Missouri Republican Loon Honors Reagan With An Update of "Ketchup Is A Vegetable"

Meet Rep. Cynthia Davis, the Michele Bachmann of Missouri

Lou Reed turned me on to a homeopathic supplement that has helped both of our memories, Juvenon. One of the doctors on the company's Scientific Advisory Board, Ben Treadwell, writes a kind of a newsletter that comes with my monthly supply. The last one was all about how healthy caloric restriction is.

The most documented method for increasing lifespan in animals is through caloric restriction (CR). Scientists have known for decades that if they cut out a third of the normal diet (caloric content) fed to rats, worms, yeast and other organisms, the animals live longer. More recent studies with primates are demonstrating effects similar to those found with rodents... [C]aloric restriction increases the efficiency of energy production and reduces blood pressure, triglycerides levels, blood glucose levels, and body temperature. The animals on restricted diet also appear to have fewer chronic diseases, and their cellular proteins and DNA show less damage caused by free radicals. Caloric restriction also decreases insulin levels and increases insulin sensitivity, two important indicators of a healthy, non-diabetic physical state.

In an environment of food scarcity, cells appear to go into a self-preservation state involving the production of substances to protect structures vital for cell survival. The net effect is an efficient machine that produces a minimum of toxic substances (free radicals) and is protected from attack by toxic metabolites. The overall effect of caloric restriction is to redirect the cell from non-essential activities and focus it on those most important for maximum health and longevity.

Someone needs to rush this research to right wing sociopath (and Missouri state Rep) Cynthia Davis of O'Fallon. Davis is best known as a religious nut, the crackpot who first started demanding that people who work in pharmacies shouldn't have to sell anyone birth control. Here she was in 2006: "Legal is not necessarily the same as right. Pharmacists whose consciences will not permit them to dispense emergency contraception need to be protected by our government. We all must answer to God, and it is not appropriate to ask people to perform acts that will traumatize them! Our government needs to secure the rights of people to stay true to a higher law." Wow! Would she ever be comfortable living under the Taliban where they think exactly the same way!

A couple of weeks ago Davis, the GOP Majority Floor Whip, made an even bigger jackass of herself declaring, in relation to childhood hunger, that "Hunger can be a positive motivator." The editorial board of the St Louis Post Dispatch seems embarrassed to point out that this kook is in favor of childhood hunger in a recent editorial.

More precisely, Ms. Davis is against summer feeding programs for poor kids. They are an excuse “to create an expansion of a government program,” she says.

Ms. Davis chairs the House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. In that position, she might be expected to have insight into child hunger in our state.

She might know, for instance, that about one in five Missouri children lives with hunger. That ties us with Louisiana for the nation’s seventh-highest rate, according to a report released last month by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America.

Or that the recession has pushed the number of poor Missouri kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches by 8.3 percent this year, well above the national average.

Apparently not.

”While I have not seen this as a problem in my district, it is entirely possible that the (summer feeding) program is designed to address problems that exist in other parts of Missouri,” Ms. Davis says in her newsletter.

“The right way to solve this is with more education. If parents … don’t know how to serve nutritious meals, let’s help them learn to do that.”

In that spirit, she offers some helpful hints:

• “Families may economize by choosing not to waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream or Twinkies.”

• “Laid-off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat.”

• “Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.”

About 100,000 more people are unemployed in Missouri today than were jobless in 2007. Food pantries across the state are struggling to meet increased demand. The United Way of St. Louis and more than 100 area companies are participating in a food drive this week.

And the plain, tragic fact is some children have parents who aren’t particularly interested in caring for them. Ward Cleaver and Cliff Huxtable are off the television airways.

But Ms. Davis is skeptical about the need to feed poor children during the summer when schools are closed.

If-- if-- there really is one, she says, “churches and non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer.” ...

• Tip: When you chair a state special committee on children and families, you probably ought to learn something about the needs of children and families.