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02/08/13 - World Magazine - Signs and Wonders: Happiness, hippie Jesus, gubernatorial girth, and Cuba

Presidential gravitas. Is Chris Christie too fat to be president? The New
Jersey governor went on Letterman and said he was "the healthiest fat guy
you've ever seen in your life." But his friends and advisors say if he
wants to run for president he needs to trim down. "There is a plan" for
losing weight, [1]Christie acknowledged, adding: "Whether it's successful
or not, you'll all be able to notice." The issue came up because a former
White House physician, Dr. Connie Mariano, told CNN that his weight may
present serious health risks for a president. "I'm a Republican, so I like
Chris Christie a lot. I want him to run. I just want him to lose weight,"
Mariano said Tuesday. "I worry about this man dying in office." Christie
won't be the first politician with a weight problem. President William
Howard Taft reportedly couldn't fit in the White House bathtub. Mike
Huckabee went on a crash diet that included marathon running before his
presidential run. Reporters asked Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour if he
would run for president. He told them that if he lost 40 pounds, they would
know he was running. (He ended up losing 20 pounds, but decided not to
run.) So far, Christie's weight hasn't affected his approval ratings in New
Jersey, which stand at a big, fat 74 percent, according to Quinnipiac
University.

Gross National Happiness? Canada, France and Britain have added measures of
citizen happiness to their official national statistics. According to
[2]National Public Radio, "the U.S. government is now considering adopting
a happiness index as well." The question I have is: By whose standard?
"It's actually kind of a hard question," Justin Wolfers, an economist at
the University of Michigan, told NPR. "It's very subjective." Arthur
Brooks, president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote
a book, [3]Gross National Happiness, to say happiness really does matter,
but the causes of happiness are such things as "faith, charity, hard work,
optimism, and individual liberty. Secularism, excessive reliance on the
state to solve problems, and an addiction to security all promote
unhappiness." Given this, it's kind of hard to imagine a government survey
that would measure the true causes of happiness.

Banishing Jesus. School leaders in Ohio [4]may have to remove a portrait of
Jesus that has been hanging in a school entranceway for 65 years. The
American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom
>From Religion Foundation say the large portrait at Jackson Middle School
unconstitutionally promotes religion. The two groups seek a court order
requiring the school to remove the portrait and prohibiting its re-hanging
or any substantially similar display in the future. "The maintenance and
display of the portrait has the effect of advancing and endorsing one
religion, improperly entangling the State in religious affairs, and
violating the personal consciences of plaintiffs," the lawsuit says.
School Superintendent Phil Howard, named as a defendant along with Jackson
City School District and the school board, told The Columbus Dispatch
"We're not violating the law and the picture is legal because it has
historical significance. It hasn't hurt anyone." School officials have said
the portrait was donated by a student group and has been in the school
since about 1947.

Cuba libre. It was on this day 50 years ago that President John F. Kennedy
said U.S. citizens could no longer travel to or engage in financial and
commercial transactions with Cuba. These restrictions have been altered and
amended over the years. Christian missionaries, for example, now regularly
go to Cuba. But with few exceptions, those Kennedy-era trade and travel
embargo have remained in place. On Tuesday, the U.N. General Assembly voted
overwhelmingly to condemn the U.S. embargo against Cuba.  It's the 20th
year in a row the U.N. has passed such a resolution. The final tally was
186-2, with only Israel joining the United States in voting against the
measure.

References

Visible links 1.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/christie-seeks-address-his-weight-own-terms
2.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/08/171414674/how-happy-is-america?sc=tw&cc=share
3.
http://www.aei.org/book/society-and-culture/gross-national-happiness-book/
4.
http://news.yahoo.com/aclu-seeks-removal-ohio-schools-jesus-portrait-221833105.html;_ylt=A2KLOzJb7hRRlQwA9PzQtDMD


Original Source / Fuente Original:
http://www.worldmag.com/2013/02/signs_and_wonders_happiness_hippie_jesus_gubernatorial_girth_and_cuba