You're not allergic, just picky.

30% of people think they have food allergies. Only 8 percent actually do.

Full body scanners at KCI

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/mar/05/kansas-city-international-airport-test-full-body-s/

My parents just informed me that full body scanners are now in use at the Kansas City airport. I predictably blew a gasket while they basically implied it was just another small price to pay to fly safer.

I really think they are over-the-top and a pretty sever invasion of privacy. The idea that some TSA fuckwad can look at my girlfriend or mother or sister naked is disturbing, to say the least. I would rather take my chances with metal detectors and than have to think about some random asshole from Raytown making regular deposits into his Spank Bank in the name of national security.




I really think we're not too far off from having to strip down completely naked behind a curtain, check our clothes and those pesky navigation disrupters (cell phones and iPods) with security and put on a TSA-issued robe for the flight. Then again, we'd only be one karate expert terrorist attacking a flight attendant away from having our hands and feet restrained throughout the flight.

I can't wait for the not-too-distant future where I'm paying $1,000 to sit naked and tied up in a cramped space for three hours, and no, I'm not talking about my plans to hang out with Charlie Sheen and Hugh Grant this Saturday night.

At this point, I don't think too many people would even object to the robe scenario. Anything for safety, right?

Learning to accept consequences

I just wanted to give everyone an update on the current state of my digestive track, as I went out for Szechuan hot pot for the first time last night. But first allow me to set the scene for you...

Picture me on the edge of a cheap, wooden chair in a small, brightly lit restaurant in Oakland's Chinatown. A few minutes after the waiter has finished asking the standard Are-you-sures, he sets down a junky, old burner with such an old connector to the gas can that it seems like it could explode at any minute. He soon brings out a huge bowl and sets it on the burner. Like a grunt on recon, I probe cautiously at first, picking out familiar pieces of beef, shrimp and mussels from a boiling cauldron of spicy broth. I like what I taste, so I start fumbling with the chopsticks more rapidly as I stop discriminating and start pulling out pig intestines, liver, and other unmentionables.


The heat begins at my lips as the numbing effect of the infamous peppercorns takes hold and doesn't stop until the heat of the chilis have warmed by whole throat and stomach. The sweat begins as beads on my forehead but quickly advances to a full-on flop sweat. My hair is naturally thin so as the sweat bonds my hairs together, you can clearly see my pink scalp. The spiciness is becoming hard to handle and I'm breathing so heavily that I'm almost grunting. The occasionally moan of pleasure dueling with pain emits from a deep-down place in my body I can't even control.

With each bite, my shirt is getting flecked with stains of red chili oil as the toxic substance drips through my beard and down my chin. My mouth is so numb from the peppercorns that I basically have a speech impediment, but I'm wide-eyed and rambling nonstop at Rachel because the pain has released so many endorphins that I'm practically delirious. She is saying almost nothing because she is starving and didn't really want to go this restaurant anyway and the food is too incendiary for her to eat. She tries in vain to mask her contempt for me, but who can blame her?

Eventually my belly is so full that I can eat no more and waive the white flag. The table and napkins are ruined. The aftermath must look like some deranged savage cut the throat of his own horse and scooped out the entrails with his bare hands. The restaurant is cash only, so I borrow some money from Rachel, throw down the cash on the table, and stumble out into the night, still drunk on heat.

Flash forward to today: My stomach is bubbling and gurgling like a volcano getting ready to erupt. I sit in my cubicle like a prisoner on death row who has exhausted his appeals, resigned to my fate and waiting for my inevitable date with destiny in what I hope will be my sanctuary: the least frequented restroom in the office.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Mexicans seem to care for this holiday about as much as Jews care for Hanukkah, but I thought I'd say a few words in honor of this pseudo-holiday.

1. I love our neighbors South of the Border. I have said numerous times that they will come to be as beloved to Americans as the Irish, but with better food.


2. Is the Arizona immigration racist and evil as written? I haven't read it and I doubt many have, but I would imagine a law like that would depend on how it's enforced. If brown people are getting pulled over for no reason and asked for their visas, then yes, it's a bad law. But what if it becomes clear from talking to a person in another circumstance that his immigration status is rather dubious?

- Beldar, you still haven't given me your social security number.
- My social security number... I--....I am sorry. I keep forgetting.
- I need that number. I got state payroll forms. You do have a number?
- Of course. I am a citizen.
- All right. Give me the numbers.
-0...
2..5...
6...
X... point...3...
0...B...
8...7...


In that case, it would be pretty clear that the person in question is an illegal alien. Believe it or not, you can sometimes figure out that someone has immigrated illegally without pulling them over for no reason other than to check their papers. I would imagine it sometimes just comes up in other contexts.

If the Arizona law is then directing law enforcement officials not to ignore the immigration status, is that a bad thing? Aren't the lawmakers just wanting the existing law to be enforced, sort of like how doctors are required by law to report parents to Social Services if there's evidence of child abuse? I personally don't really care for mandatory reporting because I think it takes away discretion and common sense, but that doesn't mean it's an evil or bad law.

Again, this very well might be a terrible law and I think immigrants (legal or illegal) from the South make this country a better place*. Just about every single immigrant I've ever met, I have wanted him or her living in this country a hell of a lot more than the average white trash American citizen I see yelling at and spanking his kid at theme marks or holding up grammatically incorrect signs at Tea Parties calling Obama a Nazi.

I think the most glaring failing of the law, from what I know, is that there is no exception for victims or witnesses of crimes. If this law discourages immigrants from coming forward in these situations, it should be obliterated from the books now and without question (or amended). But right now, I'm just wondering if the national reaction to Arizona's frustration over immigration policy is a little knee jerk at this point.


*Do illegal immigrants make this country a better place? Probably. Do they deserve to not be deported....probably not.

Surprise!

Genetically modified crops are creating new super weeds that are resistant to herbicides.

And in other news....

Our overreaction to skin cancer that led to a total aversion of the sun has led to Vitamin D deficiencies and a surprising return of rickets. Prepare to be surprised again when a sudden uptick in Vitamin D over-consumption leads to some equally worse problem.

Senators oppose Know Your Farmer Program

Pat Roberts, from my home state of Kansas, believes that small farmers are rich hobbyists and not worthy of our support. He would rather we continue to give billions to the large conventional corporations that are making us fatter by the minute.

I wrote Senator Roberts to tell him how much his letter upset me.

Democrats fail at setting the agenda again

I read this great editorial in the New York Times by David Brooks about the Big Government War waging right now in which he said one of the biggest failings of the Democratic Party is that they're more concerned with winning arguments than deciding what they arguments will be. Or maybe more that the Democrats don't understand what the public perception will be of their agenda. For instance, the debate about health care was not really about health care itself but more about big government v. small government. We all have seen how well that worked out for them.

So my question is this: If the Democrats had sought to reform the food system, which I believe would have helped treat one of the real causes of the health care crisis, would we still be having the Big Government debate? Food reform probably would have required a reworking of the Farm Bill, which amounts to billions of dollars in spending by the Federal Government. In that case, Democrats would actually be taking on misguided government spending rather than increasing it. I'm guessing we would have heard from Palinites that elitist Democrats were declaring war on farmers, but would the Democratic party be in the free fall it is in now if they had picked a different agenda?

Bonus question: Would the backlash have been better or worse if Obama had tried to reduce government spending by scaling back the military and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Looks like "organic" might be the next dirty word

Is "organic" now a politically charged term? Will it be as repellent to left-leaning politicians as the word "liberal"?

This Washington Post story on the White House garden has me convinced. Michelle Obama and White House aides have said they use only natural fertilizers and pesticides in the garden but that the garden was not organic. Hmmm.... I thought that was what organic meant.

The story goes on to say that the White House would not disclose what made the garden not organic. That makes me think it is organic, but they just don't want to call it that because it would associate themselves with people who care about what they eat, liberals, intellectuals, and other undesirables the radical right Palinites have labeled as "elitist" and "snobbish."

I understand that the term might mean very little to we consumers who are looking for the best, freshest products, but why would you not want to say your garden is organic if it is organic? And if it isn't organic and you use some commerical fertilizer or something, why wouldn't you just come out and say what it is?