitro IPAs on draft, though the effect tends to mute the bitterness you might be expecting with that style.

Bomber: This is a big bottle of beer, a 22-ouncer. Not to be confused with “a 40,” as in a big can or bottle of cheap beer designed to get you inebriated good and fast. The bomber is the most commonly used container in craft beer and is usually sold as a single. Many of the best beers in the world are bottled this way.

©2015 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr