No. 232 May 2002
NEW
IRS MEDICAL DEDUCTION: OBESITY A DISEASE? On April 2, 2002, the Internal Revenue
Service issued a Revenue Ruling “explaining conditions under which expenses
for certain weight-loss programs may qualify as a medical deduction. The cost of
diet foods would not be deductible.” Revenue Ruling 2002-19 cites the examples
of two taxpayers participating in weight-loss programs. One person was diagnosed
by a doctor as obese and had to participate in weight-loss program. If a
person’s weight-loss program cost exceeds 7.5 percent of the individuals
adjusted gross income, the program’s cost is deductible, but his/her diet food
purchases are not deductible. The official IRS ruling “Rev. Rul. 2002-19”
will be in the Internal Revenue Bulletin 2002-16, dated April 22, 2002 (T
22.23:2002-16) and will also be on the IRS Web site at http://wwwirs.gov. More information can be found on the IRS News Release (No:
IR-2002-04) Weight-Loss Programs May Be Tax Deductible that was released
April 2, 2002 and is on the IRS web site at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-news/ir-02-40.pdf
as a 1-page pdf file. HAMBURGERS,
THIN (BUT) MEATY HISTORY White Castle was the first hamburger fast food
establishment. White Castle started in Wichita, Kansas in 1921and sold
hamburgers for five cents. In the 1950s McDonalds opened, their hamburger cost
about 20 cents. It seems there were
some Russian sailors who learned about a special meat dish from the nomadic
Tartars. The Germans in HAMBURG learned about this dish from visiting Russian
sailors. The Germans now called this dish Steak Tartare and everyone who knows
and eats fast foods, call this dish “a hamburger.” The Nomadic Tartar,
Russian, and German contributions to this hamburger history occurred sometime
before 1830, but “the first documented mention of hamburg steak in the United
States was in the 1830s.” Hamburger
Steak cost 10 cents at Delmonico’s, an expensive restaurant in New York City.
In 1896 hamburg steak was included for the first time in the famous cookbook of
Boston chef Fannie Farmer. Though the exact origin of the hamburger is not
known, Paulette C. Jordan’s “History of the Hamburger” (pages 28) is full
of rare facts blended into a hamburger history well done. This hamburger history
“sandwiched in” as part of the menu of fast food history was put together
and cooked up by William P. Ancker in “Fast Food World: The Hamburger Comes of
Age” in English Teaching Forum, V. 40, No. 1, January 2002, pages
25-32, which is found in some libraries under SuDoc No. S 21.15:40/1 is also on
the State Department web site at http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/.
ALMOST
TIME FOR THE NEW TIME USE SURVEY The
American Time Use Survey (ATUS) which
measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities, such as paid
work, childcare, volunteering, commuting, and socializing has
its own web page http://stats.bls.gov/tus/home.htm.
However, ATUS is in the final stages of design and testing by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics. It will be in full production and the ATUS surveys will begin
in January 2003. The Census
Bureau will conduct 2000 computer-assisted telephone ATUS surveys per month
(totaling 24,000 per year) focusing on the respondent’s previous
day’s activities; and this will be an ongoing BLS survey.
The ATUS questions ask how time was used for: childcare, dependent care,
paid work, and absences from home. ATUS
provides new information about time use of telecommuters, freelancers,
self-employed, and salaried workers, as well as information about the
householders’ time use for trips away from home.
“The American Time Use Survey: cognitive pretesting” by Lisa
Schwartz, Monthly Labor Review, V. 125, No. 2, February, 2002, pages
34-44 is 11 pages of information about how the survey and its questions. This
survey will complement the Census Bureau’s new Work at Home in 2001
Current Population Survey found at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/homey.toc.htm.
If Time Use is your topic and you want to know more, take the time to
survey the information, publications, and sights at the ATUS web site that
includes a link to Lisa Schwartz’s article.
THE
SCAR RULE: HORSE SHOWS AND ABUSE Show horses can exhibit a special exaggerated
or high-stepping gait and win prizes because of training or because they have
sore feet. Some show horses feet
have scars because of natural injuries and some occur because of chemical or
mechanical applications. Show
horses can have an exaggerated gait that they should be obtained by conventional
show training or sored feet. Showing
horses with artificially sored feet is an unfair advantage and an illegal horse
show practice. Pictures, better than words, will help you learn about sored
feet. There are 14 color pictures
found in The Horse Protection Act, Understanding the Scar Rule, Program
Aid No. 1685, issued in February, 2001 by the USDA Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/oa/pubs/acscarru.pdf
). This 23-page publication shows examples of horses’ feet with natural
sores and artificial soring, and the latter is considered horse abuse. On page 3
is the “Scar Rule” which is Section 11.3 of Title 9 of the Code of
Federal Regulations. When the
show horse inspector, officially known as the USDA’s Designated Qualified
Person (DQP), inspects show horses, he can identify sored horses. The penalized
the owner/horse abuser then becomes part of the horse abuse statistics found in
the annually issued Horse Protection Enforcement Fiscal Year (Date). The
latest report dated 1997, issued November 1998, is found on the UDSA web site as
a pdf file (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/oa/pubs/hpa97.pdf).
To control and prevent this unfair horse show practice and the abuse of
horses, the horse industry organizations and the APHIS have compiled and issued
the Horse Protection Strategic Plan in April 1998.
This is 10 pages of common concerns, aims, goals, responsibilities,
rules, penalties, and general information about the control and prevention of
the abuse of show horses that is found at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/oa/pubs/hpa.pdf. WITCHES
AND E-WITCHES There are (film and television) witches such as Glinda, Good Witch
of the North, the Wicked Witch of the North (Wizard of Oz) and Tabitha
from (television’s) Bewitched, to name a few. The real(?) witches yet to be
known are witches found in (our own) Salem Massachusetts. You can “attend”
the witch trials of 1692. “Salem Witch Trials” http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/home.html
is an electronic collection of primary source materials, including court
records, contemporary books, maps, images, and literary works, relating to the
Salem witch trials of 1692.” The Puritans created and left about 850 court
documents. “You can hear the voices of the accusers and the voices of the
accused, the judges, the ministers, even occasionally some of the attendants.”
The Salem documents are now accessible to any researcher with a computer.
There are record books, court records, personal letters, and maps of Salem
Village, 1692. There are also maps
of Andover and a “the Regional Accusations Map” displays the chronology of
Witchcraft Accusations that occurred in 1692.
There is access to the witchcraft archival collections at the Boston
Public Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, and Peabody Essex Museum.
The “Salem Witch Trials”
Project Information portion of the homepage includes (links to) an Introduction,
Overview, Images, and the Press Archive. This web site provides background
information for the “Documents & Transcriptions, Historical Maps, Archival
Collections, Contemporary Books, and Project Mission segments of this website.
The Press Archive includes the electronic version of an interview (“An
Internet Witch-Hunt: Digitizing Salem Village, A Conversation with Benjamin
Ray” Humanities, The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities,
V. 21, No. 5, September/October, 2000, pages 4 –7 and 51-54 (NF 3.11:21/5)
with Benjamin Ray at the University of Virginia the primary researcher behind
the Salem Witchcraft Project and other related articles which appeared in the
Chronicle of Higher Education and the Salem Evening News (newspaper).
These State-of-the-art electronic primary resource materials are just
waiting for witch researchers who want to meet and know more about the Salem
witches. INDESTRUCTIBLE
ICEBERGS: MAYBE! MAYBE NOT!! Duyane Alexander’s “Indestructible Icebergs” Mariners
Weather Log, V. 45, No. 3, December 2001 pages 4-7 tells us icebergs are
indestructible http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/mwl/mwl.htm.
April 15, 2002 was the 90th anniversary of the Titanic's striking the
iceberg that sank an unsinkable ship. “Even today, modern, radar equipped
ships do strike icebergs. Three ships struck icebergs as recent as 1993.”
After the Titanic sunk in 1912,
the International Ice Patrol (IIP)
was created and
since that date, it has monitored and publishes warnings about icebergs.
The indestructibility of icebergs was first documented on March 26, 1913,
when a Coast Guard Ship tried to destroy an iceberg with its deck gun.
There have been attempts to destroy icebergs using TNT, naval guns,
thermite bombs, incendiary bombs, 1000-pound bombs, armor-piercing bombs, and a
coat of carbon black was painted on a ice berg to absorb the sun’s heat.
The experiments using electrically heated wires and explosives were
conducted in the early 1980s, when the IIP abandoned its iceberg destruction
research. The IIP’s current and
primary goal is to collect information about (new) icebergs, classify them (as
to size, i.e. shape, height, and length) and broadcast (to mariners) in two
daily bulletins and a graphic fax chart the current information about icebergs.
Alexander’s article also tells “How to Report Icebergs”, “What to
Include in an Ice Report”, presents charts for iceberg shape and sizing
guidelines, how to contact the Ice Patrol, and web site information. The very
informative IIP web site http://www.uscg.mil/lantarea/iip/home.html
provides copies of the latest Ice Chart and Bulletins, as well as history and
more than you might want to know about icebergs. However, icebergs, as they are
affected by global warming, are melting and are not indestructible. RECREATIONAL
BOATERS, WATCH FOR ICEBERGS Iceberg
C-19 Calves Off Ross Ice Shelf is
the title of the May 17 Press Release from the National Ice Center about the new
iceberg which is 124 miles long and 19 ½ miles wide.
An iceberg that would fit between and covers a 20 mile wide path between
Columbus and Akron Ohio (128 miles). However, C-19, when viewed in a satellite
image is one of the newest icebergs and is just a speck of ice in the Ross Sea
of the Antarctic Polar regions. “The exact location of the center of iceberg
C-19 is 77.23 Latitude South 173.30 Longitude East.
The names given to icebergs
are derived from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were first sighted by the
National Ice Center (NIC) using a satellite image. The NIC documents its point
of origin and releases a press release. The press release for the C-19 iceberg,
found at http://www.natice.noaa.gov/c-19.htm
includes a picture of the Ross Ice Shelf. How
soon C-19 will be an obstacle for Atlantic Coast sailing is a question, and at
some future date the International Ice Patrol will provide a appropriate warning
bulletin. The NIC web site (http://www.natice.noaa.gov/home.htm)
has Press Releases for C-19 and other icebergs that include pictures and
descriptions. If icebergs are on you agenda for summer reading, bookmark this
URL. The National Ice Center is a tri-agency operational center represented by
the United States Navy (Department of Defense); the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (Department of Commerce); and the United States Coast
Guard (Department of Transportation) whose mission is to provide world-wide
operational ice analyses for the armed forces of the United States and allied
nations, U.S. government agencies, and the private sector.
August 9, 2002
http://www.nku.edu/~yannarella/news0205.html