SURPRISING NEWS that makes me feel better about my JLo-ness .  .

Having junk in your trunk is healthier than a spare tire around the gut, new research suggests. The extra padding on thebackside and thighs could even help to protect against disease.

The results come from a review that summarizes various studies on the health effects of different fat stores in the body, particularly around the hips and thighs.

from Live Science

SCARY NEWS that makes running errands dangerous

Chemicals in a cancer-causing substance used to seal pavement, parking lots and driveways across the U.S. are showing up at alarming levels in dust in homes, prompting concerns about the potential health effects of long-term exposure, a new study shows.

The substance is coal tar sealant, a waste product of steel manufacturing that is used to protect pavement and asphalt against cracking and water damage, and to impart a nice dark sheen. It is applied most heavily east of the Rockies but is used in all 50 states.

But scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey say the sealant — one of two types commonly used in the U.S. — doesn’t stay put. It slowly wears off and is tracked into homes on the shoes of residents. InvestigateWest

YIPPEE NEWS that’s cause to applaud Google

SAN FRANCISCO - Google will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country completely after discovering that computer hackers had tricked human rights activists into opening their e-mail accounts to outsiders.

The change-of-heart announced Tuesday heralds a major shift for Google, which has repeatedly said it will obey Chinese laws that require some politically and socially sensitive issues to be blocked from search results that are available in other countries.

Google disclosed in a blog post that it had detected a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China.” Further investigation revealed that “a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists,” Google said in the post written by Chief Legal Officer David Drummond. Associated Press

My pastor made a statement during his sermon on Sunday  that caused a ripple of  laughter, “My wife and I have decided that as of 2010, we’re no longer participating in the recession. We’re done.” Knowing Waylon and Martha, I could imagine the resolve on their faces as they came to this decision.

Based on the reaction of those of us in the service, we understood the motivation to move beyond the woes to the wonders. Like our pastor, I’m not saying there still aren’t issues in the universe, but we can choose our attitudes.

And, like him, I choose to be done.

Here are the ten things I’ve decided are my “dones”:

1. Whether or not the TSA doing a full body scan is an invasion of my privacy. I’ve birthed five children. Are you kidding me? A full body scan is a romp in the park compared to, well, I’ll leave it at that.

2. Tiger Woods and whether he and wife are together, whether he stays a Buddist or becomes a Christian, or whether he ever plays golf again. This is evolving into high drama. I’ll wait for the book.

3. Health care. Today, I’m healthy, I care about the fact that I’m healthy…that’s enough for me.

4. Sean Payton’s decision to hold the starters in the Saints’ game against North Carolina.

5. Anything about Hurricane Katrina. That includes pre/during/post.

6. Elton John helping Eminem fight drugs. I’ll be undone with that only if a sober Eminem starts helping Elton with his wardrobe.

7. The discussion about the Twilight series and whether or not Stephenie Meyer is a good writer. The woman has sold ga-millions of books. Good story trumps good writing. And the arbiters of “good” better be ready to stand tall. Do they know who won the last  Nobel Prize for Fiction?

8. Taking far too seriously the writer’s mantra about sticking my butt in the chair. It’s soon going to be permanently attached and/or shaped like it. Time to get up off of it. I’m done with not exercising.

9. Junk food. Totally related to #8.  I should treat my body at least as well as I treat my car. Well, except for that whole washing the car thing.

10. Mondays. Complaining  about having to return to work after a lovely long holiday break.

What are you done with?

You wouldn’t know it, but I write a blog daily. The reason you wouldn’t know is because I’m composing three out of five in my head. And, I suppose this is a blessing for both me and my 3.2 reading audience, you can’t read my mind.

Therefore, one of my 2010 intents is to be more intent about blogging. The problem for me, though, is my blog is as ADD as I am. So, readers come here not knowing if they’ll find a post about Christa the mother, the writer, the grammy, the teacher, the wife, the disgruntled consumer, the observer of Hollywood and/or political antics…This is a problem I’m told because, according to those at the top of the blog food chain, a blog should not be dressed for the beach one day and prom the next, and it should offer something of value the reader can take away. Something more than a smirk or giggle or sigh.

Blog readers, I’m told, care more about themselves than me. And I’m supposed to focus on THEIR needs or problems, not mine.

Seriously? I can barely deal with my own needs and problems.  Do readers really trust me to say anything that could possibly help them?

But, I’d like to think that I’m a teachable person, especially because I go to school five days a week and expect the 130+ who sit in my classroom to be teachable.

So, I thought I’d start this new year of blogging by offering my readers ten things of value. Maybe if I focus on ten a day, I might just be able to pull this off.

TEN THINGS TO BE LEARNED FROM RECENT NEWSY STUFF:

1. Never send text messages Tiger that, if printed in newspapers around the world, would have every high-powered divorce lawyer  praying for the phone to ring.

2. If something is good enough for the nation, like a health care plan,  then it should be equally good enough for the politician who designed it to buy into as well.

3. Do not purchase a Super Bowl package unless you really just want to go to Florida in February whether your team the Saints is there or not.

4.  Unmarried couples, even those together for over two decades, are exempt from divorces. They’re just “no longer a couple” or “split up”; the same words my high schoolers use. So, it’s best not to use the word “paramour” to describe the mystery date of one such person, even if you are the New York Post. If you weren’t married in the first place, and are not a couple now, how can you have, by definition, an “illicit lover, esp. of a married person”?

5. There’s absolutely nothing funny about pretending to kidnap a child, even if the child happens to be your own daughter and was a willing participant in the joke.

6. Flossing can be dangerous. Even if you are a vampire.

7. Apparently, you can be having a really bad day as a couple [married] where your spouse is trying to strangle you, resulting in a 911 call, and-later- still be very much in love and want to save your marriage.

8. When you’re President of the United States, a visit with your daughters to buy a “shaved ice treat” (in Louisiana, aka “snowballs’) is cause for a photo opp and a detailed article about flavors both chosen and avoided. He drove there with about 20 people. If you’re a Secret Service agent, no one cares what flavor you picked.

9. Being a terrorist does not require a MENSA membership or even a three digit IQ. You only have to be willing to place an explosive device in your underwear. Makes one wonder what items we’ll have to start putting in those baggies before boarding.

10.  Be suspicious of any diet referred to as “drive-thru.” Spending that much time on your rear in an automobile can’t be considered healthy.

Check out this intriguing infographic on the state of our world. And thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for finding it!

“This study shows, for the first time, that in exchange for sex and other benefits, males protect their female neighbors from territory-seeking male intruders. The paper provides the first evidence of ‘defense coalitions’ between territorial males and females,” he said.

We’re not talking Third-World countries here, folks. Nope. The pimps are male fiddler crabs. Seriously.

Researchers from The Australian National University in Canberra found male fiddler crabs will happily defend a nearby female against intruders — partly because the females will dole out sex in return.

I intended to write something wickedly clever about this news. But, really, I’m more intrigued by the fact that there are researchers who pay attention to the private lives of fiddler crabs.

Sometimes truth truly is stranger than fiction:

“A video surveillance system at the home shows the naked man using a garden hose to shower in the driveway Monday about 1 a.m., Slidell Police spokesman Capt. Kevin Foltz said. He then knocked on the front door and, after getting no response, moved to the back yard, Foltz said.

The man then covered himself up with what appears to be a trash bag and sat for a while in a chair in the back yard. He then broke several rear windows in the house, entered and ransacked the home, Foltz said.

The man then covered himself up with what appears to be a trash bag and sat for a while in a chair in the back yard. He then broke several rear windows in the house, entered and ransacked the home, Foltz said.Slidell Police Department

While in the house, the man cooked a meal, ate it, had several drinks and took another shower inside the home, Foltz said. He then wrapped himself in a white sheet and left.”

story by Jeff Adelson, The Times-Picayune

Slidell Police Department