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EDITORIAL | ARE WE WHAT WE EAT?

Do people today consume excessive junk food? Could this be one reason for our disconnect? Throughout history, the divide among people was often due to long distances and a lack of understanding. But what’s our excuse today? Everyone I know has smartphones, yet they still don’t know what’s happening around them. Is it the food we eat or the people we dare not meet?

If there’s one lesson from history, we haven’t read enough.

JUNK FOOD REDUCES THINKING POWER AND MEMORIES – NEW REPORT

Junk food can affect the brains of people of all ages.

Photo: Pexels

By Richard Musgrove, Dr Richard Musgrove is a zoologist and science journalist. He writes for Cosmos and Double Helix.
Cosmos Magazine
28 April 2025

Annotated by Abraham A. van Kempen

According to Australian researchers, foods high in saturated fat and sugar impair memory storage capacity.

Memories (Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

Too much saturated fat and refined sugar cause obesity, heart disease, and some cancers, but also decline thinking ability and increase brain disorders in those on high-fat, high-sugar diets, says Dr. Dominic Tran of the University of Sydney, lead author of a paper in the International Journal of Obesity.

Dominic Tran (Supplied)

“We also know these unhealthy eating habits hasten age-related cognitive decline in middle age,” Tran told Cosmos.

Not just older people; children and teens suffer too. Brain effects occur “well in advance of increases in body weight.”

Effects on memories occur in the hippocampus, the seahorse-shaped brain organ that stores memory.

Hippocampi, one on each side, sit deep within the brain’s temporal lobes, above and forward of the ears.

“When you eat a lot of crap, including saturated free fatty acids, or fatty meat, you get neuroinflammation,” says Professor Frédéric Meunier, of the Brain Institute at the University of Queensland.

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BODY AND MIND

Scans show how the brain begins to create memories

“Neuroinflammation impacts spatial memory and triggers this,” says Meunier, who was uninvolved. “Three major pathways harm memory acquisition, with neuroinflammation being the most significant.”

“The second is neurotrophic (‘neuron-building’) factors that are good for brain development and memory. High-fat diets reduce these factors.”

"Next, there is the potential for insulin resistance to develop in the central nervous system."

A significant difference exists between dietary free fatty acids and those produced in the body. “Free fatty acids are generated in the brain and are necessary for memory acquisition,” says Meunier.

Much of the memory work has focused on rats and mice. Now, Australian researchers have tested humans in the maze.

Frédéric Meunier (Supplied)

Fifty-five university students, aged 18 to 38, navigated a virtual reality maze seven times to find a treasure chest in the exact location six times but were removed on the seventh. They completed a questionnaire on estimated sugary and fatty food intake over 12 months, and their body mass index (BMI) was recorded.

Memories: human brain with highlighted temporal lobe, computer illustration. This lobe is involved in processing auditory information and encoding of memory.

Tran highlights understanding the path.

Students who avoided fatty, sugary foods remembered the chest's location better than those who often ate junk food. BMI and working memory were factored in.

“The good news is we think this is reversible,” says Tran.

“Dietary changes can enhance hippocampal health, improving our navigation abilities, whether exploring a new city or learning a new route home.”

“This research shows that diet is important for brain health in early adulthood, a period when cognitive function is usually intact.”

Tran notes that the research sample did not represent the broader population, “but the findings still apply more broadly.”

Our participants were likely healthier than the general population. If our sample better represented the public, the impact of diet on spatial navigation would be more pronounced.

“This paper is interesting because it confirms what we knew already about rodent diet, and confirms that this is also bad for humans,” says Meunier.

Initially published by Cosmos as Junk food reduces thinking power and memories – new report.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen

MEHDI CHALLENGES DEREK THOMPSON ON THE ‘ABUNDANCE AGENDA’ AND DEMOCRATS

Can liberals embrace innovation through government deregulation and a pro-business outlook?

Watch the Video Here (33 minutes, 04 seconds)

Host Mehdi Hasan
Mehdi Unfiltered
Zeteo News
30 April 2025

US Democrats are experiencing unprecedentedly low approval ratings.

This situation prompted prominent liberal journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson to write ‘Abundance’ — a new book that argues for the need for liberals to embrace innovation through government deregulation and a pro-business outlook.

The bestselling book has sparked excitement and debate; Thompson recently appeared on Mehdi Hasan's ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ to delve deeper into its themes. During their discussion, they explore the abundance agenda, with Mehdi pressing Thompson on the book’s critiques from progressives, particularly regarding its insufficient emphasis on Republicans and oligarchy.

Thompson explains to Mehdi that liberals are hindering progress in housing and green energy development, stating,

               “When you're trying to explain why some states like Texas are building ample housing and some states like California simply aren't, I don't think you can say that the problem is oligarchy.”

They also talk about the future of the Democratic Party, addressing challenges from Donald Trump and MAGA, Bernie Sanders and AOC, and the “orphaned center-right.”

Watch the FULL interview to hear Thompson acknowledge that he and Klein misstepped on specific points.

SEYMOUR HERSH | LOST CHANCE FOR PEACE IN VIETNAM?

Fifty years after the fall of Saigon, I remember an episode that might have ended the war a decade earlier.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem at Independence Palace in Saigon in May 1961. / Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images.

By Seymour Hersh
Substack.com
30 April 2025

Annotated by Abraham A. van Kempen

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Saigon's fall, highlighting a moment in 1963 when reconciliation appeared possible between North and South Vietnam.

The US military had a small presence: 16,300 troops on land, with more offshore. Few Americans recognized that South Vietnam's civil war would escalate into a confrontation between Russian- and Chinese-backed forces and US Special Forces.

That fall, Western journalists in Saigon spread rumors that North Vietnam's leaders, President Ho Chi Minh and Army General Vo Nguyen Giap, had secretly contacted Ngo Dinh Diem, the US-installed South Vietnam president. Although Diem was seen as a puppet of America, this view was misleading. Both sides knew the escalating US air attacks and extensive use of anti-crop defoliants could trigger a major war between the US and local nationalist and Communist forces in the South, known as the Viet Cong, who would soon receive increasing support from the North Vietnamese Army. Led by General Giap, this army had defeated the French a decade earlier.

During the secret North-South talks, Diem attacked the Buddhist population in Saigon, and the war against Communist opposition reached a stalemate, alarming the White House. These factors contributed to the assassination of Diem and his brother, Nhu, on November 2. Over the next decade, the U.S. installed a series of failed military governments. Whether President John F. Kennedy directly or indirectly ordered the murders remains uncertain. He was assassinated in Dallas twenty days later.

These entanglements were unclear as Lyndon Johnson escalated the war with heavy bombing and over 500,000 US troops. More than 58,000 US soldiers died, with millions of Vietnamese casualties in the North and South, many from American B-52 bombing.

Polish diplomat Mieczyslaw Maneli was a key figure in the early settlement of the war without American involvement. He served intermittently on an international peacekeeping group established in 1954 during the division of North and South Vietnam at the Geneva summit. This group, called the International Control Commission (ICC), included communist, democratic, and neutral members from Poland, Canada, and India, with offices in Hanoi and Saigon.

Maneli represented Poland on the ICC intermittently for two decades. A Jewish teenager, he escaped the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II and fought against the Nazis, later captured in a Gestapo torture chamber. After the war, he was hailed as a hero by the Communist regime. By 1954, Maneli held a law doctorate and was an associate professor at the University of Warsaw. As a prolific scholar and writer, he increasingly opposed Soviet political control in Poland.

Being appointed to the ICC saved him from harassment. In the late 1960s, Maneli fled Poland for the U.S. and became a political science professor at Queens College in New York City. He died of a heart attack in 1994.

I learned of Maneli while researching a book on the Kennedy presidency in the 1990s. I published the first account of the My Lai massacre as a freelancer in 1969 and wrote about the war for the New Yorker and the New York Times. I befriended US government and intelligence officials who served in Vietnam and despised the targeting of peasant communities to inflate Viet Cong body counts for war generals. President Johnson never made profound peace offers to end the slaughter.

Maneli published an essay in the New York Times in 1975 as the war neared. He revealed that 1963 President Diem and the French ambassador to South Vietnam asked him to approach Hanoi’s leadership to discuss war resolution. They discussed renewing mail exchanges and trading rice to the North for industrial goods. Maneli published a memoir in 1971, War of the Vanquished, with Harper & Row, which later appeared to be a selective account of his attempts to end a war that killed millions. I found no reviews or mentions of the book at its publication time.

Maneli’s account of Vietnam exemplifies a Cold War story, like those John le Carré vividly tells, of good intelligence inconvenient for leadership.

The Nazis destroyed Maneli’s childhood, and he hoped for political freedom under Communism. The directives from Moscow were disappointing, leading Maneli to believe America could be the solution. A few years post-war, Ted Shackley, a young US Army counterintelligence officer, recruited him as a paid asset. Shackley was fluent in Polish and left the Army to join the newly formed CIA in 1947. He had a successful career, playing a key role during the Kennedy administration supporting anti-Castro operations in Cuba, which Kennedy and Bobby valued. Later, he served as the station chief in Saigon. I spoke with Shackley many times after his retirement in the mid-1970s, but he never mentioned Maneli. Of course not.

I did not learn Maneli’s secret—the one he dared not tell in his memoir or the New York Times—that all his actions in the early 1960s were guided by John Richardson, the CIA’s station chief in Saigon, who understood the war couldn't be won. Maneli was still on the CIA payroll. I needed to hear from Richardson for my book on Kennedy, but he was near death when I reached him. Maneli had suffered a fatal heart attack, and I could never find his daughter. Years later, I found his son, a businessman in Texas. Though reluctant, he told me he knew his father was a CIA asset. His answer still rings in my ear: “Mr. Hersh, I’ve known what to say on the telephone since I was seven.”

The Vietnam War continued after the assassinations of Diem and Kennedy until the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops stormed Saigon and the US Embassy fifty years ago. Maneli’s spying on North Vietnam and his attempt at an early peace settlement through a separate agreement between North and South Vietnam would never have worked. Kennedy, facing re-election the following year, would not withdraw troops and end the war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnam, as Diem sought to partner with America’s enemies.

Could Maneli—despite his whispers in November 1963 about Ngo Dinh Diem’s secret talks with Ho Chi Minh to end the war and prompting the Kennedy administration to abandon South Vietnam—have been carrying out the wishes of the Americans who paid him for decades?

Was Maneli’s goal to ease Kennedy’s justification for overthrowing Diem and his brother, who secretly conspired with Ho Chi Minh? This treachery, known in Saigon that fall, justified the extreme measures taken against the Diem regime.

As I wrote this essay, I couldn't help but recall a poignant line that Ho Chi Minh shared with Maneli during their early discussions about the peace process: “Mr. Maneli, our real enemies are the Americans. Get rid of them and we can cope with Diem afterward.”

PROF. GLENN DIESEN : [LIVE FROM BRUSSELS]: WHAT EUROPE FEARS

No peace deal in sight. Peace Negotiations to End the Ukraine War Will Likely Fail

Watch the Video Here (24 minutes, 33 seconds)

Host Judge Andrew Napolitano
Judging Freedom
30 April 2025

Prof. Glenn Diesen: “I had the pleasure of speaking with Judge Napolitano about the complexities of the negotiations to end the Ukraine War.

While Trump recognizes that NATO is involved in the conflict, he does not seek concessions from the military alliance.

In contrast, Trump’s proposals view this as a Ukraine-Russia War, which is why negotiations are likely to fail.”

GEOPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE US-CHINA ECONOMIC WAR

Prof. Glenn Diesen with Einar Tangen: “US economic coercion has driven China to seek greater self-sufficiency and to develop an international economic framework that minimizes reliance on the US.”

Watch the Video Here (55 minutes, 29 seconds)

Host Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
01 May 2025

The US's choice to initiate an economic confrontation with China disrupts the global financial framework and leads to rival economic systems.

Will nations around the world face pressure to choose sides?

Einar Tangen is a Senior Fellow at the Taihe Institute and chairs Asia Narratives. He explains that US economic coercion has driven China to seek greater self-sufficiency and develop an international financial framework that minimizes reliance on the US.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: HOW CLOSE TO A REGIONAL WAR?

“It’s always a mistake to meet one-on-one.”

Watch the Video Here (25 minutes, 11 seconds)

Host Judge Andrew Napolitano
Judging Freedom
29 April 2025

EUROPE'S ECONOMIC SUICIDE

Prof. Glenn Diesen with Alex Krainer: How the EU undermined its economic, political, and security interests, resulting in worldwide irrelevance.

Watch the Video Here (49 minutes, 27 seconds)

Host Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
30 April 2025

Alex Krainer is a market analyst, author & former hedge fund manager.

Krainer outlines how the EU undermined its economic, political, and security interests, resulting in its growing irrelevance worldwide.

GUEST EDITORIAL | NO THANKS, KIEV: RUSSIA AND THE US CAN RECONCILE WITHOUT UKRAINE

Steve Witkoff’s trip to Moscow indicates that a thaw in relations between the two countries is achievable, even without Zelensky's involvement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff meet at the Kremlin © Sputnik / Kristina Kormilitsyna.

By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory

@tarikcyrilamartarikcyrilamar.substack.comtarikcyrilamar.com

HomeWorld News
25 April 2025

Annotated by Abraham A. van Kempen

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff. The meeting, which lasted about three hours, seemed unusually friendly.

We know little about the content or progress made. However, Russia’s Yuri Ushakov described the meeting as “constructive” and “useful,” indicating closer alignment between Russian and US positions on Ukraine and unspecified issues. Notably, it may facilitate direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives.

It is too early to draw firm conclusions about the meeting and its results, but it was not a failure. Ushakov’s restrained language indicated this. However, we can only speculate further. One clear takeaway is Trump’s ongoing dissatisfaction with Kiev and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. This time, on Truth Social, Trump criticized Zelensky for refusing to accept the loss of Crimea and reminded him he has little leverage (“no cards”), stating that his stalling delays ending the war.

This intervention aligns with Trump’s critics who claim he’s soft on Russia and hard on Ukraine. While they exaggerate, they have a point: Trump has reversed the prior US stance of supporting Ukraine while blaming Russia. However, critics fail to see that Trump is right on this issue—Russia is winning the war against Ukraine and the West. A US president has two options: escalate to a larger regional war or finally negotiate with Russia on acceptable terms. That’s what Trump has chosen for now. Anyone wishing to avoid escalation has to agree with him fundamentally.

Read more
Trump envoy in Moscow for talks with Putin: As it happened

The latest talks between Russian leaders and Witkoff confirm that Washington is maintaining its course. More broadly, this indicates that the US is not abandoning its recent peace proposal for the Ukraine War. The proposal reportedly offers a freeze on current frontlines, an overdue NATO perspective for Ukraine (which could have prevented the large-scale escalation in late 2021), the lifting of sanctions, and recognition of Crimea as Russian.

These terms do not fully align with Russia’s demands but attempt to address its concerns more than ever. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov notes that Trump uniquely acknowledges the war's root causes among Western leaders. Thus, US peace proposals indicate that Washington is now realistically assessing the situation (favorable to Russia) and that Trump’s administration is ready to tailor its policy based on Lavrov's insights.

This leaves two key questions regarding the Ukraine War: Will Trump withhold military deliveries and intelligence support to Kiev, and if so, when? Second, what actions will NATO-EU Europeans take? While they maintain rhetoric about blocking peace, signs suggest their misguided resolve may be crumbling.

Britain is abandoning plans to send troops to Ukraine. Polish President Andrzej Duda acknowledged that Ukraine must concede to Russia. Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shares this view, and current NATO figurehead Mark Rutte praises Trump for “breaking the deadlock.”

Read more
Trump’s peace plan triggers ‘concern’ among allies – CNN.

European hardliners are not ready to give up. Poland’s Radek: "Thank you, USA!" Sikorski and France’s Emmanuel "I love my scent" Macron exhibit frustrated denial. Regardless of NATO-EU Europe’s path, it is fracturing.

The backdrop of the recent meeting between Putin and Witkoff shows that it has not harmed the ongoing quest for normalizing Moscow-Washington relations, which is good news for the world, regardless of European bellicists' opinions.

It is challenging to address details and one key question: Will the US-Russia détente include a Ukraine settlement, or will they diverge? Washington and Moscow could normalize relations while sidelining Ukraine. This is the essence of Trump’s reminder to Zelensky that the US might recognize Crimea as Russian, regardless of Kyiv's stance. However, if Washington chooses to be "done" with Ukraine, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated, Russia would not. Kyiv should be cautious about what it wishes for.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian and expert in international politics. He holds a BA in Modern History from Oxford, an MSc in International History from the LSE, and a PhD in History from Princeton. He has received scholarships from the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and directed the Center for Urban History in Lviv. Originally from Germany, he has lived in the UK, Ukraine, Poland, the USA, and Turkey.

His book 'The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv: A Borderland City between Stalinists, Nazis, and Nationalists' was published by Cornell University Press in 2015. A study on Cold War television spy stories is forthcoming, and he is currently writing a new book about the global response to the war in Ukraine. He has given interviews on various programs, including Rania Khlalek’s Dispatches and Breakthrough News.

His website is https://www.tarikcyrilamar.com/; he is on substack under https://tarikcyrilamar.substack.com, and tweets under 

@tarikcyrilamartarikcyrilamar.substack.comtarikcyrilamar.com

THE END OF NATO

Prof. Glenn Diesen with Andrei Martyanov -- Can NATO withstand its loss in the Ukraine War?

Watch the Video Here (1 hour, 2 minutes, 8 seconds)

Host Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
30 April 2025

Can NATO withstand its loss in the Ukraine War?

The alliance has previously suffered defeats, including Libya's devastation and Afghanistan's embarrassment. However, the ongoing setback in Ukraine occurs during an increasing divergence between American and European interests, further fragmenting the alliance.

Andrei Martyanov is a specialist in Russian military and naval affairs. He was born in Baku, USSR, in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer in ship assignments and staff roles with the Soviet Coast Guard until 1990. In the mid-1990s, he relocated to the United States, where he took on the role of Laboratory Director in a commercial aerospace organization.

[MUST WATCH] MAX BLUMENTHAL: ZIONISTS ATTACK PRO-PEACE AMERICANS

Watch the Video Here (32 minutes, 31 seconds)

Host Judge Andrew Napolitano
Judging Freedom
30 April 2025

BUILDING THE BRIDGE! | A WAY TO GET TO KNOW THE OTHER AND ONE ANOTHER

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Photo Credit: Abraham A. van Kempen, our home away from home on the Dead Sea

By Abraham A. van Kempen
Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're in search of the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge promotes understanding, dispels prejudice, and awakens the desire to learn more. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities for good, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet its misuse can do untold harm, leading to misunderstanding, prejudice, and conflict.

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