Cycling for Goddard-- tomorrow!

Have you every been downtown on a Tuesday evening and seen a mass of lights moving toward you in the darkness? Giant lightening bugs? An alien hoard? Too many margaritas?

Nooooo, it's the Tucson community bike ride. Beginning tomorrow night, October 5, and continuing for the month of October, a few of us artistic/political types are planning to add a twist to the community bike ride.

We are calling on Terry Goddard for Governor supporters to participate in the bike ride and show their support at the same time. We will be wearing lights and Goddard paraphernalia-- signs, t-shirts, bumper stickers-- to raise awareness.

If you want to participate in the community bike ride and support Goddard, meet at the Starbucks at Geronimo Plaza on University Blvd. at 7:30 p.m. (with your bike, bike light, helmet, Goddard t-shirt or other wearable promo + LEDs, glow necklaces, and other funs stuff.) Extra signs will be available. This is a great opportunity to show our support and get a little exercise at the same time.

UPDATE, October 12: The cycling event on October 5 got rained out. We are going to ride Tuesday, October 12 and hopefully every Tuesday until the election.

Who needs swimming pools when it's only 108?

When I was growing up, summer didn't start on June 21; it started the day the city swimming pool opened. My small home town in Northern Ohio built a community swimming pool in the mid 1960s. I remember going to the dedication and seeing all of that cool blue water inviting my brother and I to learn to swim.

The Amherst pool was never free, but it was affordable. The City of Amherst sold (and still sells) individual and family memberships. Each year my Mom purchased season passes. That pool was open regular hours everyday, and my friends and I lived at that pool between Memorial Day and Labor Day. When you live in a tiny Cape Cod house with one box fan and no air conditioning, a swimming pool is an inviting place to be in the summer.

But we live in Tucson, Arizona, where the temperature gets to only 110 degrees, so we don't need community swimming pools... right? Guess again.
Many of Tucson's swimming pools--particularly those in poorer neighborhoods--will be closed this summer due to budget cuts. This is a short-sighted policy for many reasons.

First of all, the number one community strategy for disease prevention is to provide free (or affordable) places for individuals and families to exercise, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Closing pools (on the city level) and parks (on the state level) may seem like a wise budget decision, but the unintended consequences could be great. Not to mention vandalism and people sneaking into pools and parks unsupervised, there are public health consequences. Childhood and adult obesity are on the rise in the US. Regular, moderate exercise has been shown to prevent or control diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions. We save some money now with these closures, but we will pay out more in the future with higher chronic disease costs.

How much is the City of Tucson really saving by closing swimming pools? The city still has to maintain the pools, so why not have them open? Can the city sell memberships--like tiny Amherst, Ohio has been doing for 40 years? Can neighborhoods band together to save their local pool?

Barrio Anita resident Alexandra Queen, who lives across the street from the Oury Park pool, said that there are a lot of children in Barrio Anita and the Oury pool was "full of kids" last summer. This summer the inner city pool will be closed.
"I watched them clean the pool yesterday. It's beautiful. I'd take a life-saving class and volunteer as a life guard if they would keep that pool open," she added.
If there are few pools and parks to play in, what will the children do this summer? The rich ones have parents who can afford summer camp, health club memberships, and backyard pools. The docile ones will sit around the house, play video games, snack-- and gain weight. But there are others with no money for backyard pools, health club memberships, or video games who will act out with spray paint or drugs or petty crime. This will cost the city money in the long run.

Yes, I know the City of Tucson has budget problems. I am not suggesting that we keep the old system of cheap day passes and patchy hours, but has the city thought of alternative strategies to closing the pools-- like season passes, volunteers, or neighborhood-control of pools?

On Monday, it's supposed to be 108 degrees. It's criminal that the children of Barrio Anita have to stand outside the pool fence and look at that cool, blue water. What message is the city sending them?

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column.

Is sex becoming too expensive?

Two pills have revolutionized sexuality—The Pill and The Little Blue Pill.

Just as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the first birth control pill in 1960 sparked the Sexual Revolution, FDA approval of Viagra in 1998 sparked a second wave of the Sexual Revolution for Baby Boomers.

Enovid (FDA approval in 1960) and Ortho Novum (FDA approval in 1962) liberated early Baby Boomer women from the threat of unwanted pregnancy (since abortion was not yet legal in the US).

Viagra (sildenafil citrate) liberated Baby Boomer men from the threat of erectile dysfunction (ED).

With all of this freedom, you’d think that all would be well in bedrooms across America. Well, guess again.

A recent article in the New York Times suggests that sex may be too expensive for men who use Viagra regularly. The astute Times reporters calculated that at $15 per pill, Viagra-aided sex twice a week would cost $1500 per year.

What’s a guy to do? Medical researchers have come to the rescue with natural ways to guard against ED. Their advice: Have sex more often and exercise!

Reporting in The American Journal of Medicine, Koskimaki and colleagues suggest a use-it-or-lose-it strategy to prevent ED. They found that “regular sexuality activity preserves potency.” In their study, men who had sex less than once a week were twice as likely to have ED as men who reported having sex once a week. Furthermore, they reported that the more sex a man has, the less likely he is to develop ED.

Since ED is often a symptom of other health problems—particularly diabetes or poor cardiovascular health—medical researchers also suggest exercise as a natural way to improve erectile function, as well as overall health.

Reporting in the same journal, Selvin and colleagues studied the relationship between five cardiovascular risk factors—diabetes, smoking, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity— physical activity, and ED.

They found that the prevalence of ED among men with diabetes was over 50%. (This is a particularly scary statistic since diabetes is on the rise in the US.) Furthermore, this research team reported a strong association between lack of physical activity and ED.

So, if you have a middle-aged spread, your sex life isn’t what it used to be, and you can’t afford to use the little blue pill regularly, get off the couch and exercise.