FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 05, 2022

Contact: Tobi Quintiliani, Senior Director, 1736 Family Crisis Center (310) 543-9900 ext. 210

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The Annie Duke Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament to Benefit

1736 Family Crisis Center

April 3^rd, 2010 2:30pm

Los Angeles, CA - Please join Annie Duke, Poker Celebrity famous for her poker victories and contributions to promoting the game, and Celebrity Tournament Director Dianna Donofrio-Trigatzi along with sponsors Toyota Financial Services, TB Wineries and Gallery of Dreams, for a fun-filled evening of poker, laughter, an international dinner buffet and celebration - and victory against domestic violence. Annie will be hosting a Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament and each hand played will be a strong step forward in ending domestic violence. All proceeds from this tournament will go to benefit, 1736 Family Crisis Center.

"On Saturday, April 3, 2010, I will be hosting a poker tournament with all proceeds going to 1736 Family Crisis Center. This tournament will take place at the Bicycle Club Casino in Bell Gardens, CA. I invite you to consider joining me as a sponsor, player or spectator and help this nonprofit agency whose work I admire. 1736 Family Crisis Center offers life-saving services to domestic violence victims and abused, homeless youth. I firmly believe that every man, woman and child has the right to live their lives in a healthy and safe environment and to conduct their lives without emotional, physical, or sexual abuse or the fear of such abuse." Annie Duke

1736 Family Crisis Center operates an emergency youth shelter in Hermosa Beach and four shelters for domestic violence victims and their children who are escaping severe abuse, located throughout Los Angeles County in confidential locations. Through the Center's five shelters, three clinics, five 24-hour emergency response stations and outreach services, 25,000 abuse victims and children were helped in 2009. The most severe cases seen in hospital emergency rooms, courts, public protective services and social service agencies throughout LA were taken into 1736 Family Crisis Center's Care.

1736 Family Crisis Center relies 100% on grants and donations to provide these much-needed services to domestic violence victims and abandoned youth. In this uncertain economic climate, the nonprofits are being hit the hardest, and sadly an unstable economy statistically fuels domestic violence across the country. So help out by joining in to play poker, and with each hand played, be a part of the progress of peace as we help to end domestic violence.

Annie's Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament will be April 3^rd at 2:30 pm at the Bicycle Club Casino. The buy-in is $350.00 with $100.00 re-buys available for the first hour. 1^st prize is $10,000.00 cash, 2^nd prize is a private poker lesson with Annie Duke. The final 10 players will receive prizes. Buy-Ins or donations can be sent to 1736 Family Crisis Center, 2116 Arlington Ave., Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90018, Attn: Poker Tournament. Buy-ins or spectator admissions can be purchased by accessing 1736 FCC's website - www.1736fcc.org or at the Bicycle Club Casino's website www.thebike.com.

Please contact Tobi Quintiliani, Senior Director, for more information on tournament buy-ins or sponsorship opportunities. (310) 543-9900 ext. 210. www.1736fcc.org

Right after I posted my rant about the High Fructose Corn Syrup commercials, someone shared this wonderful video with me. In it, Dr. Robert Lustig walks you through a thorough explanation of why fructose is so bad for you. I will warn you, this video is 1hr 30 mins long. But it is well worth the time to watch it the whole way through. I have never seen such an eloquent explanation of the difference between glucose and fructose. This video really shows you how ridiculous and evil those HFCS commercials really are. Lustig demonstrates that it is clearly fructose, not fat, that is responsible for the obesity and diabetes epidemics in our country. Even baby formula has fructose in it! And we are seeing overweight 6 month olds now. No wonder!

Anyway, please watch this. It is eye opening.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ok-so I seriously have to rant here. These high fructose corn syrup commercials on TV are seriously driving me out of my mind and making me so angry. It is so sick that they are even allowed on the air. Recently, I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s brilliant book In Defense of Food

By total coincidence, I happened to see the latest in these commericial abominations right as I was finishing up this book about why processed foods are so bad for you. The latest commercial from the high fructose corn syrup people goes something like this:

Mom 1 is pouring some sort of neon red food colored corn syrup filled water concoction into cups that are clearly for her child’s birth day. mom 2 sees this.

Mom 2: Wow! You must not really love your kid.

Mom 1: Why?

Mom 2: Because you are serving that stuff and you know what they say about high fructose corn syrup.

Mom 1: What do they say?

Mom 2: (looks confused) Um…Um…Um…

Mom 1: That it is made from corn. It is all natural, just like sugar? That just like sugar it is fine in moderation?

Mom 2 then smiles, embarrassed, and picks up a cup of the corn syrup water and begins drinking it.

When I saw this the first time sitting alone in my hotel room at Caesars I actually yelled at the tv. I mean there are so many things wrong with this bullshit commercial but I will highlight a few here.

1) Somehow there is an assumption here that because Mom 2 can’t actually articulate what it is that is wrong with high fructose corn syrup that the HFCS is not bad for you. That her lack of knowledge about the metabolic problems with the stuff some how takes away any validity to her initial assertion that it is bad for you. First, that is like saying that because I don’t know exactly what it is that cyanide does to you other than that it is poison that somehow it can’t harm me. Second, and more importantly, this really speaks to advertisers ability to prey on people’s lack of critical thinking skills. They are counting on the fact that many people actually will believe the BS that because Mom 2 can’t explain the problem that the corn syrup is then fine to eat.

Her answer should have been something like, “I don’t know the exact metaqbolic processes that are involved here but I do know that since the introduction of HFCS America has gotten super fat and 1 in 3 people have Type II diabetes now which is directly related to the introduction of high fructose corn syrup in our diets. The fact that I don’t know why that is doesn’t mean that the relationship just goes away.”

2) I think that regardless of what you think about HFCS an appropriate response would have been, “Hey…you could have fed your child JUICE instead of this crap sugar water. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you think water dyed and filled with HFCS is the BEST choice for your child? Over JUICE? Really, lady?” Now, I know juice has its issues. I don’t let my kids drink juice almost at all. But that aside, juice..made from actual fruit, is surely better than fake sugar crap regardless of your take on corn syrup or whether you can express that it is bad for you. I mean…seriously…the lady is choosing empty sugar water over juice. Come on, people.

2) I am very angry at the misuse of the word “natural.” The ad people are manipulating that word equating natural with good for you. But hemlock is natural. poison mushrooms are natural. HEROIN is natural. Could you imagine a commercial where the mom 2 says,”I can’t believe you are giving your child heroin” and mom 1 says, “Why? Because it is natural? Because it comes from a plant, just like spinach?” That is basically what they are saying here. HFCS comes from corn which is natural and, they are implying, therefore good for you. But natural does not mean good for you. It just means occurring in nature. Like big, angry hippos that charge and kill you.

(BTW, there is a similar issue with the label “multigrain” on packages. We assume that means whole grain and, therefore, better for your health. But it actually just means more than on type of flour, all of which could be bleached and white and stripped of all nutritive value).

3) In saying that high fructose corn syrup is just corn there is an implication that the effect on the body HCFS has is the same as corn. But that is patently ridiculous because that asserts that the form in which a substance is delivered to the body does not change the effect it has. So that assumes that chewing coca leaves, for example, has the same effect on the body that smoking cocain has which has the same effect as shooting up cocaine. Cocaine…all natural because it comes from coca leaves. Retarded. Snorting heroin is not the same at shooting it. Eating an apple has a different effect on the body than drinking apple juice. Cheese and milk are not the same. The sugars in the corn delivered in absence of the corn itself (with all its fiber and other nutrients) have an effect on the pancreas that is quite different that eating corn whole. And according to Mark Bittman, there is at least one study that has found a compound in HFCS that directly causes diabetes. Not so for corn alone. If you are interest in Mark Bittman’s books check out

Now, I am not saying that corn itself doesn’t have problems. It does. You can read Bittman or Pollan to learn more about the problems with corn and soy and the subsidies and whatnot. But corn is certainly much better for you than high fructose corn syrup just like juice is certainly a better choice than some crazy neon red water filled with sugar.

Anyway..the issue I am having with the stupid commercials is that they just assume most Americans are stupid enough to throw all critical thinking skills out the window. They assume we are not smart enough to figure out that juice would surely be a better choice, that we are too dumb to know that an inability to articulate why a product is bad for us does not prove that it is not bad for us, that we don’t get that natural does not equal good for you and that we are so dumb we couldn’t possibly figure out that the solid form of a food (corn) might have a different effect on the body than the liquid form of its distilled sugars.

These commercials are, in a word, insulting.

Okay so it is a New Year and to ring it in we found out that our government is still not as good as most poker players at decision making. I am talking about the TSA's response to the Nigerian guy who tried to blow up a plane headed for Detroit. If you wanted to give a text book example of resulting you would use the TSA's response to this to demonstrate why resulting is so bad. So, this guy decides he is going to light his underpants on fire to blow up an international flight headed for Detroit in the last 20 minutes (during its descent). I just love saying the guy tried to light his underpants on fire. That is fun. I mean you can't make that stuff up. Luckily, the underpants bomb malfunctioned and some astute passengers managed to wrestle the guy to the ground before any real damage could be done.

So, what was the TSA's response to this? Well they decided they would stop people from being able to do ANYTHING during the last hour of a flight. And by anything I mean using laptops or playing games on your phone or getting up to go pee (yes, no peeing no matter how urgent during the last hour of the flight). Why is this so stupid? Because it is classic resulting. You can't fight terrorism by putting policies in place that only prevent attacks or attempted attacks that have already happened. Trying to protect against specific scenarios doesn't work. First, someone can certainly blow up a plane in the first hour of a flight too (and still be near dense population). They could also blow the plane up in the middle of the flight or 61 minutes before the flight ends. Second, if you protect against very specific attacks you are being ineffective because terrorists will just work around whatever security you have in place because there are too many ways for terrorists to attack. Third, and probably most importantly, the threat of terrorism is actually quite small. The chances that you will die by terrorist attack are minuscule. So to inconvenience so many to protect against some specific scenario makes no sense and is, in fact, just fear mongering. Because aside from making us all afraid the protections don't really do anything.

Take the example of the prohibitions on liquids put in place as a reaction to an attempted attack on a plane with a liquid explosive (resulting again). The prohibition against bringing liquid in a container more than 3 oz doesn't do anything. Someone could bring many 3 oz containers of liquid and mix them up into enough explosive to bring the plane down. We all know that. If it takes 12 oz of liquid to create an explosive, the rules don't prohibit 12 oz of liquid from coming on board. They just prevent it from all being in the same container. So the rule it silly and just an inconvenience to all the people not trying to blow up planes because it doesn't do anything to stop the people that are. On a more important note, just because one person tried to blow a plane up using a liquid doesn't mean that someone won't try to blow a plane up using a solid (see underpants guys for details). So the prohibition on liquids doesn't really keep us any safer, just more inconvenienced.

The fact is that there are too many specific targets and specific plans to protect against. The only way to really keep us safe is to use all the money wasted on these silly procedures borne of resulting and put that money into intelligence and surveillance. That is how you actually prevent attacks because if you have good intelligence and surveillance you can catch the bad guys no matter what they are targeting who how, even if it is a target you never thought of or a completely new method of attack. Good intelligence is blind to method. And that is why it actually works where resulting does not.

Part of the reason that resulting is so bad is that terrorists don't care if they get caught. That is because there are only two results to attempting an attack: 1) it works which is a win for the terrorists. 2) The terrorist gets caught which that becomes a huge news story which then freaks out the public and makes the target country or population terrified and scared. That is also a win for the terrorists. Security measures only really work if the perpetrator does not want to ever get caught.

Anyway, there is a fantastic article on this here

It is really a good read.

Oh…and Happy New year!