The Constipated Banana

As the parents of a three-year-old boy, my wife and I often find ourselves discussing our son's bowel movements—how big was the last one you changed? How soft was it? And so on. As so happens with busy little boys, our son does not always want to stop what he’s doing long-enough to poop, or maybe that is one of the few things in his life that he can control, and so control it is exactly what he does. Whatever. In short, he becomes constipated, and we end up having endless discussions about what to do about it.
Related to this problem, my wife and I have debated about whether we can feed him bananas (he loves bananas, as do I). My wife believes that they add to or cause his constipation. I say that there is no evidence for this assertion that I’ve been able to find, but of course, I have to yield to my wife’s motherly opinion: She spends far more time with our son than I do, and she has perceived a pattern.
Okay, fair enough. But I find another problem entirely when I go out on the web to search for a definitive answer to the question of whether bananas do in fact cause constipation. Everywhere that I’ve looked so far, I have found lots of claims to the effect that bananas are “binding” and therefore cause constipation. What the heck is “binding” supposed to mean? And then, looking further, I find that some people claim just the opposite, and there is even one website which points out the same problem with which I’m dealing, namely, that nobody making these claims cites any references to supporting medical studies. But then the writer goes on to assert—without citing any references—that green bananas are constipating and ripe bananas will relieve constipation. Jeez. Not only is there no supporting documentation, but this statement begs the question of how green is “green,” and how ripe is “ripe?”
Even one of my favorite evidence-based-medicine publications, the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter glossed over this subject with, "...substances in bananas, especially less ripe ones, may, paradoxically, have both a slight "binding" [ugh...] and slight anti-constipating effect." Bottom line, I guess, is that if your kid wants a banana, give it to him or her. It may help their diarrhea. It may help their constipation. It may make them happy, and you can have one too.
Any registered dieticians out there who want to give this question a whirl?

It Might Get Loud (believe me, it already has...)

Okay, this post is to you guitarists, as well as others who feel the siren-call of rock 'n' roll: Go see It Might Get Loud. While I am certainly familar with U2's music, and it was good to hear Jack White's music for the first time (hey, what can I say? I don't get out much), it was the opportunity to witness Jimmy Page's story, his music as he talked about making it, and--most of all--his present-day persona that really made this movie. Mr. Page seems to have aged very gracefully. In keeping with the overheard sentiments of one my fellow movie-goers after seeing the movie, I found myself thinking about how fun it would be to just hang out with Jimmy Page, maybe have a couple of beers and play some music. His demeanor in the movie was friendly, open, responsive: He has such a shining face and ready smile. And to think that he was one of the powers behind that great rock 'n' roll that I listened to as a kid and young adult.
Anyway, Davis Guggenheim (the filmaker behind An Inconvenient Truth) portrays Jimmy Page, Jack White, and the Edge beautifully. Their stories are interwoven and constantly juxtopposed with one another. The viewer is transported between England, Ireland, and Detroit numerous times, but in such a way that one is always able to quickly orient oneself in the narrative, and one is allowed to form many of the connections between the three stories on one's own, with Mr. Guggenheim as the almost-ghostly tour guide. This, to me, is film making at its best.
The overall effect for me was the feeling of three lives fully-lived, with the stories of these lives having arisen out of--and in response to--their times, their zeitgeist. I, for one, am thankful for the positive contributions that they have made to my own life. And to think that they are just three examples of perhaps millions.

Sixty Days and Counting

Whereas Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End (reviewed below) presents a harsh, dark, and edgy world that is more virtual than real, Kim Stanley Robinson’s book, Sixty Days and Counting, is a story that is full of nature, nature writing, and natural philosophy, even though most of the story takes place in Washington DC.
Like Rainbows End, Sixty Days and Counting is an example of near-future science-based speculative fiction. The pacing is more leisurely, but then again, so is the pace of the Threat to Humanity that is depicted in this book: Global Warming (we frogs-in-warming-water still have a bit of time to reflect on this particular disaster—is it really getting warmer? Are we causing it? Can we afford to do anything about it? Can we not? We certainly need not mobilize the marines. But I digress.)
Whereas Vernor Vinge is a computer scientist and mathematician who seems to enjoy writing about such poet-laureates as his character Robert Gu, Mr. Robinson is an English PhD who seems to enjoy writing about scientists. This affinity seems to run deep for him: His other books are full of scientists as well, plus, he is married to a one.
Now to the story: Sixty Days and Counting is the third of Mr. Robinson’s Science-in-the-City series, a trilogy about the efforts of an earnest group of scientists and politicians to deflect the coming global disaster that is global warming. The old Washington-DC guard has been ousted, and a new president with high ideals has been elected. He and his team struggle to lead an international response to the crisis while Frank, a scientist at the National Science Foundation gives us excitement and intrigue in the form of a mysterious girl friend (their story begins in the first book of this trilogy) who is apparently involved in a conspiracy to throw the presidential election. Frank is drawn by his love/lust for this lady into a dangerous "black-op" mess; he is bugged, followed, and harassed by shady characters with sophisticated technology and government funding.
Frank is also the source of much that is beautiful about this book; his story (and this is why I really fell for this book) mixes in Buddhism via his interactions with the members of an Asian nation displaced by rising sea levels; and his own ruminations are the vehicle in which Mr. Robinson gives us an in-depth tour of the writings of Emerson and Thoreau and of their friendship with each other. Frank's fascination with these men belies Mr. Robinson's own love of Thoreau and Emerson, and it has spurred interest on my part as well. As a fun web-imitates-writing kind of we, Frank often accesses a website called emersonfortheday.com, a website that only came into actual existence when one of Mr. Robinson’s fans created it.
Though some may dismiss this book as just more doomsday writing, and therefore either too boring or too terrifying to read, the gentle treatment given by Mr. Robinson to the global-warming crisis through his characters, their relationships, and their philosophies make this book too enriching to pass up. Bring a copy with you to the hot tub!

Rainbows End

I am very much into science fiction, especially the hard-science-based variety. I recently finished just such a novel, Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge, and it knocked my socks off.

This book has it all--a great human-interest story, action, suspense, mystery, futuristics, and humor--and it wraps this all up in a near-future scenario that is as enticing as it is scary.

As protagonists, we have Robert Gu, a "retread" Nobel laureate who thrives on creating emotional torment in others, Miri Gu, a twelve-year-old girl genius, her dad and mom, who are military-security officers, top directors of various international security agencies, and a mysterious entity who calls himself, "Rabbit" (although Rabbit never actually says, "What's up Doc?" to any of his advesaries, I suspect that Mr. Vinge grew up watching the same Saturday-morning cartoons that I did). Together, these players swirl around the sudden appearance of the worst threat to humanity that has yet to appear (I know this sounds cliche, but wait till you see what it is) in a story that reveals Mr. Vinge's informed view of what our near-future could like if technology continues to progress at the ever-increasing pace of today. Since Mr. Vinge is a computer scientist and mathematician, I place a lot of weight in what he has to say about the possible future trends in technology and society.

Because of how Rainbows End delves into generational family relationships so well while still managing to tell a rip-roaring yarn, even the not-so-technology-interested will find it be an exciting read. And, Mr. Vinge does this with language that, while not necessarily being high literature, is certainly serviceable, often clever, and never over-the-top like some of the overdone stuff that is out there. (One example of why I like his writing is hiding right in the book's title--you'll see.)

I, for one, intend to read his other books. I was lucky to have found this book, thanks to a staff recommendation at my favorite local bookstore .
Now, will somebody please go out and invent some of the stuff in this book, or will I have to do it myself?