Who's Healthy: America's Health Rankings 2008 Issued by United Health Foundation

United Health Foundation has just released its 2008 America's Health Rankings. The report considers a number of components the UHF considers important to public health, analyzes their availability compared to a national mean on a state-by-state basis, and then ranks each state according to its overall score.

The overall result is shown in the following chart, listing the states from healthiest to least healthy according to the study's metrics:


I won't get into the minutia of everything that went into these calculations. If you're interested in them, all the information you could possibly need is available via the UHF.

It's also interesting to check out the Nation at a Glance clickable map. There, you can click a state to get a brief list of strengths and challenges as well as a snapshot that gives considerably more detail of trends in the state.

A few particulars leap right out, though. With the exception of Nevada (#42), the bottom 10 states in terms of overall health are all southern states. Five of the top ten (Vermont #1, New Hampshire #3, Massachusetts #6, Connecticut #7 and Maine #9) are in New England. In fact, the only New England state not in the top 10 is Rhode Island, which comes in at #11. No southern state made the top 10; the highest ranked among those is Virginia at #20. In fact, it's the only state in the southeast that comes in above the national average, to which Arizona comes closest.

According to the report, Massachusett's biggest overall public health challenge is binge drinking. Louisiana, at the bottom of the list, has low binge drinking as one of its strengths. This reveals a personal bias of mine; because of Mardi Gras, I always connect Louisiana with drinking, so it's a surprise to learn that its more of a problem here than there.

I also can't help thinking back to the Pew Religious Landscape Survey (I blogged about it here). It's interesting to note that the most religious states are also the ones that come in at the bottom of the UHF's health ranking and the least religious come out near the top. Mississippi, for instance, was the most religious state of all according to Pew's metrics and according to UHF ranks #49 out of 50 in terms of public health (it ranked dead last in 2007, but Louisiana has now surpassed it). This is correlation and doesn't demonstrate that poor public health increases religious sentiments, nor vice versa, but the correlation is unmistakable overall (Utah in particular bucks the trend, however). I suspect that there may well be a factor common to both religious fervor (e.g. fundamentalist tendencies) and poor health when it comes to the bigger public health picture. Perhaps poverty, for instance, and/or lack of access to good education might be a contributing factor in the correlated results of both studies.

In any case, the Health Rankings report is interesting to poke about in. Enjoy.

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Mycological Consumer Fraud: Know Thy Shrooms, Dude

Three men in New Hampshire have been arrested for reselling mushrooms they bought at the supermarket. The catch? They were using blue food coloring to make the ubiquitous Agaricus bisporus buttons look more like much more interesting Psilocybe mushroom. I'm not sure who they were going to fool with such a poorly conceived scam. While it's true that hallucinogenic Psilocybe mushrooms stain blue on at least some portion of the fruiting body when bruised, the two species look very different in a number of other ways. It's a bit like trying to pass off carnations as roses. Still, the geniuses did manage to sell $900 worth of their faux magic mushrooms to an undercover police officer in Kingston and have been arrested — and two of them still had the blue food coloring all over their hands.

Fungus fakeout: Three face drug charges
Jason Schreiber, Union Leader

KINGSTON – Three men accused of trying to sell fake hallucinogenic mushrooms have been caught blue-handed.

Police said the men were arrested after one of them sold a quarter-pound of mushrooms for $900 during an undercover drug probe. When police later pulled over the men, two had hands stained with blue food coloring.

Police Chief Donald Briggs Jr. said police believe the mushrooms were purchased at a grocery store along with the blue food coloring used to dye the mushrooms and make them appear more like a potent psilocybin mushroom...

Now really, how dumb were these guys?

I don't advocate the ingestion of Psilocybe mushrooms nor do I condemn it. If you want to suck down a bunch of fungal pesticide evolved to discourage arthropods from consuming the reproductive structure, that's entirely your own business. Mycologically speaking, I don't find Psilocybe a particularly interesting genus. Still, there's a danger to people who do this sort of thing because its entirely possible you could be buying something much more unsavory than Agaricus bisporus when you think you're get P. cubensis or somesuch.

In other words, if you really want some "shrooms, dude," know how to tell you're getting the right thing. As laughable as the clowns in this story are, they had some reason to believe that their scam would work and it's entirely possible that this isn't the first time they've done it. Somebody in New Hampshire, in other words, may have bought from them before and that fact opens up some troubling possibilities. Whatever silly legalities society's moral opposition to intoxication ends up imposing on them, I don't think many of us want to see someone seriously poisoned for such a crime. I don't even want people to get sick. There are some much more toxic common mushrooms out there which could be passed off as Psilocybe than can A. bisporus with a little food coloring. I could easily see some enterprising idiot doing this with an Enteloma, for instance, and certainly a Stropharia can pass for Psilocybe. Even mycologists have a hard time separating the two genera in a satisfying way.

Try this at home. What kind of mushroom is that to the left of this paragraph (click for a larger image)? Can you come up with a reasonable identification to genus? Do you have any idea whether or not it's edible, hallucinogenic or toxic? This is a relatively easy genus to identify, by the way, and the photo contains all of the characters one would need to figure out the genus for this one. Would you eat this?

The moral of the story is, Know Thy Mushroom. If you don't know how to identify a Psilocybe, you probably shouldn't be eating it. You could wind up ripped off by the blue-handed mushroom fakers... or worse. Much, much worse.

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Mushroom Season Makes the News

The proliferation of fungal fruiting bodies in Massachusetts this summer is making the news here. While that in itself is a good thing, the press always has to come up with an interesting angle that makes a story one of human interest. In the case of mushrooms, that usually winds up as warnings about mushroom poisonings. In fact, it's often about children being poisoned, even when it hasn't actually happened.

Still, I'm glad when my favorite kingdom gets some press, and in this case that press includes a television interview by WBZ with my PhD advisor:


The story is a bit alarmist, of course, because that makes it interesting to people who normally don't care about mushrooms. The "won't somebody think of the children!" angle always sells. What the story also doesn't mention is that even most poisonous mushrooms aren't lethal mushrooms. They'll make you sick, but you won't die — although you might feel like you're going to. Of all the mushroom species found in North America, only a small fraction ever prove lethal, although I can certainly understand why the parent of some kid who eats a bit of an unidentified mushroom would be concerned. A good rule of thumb for reducing the risk if you happen to be a Massachusetts parent worried about your kid eating something nasty in your garden is to keep an eye out for any mushroom that has what looks like warts on its cap, a ring on its stem and a cup or collar at the base. Those are likely to be members of genus Amanita, and thus the most likely to be lethally poisonous. Go through the yard and remove them. They're generally among the more conspicuous fungi you'll see. You can remove every mushroom you see, but you're likely to spend a lot of time at it. Of course, you can also just keep a close watch on the kids, but it only takes a second of one's back being turned for a toddler to pop a bad fungus into his or her mouth. If you would like to see some of the various forms that Amanita can take, click here. Judging from what I've seen around town, the most common species right now is Amanita brunnescens, which has a cap colored various shades of brown and white to very light brown warts. It can get quite large and, while toxic, probably isn't going to cause death.

The Boston Globe is also running a story today on the prolific mushroom fruitings being seen in the area. It talks a bit more about amateur mycologists and not quite so much about the poisonings that haven't happened:

Everything's coming up mushrooms
Summer of rain has silver lining - a rare bonanza of fungi
By Tom Haines

No one loves the rewards of a rainy summer quite like a mycologist does.

"It's just, I'm telling you, cloud nine," said Elinoar Shavit of Concord.

Even on short walks, Shavit has easily spotted Boletus edulis (porcini), Craterellus fallax (black trumpet), Laetiporus sulphureus (chicken mushroom), and "chanterelles galore!"

After July brought twice the average rainfall to the region, prompting mycelium to fruit in abundance, mushroom maniacs - whether serious scientists or curious cooks - are reveling in a bounty seldom seen...

There are thousands of species of mushrooms that burst forth when conditions are right with bulbs and caps in craggy shelves and huddled clusters, and more. The mushrooms survive for a few hours or weeks, depending on species; some prefer spring, others summer or fall...

Shapes, colors, and composition also fascinate scientists and others who want to know exactly how things work. Experimenters of another sort favor certain mushrooms, which grow in New England only very occasionally but can cause hallucinations.

This year, though, even the usually disinterested among us are captivated by more kinds of mushrooms, in larger quantity - whether clumps of black trumpets or giant puffballs - popping up in the yard more or less overnight...

Local hospitals have seen a spike in calls, mostly from parents of toddlers who had popped mushrooms in their mouths. Most tastings have turned out to be harmless, and there have been no fatalities this year, according to Alfred Aleguas, clinical manager with the Regional Center for Poison Control and Prevention Serving Massachusetts and Rhode Island...

One close call came before a neighbor contacted Shavit, a contributing editor to Fungi magazine known for her ability to identify different species. The neighbor told Shavit she had picked 30 pounds of chanterelles, an elegant, edible specimen that is tasty when sauteed in oil with shallots and salt. On closer inspection, Shavit determined the suspected chanterelles were Omphalotus illudens, or Jack O' Lantern mushrooms, known to spur vomiting and diarrhea.

Norman "Dugie" Russell, who helps Children's Hospital Boston and Beverly Hospital with emergency mushroom identifications, warns casual pickers to study guidebooks and seek expert advice...

Again, the moral of the story here is pretty simple, aside from the fact that we mycologists and enthusiasts are having a wonderful year. If you don't know the difference between an Omphalotus and a Cantharellus on site, don't eat any mushrooms without having them identified by someone who has a grasp of diversity, because, frankly, it's very easy to tell those two genera apart. Omphalotus always grows on wood and has blade-like gills; Cantharellus grows on the ground and has vein-like "gills." If you think you've found some chanterelles (Cantharellus) and want to know for certain, please let me know. I'll be happy to take a look and tell you whether you've got the right mushrooms... for a small cut of your find, of course, if they do turn out to be chanterelles. I love the things. In fact, LL and I had some Craterellus cornucopioides for dinner just last night. They're my favorite.

It truly is an amazing year for mushrooms, whether they're edible or just beautiful. If you live in New England and have been curious to learn about fungi, this is the time to do it. Contact your local mycological society and get out on a few forays. A better year for sheer numbers and diversity is unlikely to come your way for another decade or two. You can find contact information for amateur mycological societies throughout the United States courtesy of the North American Mycological Association. Here are the ones in New England:

• Connecticut:
  Berkshire Mycological Society
  c/o Jim Berlstein
  PO Box 247
  Norfolk, CT 06058-0247
  web: www.bms.iwarp.com
  email: berkshiremycology [at] lycos.com
  
  Connecticut Valley Mycological Society
  129 Stockburger Rd
  Moodus, CT 06469-1042
  email: janblanchard [at] comcast.net
  
  
• Maine:
  Maine Mycological Society
  216 Huff's Mill Rd.
  Bowdoin, ME 04287-7138
  web: www.mushroomthejournal.com/mma/index.html
  email: mjpmm955i [at] gwi.net
  
  
• Massachusetts:
  Boston Mycological Club
  20 Shirley St
  Ayer, MA 01432-1208
  web: www.bostonmycologicalclub.org
  email: georgeriner [at] mycogeo.com
  
  
• New Hampshire:
  Monadnock Mushroomers Unlimited
  PO Box 1796
  Keene, NH 03431-1796
  email: beewing [at] cheshire.net
  
  
• Northeastern US:
  Northeast Mycological Federation
  web: www.nemf.org
  email: ursula.hoffmann [at] lehman.cuny.edu

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Tobacco Tax Hike in Massachusetts: Ouch, But...

I don't have many bad habits. In fact, I think I have only one really bad one. I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't cheat on my partner, I eat a relatively healthy diet. Arguably, my one bad habit is one of the worst, though, for my health. I'm a smoker. There, I've said it. I am a member of one of the most reviled groups in America. I'm a smoking non-theist social liberal. It might be wise to invest heavily in Kevlar now that the word is out.

Let me add two more adjectives to this description. First, I am a conscientious smoker. I make it a point to avoid inflicting my bad habit on bystanders. If I'm walking with a group of people, for example, I'll position myself so that my smoke blows away from them. If I'm waiting at a bus stop or otherwise near others I'll move far enough away in a direction so that I don't pass second-hand smoke toward them. Second, I am a poor smoker. I'm a graduate student. The two previous statements are redundant.

I knew that Massachusetts was about to hike the taxes on cigarettes but I hadn't realized it was going into effect yesterday. In the early morning I stopped off at the Mobil station at Main and Park — one of perhaps five places in town that carry my brand — and bought a pack for the same price I've been paying every day for the year since I've been living here, $5.96. That was already expensive; apparently I smoke really, really good cigarettes. On the way home from the lab just after 6:00 PM, I decided to save myself the early morning stop. Traffic is bad in the morning and it can be hard to turn out of the parking lot in the direction I want to go, so I figured I'd save myself one small hassle since this morning will be a busy one. The clerks at the Mobil station know what I want without my asking for it since all I ever buy there are cigarettes. They all know my brand and so the guy at the counter retrieved a pack for me without my asking. Then he rang it up.

The price had jumped to $7.32! My pain was made audible with a heartfelt "ouch." It isn't often that the price of anything I buy goes up by 23% in less than 24 hours.

Massachusetts is doing this to generate tax revenue. It's part of a larger package to boost the budget, and according to the Worcester Telegram and Gazette the hike will generate $680,000 per day for the state. Whether or not one agrees with this sort of approach for purely political reasons, it's worthwhile to ask whether the measure will do what lawmakers expect it to do.

Massachusetts is a small state, geographically speaking. I live nearly dead-center on the map but I'm less than an hour's drive from both the Connecticut and New Hampshire borders. No matter where in the state people are, they're not far from a neighboring state. With the new tax hike, all of those states will have lower prices per pack than does Massachusetts. An average pack here now costs $6.41; that same pack costs $4.19 in New Hampshire, $5.50 in Vermont and $5.63 in Connecticut. More smokers will simply cross a state line to purchase their tobacco to avoid the substantial increase in price than did before. I have no idea whether lawmakers took this into account when they decided that the increase was a good idea, but some of the effect of this increase is bound to be a windfall for neighboring states, not for Massachusetts.

Those who don't feel like crossing a border and plan ahead might also be expected to start using, or to increase their current use, of online sources. Just like the high cost of prescription drugs helps to feed a black market online, so will the increase in the cost of tobacco. A quick search yield a number of online discounters yields tens of thousands of hits on sites with names like Mailordercigarettes.biz, Ourcigarettes.net and Cheap-cig.com. Is it legal? I don't know, and I'm not endorsing buying cigarettes online. The point is that it's possible and if there are laws against utilizing such websites they would be extremely difficult to enforce. Stepping up any current enforcement would require more tax dollars to pay for the effort, defeating the whole purpose of the tax hike in the first place. Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking; hiking prices won't stop them from smoking. It will simply provide an impetus for more people than ever to circumvent laws and become more creative about it.

A year from now, we'll hear about statistics that show the the amount of tobacco being purchased in Massachusetts has decreased. The emphasis will be placed largely on the "decreased," but in reality a lot of it should be placed on the "in Massachusetts" bit. In the end, more money will simply flow out of the state and the tax increase won't generate the revenues or prompt as many people to quit the habit as the state government thinks it will.

In purely practical terms, if the aim of this tax hike is to generate revenues then it was a bad idea. You'd have to increase taxes on something that can't be easily purchased elsewhere for that to work. A gasoline, income or sales tax increase would have been far more useful. If the aim is to get people to quit smoking it won't be very effective, either, for the reasons I've noted above. In that regard, it will impact mainly those who aren't old enough to drive out of state or to hold a credit card in their own name — mostly underage smokers. That's a fine thing, but Massachusetts already enjoys a low proportion of teen smokers. Overall, that impact will be negligible.

When all is said and done, this particular tax hike isn't going to accomplish much of anything at all.

While the tobacco tax was pushed by Tobacco Free Mass and other anti-smoking groups, the Legislature did not direct any of the new cigarette tax revenue to programs to help people quit smoking...

— Source

...Joe said lately he had taken to buying loose tobacco and rolling his own cigarettes because the manufactured ones had already become so expensive.

"I'm looking for anything to make it cheaper, even if I have to grow my own," he said...

Chantelle Flagg, an employee at Mike's Mini-Mart, a convenience store a few miles from the New Hampshire border in Winchendon, said customers have been stocking up on butts recently in anticipation of the tax hike. Others say they'll cross the border for cheaper deals.

"I've had a lot of customers tell me they're going to New Hampshire," Ms. Flagg said.

— Source

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Religion in America: Massachusetts Among Least Religious States

The latest survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life was released yesterday and it's got some interesting bits. Every newspaper is reporting on it, but so far the best summary I've seen has been in the Boston Globe. Some excerpts from that article:

Americans see truth in a range of faiths, massive study finds
State among nation's least religious
By Michael Paulson

The United States is a nation of believers: most Americans say they believe in God, they pray, and they attend worship services regularly; they also believe in angels and demons, in heaven and hell, and in miracles.

But they also say, contradicting the teachings of many faiths, that truth comes in many forms. Large majorities of Americans say that many religions - not just their own - can lead to eternal life, and that there is more than one way to interpret religious teachings...

New Englanders are among the least likely to say they are religious, according to the study. Massachusetts lags behind the nation - often near the bottom of all states - in the percentage of its residents who say they are certain that God exists...

The study confirms a fact known widely by scholars of religion in public life: the more often people attend worship, the more likely they are to be politically conservative. Mormons and evangelical Protestants are the most likely to be doctrinally orthodox and politically conservative, while Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists are more liberal in both their theology and their politics, the study finds.

But there is tremendous diversity within each faith - among evangelical Protestants, for example, only 52 percent describe themselves as conservative, and 30 percent say they follow government and public affairs only some of the time. Although evangelicals have traditionally been viewed as Republican voters, the poll suggests a significant minority do not view themselves as conservative...

...The study found that 70 percent of Americans - and even 57 percent of evangelical Protestants - believe that many religions can lead to eternal life...

"While one applauds what could be thought of as an openness to other religions, one has to wonder if this is essentially bland secularism," said Todd M. Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary...

The poll, like many others, finds Americans claiming to be deeply faithful - 92 percent say they believe in God. But conceptions of God vary - 60 percent, including most Christians, say they believe God is a person, while 25 percent, including pluralities of Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, believe God is an impersonal force...

On gay rights, Buddhists, Jews, Catholics and mainline Protestants are the most likely to say homosexuality should be accepted, while Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims and evangelical Protestants are the most likely to say homosexuality should be discouraged. Overall, 50 percent of Americans said homosexuality should be accepted by society, while 40 percent said it should be discouraged...

One of the implications I see in this survey is that Americans make a lot of stuff up, picking and choosing to create their own religions that support what they already believe. That's better than strict dogmatism, but it also demonstrates a certain refractory essence when it comes to examining empirical reality. While the survey never asks a question that would reveal the source of the religious melange held to by large numbers of Americans, I suspect that much of it has its origins in various self-help type books and talk shows. Oprah Winfrey probably exerts a good deal of influence on the religious landscape, for example. Whatever the sources, though, one might well ask why it is necessary to look outside of the natural world to the supernatural and posit things like eternity to begin with. That's where the refractory nature of belief comes into play; people believe in things like heaven and demons despite there being no evidence that they exist, but they'll reject empirical knowledge that conflicts with their beliefs.

Looking at the massive amount of data comprised by the US Religious Landscape Survey itself reveals a number of items worth consideration. For example, the single largest religious group in the US is identified as the Evangelical Protestant Tradition (26%). On a state-by-state basis, that tradition is most prevalent in Oklahoma (about 53%), Arkansas (~53%) and Tennessee (~51%) and least prevalent in Utah (~7%). New England has comparatively few; Connecticut/Rhode Island combined, for example, stand at about 10% Evangelical, and Massachusetts is at 11% as are New Hampshire and Vermont.

Catholicism is the next largest religious tradition, about 24% of the entire US population. It's most prevalent in the Northeast on a state by state basis. 43% of those surveyed in Massachusetts identify themselves as Catholic, as do 43% of those in Connecticut/Rhode Island and 42% in New Jersey. On the other hand, it's a long way between Catholics in Alabama (6%), Tennessee (7%) and West Virginia (7%).

16% of Americans consider themselves unaffiliated with any particular religion. That includes 26% of New Hampshire/Vermont residents, 25% of those from Maine, and 27% of respondents in Oregon. Missionaries looking for converts would have their work cut out for them in Kentucky (12%), Texas (12%), and North Dakota (12%), the states with lowest numbers of unaffiliated respondents.

The most religious state in the country — or at least the one where the most people said they have absolute certainty in the existence of God, demons, hell, what have you — is Mississippi (91%), but theists in other southern states shouldn't despair too much. The southeastern US is a hotbed of absolute faith; Alabama (86%) and South Carolina (86%) are hot on Mississippi's tail. At the other end of the spectrum are Vermont and New Hampshire (54%), Maine (59%) and Connecticut/Rhode Island (57%), the only states where fewer than 60% of respondents were True Believers. Massachusetts came in at 60% on this question, which isn't too shabby, all things considered. Makes me proud to be a New Englander. This is all very much in keeping with the question of how important religion is/should be in one's own life. 82% of Mississippians think it's "very important," but only 36% of New Hampshire and Vermont residents agree.

24% of Americans surveyed said that their own religion was right and everybody else was wrong. That view is most prevalent in Utah, where 50% of respondents hold it. When it comes to religious tolerance, you can't beat Maine; only 13% of those respondents took the "my way or the highway to hell" position. Maine isn't much more tolerant than Massachusetts (15%) or New York (18%), though.

Fully 33% of Americans said that they believe in absolutely literal interpretation of their religious scripture (also known as fundamentalism). If you want to find concentrated fundies, Mississippi is definitely the place to be. It leads the nation in fundamentalist presence; 64% of respondents there are religious literalists. Alabama is far behind (54%) and West Virginia a distant third (53%). New Hampshire/Vermont (16%), Massachusetts (18%) and Connecticut/Rhode Island (18%) residents are the least likely to be fundamentalist in their views of scripture.

But how effective is prayer, you ask? Well, so did the Pew people. It turns out that praying in Mississippi is most likely to make your wish come true; 46% there say their prayers are answered at least once a month. Alabama is a close second to the divinely-poofed paradise of answered prayers at 44% and Tennessee and North Carolina tie for third at 42%. If you're in New Hampshire/Vermont (19%), Massachusetts (21%) or Maine (21%), God's ignoring you. The survey never does ask what people are praying for, though. It could be that people in Mississippi are praying more often for a steaming bucket of crawdads and Vermonters for world peace. Crawdads are a lot easier to come by, after all. The survey doesn't say.

There's a lot more information to be had in this survey and it's all rather interesting. Go click around.

On a personal note, I'm very glad to be in Massachusetts and not, say, Mississippi, Alabama or Tennessee. Fundamentalism just isn't my thing (surprise!) and I like living in a place where religious belief doesn't play a major role in shaping the culture. I saw enough of that in North Florida, thanks.

On a somewhat critical note, though, I wonder about the utility of lumping some states together. I'm not sure that lumping Vermont and New Hampshire makes for an accurate read. Vermont is an extremely liberal state, whereas New Hampshire tends to be fiscally conservative and socially libertarian. Likewise, my experience in both Florida and California lead me to believe that those states should really be split into regions for a survey like this. The extreme southern part of Florida is very different from the north in its social, religious and political make-up as are the coastal and inland parts of California. New York, for that matter, is an exceptionally heterogeneous state. Binghamton and Elmira have very different outlooks on religion than does New York City.

Meanwhile, another day is beginning here in largely secular, non-fundamentalist, gay-accepting, stem cell research embracing Massachusetts. No crawdads here, but the clam chowdah is pretty damned good. Maybe if I pray hard enough I'll get a free bowl for lunch today. My odds appear to be about 1 in 5 that it'll materialize sometime over the course of the next month, anyhow.

Mmmmm... specially-created Chowdah.

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Murdered Over a Baseball Rivalry

I've probably mentioned before that I'm a Yankees fan. They were my team when I was growing up. I'm aware that there's a long-standing rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees, of course. I don't care about it much; it's not something I'd be willing to fight over, certainly.

Other people don't feel the way I do about this. People do get in fights over this, and recently someone was murdered over it. Someone who would run people down with a car over in the delusion that this somehow protects the honor of their favorite baseball team must be pretty well demented to begin with. I wouldn't expect a member of the New York Yankees to do such a thing on my behalf and if I found one who would I think I'd have to report him to the authorities.

Up in New Hampshire, though, a crazy woman actually killed someone over the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. Somebody died for this.

Sox-Yankees spat cited in N.H. killing

NASHUA, N.H.—A woman accused of running down a man in her car after a Red Sox-Yankees argument in a bar never hit her brakes as she accelerated toward the small group he was in, a prosecutor said Monday.
more stories like this

"She never braked, and she accelerated at a high speed for about 200 feet. She went directly at this group of people," prosecutor Susan Morrell said of Ivonne Hernandez, who is charged with reckless second-degree murder in the death early Friday of Matthew Beaudoin, 29...

Authorities won't describe the argument beforehand in Slade's Food & Spirits, but witnesses said it heated up when Hernandez identified herself as a New York Yankees fan. Nashua, 45 miles northwest of Boston, is Red Sox country.

Bartender Tanya Moran said the argument spilled outside, and at least one person in a group that included Beaudoin began chanting "Yankees suck!" when they saw a Yankees sticker on Hernandez's car.

Hernandez, 43, allegedly gunned her car and struck Beaudoin and his friend Maria Hughes, 21...

"She indicated to police that she wanted to scare this group of people. She thought they would get out of the way," Morrell said...

That's her excuse? She thought they'd get out of the way when she came at them with her car? How stupid does one have to be before even threatening this kind of violence against someone for insulting a baseball team?

If some guy in a bar ever started in with me about the Yankees, I'd say something like, "Yeah, you're right. The Yankees suck. I hate them." Then I'd go sit somewhere else. The Yankees hardly need to me to stand up for their honor against some schmuck trying to pick a fight because the most important thing in his life has nothing to do with him. There are things in life worth fighting, even dying, for. Baseball isn't one of them.

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Religion Does Not Make People Moral: The Case of Tyrone Forbes

Theists often cite religion as the source of morality, but I've yet to see evidence that religious people behave more morally than irreligious people. A case in point comes from right here in Worcester; it's the not-so-heartwarming story of Tyrone Forbes, an elder at Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ and pastor at a sister church in Nashua, New Hampshire as well as a teacher at a public charter school. Forbes apparently used his position and influence at Mount Sinai to begin a sexual relationship with an underage boy that (hopefully) ended at 1:30 PM yesterday when he was arrested. He was picked up at 1:30 PM yesterday afternoon with the boy for whom he had been serving as a mentor through the church. The sexual part of the relationship apparently began last November and Forbes has admitted to the whole thing.

The full story is carried in this morning's Worcester Telegram and Gazette:

Sex with teen alleged
Teacher faces 7 counts

A Seven Hills Charter Public School music teacher and elder at a city church has admitted carrying on a five-month sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy, according to authorities.

The boy is not a student at the school, which yesterday told the teacher he was barred from school grounds.

Tyrone D. Forbes, 49, of 84 Chatham St., Apt. 2, was arrested after he and the boy were found together about 1:30 a.m. yesterday in a pickup truck in the parking lot of Bennett Field on Main Street, police said...

Officers interviewed the 15-year-old after Mr. Forbes gave Officer Molinari conflicting reasons for being in the closed parking lot with the boy...

Mr. Forbes was arraigned yesterday on seven counts of statutory rape. The sexual assaults allegedly occurred on various dates from Nov. 2 to March 31 in Worcester.

Police said Mr. Forbes is an acquaintance of the teenager’s family.

At the request of Assistant District Attorney Joseph J. Reilly III, Judge Paul L. McGill set Mr. Forbes’ bail at $5,000 cash and made GPS monitoring a condition of release in the event bail was posted. The judge also ordered Mr. Forbes to have no contact with the alleged victim, identified by police as a friend of Mr. Forbes’ family.

Mr. Reilly said the 15-year-old had known Mr. Forbes for several years and that the suspect had acted as a “mentor” for the boy. The prosecutor said their relationship turned sexual in nature in November.

Mr. Reilly told the court that Mr. Forbes was involved with the Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ and that church members acquired information that led them to question Mr. Forbes’ relationship with the teenager. Police said Mr. Forbes is an elder at the Wellington Street church...

Mr. Reilly told Judge McGill Mr. Forbes admitted under questioning by police that he had been involved in a sexual relationship with the 15-year-old.

His lawyer, E. Jeffrey Newcombe, said Mr. Forbes was an active member of Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ who had been serving as pastor of a fledgling sister church in Nashua, N.H., at the request of his bishop.

A woman who answered the telephone at Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ yesterday said Mr. Forbes had been a member of the church, but that she did not know the name of the church in New Hampshire at which he was reportedly serving as pastor. Bishop Robert L. Webbs, pastor of Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ, was not available for comment...

So this elder and pastor is having sex with a minor who has known him for several years. He gets caught and tries to lie about it to the police. Then the bishop who recommended Forbes as pastor at an allied church isn't available for comment after the story comes out. Bail for Forbes is set on the premise that he's at high risk for flight.

Anyone care to point out the part where the perpetrator is doing the right thing, acting morally based on religious belief, or doing anything that demonstrates his ethical superiority to someone who isn't a True Believer?

I am not saying, of course, that his religious beliefs are the cause of his amoral behavior. Religious people can be ethical, too. I see no evidence that faith rendered Forbes moral, good and just, though. Clearly Forbes justified his behavior like any other criminal, and that's the thing about belief. It's a mental position alone with no connection to empirical reality. Anyone can make it into anything they desire and accommodate any sort of outrageous activity by simply figuring out some sort of loophole that, when you get right down to it, nobody else can prove doesn't exist.

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Jehovah Skips New Hampshire: Huckabee, Robertson and Mushy Thought

Yesterday was a long day, and because I dropped off to sleep quite early I didn't find out until just a little while ago what the results of the New Hampshire primary were. Clinton took the Democratic vote and McCain won for the Republicans. Despite my general lack of excitement for any of the candidates on either side, I'm happy that someone other than Huckabee won even though I don't support any of the Republicans at all. Try not to be too shocked about that. All in all, though, Huckabee represents a worst case scenario. Whomever gets elected president in this next election is facing a world of problems that necessitate an office holder willing to face reality and exercise real critical thought to solve them, and nothing about Huckabee demonstrates that he's that person.

In December, Huckabee spoke at Liberty University and delivered the following quote as part of his address when speaking about his surge in opinion polls at the time:

There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people… There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and it has, and it defies all explanation.

— Source

This is a paraphrasing of Mark 6:41; it's clear to what power Huckabee was referring. He's attributing his performance in an opinion poll to the Biblical God.

In New Hampshire, however, Huckabee didn't do so well. He finished a very distant third with 11% of the vote, far behind McCain (37%) and Romney (32%) [Source]. McCain doesn't mix religion and politics to the extent that Huckabee does and Romney is famously (thanks in part to Huckabee and many of his supporters) Mormon. Huckabee hasn't made mention of Jehovah again in the context of his defeat in New Hampshire, but I don't think it would be unreasonable for one to ask why the same deity whose support Huckabee touted in December wouldn't "make all things possible" (Mark 10:27) with a win in New Hampshire, too. After all, that quote is found in the same New Testament Gospel that contains the story he paraphrased while speaking at Liberty.

That's just the thing about post hoc citing of supernatural agency as causation. It only happens when something that the one asserting it has gotten something they wanted. We've all seen professional athletes trotting down a field with finger pointed at the sky when they've scored a point for their side; that's effectively what Huckabee was doing when he picked up points in the opinion polls. You'll never hear a baseball player, for instance, complain that Jehovah was at fault for the player's hitting into a double play, however. Assertion about God being on one side or another is symptomatic of mushy thinking. It starts with the idea that there is a causative agent that is beyond human comprehension and then invokes it into the course of purely human affairs, whether they be politics or baseball. It doesn't matter much how an athlete thinks. Nobody is every likely to pay A-Rod 150 gazillion dollars to solve real-world problems based on accepting or rejecting hypotheses based on empirical evidence. If he wants to point at the sky as he comes down the third base line, I'll still be happy to see him score the run. It's a very different matter when it comes to electing a president, though. We've already had nearly eight years of mushy, theologically-inspired thinking in the White House; it doesn't work out well. America, I would hope, has by and large developed enough wisdom based on experience to tell us that we need to avoid having another leader who thinks that Jehovah is whispering into his ear or is a "decider" who can base decisions on "what's in his heart" rather than upon the best available information. Vladimir Putin didn't, after all, turn out to have such a "good soul."

This kind of fundamentalist thinking also tends to cut humanity out of the dialog. In Huckabee's case, his statement about divine involvement at one point and his lack of one at another may just be the tip of the iceberg or it may not. There's a certain disdain for humanity in such statements, though, that gets taken to extremes by those who aren't as reliant upon public opinion as an office seeker. For example, we can look at Pat Robertson's prediction of a mass destructive attacks against the US made in January of last year based on what God told him:

...religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in “mass killing” late in 2007.

"I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear. The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

— Pat Robertson, 1/2/2007

When New Year's Day 2008 rolled around and no such attacks had taken place, contradicting what Robertson reported Jehovah as having told him, his reaction was:

All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us.

— Source

Nonetheless, Robertson is still discussing the future with Jehovah and delivering prognostications. That he posited that human wishes could overcome divine plan as a reason that his 2007 prophesy didn't come to pass doesn't appear to have factored into his thinking about 2008 and beyond. There's always an excuse for an undetectable supernatural agent to change it's mind, after all. Maybe he won't next time. We humans can't tell what God is thinking... but we can tell what God is thinking when it lines up with what we wanted somehow. How could either Robertson or Huckabee expect that the omniscient, omnipotent invisible puppet master wouldn't have counted on believers praying extra-hard at some particular moment in the course of the events he was planning in the first place? The object of religious belief can't be relied upon to take religious belief into account, after all.

Robertson is more extreme — and probably more murderous — in his thinking than Huckabee. I don't know Huckabee's private thoughts, and Robertson likely feels freer to express what he's thinking because he's not subject to an electoral mandate. Still, Robertson's predictions and Huckabee's supernatural attribution of very human opinion polls have the same basis. Both cut out the human middle-man until things don't go their respective ways. Huckabee, for his part, offers no explanation of why the deity couldn't have swung more than 11% of New Hampshire voters his way.

It's this kind of mushy thinking that makes me glad that a Huckabee presidency became a little less likely thanks to New Hampshire voters yesterday. Rather than a continuation, or even an intensification, of the problems we already face due to similarly sloppy, inconsistent and misguided thought from the current administration, the new election should be an opportunity to put someone in charge who will take an entirely different course. It may well be idealistic of me, but I would like to continue hoping that the next chief executive will have his/her feet planted squarely in this world and act accordingly.

I haven't made up my mind yet who that person is, but I've come to some conclusions about who it isn't, and it definitely isn't Mike Huckabee.

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Gay Civil Unions Occur in New Hampshire: Planet Not Reported Falling Into Sun

As the New Year came in, so did the legal recognition of same-sex couples in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Legalizes Same-Sex Civil Unions

Concord, NH (AHN) - Gay unions are now recognized in New Hampshire. At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, the law allowing civil unions between gay and lesbian couples became effective. Hours after the law took effect, 37 gay couples entered into civil unions at an outdoor ceremony amid below freezing temperatures.

The civil union ceremonies took place at the New Hampshire Statehouse where the law was adopted and signed in 2007.

But the law will certainly stoke some fire from opposition, principally from conservative groups. Karen Testerman, executive director of the New Hampshire advocacy group Cornerstone Policy Research, said many state residents question if allowing people of the same sex to enter into civil unions is the right thing to do.

"Obviously, we are concerned about it because we have a special interest group (gays and lesbians) that is changing family law," Testerman told Seacoast news.

Testerman said their group opposes same-sex civil unions, but they will not start a campaign to recall the law. Instead, Cornerstone Policy wants to emphasize research findings that show the difference between gay and lesbian couples and straight married couples...

Among those who immediately entered into a civil union hours after the law become effective were Julie Bernier and Joan Andresen. Both are employees of the Plymouth State University.

"We've been together 20 years; we've been waiting for this moment for 20 years; finally the state will recognize us as we are," Bernier was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

New Hampshire is the fourth state to permit civil unions, but the first to do it without a court decision or the threat of one. New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed the law on May, which grants same-sex couples the same rights, responsibilities and obligations as married male-female couples, but it does not call the union a marriage.

So far, no vengeful angels with flaming swords have been reported swooping out of the White Mountains. The world is apparently still going around the sun in the same orbit as it was last week. There hasn't been widespread necrophilia and heterosexual married couples didn't get divorced in large numbers in order to run off with their new gay partners.

Congratulations are due, I think, to Bernier and Andresen. They've been together for twenty years, statistically a lot better than most heterosexual couples in this country. Kudos, too, to Karen Testerman for realizing the obvious: that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples. Gee, ya think?

The article doesn't mention that Cornerstone Policy Research is a fundamentalist group that advocates the usual slate of fundie initiatives, like getting religion into schools and basing public policy on scriptural literalism. They even do prayer shields!

...Romans 13:1 reminds us that there is no authority except of God, that all authority exists because God ordained it. Therefore we are to pray for our leaders.

The basic element of government is the family…a man and a woman and the children that bless that marriage. The strength of our society depends upon the strength of our families. We must pray for all who are in authority beginning with the family and moving up the scale to our governor , our legislators and our President and his cabinet and Congress.

For these reasons, Cornerstone Policy Research is calling intercessors to join us as we provide a shield of prayer for our state and her government and our families...

Mmmmmm, smells like divine right of kings. Thankfully, New Hampshire tends to be, as the article notes, a rather live-and-let-live place when it comes to people's private lives and thus social policy in general. As is the case for all of New England, religious fundamentalists haven't been able to make big inroads in this part of the world as they have in some other parts of the US. Perhaps it's because New England's history includes a period during which fundies really did run everything according to Biblical law and it didn't work out too well. Been there, done that, get thee hence to South Carolina, yon fundamentalists.

Personally, I'm glad to know that not only does my current home state allow any two people who want to take on a legal commitment do so, but so do the states next door. Massachusetts allows for same-sex marriage since 2004 using that very title, while Connecticut (since 2005), New Hampshire and Vermont (since 2000) all permit civil unions that are effectively the same thing as marriage. The only states left in New England that don't let same-sex couples get hitched are Rhode Island and Maine, and I think it'll happen there eventually.

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Yesterday's Foray Finds

I was a bit too tired to bother writing all this table code last night (Blogger needs a better way to do simple tables!), so I'm just getting to it this morning. Here are photos from yesterday's outing at Silver Lake State Park (Hollis, New Hampshire). Nothing amazingly amazing, but new to me as a new arrival in New England (tomorrow marks three weeks since we got here).

		A blue-staining fungus of some sort; it may or may not be a pathogen. Like most fungi, it's hard to identify without fruiting bodies or microscopic or genetic examination.
		The golden chanterelle, Cantharellus cibarius, a choice edible. I found only three of them or else I'd certainly have brought home a sack-full, as it's one of my favorites.
		Clavulinopsis fusiformis, golden fairy fingers. This specimen is a little past its prime, but the color is still remarkable.
		Artist's conk, Ganoderma applanatum. The fruiting bodies produced by this fungus is extremely durable, sometimes lasting a century and so serving as a home for numerous generations of associated beetles. In this case, a couple of forked fungus beetles are visible (close-ups below). Like many larger polypores, this one gets rid of excess water by secreting drops of fluid around the growing edge. The color of this fluid can itself be useful in attempting to identify the fungus.
		You know you're a bit obsessive when you feel compelled to identify an Inocybe down to the species; I think this one is I. agglutinata. I wouldn't testify to that under oath, but I can't imagine why I'd ever have to. The Inocybes are important mycorrhizal fungi but among the most difficult to identify. Precise taxonomy of the genus awaits clarification.
		A member of genus Merulius, which is just a polite way of saying "dry rot." This one is growing in the woods, and you should be thankful for that. This fungus causes many millions of dollars to homes and other structures the world over every year.
		Birch polypore, Piptoporus betulina, is among the most common polypores in New England. Reputed to be edible, it was the first wild fungus I ever tried to eat, way back in 1987. I carefully followed cooking directions from a book, only to find that the fungus tastes just like bitter ashes. Yummy.
		Deer mushroom, Pluteus cervinus, is a decent edible if you can find one that hasn't been overrun with fungus gnat larvae. It's relatively easy to identify once you get the hang of it; the distinctly light pink gills that do not touch the stipe and growth on wood (never on the ground!) are good indicators. Not taht I'm advocating that you eat them until you've gotten some help identifying a few. Everyone's gotta start somewhere.
		There's not too much to say about the elegant polypore, Polyporus elegans, other than it has very tiny spore tubes that make its underside look completely smooth. The stipe is black at its point of attachment to the substrate, too. Other than that, most people wouldn't even notice this organism.
		The coral fungi, on the other hand, tend to be a bit more spectacular. They can get quite large and ornate, and some species come in shades of brilliant red, yellow and purple. On the other hand, this specimen of Ramaria stricta is a bit on the pallid side. Nonetheless, the branching is quite beautiful. While not toxic in the "you have three days to live" sense, almost all of the Ramaria spp. taste very bitter and will cause a badly upset stomach if one manages to actually choke it down.
		Once upon a time, Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) was thought to be a fungus, but it's really a parasitic plant that's given up producing its own chlorophyll in favor of sucking the nutrients from the roots of trees. Always attracted to the unusual, I like this delicate, ghostly organism and certainly had plenty to look at at Silver Lake. They were everywhere.
		It's nice to find familiar things in a new place, and I've grown very familiar with forked fungus beetles (Bolithotherus cornutus). These were living in the artists' conk pictured above.
		Another insect with which I became acquainted in Florida is the banded netwing, Calopteron reticulatum, a distant cousin of the firefly. I saw scores of them yesterday, many of them on the leaves of horse chestnut trees. These two are working on ensuring the continuation of their species and paying no attention at all to the photographer. Bug porn!

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A Foray in New Hampshire

I was going to head to a state park along the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border this morning, but I missed a turn and instead ended up at Silver Lake State Park near Hollis, NH. I met the fellow in charge of the place to make sure it would be alright to collect specimens there, and not only was he fine with my doing it, he let me in without paying for admission. I was only there for a couple of hours before a thunderstorm blew in and I had to cut my time short, but in that small space of time I found a number of nice fungi. Some were familiar to me from Florida and California, and a few were new ones. I'll have pictures later once I get through identifying everything.

I also found some forked fungus beetles in a very large Ganoderma applanatum. As I expected, these northern range specimens were cocoa brown in color like the specimens sent to me from Pennsylvania during my study, not black like the Floridian specimens. Also as predicted, the exits to all of their galleries were in the upper surface of the sporocarps, never through the spore surface itself. I found larvae as well, and all of these were in the context, not the hymenium. All of that is consistent with both Brian Starzomski's observations and my own.

My sleep schedule is a bit off and I guess five years of flat Florida has left me less used to hiking in the sort of hills I found in New Hampshire today than I used to be, so I'm going to crash for a bit. By the time I wake up I should have spore prints from my so-far unidentified specimens. Photos to come thereafter.

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