Another Day At The Lion

I went back to the Lion. I was there to buy Xiao Long Bao soup dumplings. At the entrance, a very young lady with a very bored expression was cleaning shopping cart handles.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but can you tell me where the Xiao Long Bao dumplings might be found?

She looked confused. “What?”

“Okay,” I said, “Where are the generic dumplings?”

“What’s a dumpling?” she asked.

I studied her for a few seconds as my brain quickly computed all the various bifurcations this conversation could take, and then I replied.

“Listen,” I told her in a low voice, “If you lose your job, there will always be a stint waiting for you at Johnny Ramone's Tiki Hut. Just be careful, when you walk in, to not slip on the glitter.”

I wish her the best.

Freeze Frame

Have you ever noticed that public people (movie stars, film directors, etc.) in public settings, having their picture taken, often appear goofy? Their heads are too big, they’re in awkward poses, their smiles look phony. Or all of the above and then some more.

There’s something about freezing a person in time that is not flattering. Take a short video of them and they look fine. Take one frame of that video and enlarge it, and they look goofy. A video is really just a bunch of goofy photos strung together, but play them back through a video monitor and a person in the video looks ordinary, not goofy at all. I think its because their posture and features are changing constantly, even if subtly, and our brain takes that stream of less-than-flattering images and composes them into a likeness of a human being, and then we see the person that we expect to see.

Maybe I’m being too critical. In fact, I am critical. I hate to present something to the world that isn’t my best effort. I have to set the bar somewhere, so I try to set it where I have to strive a little harder to make my creation as near to perfect as I can. So am I picky? Was Michelangelo picky? Was da Vinci picky? Was Monet picky?

Someone is going to ask, “Are you comparing yourself to some of the greatest artists of all time?” Well, yes. Yes I am. I’m just telling it like it is.

Earlier this morning (did I mention it’s morning?), I awoke in a dark room. I turned my head to look at the clock beside my bed. The clock’s usually glowing digits were dark. The electric power was off. I lay awake for a long time, but the power never came back on. It’s unusual for the power to go off. Rarely, it will flicker, but to go off and stay off is unusual. Eventually, I returned to sleep. When I awoke again, the power was on and the clock read 4:43AM. I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen and reset the blinking displays on my stove and microwave oven. A clock radio that cost me less than $10 has a battery backup for timekeeping, but my electric stove that cost hundreds of dollars and my microwave oven that also wasn’t cheap do not have backup power for their clocks. Why is that? I just want to put that notion out there. Battery backup for everything with a clock! But this is modern times and we needn’t use batteries. Just put a Wi-Fi chip inside the product and let it get the time from the Internet.

It’s almost 5:30AM on a Saturday morn and still dark outside. I think this little article has meandered to something resembling a conclusion. It’s not a great article but it will have to do. I’m trying to be less picky. I’m going to hit the Publish button and maybe go back to bed. Or maybe I’ll just sit and read until the sun comes up. Goodnight and good morning.

Black Rice

Like most men, when I need something from a store I go to the store, get what I need, pay for it, and leave. In other words, I don’t shop—I purchase. Therefore, there are many things in the store that fly under my radar. They may be common items but I’m not aware of them.

When I buy rice, I choose brown rice, never white or yellow rice. White rice is basically brown rice with the healthy parts removed, and yellow rice is white rice colored yellow with annatto, saffron or turmeric. White rice has such poor nutritional content that certain nutrients are usually added to it before it is packaged. Then it is called enriched rice. Brown rice has more protein, more fiber, and more vitamins and minerals.

Now we are at the point where my not being a shopper becomes relevant. I was not aware until recently that there are other varieties of rice that are even healthier than brown rice. Healthier but harder to find are red rice and purple rice. There are several varieties of red rice, such as Himalayan red rice, Thai Red Cargo rice, and the rare Rakthashali. Their color comes from a flavonoid called anthocyanin pigment. Anthocyanin is an antioxidant that promotes heart health and lowers the risk of some cancers. Anthocyanin is what gives blueberries their color and health benefits.

Purple rice has more anthocyanin than red rice, and black rice has more anthocyanin than purple rice. There are several varieties of black rice such as Indonesian black rice, Philippine balatinaw rice, and Thai jasmine black rice. Black rice is also called forbidden rice because in ancient China it was reserved for the emperor. Ordinary Chinese were not allowed to eat it.

I have never seen these varieties of colorful rice on a store shelf, and if I had I would probably have shrugged and thought “rice is rice.” Yet they exist and are healthier than other types of rice. Not every grocery stocks black rice but you can buy it online. Black rice costs more than white or brown rice, and organic black rice costs still more.

According to their website, a nearby Kroger stocks black rice. The store is ten miles up the road from me, but it might be worth a trip there to satisfy my curiosity. What does it taste like? Will I like it? If I don’t like it at first, will its taste “grow on me”? It’s too late for me to start making food choices based on health benefits. But recipes for black rice dishes and superb food photos online have piqued my curiosity.

It's Not Junk Food

My amigo and fellow blogger CD has informed me that I’ve published too many posts about the virus and I need to get some new content. So in this article I will not talk about the virus.

I drove to the grocery this morning. Almost all the customers were wearing face coverings, perhaps to conceal their identities as I can think of no other reason for such behavior. But oddly, and in defiance of the local custom, the employees who were pretending to stock the shelves were not wearing face coverings.

I mainly bought food items. I bought Spam simply because I haven’t eaten it in a very long time and, after all, Spam is delicious. I bought frozen hamburger patties. The package has 6 patties, but the buns come 8 per package, because of course they do. There’s a wiener maker I won’t name that sells a package of 7 wieners. I can hardly believe it. It’s almost like the wiener company is giving us shoppers a big F* U*.

Almost.

Back to the bun situation. What to do with the extra 2 buns? It occurred to me I could toast them and pour sausage gravy over them and eat them for breakfast, like SOS but with buns and pork gravy instead of toast and creamed beef.

So I bought a can of sausage gravy. The can's label says it is “homestyle” sausage gravy. The only reason I dine out is so that I don’t have to taste my own cooking, so labeling a can of food "homestyle" is not, for me, an inducement to buy it. But I know what they meant. I think.

What other edibles did I buy?

I bought a heat-and-serve (not frozen) dinner of linguine with marinara sauce. I bought a two-pound package of breaded chicken nuggets. (I know, chickens don't have nuggets. Whatever.)

I bought two Totino's Party Pizzas (one Combination and one Triple Meat) and a little can of anchovies. Some people put anchovies and capers on a pizza. I have no use for capers, but sliced black olives might be good with anchovies. One of the pizzas has meat on it so I probably won't put anchovies on that one. I'll have leftover anchovies which I may just eat slice by salty slice right out of the can. Done it before. Or I might save the anchovies for a future pizza. The anchovies, sealed in their can, will stay good for eternity plus a day.

I bought a couple cans of Vienna Sausage. Not the boring Original flavor, but the BBQ flavored sausage. I might even spice them up with a little hot sauce. Armour makes a Bourbon BBQ flavored sauce (the one shown here), which I might have bought if the store had any in stock. I bet it sells out before any of the other flavors.

A lot of people will tell you canned meats (Vienna sausage, deviled ham, sardines, etc.) are foods just for fishing and camping—they're snacks for when you can't cook. But don't believe them. If you're hungry and you're at home but you don't feel like cooking, then they're a tasty way to get some protein.

I returned home and put my purchases on the shelf, in the fridge or the freezer, whichever was appropriate. The canned items joined my Beanie Weenies, grits, oatmeal, peanut butter, sardines, and herring fillets.

And for supper tonight, chili with beans—the kind that comes in a can. It doesn't get any easier. Let's hear it for modern times!

Hunting

I saw this news headline today:

Americans turn to hunting amid fears of coronavirus food shortages

(Eye-roll)

I’m sure that’s the reason they’re hunting: all the grocery stores are out of food. Even H-E-B. These Americans are not hunting because they enjoy it. To the contrary, they have no choice but to hunt or starve.

Not! The stores have plenty of food, but even if all the stores were out of meat, people wouldn’t starve. Vegetarianism has been around a very long time and is reputed to be quite healthy.

What we have here are people who feel the need to justify inflicting fear, pain, and death on animals, and a reporter who is trying to spice up what is otherwise a non-story.

If you want to hunt, then okay, go hunt. Go fish. But don’t pretend your survival depends on it. Your sirloin may depend on it, but not your life.

A Day in May

It’s 3AM. As I sit in the dark, I realize it’s also another night without the sound of a train passing through town. Those trains haul freight, and freight isn’t moving, at least not by train, and that is a not a good sign for the economy.

It’s 6AM. Time for breakfast. I eat two bowls of raisin bran and a banana. What am I going to eat for lunch? Maybe a tuna fish sandwich. And supper? I have Power Bowls in the freezer. Plus I have some canned food, such as Brunswick stew, and chili, and beans and greens, and Beanie Weenies, and little fish in cans: sardines and kippered herring. And I have food in round boxes: oatmeal and grits, just add boiling water and stir. And I have ingredients to make Mexican Rice, if I can muster the will power.

One of the downsides of quarantine is there is nothing to write about. Much of what passes for news is just news about the virus. Or it’s about the lockdown and how its making people crazy. Last night I read about a security guard who was shot and killed because he wouldn’t let a shopper into a store without a mask. Which, incidentally, was the law. The guard was doing his job. Now he’s dead and three people face murder charges, so their lives are going to suck for a long while. Why? Because of a face mask?

Speaking of face masks, I can’t buy one around here. Every place I’ve shopped is sold out. That is a problem only because some places won’t allow me to enter without a mask: doctor and dentist waiting rooms, for example. What I’ve read repeatedly is that the purpose of wearing a face mask isn’t to protect the wearer; it’s to protect others from the wearer. From the CDC:

When you wear a cloth face covering, you help protect those around you from #COVID19. Help keep each other safe by continuing to properly wear cloth face coverings every time, the entire time you’re in public. Learn more: https://t.co/lxWMe4NUBD. pic.twitter.com/42bOU3Vuuh 
— CDC (@CDCgov) May 4, 2020

Yesterday was sunny and warm. I got out of the house and went for a walk. In the next block I encountered a young lady wearing Daisy Dukes and a cropped tank top. She flashed me a big smile and said, “Good morning! Have a nice day!” She was pushing a baby stroller. In the stroller was a baby. Or maybe it was a stroller full of empty soda cans, à la Speed. Then the young lady and the baby were gone, headed toward the park.

I continued my walk and on my return I saw her again, walking a paved path inside the park. We were two walkers, the young lady and me, getting out of the house, getting exercise, trying to avoid cabin-fever in the midst of this lockdown. Maybe I’ll go for another walk today. I might even walk to the park and sit on a bench for a while and take in some sunshine. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Come noon I’ll be watching the sights and taking in sunshine, in the park, on a spring day in early May.

Have a nice Cinco de Mayo, and remember that today is also Taco Tuesday.

Court Is In Session

I listened to oral arguments at the Supreme Court for a while this morning. (I’m referring to the Supreme Court of the United States.) The arguments were about whether adding “.com” to a generic word such as “booking” would make the combination (booking.com) non-generic and therefore trademarkable. It’s hard to believe, but there really are people who get their panties in a twist over that kind of thing. They’re called lawyers, and the really good ones are paid very big bucks.

The legal shootout was a dispute between the Patent & Trademark Office versus BOOKING.COM B.V. I don’t know what B.V. stands for, but I’ll guess that it’s Besloten Vennootschap, which is the Dutch and Belgium version of a private limited liability company.

But back to the Court. Did you know there are only 50 seats in the Supreme Court that are allocated to the public? Not that it matters at the moment. The Court building is currently closed to the public because of Covid-19. In ordinary times, the line to enter the Court building forms early. But you can hire someone to stand in line for you! Standing in line for people is an actual industry in Washington, D.C. I didn’t have to stand in line, because this Supreme Court session was different from all previous sessions. This one was the first-ever Supreme Court session to be broadcast over the Internet. Lawyers and judges were connected by phone. (I suppose video conferencing is too high-tech for the Court.)

So, out of curiosity, I listened for a while. It was deadly dull.

D-e-a-d-l-y.  D-u-l-l.

However, if you so choose, you can listen to those oral arguments. Audio files will be available on the Supreme Court’s website. Today’s session is the first to be made available.

Before publishing this article, I decided to go to booking.com and see what I could learn about B.V. and Booking’s country of origin. Quoting from their home page, “Booking.com B.V. is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.” People from the Netherlands are called Dutch. Dutch is the language spoken in the Netherlands. So my guess was correct and B.V. stands for Besloten Vennootschap. Private company. A minor mystery is solved. Now I can publish.

Becoming Lost

I just read an article I came across in Business Insider. The article was titled Airbus just beat Boeing to be the first to complete a wholly automated air-to-air refueling operation. There was a photo of an A310 refueling another jet. The successful test means that the next step—implementing the technology on the A330 MRTT—can now proceed.

And I thought, “What is wrong with Boeing? They used to be so good at this kind of thing and now Airbus is beating them.” The last passenger jet Boeing developed, the 737 MAX, was fatally flawed and two of them crashed within six months, killing all passengers and crew. Then reports surfaced that Boeing’s employees had been disgruntled for some time. Internal documents were damning. One employee described the 737 MAX as a plane “designed by clowns…supervised by monkeys.” Another employee called the plane “such a shitshow.” Still another agreed and said, “I’ll be shocked if the FAA passes this turd.” This kind of discourse peppered the internal documents.

I decided to write a blog post with the topic, “What is wrong with Boeing?” But it was such an obvious question that I knew if I asked Google, the search engine would find a number of already-published articles. So I did, and it did.

I’m sure those articles go into great detail about the flaws of the design of the 737 MAX. But it’s my opinion that Boeing simply lost its way, and all its problems stem from that. Boeing used to concentrate on building great airplanes. But at some point, it decided to concentrate on building great balance sheets and cash flow statements. To show the financial world its commitment to grow beyond building great airplanes, in 2001 Boeing moved its headquarters from Seattle, where the company was founded, to Chicago, the home of banks and deal-makers.

As internal documents would eventually reveal, safety took a backseat to maximizing shareholder value. An article in Yahoo Finance put it this way, “A company that had long been run by engineers for engineers was now a company run by corporate bureaucrats whose primary goal was to please Wall Street.” I couldn’t say it more concisely than that. I don’t know if Boeing will be able to find its north star again. I’d like to think they will, but big changes will have to take place for that to happen. Companies have an ethos—a spirit, a character, a culture. When they lose that ethos, they’re no longer the same company, and that is usually a bad thing.

Quarantine

The latest Covid-19 prediction is we’ll have it for two years. That, I believe, is based on the 1918 flu pandemic that lasted two years. That pandemic died out when global herd immunity was achieved.

I don’t think people in general, and people in America in particular, will be willing to self-isolate from Covid-19 for two years. People will be jumping out of windows.

Let’s get a little perspective on the danger we face from Covid-19. As I write this, about 65,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. That’s a lot of deaths, but consider the following facts.

According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “An estimated 88,000 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually … in the United States.” But drinking alcohol is legal and most people are not concerned.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure.” But smoking is legal and most people are not concerned.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, “Unhealthy diet contributes to approximately 678,000 deaths each year in the U.S., due to nutrition- and obesity-related diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes.” But there are fast food restaurants everywhere and most people are not concerned.

Thus far in Virginia, we’ve had 552 deaths from Covid-19, and yet we’re under orders from the governor to stay at home until 11:59 pm on June 10, 2020. My small city has seen two deaths (elderly patients in a nursing home) and it’s being called a “Covid-19 hotspot.” What?!

I’ve been quarantined at home for most of March and all of April. Now I have to do the same for another six weeks. And then what? Who can say the quarantine won’t be extended?

Maybe we the people should vote on what we will do next. Let’s protect the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, but the rest of us should be able to choose our poison. Do we sit at home and video chat, or do we go out into the world? We should each have the chance to choose our path. It’s called responsibility. How long we live shouldn’t be our primary objective—the thing that matters above all else. As Abraham Lincoln said,

And in the end it's not the years in your life that count; it's the life in your years.

The Covid Formula

On March 30 there were 161,800 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US. One month later, on April 30, there were 1,100,000 cases of Covid-19 in the US.

At the end of April, the US had 6.8 times the number of cases it had at the end of March, despite a partial lockdown. (I call it partial because I’m sure many people ignore it.)

The growth in US cases since the end of March has been linear, not exponential. The country, even half shutdown, is adding 900,000 cases per month.

Something will change this trajectory of cases. What will that something be? The possibilities, in order of decreasing likelihood, are:

1. An effective drug cure
2. An effective vaccine
3. Herd immunity
4. Summer heat
5. Friendly space aliens

I know it’s a longshot, but I hope it’s number 5. Imagine: a saucer lands in my backyard and friendly aliens beam out of the saucer and shoot me with anti-viral health rays. I’ll invite them into my house for a little SciFi-watching on the flat-screen. I wonder which alien creature they’ll look like? I kind of hope they’ll look like Frank from Men In Black. A-n-d … I also hope they don’t bite.