Latest news with #EbenezerScrooge
New York Post
5 days ago
- Health
- New York Post
Does eating cheese before bed cause nightmares? Doctor reveals the connection
Welcome to Ask Doctor Zac, a weekly column from This week, Dr Zac Turner explores the truth about cheese. QUESTION: Dear Dr Zac, I've heard this crazy rumor that eating cheese before bed can give you nightmares. I love eating cheese and crackers after dinner while a watch a good movie, but lately, I've been waking up from some pretty whack dreams. – Effie, 29, Bankstown, NSW Advertisement ANSWER: Double cream or troubled dreams? Let's slice into the truth. Blame it on Charles Dickens. In 'A Christmas Carol,' Ebenezer Scrooge famously blames his ghostly visions on 'a crumb of cheese.' But is your cheesy snack really to blame? In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge famously blames his ghostly visions on 'a crumb of cheese.' Dariia Belkina – Advertisement In 2005, the British Cheese Board set out to investigate. They gave 200 people different cheeses before bed and tracked their dreams. The verdict? No link between cheese and nightmares. In fact, some cheeses — especially cheddar — were even associated with more pleasant dreams. Brie-lliant, you said? Still, plenty of people swear their dreams go wild after a cheese-fueled snack. So let's look at what might really be happening under the rind. Advertisement Cheese contains tyramine, a naturally occurring compound that, in theory, can stimulate the brain by triggering the release of norepinephrine — a chemical linked to alertness, and potentially, disrupted sleep. But here's the thing: • Most people eat 30–50 grams of cheese per sitting — just a few slices or cubes. Advertisement • That delivers only a tiny amount of tyramine — nowhere near enough to whip your brain into dream overdrive. • And unless you're taking a rare class of antidepressants called MAO inhibitors, your body breaks it down just fine. In other words, your late-night snack is far more likely to be creamy than dreamy. And let's not forget: cheese is rarely eaten solo. If you're working your way through a cheese board with a few glasses of wine during that movie, alcohol could be the issue. In fact, some cheeses — especially cheddar — are associated with more pleasant dreams. lisa870 – Alcohol: it's a major sleep disrupter: • It suppresses REM sleep early on, then triggers REM rebound, leading to vivid, intense dreams. Advertisement • The result? You wake feeling like you've been drowning in an ocean of fondue all night. So if your dreams are melting into madness, it might not be the blue … but the red, rose, or white that's at the wheel. Additionally, high-fat meals — especially those rich in saturated fats — can throw off your sleep. Studies show these foods are linked to lighter, more fragmented sleep and reduced deep sleep, which can lead to frequent wakings and more vivid or unsettling dreams. Bottom line? Advertisement Unless you're on a rare medication that affects how you process tyramine, your cheese is off the hook. If anything, it's the rich meals, late timing, and alcohol pairings that stir up those surreal night narratives. And remember: Cheese is best paired with unpressed grapes and an early night. Sweet dreams — and yes, you can still keep your crackers.
Epoch Times
12-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
What Scrooge Effect? Americans Keep Giving, Despite the Welfare State
Commentary We just made it through another tax season. Congress has begun debating whether and how to Prior to the introduction of the federal income tax in 1913, charitable donations did not have meaningful tax deduction benefits. Yet Americans gave generously. In fact, if anything, American philanthropy has declined because of 'Are there no [state-funded] prisons [or work-houses]?' Ebenezer Scrooge asks in Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol.' The questions reveal that Scrooge (and others) feel that their higher taxes to fund a variety of social and 'poverty-reduction' programs take the place of direct philanthropic giving. Americans also keep a lot less of what they earn today than they did 100 or 150 years ago—as most of us know from recent personal experience. The case of welfare programs crowding out charity has been made eloquently by Marvin Olasky in ' Related Stories 4/28/2025 4/28/2025 These government programs 'crowded out' charitable, philanthropic civil society—contributing to problems of declining social capital elaborated by Robert Nisbet ('Quest for Community') and Robert Putnam ('Bowling Alone'). Government agencies and government checks replaced civic networks and systems of support. Yet American philanthropy is still alive and kicking in the United States. The Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University What's remarkable is that the vast majority of Americans who give to charity receive no federal tax benefit from doing so. Returning to the individual exemption, when you file your taxes, you can either claim the standard deduction ($14,600 for an individual, or $29,200 for a couple) or you can itemize your deductions. A few expenses can count toward the itemized deductions, but these expenses are highly qualified and don't add up to much for the average person. From a benefit standpoint, your qualified expenses, including your charitable giving, must add up to more than the standard deduction before you receive any tax advantage. Suppose someone takes the entire $10,000 state and local tax deduction (SALT) and comes up with $5,000 more in other qualified expenses. They would still be $14,200 short of the $29,200 standard deduction for a couple. This means that any of their charitable giving, up to $14,200, does not render them any benefits on their federal taxes. Seventy percent of American households earn less than Most Americans donate money even though they receive no federal tax benefit. Americans gave generously long before the income tax and the charitable tax deduction existed. A large industry of lawyers and accountants has cropped up to help wealthy people lower their tax liabilities through various forms of charitable giving. Sometimes these methods lead to creative accounting and legal gymnastics that can distort or divert people's choices of how to use their wealth. These observations provide a few reasons to want an alternative to our federal tax code 501(c)(3) structure. We should ask whether society would be freer in a world without tax exemptions for charitable giving—a world without the stark for-profit/nonprofit legal divide with all its attendant reporting and hoops. Tax code rules that put their thumb on the scale represent social engineering of the kind free people should reject. Most Americans give generously without thought of return—even with a large welfare state and high taxes. There is something deeply admirable about this kind of generosity that gives without expecting any material benefit in return. Imagine how they would give if the welfare state were trimmed down and their taxes were lower. That's what George W. Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' should have meant. From the Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Hindustan Times
28-04-2025
- Health
- Hindustan Times
Fractured world unites for a pandemic treaty
On April 16, a new global public health treaty emerged after prolonged multilateral negotiations, among the member-States of the World Health Organization (WHO). The Pandemic Treaty is the second global public health treaty steered by WHO. The first was the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), adopted in 2003. I was a member of the Indian delegation that won global acclaim for ensuring a strong FCTC, despite opposition from the US, Japan and Argentina, alongside hesitancy from some members of the European Union. It was clear then that economic interests around the tobacco trade often prevailed over widely proclaimed commitments to public health. Similar prioritisation of national trade interests marred negotiations on the Pandemic Treaty, which had been debating contested text over the past four years. The world recognised serious failures in the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A strong global treaty was envisaged, to carry global cooperation to firmer ground than slushy affirmations of solidarity during a crisis. The treaty was meant to be adopted in 2024 but negotiations extended till 2025 because countries disagreed on the text in vital areas. Two contentious areas related to: (a) assurances of equitable global access to vaccines, drugs and technologies, and (b) pathogen sharing by countries that first discover dangerous microbes or their variants (for enabling other countries to produce tests, vaccines and drugs directed at them). High income countries (HICs) wished to protect the patents and profits of their pharmaceutical industries. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) wanted to ensure that they had affordable access to vaccines and drugs produced against pathogens shared by them or validated through clinical trials conducted in their populations. As the negotiations stipulated that 'nothing is agreed till everything is agreed', negotiations were protracted, drawing on till all the words were fine-tuned. The absurdity of haggling by rich countries, which were stridently protectionist of their pharma industry, was evident when they wanted to modify text on technology sharing between countries — from 'on the basis of mutual agreement' to 'voluntary mutual agreement'. This was to ensure that the treaty would not bind countries to measures that were deemed vital for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and effective responses to a dangerous new pathogen. Global solidarity would then remain a pious platitude and insincere commitment. Memories of vaccine hoarding by rich countries during the Covid-19 pandemic are only too fresh. It is also worth remembering that virus variants emerging from unprotected populations circulated around the world to haunt the rich countries that behaved like Ebenezer Scrooge. Such posturing by some rich countries hid the fact that their own laws permitted their governments to exercise of powers to impose involuntary actions on domestic industries, under exceptional circumstances. The US has a Defense Production Act that confers such powers. Germany, in 2020, enacted legislation to 'protect the population in case of an epidemic situation of national significance'. It is reassuring that 193 countries waded through these conflicting viewpoints to achieve convergence on several key provisions that include: rapid and timely sharing of information during a pandemic; commitment by manufacturers to supply at least 20% of available vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics to WHO for global distribution during a pandemic; sharing of technology to enhance scale and speed of production needed to combat a pandemic. For the first time, WHO will have an overview of the global supply chains of personal protection equipment (like masks and medical gowns). The treaty also stresses pandemic prevention, advocating a One Health approach, building geographically diverse research and development capacities, enabling pathogen access for research, facilitating transfer of technology to enable production of pandemic-related health products, mobilising a skilled, multidisciplinary national and global health emergency workforce, setting up a coordinating financial mechanism, adoption of measures to strengthen health system resilience, and establishment of a global supply chain and logistics network. The treaty upholds the sovereign rights of countries to address public health matters within their borders, and states that nothing in the agreement shall be interpreted as providing WHO any authority to direct, order, alter or prescribe national laws or policies, or mandate countries to take specific actions, such as to ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures or implement lockdowns. Many global health experts such as Lawrence Gostin, the eminent American lawyer with expertise in public health law, view this treaty as a major achievement that 'sets important norms for global health'. Others hail it as an assertion of public interest over commercial greed. Coupled with the recent revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR), again under the auspices of WHO, global health systems will now be stronger in alerting attention to, and ensuring prompt action on, new microbial threats around the world. There have been critics too. During the Biden administration, Republican politicians and Right-wing media commentators criticised US participation in the negotiations, denouncing the draft treaty as a power grab by WHO and an infringement on the sovereign rights of nations. The process by which WHO decides on declaring a pandemic was criticised. The impact on trade and travel concerned many. Critics claimed that WHO was trying to transition from a multilateral body to a supra-national world government. It was no surprise that the Trump administration withdrew from WHO and exited the treaty negotiations. Perhaps that helped to create a cordial and accommodative environment for the negotiations to proceed to fruition. However, the absence of the US among the ratifying countries will create major gaps in global pathogen surveillance and technology-sharing arrangements. The world will have to find new mechanisms for national capacity building and regional cooperation, even as it tries to infuse intent and content into global solidarity. A global threat needs a global thrust to counter it. The Pandemic Treaty provides that propulsion. K Srinath Reddy is distinguished professor at PHFI and ISPP. The views expressed are personal
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Yahoo
Arrest over attack on Scrooge gravestone
A teenager has been arrested in connection with the destruction of a gravestone created for the Charles Dickens character, Ebenezer Scrooge. It was smashed into pieces in November and West Mercia Police said the 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage. The grave, at St Chad's Church in Shrewsbury, was used as a prop in 1980s film A Christmas Carol and remained in the church grounds afterwards, as a tourist attraction. The teenager who was arrested has since been released on police bail as inquiries continue. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. Fictional Scrooge and his real churchyard grave 'Fury' over Scrooge's gravestone being smashed Ebenezer Scrooge's gravestone smashed to pieces West Mercia Police
