The Marc Jacobs Weight Loss Journal exposes the secrets of diet and weight loss. I do not want to keep you in a state of suspense. Here is the secret: Eat Less. Exercise is critical to one's health. Exercise is not the critical component of weight loss. This blog will focus on a healthy lifestyle with an emphasis on eating properly. Marvelous mental musings posted daily. I make an effort to be interesting, instructive and inspiring.
While I have been busy with my tradeshow in Houston, a rather exciting World Series has been taking place in the city. Game 5, with the series tied 2-2 took place on Sunday night (and into early Monday morning!) There was no possible way to turn off the TV and go to sleep as long as Houston and Los Angeles were playing one of the most high scoring games in World Series history. The game finally ended early Monday morning with the Astros on top, 13-12 in the bottom of the 10th inning after five hours and seventeen minutes. What a game!
HOUSTON, TX - OCTOBER 29: Jose Altuve #27 and Yuli Gurriel #10 of the Houston Astros celebrate after a two-run home run by Carlos Correa #1 (not pictured) during the seventh inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers in game five of the 2017 World Series at Minute Maid Park on October 29, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
My Sunday (which ended early Monday morning) when the World Series Game 5 finally concluded, started with a 10 mile urban hike in Houston, at 5:15AM
My blog was on hiatus this past summer (I was apparently way too busy gaining weight) Now that I that I am serious about eating less, exercising more and losing weight - I have more time, and certainly more desire, to espouse my conservative right-wing positions. Today we examine Columbus Day.
Have you heard about this recent news from California?
Columbus Day is no more in the nation’s second-largest city.
The Los Angeles City Council voted 14-1 on Wednesday to officially mark the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day on the city’s calendar — a day to commemorate “indigenous, aboriginal and native people.”
The day will remain a paid holiday for city employees,the Los Angeles Times reported.
The vote followed a contentious hearing, during which some Italian-Americans said the switch would eradicate a key portion of their history, while others argued that city lawmakers needed to “dismantle a state-sponsored celebration of genocide of indigenous peoples” and dismissed the idea of celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day on a different date altogether.
“To make us celebrate on any other day would be a further injustice,” said Chrissie Castro, vice chairwoman of the Los Angeles City-County Native American Indian Commission.
Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, a member of Oklahoma’s Wyandotte Nation tribe, had pushed for the change, saying Wednesday that the move would provide “restorative justice.” In a blog post prior to the vote earlier this week, O’Farrell said the “historical record is unambiguous in documenting the horrors” Christopher Columbus and his men imposed on the native people in present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Removing Columbus Day and replacing it with Indigenous Peoples Day is the appropriate action for this city to take,”O’Farrell wrote. “We must send a signal to Washington D.C. that there is no better day to honor our original inhabitants while highlighting the absurdity of celebrating a historical figure responsible for such profound suffering, still felt by generations of Indigenous People everywhere. This is more than symbolic. It is spiritually and morally necessary.”Councilman Joe Buscaino, a first-generation Italian-American, suggested replacing Columbus Day with a new name to celebrate “all of the diverse cultures in the city” before being the lone city lawmaker to oppose the switch, asking fellow councilors not to “cure one offense with another.”
With the change, Los Angeles joins a growing list of places that have already replaced Columbus Day — first recognized as a federal holiday in 1937 — with Indigenous Peoples Day, including Alaska, Vermont, Seattle, Albuquerque, San Francisco and Denver. Most recently, the Bangor City Council in Maine voted to rename the holiday,the Bangor Daily News reports.
Let's examine the lefty lunatic Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio (you know this guy, he spent his honeymoon with his new bride in that stronghold of freedom, Cuba. His Cuban honeymoon was a testament to his broken moral compass as well as his faith to the laws of the United States of America. Surely, though, I am digressing.) Mayor de Blasio has ordered a review of the Christopher Columbus statue in Columbus Circle in New York City.
I have some questions for the Honorable Mayor of New York:
Should we not change the name of Columbus Circle as well? (Who might that be named after?)
Now I think that is good for local politicians to send these messages to our leaders in Washington.
You are familiar with Washington, it is the capitol of our country. You might know it as Washington, DC. Did you know what the 'DC" stands for? Here's the problem: District of Columbia. There is that pesky connection to Christopher Columbus, yet again.
Columbia University? This is a problem. Columbia University can trace its history all the way back to 1754. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in New York, and fifth oldest in the entire United States. It is widely considered to be one of the finest universities in the world. This University surely would not tolerate any kind of so-called 'hate speech.' For example, a bit more than a decade ago, the University invited the Honorable President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. Aside from Ahmadinejad's fervent Holocaust Denial, he is a pretty good guy representing a country with clear cut moral values. Oops, I am digressing again. The real point is, that Columbia University is a home of political correctness. Surely, this esteemed university will have to change its name. Can you imagine being a graduate of a university which was named after a person responsible for the genocide of the indigenous people of America? Let's talk about me. I don't know if I would feel comfortable sending my daughter to a university named after Osama Bin Laden. I wouldn't care how good the quality of the education was, it just would not seem right. But that's just me.
Hopefully this is obvious. I do not think that Columbia University should change its name. I do think that it should change its slant away from politically correct, lefty, liberal thinking, but that is a different story for another blog post on another day.
I do not think that the statue of Christoper Columbus at Columbus Circle should be removed. And I don't think that one requires a formal review lefty intellectuals to come to this conclusion.
I do not think that Washington, DC needs a new name either.
And I certainly do not think that Columbus Day needs to be wiped off the calendar.
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Another urban hike on Labor Day, this time, six miles
I augmented the steps from my six mile urban hike with some walking in place while watching TV
*You've earned 1,145 extra calories from exercise today
If every day were like today...
You'd weigh 230.1 lbs in 5 weeks
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Here's another trip in the 'wayback machine.' This time I return to my own blog posting from September 17, 2016. It is not too difficult to predict some of the lefty loon ideas - they tend to get loonier with the passage of time. This statue in Chicago is still there. How likely is it to be there in the future?
I first heard about this guy, The People Walker, a couple of days ago when I saw it on someone's facebook newsfeed. Then yesterday, an article about THE PEOPLE WALKER, showed up on the drudgereport. I think that I might want to be a 'people walker' (at least part-time) These days, I sure walk a lot, and other than the loose change that I find in the streets, and all the important health benefits that accrue to me, it is completely unprofitable.
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The article below appeared in The Guardian. It was linked to the drudgereport seen by millions of people around the world each day.
'We need human interaction': meet the LA man who walks people for a living
As the digital age makes people more lonely, Chuck McCarthy created a service to stroll with strangers – but the job is more people whisperer than walker
Chuck McCarthy recently auditioned as a homicidal biker for a TV show, but the actor is finding glimmers of fame, and possibly a business franchise, with another role: Los Angeles’s first people walker.
He walks humans for $7 a mile around the streets and park near his home, pioneering an alternative to dog walking that requires no leash, just an ability to walk, talk and, above all, listen.
The idea initially struck the underemployed actor several months ago as a joke, an imaginary way to make extra cash, until it became real.
“The more I thought about it, the less crazy it seemed,” said McCarthy, draining a bottle of water – he now takes hydration seriously – and heading out into the sunshine for another walk, this time with the Guardian trotting in step.
A homemade scrawl across his T-shirt declared him The People Walker, low-budget, mobile advertising. “I’ve been doing walks almost every single day for the past week and I’m getting repeat clients, which is what you want.”
A stroll with this soft-spoken, hirsute hulk seems to be what much of LA wants, judging by the response to his Facebook page and homemade flyers.
“Need motivation to walk?” they ask from lamp posts. “Scared to walk alone at night? Don’t like walking alone at all? Don’t want people to see you walking alone and just assume you have no friends? Don’t like listening to music or podcasts but can’t walk alone in silence, forced to face thoughts of the unknown future, or your own insignificance in the ever expanding universe?”
For many, the answer to one or all of the above seems to be “yes”. McCarthy is fielding hundreds of emails from the lonely, the curious and the adventurous, all seeking a stranger’s ambulatory company.
“I try to listen more than talk,” he said this week, striding past handsome houses in Los Feliz, a leafy neighbourhood near Hollywood.
Conversations with clients are seldom confessional, but he respects confidences. “It’s mostly surface, small-talk type stuff. But I think it’s therapeutic even if they’re not baring their souls.”
Grumbling about traffic, for instance, felt better when delivered to an actual human ear rather than posted on social media. “Tweeting about it and getting no response just makes you feel sadder.”
So many requests have poured in that McCarthy has recruited five other walkers to serve different parts of LA, though he will not take any cut from their earnings until he figures out a professional business model.
Commenters on his Facebook page offer plenty of advice. “Charge more and scale it up. Figure out what the secret sauce is – personality, being a supremely good listener, paying attention to inane bullshit, etc – then train your walker bees accordingly.”
It could grow fast. A woman in Israel has copied the idea, someone in Britain wants him to do it there, and a guy in New York asked him to walk his eight-year-old son to the bus stop each day.
McCarthy, bemused and excited by the attention, is considering crowdfunding to hire techies to design an Uber-style app. In addition to ensuring proximity – he wants to stay local and on foot, not drive across town, let alone fly thousands of miles – the app would let walkers and clients rate each other for personability and walking speed. The latter is a key point for walkers since a slow pace, say two miles an hour, yields $14, versus $28 for a brisk four miles an hour.
“Awesome concept, plenty of screwed up lonely people out there,” said one of his Facebook commenters, suggesting the job is more people whisperer than walker.
But according to McCarthy, paying to be walked does not mean people are friendless. It just means they cannot always coordinate leisure time with friends, a product of fluid schedules in the gig economy, leaving them isolated. “We’re on phones and computers constantly communicating but we’re not connecting as much. We need that human interaction.”
We also need exercise. McCarthy has slimmed down two notches on his belt since starting the professional walking. “I try not to run because it could ruin my brand,” he deadpanned.
Originally from Atlanta, McCarthy is serious enough about acting that he declines to reveal his exact age, beyond saying he is in his 30s. He has found bit parts – most recently in a promo for the film Pete’s Dragon – since moving to LA a decade ago, but no breakthrough role.
“I grew the beard so I could play homeless people.” And, potentially, homicidal bikers. He is hopeful of landing that role.
McCarthy stresses that he is not a personal trainer. “I’m more about motivating someone to leave their house and walk than being a drill sergeant shouting at them.”
Might the daily treks up and down Los Feliz lead to a movie treatment? Thinner material, after all, has made it to the screen. The people walker grinned. “Why not? Maybe (Jean-Claude) Van Damme will play me.”
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Late last night I took a walk to the grocery store right before it closed just to get some outside steps. It is one mile to get there. It was a two mile roundtrip.
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My true exercise for the day was on the elliptical machine for a 97 minute session
