I read in the paper that LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band died yesterday. It made me sad. He was too young. Under the Table and Dreaming was a magnificent album that got me listening to (new) music again, much as Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello and the Clash did in the late 70s. I was wondering who would be playing sax for the DMB on the upcoming tour and thought maybe Jeff Coffin of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and found that sure enough he is sitting in for last night's LA show. I know Jeff Coffin plays in a lot of pick up and jam bands, but here is hoping he does not leave the Flecktones.

On the environmental side, there has been a link found between low levels of arsenic and the development of Type 2 diabetes. What is new in this study is that diabetes may be caused by lower levels of arsenic than thought possible before. I searched about 20 articles today and not one listed what the low levels of inorganic arsenic levels were that were tested. The best I could find was the urine of those with type 2 diabetes had at a minimum of 2 micrograms per liter (that is a really small amount, maybe a little less than 1/4 of an ounce in 1,000,000 gallons. ) Drinking water limits were just lowered to 5 times that amount after much discussion. I could find no listing of what levels of aqueous arsenic were tested. So there is no way of postulating the correlation to the levels of arsenic found in drinking water to urine. Public water systems have to be tested every three years for arsenic. Private wells are not tested at all. This could be a problem. Simple sampling can be done if you are on a well by contacting a well. If arsenic is present, you would have to go to reverse osmosis to get rid of it.

rojo