Month: February 2022

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To give you a little context about this post, please scroll down to the previous post. I make a confession about food.

So I was getting ready to talk about eating at a high falutin restaurant before I felt it necessary to explain a little something about my taste buds, so, I assume everyone is on board with my undiscriminating taste so I will continue with my story.

Friends wanted to go to a Michelin star French restaurant for the experience. Bob likes food and I like alcohol. The restaurant had both so I was in for the experience. Before going too far, I want to say the experience was fun, good company, good drink, and nice setting all made for a wonderful evening.

When I think of French dining, I think Beef Bourguignon, Coq au Vin, or Salad Nicoise. None of which were on the menu instead the menu contained a mysterious blends of unfamiliar meats, vegetables, and sauces. Absolutely nothing was familiar to me. Fortunately for me, most of my dining companions found themselves in the same situation. Usually when a waiter arrives at the table, I have a general idea of what I am interested in ordering. After scanning the menu several times, I had no idea whatsoever.

The waiter was absolutely vital to the ordering process. If he hadn’t patiently explained every item on the menu, I would have been lost. And I am not exaggerating, I mean every item on the menu needed an explanation from the waiter. Usually after a waiter answers my questions, particularly if he spent the better part of a half hour, I can safely make my choice. I simply match the entree’s main dish — say the steak with what the waiter just told me. Except nothing on this menu says steak or chicken or salmon. Each item has a clever French name which was spoken beautifully by the waiter and promptly forgotten by me. So instead of looking down at the menu and seeing steak, I am seeing the blah, blah or the blah, blah, blah. I can’t remember if the blah, blah is the salmon or the blah, blah, blah. I worry that the so far very patient waiter might break if I ask him to repeat for the fifth time what was on the menu. Instead, between a combination of fuzzy memory and mental dart throwing, I make my choices

The food arrives and was eaten. First the food tasted fine. I ate everything on my plate but at the prices they were charging I was going to eat everything on my plate even if I detested the meal, so hardly a valid measurement. More telling, I am afraid, is that even after eating my meal, I had no words to describe what I ate. This is after the waiter has given a dissertation about the menu and who when delivering the food, kindly reminded me what I ordered. If I had to describe my meal, I would say it was a hunk of meat with a sauce. Wait that is wrong, maybe, it wasn’t a hunk of meat, maybe it was a vegetable. Wait, maybe it was fruit. Or was it pasta? I really couldn’t tell you. It was definitely something and it was edible. If any of my dinner companions asked me what I just ate, I had to go back to the website look at the menu and then, after a few minutes a word would jump out at me and I would remember what I ordered.

All and all, it was a wonderful experience but I am afraid the menu revealed, yet again, my low brow status. This only confirms the Dorothy Parker adage: “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.”

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I was going to write about eating at high falutin restaurant but I thought I needed to explain something about myself first.

I am embarrassed to admit that I am not a foodie. I eat to live and not much else. I like bland food. The blander the better. Most people find my indifference to food difficult to understand. I have learned to keep my mouth shut when people start talking about food because when I do people generally think I am lying. That nobody could possibly mean what I am saying.

But I do. I don’t really have any taste. I am just as happy eating at a cheap diner as the fanciest restaurant in town. As long as the diner has alcohol, I am fine. The good news is I am not in the least bit picky. I will go to any restaurant that people want to go. I will find something to eat. Or, and this is the kicker, I will suck it up and eat whatever is available. It is one meal. It isn’t my last meal and eating food I don’t particularly like won’t kill me. I can eat cold food. I can eat spicy food although, I have to admit, I won’t eat again. But if I accidently order a spicy dish again, I will eat it. I can eat overcooked food although I probably wouldn’t even recognize that it is overcooked until someone mentions it. I can skip meals without even knowing it.

So, I am thinking, you won’t be shocked when I confess that fine dining mystifies me. I am confused on why people will spend so much money on food. If you like steak or sushi I can hopefully give you an idea of my thinking.

Since I am from Kansas City, I have eaten steak all my life. I have eaten it rare. I have eaten it well done. I have eaten cheap steaks and I have eaten expensive steaks. I still, for the life of me, can’t see why anyone would pay $50 for one. They all taste the same to me and seriously confused when my fellow diners are raving about how good the steak is. Particularly when they look at me askance while I am debasing the beef with whatever sauce I can find to drench it with. I can eat a steak without sauce but I get bored with the meal quickly particularly in fine dining establishments where there is so much meat, that a good $25 of it is dangling off the plate. I can eat a few bites but really it is just texture to me and I end up taking most of it home where it sits in my refrigerator for a good month before I toss it out. A friend pointed out many years ago that I might as well eat a hamburger instead. He was joking but he is right. I would be just as happy with a hamburger or brisket or any other much cheaper cut of meat. And the best part is if you douse you hamburger with BBQ sauce nobody gives it a second thought.

I have a similar feeling about Sushi. I have heard people claim that the sushi they were eating was melting in their mouth. After numerous tastes of sushi I have yet to have that experience. I know some people don’t like sushi because it is uncooked. That doesn’t bother me in the least. I just can’t figure out what the big deal is. I can eat sushi but after every attempt, I think I’d rather have a pizza or a burger or a taco. There are people who actually go out of their way to eat sushi . I mean, they take a plane, rent a hotel room so they can visit a city and eat sushi at a specific restaurant because the sushi melts in your mouth. Really, this is true. All I can detect is that the meat texture is somewhat different from the cooked meat.

So I think I have established my credentials as a non-foodie. Food is something I eat because I know I have to but it isn’t something that particularly matters to me. I know that this is something that many people find tantamount to being a serial killer or a war criminal. Many people advised me not to make such an admission publicly as this could cause my readers to rebel and stop reading my posts. I am sorry if you feel that way but I feel it is important for me to be perfectly honest with my readers because if you can trust something you read on the worldwide web then what kind of world do we have?

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Elon Musk has compared Justin Trudeau to Hitler so we can all take hims a little less seriously. Any time that someone compares a person to Hitler you pretty much know that they stopped making sense and that all reasonable argument with this person is done. Musk believes Trudeau is Hitler because Trudeau mandated COVID vaccinations and declared a national emergency due to the truckers blocking Canadian roads and bridges.

While Trudeau has been behaving like Hitler, Canada still has a functioning legislature and a vocal opposition leader who daily challenges Trudeau. Canadian Courts are functioning. The truckers, as a matter of fact, are still actively protesting. He has not shut down opposition presses. Nobody has been sent to a concentration camp. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, there are no concentration camps yet in Canada at all. Canada still hasn’t invaded Poland or started a world war. But give Hitler, I mean Trudeau time, I am sure this will all happen in time.

Trudeau is trying to clear the roads and bridges that some protesters have blocked. These trucker’s actions are illegal and Canada’s government has every right to remove them. Now you may disagree with Trudeau about the vaccine mandates. Protest away, Trudeau isn’t stopping you unless you are blocking public thoroughfares. Trudeau maybe many things but Hitler is not one of them.

And just so you know, I feel the same way about Donald Trump. Trump may have some fascist tendencies but they pale when compared to Hitler. Until January 6, Trump worked through democratic institutions to get what he wanted. Those institutions held firm, resisted his actions and thwarted him. Even though he thought he was wronged and still complains about it, he left the White House on inauguration day and Biden became President. It wasn’t pretty and he behaved badly but he failed spectacularly to meet the high standards of evil that would merit a comparison to Hitler. It is, as it should be, a difficult standard to meet. The best example of someone who deserves the Hitler comparison is Pol Pot of Cambodia. Pol Pot rounded up his opponents, set up camps to house them and killed millions of Cambodians who’s only crime may have been possessing a college degree. Trudeau isn’t even Pol Pot at this point much less Hitler.

You have to ascend to a certain level of evil to deserve a Hitler comparison. Most people never come close. Trudeau is not Hitler. Trump is not Hitler. Instead of laying out a more nuanced argument, Musk resorted to name calling in the hopes that this comparison would move his audience to a quick agreement that something must be done about our local tyrant. I am afraid it only weakens whatever argument he was trying to make because, really, if you think Justin Trudeau is Hitler then what else can he be wrong about?

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I don’t think the USA will be drug into a wider war if Russia invades the Ukraine but it is worrisome. I can’t help thinking here we go again — another war. It seems the last thing that can garner some partisan agreement is war. Have a war when things go to shit. Why do Americans have to stick our noses into every quarrel in the world? We almost always screw it up. Nobody likes us afterwards because we screwed it up. And we pay an enormous amount in both lives and money for screwing it up.

Can we just agree not to stumble into another war. I mean if everything goes right and Putin backs down, won’t we have to station troops in the Ukraine to make sure the agreement sticks? More resources redirected to another country. More American lives on the line. For how long? That is a lousy ending as far as I am concerned.

People will say that as the country with the strongest military in the Western World, we somehow are obligated to rescue every country in trouble. I ask — why is that? Because we don’t want China or Russia taking on this bigger role of the world’s policeman. Why not? Being the policeman of the Western World has only been a burden to us and, if you forget World War II, mostly a failure and certainly a lot of money down the toilet. Let the Chinese and Russians drain their resources in a hopeless task for a while and see how they like it.

The Ukrainian people deserve our support in dealing with a bully neighbor. This one hurts. Of course, they do. They do. I know it but I just don’t have the energy for another war. Russia and the Ukraine are next door neighbors. The USA is thousands of miles away. Can some other country take the lead? Europe for instance. Wasn’t that the whole idea behind big Europe in the first place. A united Europe could take on a more significant role in the world. Take it. It is all yours.

All I know is take this cup from me.

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While talking with friends the other day, I was reminded of the latest trend in corporate malfeasance. Corporations are moving to this new idea where any day is vacation day as long as you are caught up with your work. You are free to take any day off you want. It is all up to you. We will no longer be tracking vacation days because you are free to take any day off. The company doesn’t have to track, you don’t have to track. All you have to do is make sure your work is caught up. Isn’t this great?

As a matter of fact, it is not great. It is a horrible idea designed to screw employees out of paid time off. There are two mitigating factors to consider here. The first is corporations were having trouble with balancing their books at the end of the year because employees were carrying over paid time into the next year. This meant that the unused time which was budgeted for a specific year wasn’t being used in the that year. This played havoc with the bean counters. They want to balance the books at the end year. In the past, this usually resulted in a message from HR telling you to use your time off in the appropriate year. We want you to use your time off that is why we generously provided you with time off. Don’t you understand how much we care about you and your work/life balance? With this new policy, the company released from their responsibility to track time off, and more importantly their responsibility to pay for unused time, just shrugs their shoulders indifferently. It isn’t their problem any more.

Then the companies claim that they are no longer keeping track. Yeah. I can take off every day as long as I keep my work up-to-date. Don’t believe that for one minute. If you are taking too much time off — your boss will be aware. She will then say to herself either I need to give this person more work or why don’t I can cut this sucker’s job and move her tasks over to somebody else. The bottom line is someone will be aware if you are taking too much time.

On the other hand, they will be conveniently unaware of your time off if you are overloaded with work and don’t feel you can take the time off. Then they are definitely not tracking. Oh you haven’t had a day off in a year, sorry, we aren’t tracking, that’s up to you now. In the past, this was time you were owed. You may not have been able to take the time off when you should have but, at least, you got paid for your time when you left the company. No more. So they are selectively tracking or not tracking which ever is convenient for them. The point is you lose either way.

Finally, what galls me the most is the happy HR introduction of changes like these. HR makes it sound like the company has this wonderful idea that is going to make you so very happy. Nobody believes it. Most people know that when a company makes changes like this, it is acting in its own self-interest. I would rather have blunt honesty over saccharine lies.

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I am beginning to hear something on a regular basis and it is really bothering me. Waiters are ask something to the effect, “Do you want a protein with Your Salad?” I was thrown the first time I heard this question. What kind of question is that. I mocked the waiter and thought what a pompous ass he is, a protein, my ass. After lunch, I never gave it another thought until I heard it again. Then again. I thought this has become annoying. Why don’t they just ask do you want chicken or salmon on your salad? Or just list the proteins that are an option. No, they have to doll it up. Protein.

It is snooty up selling which is about as bad as it gets. The customer hears protein and thinks for a few dollars more I can add some protein to my caesar salad. Protein is good. Salads aren’t protein. I need protein. Throw on a few pieces of chicken on to that caesar salad. I get what the restaurant is doing and can live with the up selling even though I, personally, will say no. I say no to up selling as a habit. I would say no even if I did want some protein on my salad because I want to discourage up selling whenever and wherever I can.

But calling meat and fish protein is pretentious and condescending. It screams a wasted college education and all I got out of it was a job waiting tables but I am still superior to you because you probably don’t even know what I am asking, you uneducated chump.

I live in southern California so I don’t know if this is a trend across the country, or, God forbid, the world. A lot of things that start here never make it past the state line and usually for good reason. I feel using the word protein to describe meat and fish is just one of those good reasons. For thousands of years, people have understood meat and fish. Calling them protein adds nothing to the restaurant transaction and only confuses people who might have slept through their high school biology courses.

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I was reconfirming some flight data yesterday on several different airlines and travel sites. After I completed my task, I went directly to Facebook and there were, in a matter of seconds, at least 7 different ads from airlines or travel sites on my Facebook home page. If I had received just one ad, I might have shrugged this off as a coincidence but 7, come on, somehow Facebook found out about my previous searches and pounced.

I am not the most tech savvy person so maybe one of you can determine what I did to connect Facebook with my previous data searches. I was on Facebook but on a completely different browser. My Facebook page was open in the Safari browser however all of my travel searches occurred on Google Chrome. To my naive eyes, there is no connection. The different browsers shouldn’t be sending information to each other. Then, on Google Chrome, I logged into Facebook — and the travel and airline ads poured in one after the other. I am speculating that somehow Google Chrome sent Facebook my searching information when I logged into Facebook.

Now, I am not a fool. I have given up on privacy when using the Internet. I know the different companies are selling my information to each other but this is the first time I witnessed the rapidity with which this occurred and the blatancy of their approach. Numerous companies know I am interested in travel and they are going to get their sales pitch out to me as quickly as possible so that they can nab my cash while it is still up for grabs.

I am told I can fight this annoyance by fiddling with my settings. I used to try this but it seems the ad sellers can figure away around these restrictions, once they do, they share with other companies and changing my settings becomes a moot point. They simply don’t work for long and I don’t have enough energy to devote to learning new setting restrictions every time they figure out how to circumvent these setting. Send me the damn ads to me.

Now, the volume of ads is overwhelming on every platform I use. For instance, I used email a lot when it first came out. Now, I’ve pretty much given up on using email because almost every one I receive is an unsolicited ad for something I don’t want. When I open email, I spend a great deal of time just deleting emails. Why fight it? Marketing departments will figure out how to contact you, they will contact you — be it US mail, texts, email, Facebook. They will figure it out and you will get their pitch. And, since they are working together to get your cash, you can be sure that there is no way to effectively stop it. So get those credit cards ready.

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Let me get this out of the way first. White people still can use the n-word. If they are by themselves or with like minded people, they can say the n-word to their hearts content. They, however, must face the consequences if they say the word among people who disagree with how they are using the n-word. To give you a concrete example of what I mean, I will use another word that I hope will illustrate what I mean. I can call my boss an idiot on the way home from work. I can call my boss an idiot with like-minded employees although there is a danger that I might be wrong about them being like-minded. On the other hand, it would be foolish of me to call my boss an idiot if I was in a meeting with him and other employees. If I was so idiotic to actually call him an idiot in this situation, I, also, would have to be willing to face the consequences of my actions.

But wait why can rappers use the n-word and I can’t. Rappers get grammies for using the n-word and I get in trouble. That isn’t fair. I would argue that rappers are criticized for using the n-word. Indeed, whenever, someone points out that rappers are using the n-word, there is an implicit criticism of their actions. The difference is that the rapper’s audience still are willing to buy the rapper’s records and there is no consequence for his action. It isn’t fair. But, as we are constantly being reminded, life is unfair. Just because rappers continue to use the n-word, doesn’t mean, out of fairness, that white people are free to use the n-word without consequence.

Most white people over a certain age know this and rightfully avoid using the word. They also know why we shouldn’t use the n-word. For hundreds of years, white people used the n-word publicly and without repercussions to belittle and demean blacks. It was intended to be hurtful to blacks and, because of this history, most people, white and black, don’t utter this word in public discourse. If they do, they also understand that there might be pushback from anyone who hears it. If they don’t like it, they are free to complain about it, ask for apologies, and demand some form of consequences.

To feign ignorance or to demand people look at the context of how the n-word was said is more than a little disingenuous. Everyone knows that the n-word is unacceptable in public discourse including the rap stars who continue to use it. The bottom line here is that anybody can use the n-word in a public forum but, if they do, they risk consequences. The n-word carries so much racial animus, the risk of pushbacks for a white person who uses it are high. It seems easy enough to avoid using the word. I have written four paragraphs without using the n-word once. Everyone who reads this blog understands what word I am talking about. So, if you are a white person who wants to continue to say the n-word, by all means, continue. You are free to do so, but then, be prepared, you will have to explain yourself.

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A year or so ago, my partner and I began to notice that when night scenes in television shows were too dark for us. Not dark in the mood sense but in the light sense. We would see absolutely nothing for minutes at a time. I mean maybe the whites of the person’s eyes and that is it. At first, I thought it was an isolated incident. The production budget was too small to cover the electric bill. But this year we began to notice that night scenes in a number of high budget television shows (Ozark, Midnight Mass, Archieve 81, Chapelwaite) would plunge us into complete darkness. The screen would be black with only the sound to keep the story going as we strained to see what was going on in the shadows.

I noticed that this problem is restricted to movies and television shows made in the past few years. Old movies are lit in such a way that I know that the scene is happening at night while also allowing me to see the action in the movie. I find this is preferable to me asking my partner, “What are they doing now? Can you see whatever it is that is scaring the shit out of the actor?” I am guessing that the problem is that modern cameras are so sophisticated that directors want the authenticity of the actual darkness to set the mood they are trying to create. They think that everyone can see all the dark details on the screen. I can’t. But I sure would like to.

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Amir Locke’s death has brought to light again the troubling practice of no knock warrants. https://www.startribune.com/amir-lockes-killing-prompts-new-scrutiny-of-states-no-knock-warrant-laws/600144103/

I am finding it difficult to understand why such a practice is much of an advantage to the cops. In fact, no knock warrants seems like an inherently dangerous practice for all parties involved. When police barge into a person’s home in a country where a significant portion of the population has a gun, the situation is rife for overreaction. Police are nervous to begin with. A no knock warrant is being used for a reason. The cops anticipate a potential difficult situation and hope to avoid that outcome by not knocking. I am assuming that one of the situations they are worried about is potential violence. But what is the reasonable reaction to having your house broken into in the middle of the night? You are waking up to chaos, people screaming, loud noises. You don’t know who is entering your house. You might feel threatened and pull out your weapon.

From the start this is a dangerous situation, how does not knocking give the cops any advantage. Yes, the person is surprised and will have a more difficult time escaping, but when the surprised person has a loaded gun that doesn’t seem all that helpful to me. At the very least, it gives the person a moment or two to wrap their heads around the fact that they have cops at their front door and to do the right thing. If the cops think the person is dangerous or might flee, then the cops should prepare for these situations. To not give this knock is an invitation for disaster as the Amir Locke incident has proven.