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Saturday, June 14, 2003
CARRAGEEN
I 'm certain there are some people who will never eat anything they can't spell. That means they are missing out on their fair share of carrageen.
The above mentioned delicacy is, in case you might be wondering, a seaweed extract used in some foods and for other purposes as well. It is the “other purposes” usage which makes me shy away from using it in food preparation. It often has an "h" after the internal "g", since it gets its name from Carragheen, Waterford, Ireland.
The average American, a recent study is survey shows, consumes twenty-one and four tenths pounds of snack food each year. That intake is in addition to what we call “fast foods”, and critics attribute much of our problem with obesity to just such a steady in take of foods. You may not remember it, and Golden Arch food engineers would probably like to forget their efforts in 1992 to market a"91% fat free" dubbed the "McLean Deluxe". It was be the hamburger that even a health food far-outter would love. It didn't exactly"“bomb ou". It just didn't catch on, even with the weight-worried buyers once they found out they were eating what came to be called a" seaweed hamburger."
"What's in a name?" That's what, Willie. No go.
The other uses of carrageen an suggest why eaters may have shied away from such contrived foods. The ways in which it can be used are seemingly without end, and new ones are being added constantly. We can look forward, I think, for a strong return of the substance in both foods and everything from toothpaste to jellies, lotions, medicines, to protect exposed metal surfaces of machinery, to serve us as air fresheners and to meet various agricultural needs as well..
The redeeming quality of carrageenans is their unusual capability of jelling and the stabilization they offers in just about anything that is best used when changed from a liquid to a usable solid. The gels do not demand to demand refrigeration. The process merely stiffens the original material and makes it more adaptable to change which can influence its value. Fast food products make use of it, to bring us foods which taste better and which can be eaten with more pleasant reactions. Ice cream often uses this extract from red seaweed, and it makes breads and pasta dishes tastier. It also causes cleaning material to thicken up and be easier and more efficient to use. The contrasts become endless, when the need of emulsive action is considered to be important. We use materials to “thicken” juices and broths to make them into better tasting, more nutritious soups and stews; we add more of that sort of thing to flour to thicken or thin mixtures we wish to bake, we also rearrange qualities of various products to change them from liquids to gels so we can make better, more efficient use of their helpful qualities.
The carrageenans allow us to make such adaptations in our food products. They have not departed entirely and we will probably see a new version of a hamburger that will be 91% fat free and tasty just the same. We just have to get used to the idea of the complexity of simple seaweed
With our cars and trucks, some of us are just now beginning to find filling stations which stock B-2 fuel for use in regular engines. It is five percent soybeans. It cost several cents more per gallon than conventional gas because it has to be truck in form the mid-west, but many users insist it provides special lubrication advantages of motor plus lower pollution threats. Somewhere along the line, I'd be willing to bet, some product has been used which has been enhanced, thickened, suspended or emulsified by the use of the lowly purple-red seaweed essence.
A.L.M. June 13, 2003 [c626wds]
Friday, June 13, 2003
ON WHEELS.
Do you remember the very first time you tried to roller skate?
I don't, but I do recall that, when I did try to do so, I was, like everyone else I've talked with, afraid of falling.
I never had any childhood experience of ice skating, having been born in the South, where non-skaters were common. I had tried to walk on ice, of course, and that was enough to teach me how hard Mother Earth – or Water - could be, even from just a few feet above the surface.
The pages of skating history record the inventor of roller skates, one Joseph Merlin, a Belgian, is best remembered for doing a classic crash when he first tired to introduce roller skates to the world of social activities of his time. That would have been around 1760 in London, England. Merlin, no relationship at all, I'd say, to the Magician Merlin of King Arthur's Court, was, however, quite a showman, none the less. He decided that it would be good to put wheels on skates instead of blades.
He tried it and was successful, to a degree. In order to bring the invention to the eager eye of the public, he divided to dress himself up in the colorful costume of a Court Minstrel. He planned a spectacular entrance into the ballroom where a magnificent masquerade dance was in progress. Merlin also decided, in dressing up for his act, that he ought to do so to music and that was no problem. He was, by trade, a respected maker of quality violins, so , in the midst of the masquerade dance , a fleet-footed minstrel, playing the violin, came gliding onto the dance floor where the dancers were somewhat taken. Many stopped dance to watch the gliding appartition.
Merlin circled the floor, a romantic symbol of graceful art in motion, gliding skillfully along on his metal wheels where blades ought to have been, on a waxed, hardwood floor instead of an expanse of ice. Apparently, he caught a glimpse of himself in a huge crystal mirror, which ,with flowers and small tables, and shelves, constituted the main decoration for the dance area. That sight of himself was to be, well, his down fall. Merlin must have been so intensely impressed with the sight of a minstrel dressed in color array, playing expertly on a fine, hand-crafted violin, it seems, that he forgot to turn aside and crashed headlong in the mirror and totally demolished it, the fiddle and portions of himself!
So, however you fall whens skating today, you can't exell the performance of the originator of roller skates when he demonstrated how fall-able they could be.
Small wonder, isn't it, that “roller skating” did not catch on at that time – in the 1760's. We had to wait until the 1860s' before anyone tried it again, it seems. A veritable rollerskating craze swept furiously though the United States spread to England, then Europe where it remains a popular form of falling to this day.
A.L.M. June 11, 2003 [c530wds]
Thursday, June 12, 2003
AWESOME!
One of the recent buzz words which started among the sub-teens has now spread to the teens and into other areas as well.
Those elements of our daily living which were thought to be set apart as something superior of special were, at one time, not too many years ago, all said to be "keen". They are currently considered to be: "awesome."
I first noticed it among ten or twelve year-olds, then the upper teens adopted it as standard and now I find it in the sports field and just about everywhere. The winner of the stock car races speaks of many things proving to be "awesome " about his crew and about his victory. It has become a stock answer for sports figures being "interviewed" and it has eliminated some of the "y'know" and some "ers" and" uhs", as well. "Awesome!" seems to be a sufficient , all-inclusive statement by such sports greats.
I'm hearing it in politics, as well. George W. Bush's tactics for raising funds for his election were called "awesome!", Donald Trump's maybe. No!-don't-think-so”- candidacy bore the same, one-size-fits-all label on the TV and radio news when people are asked what they think of it, as did Warren Beaty's hint of a run. They were all "awesome!"
The speed of our advances in the Iraq war, called for the generous use of the term on network news, that's when it was overused, perhaps.
I've been trying to remember what some other overused terms such as this have been in recent years. There was time, I recall where "hugh-mongous" was popular, but I don't recall, how it was spelled. Before that, 'way back, we spoke of things as being "peachy" or "peachy keen". That was in the 30's, perhaps, and it came back, in part, in the fifties and sixties as just "keen. When our daughters were in high school, everything commendable, I remember so well, was "keen" or "keeno!"
There were, certainly, many others along the way.
Another area of word kill is more general in that certain buzz words become standard in print and in advertising of all kinds. The one that is beginning to wear a bit thin right now is “lycopene” which is much desired. How about "antioxidants" which just about everything is said to be “free of” or “full of?” We have gone that round with "cholesterol", as well as a long stint with "chlorophyll." Ad agencies seem to cluster their productions around such terms as they become popular and try to play all angles as long as the word endures.
If you don't know what to say at any given time or place, and especially if you have no comment in mind ...just say, with confidence: "It's awesome! I think it is absolutely awesome!"
That'll have to do, until the next buzz word comes along.
A.L.M. June 11, 2003 [c526wds]
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
ELECTION DAY IN MONTEREY
The thriving mountain town of Monterey, Virginia has long had a tradition of voting entirely by write-in ballots on election day.
Since I am already writing this piece, I assume the practice is still in effect. The system has some interesting sidelights about it.
I sure there are very few places which follow this system of voting without the usual printed ballots.. I wonder which is the oldest of those who do so and how long it has been maintained.
There are nopolitical campaigns in the usual sense. No speeches. No campaign posters and banners splattered on every fence, tree or power pole. A bare minimum of election talk is forthcoming in most areas. All citizens are informed as much as they choose to be without such pressures being applied to change their opinions.
You simply enter the booth and set down the names you think best fitted for the offices designated. The names of the post to be filled is there but the area following us left blank. Occasionally, some one is elected who refuses to serve, but political loyalties run strong in such a community and that seldom happens.
The theory holds that the ones thought best are selected, but that ,too, varies from time to time. One individual. For instance, may excel as a leader and fall short as an administrator in the office. Few rebel against the system
One young lawyer, some years ago, decided he would buck the old-fashioned system. He campaigned furiously. He was elected but after a month or two on the job left town and has yet to return.
The Monterey voting system means extra work for the county Registrar,of course, counting the ballot. That official l has regularly petitioned them and others to consider doing away with the system,but. As ,as far as I know, as I know, they have e been unsuccessful. The system cannot be condemned as being old-fashioned. It didn't start until shortly after World War II. It is the “new” way of voting.
It may well have been supplanted recently. I don't know. The critical fault of the system is that without debate or discussion ....political brawling and bravado at the ballot box so Election Day is not what Election Day should be.
The write-in system, someone has said , results in “under kill”.
A.L.M. June 9. 2003 [c404wds]
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
CLEAN UP
Let me take this opportunity clean up some random notes which are cluttering my "to do" stack at this time.
I see one note that reminds me to do a page or so someday concerned with our current shortage of Tech workers. We don't have enough trained personnel to do the work that is available and we have imported about 150,000 from other areas to fill existing jobs. By “other areas” foreign locations are intended. Some leaders of the technical fields say we could use another 150,000 right now and they are urging Congress to set forth legislation permitting them to bring in that many addition foreign workers to fill jobs which are going begging. The alternative, they point out, is to actually ship the work itself overseas and do an offshore operation entirely eliminating such work areas here in the United States.
This process, it strikes me, is already well underway and will continue until our educational system is refurbished and brought to a point where we can educate our young people to do such work. At the present time we simply do not teach such skills. Those who do so learn it all on their own or in some industry related situations where business defrays the costs involved. More young people are learning to work in "on the job training"" situations than ever before, but this is a costly way for industry and commerce to handle it and to bear the burden which should not concern them - that of training young people to work.
Also, tying in closely with that note, is one which says that I should write something about the rising costs of a college education. Harvard is around $35,000 per year. Is it worth that much? I rather doubt it. Increases are noticed at all levels. You can see them all the way down to ,and including, our community colleges and trade schools.
I notice, too, that in some current resume forms allow very little if any attention to be paid to a listing college credits and degrees. More space is being devoted to practical experience the individual may have had along the lines required by the job being considered.
In another note I told myself to do piece about the importance of young boys and girls learning HTML. It is, I'm told, not all that difficult, and that if properly presented it could change the future livelihood prospect of hosts of high school boys and girls.
A basic amount of skill in handling "Hypertext machine language" could do a lot toward solving the first item I listed above - educating technical workers for today's job market. Young people must learn to actually use the computer for other than playing games and engaging in chat room relationships.
We need some radical changes in our schools. Basic changes are needed - not just cosmetic modifications. By this time our colleges should be churning out skill technical works of all types.
Who dropped the ball and how long ago? I don't think our "educators", so called, ever had possession of it to start with.
A.L.M. June 9, 2003 [c500wds]
Monday, June 09, 2003
DOWN TO THE SEA
Why, I wonder, do so many people continue to build and/or rebuild homes along seashores which are knowingly doomed to be dumped into the eroding sea? One third of our population now lines in coastal areas.
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These are not make-do shanties, either. Some elegant homes are constantly being build along cliff sides which plainly show they cannot long endure the ravages of the surf and winds beating against them and their base. Everyone who builds such projects seems to think that sort of thing takes place elsewhere that it "can't happen here." They put great credence in talk about “five-hundred year floods" and other time-based disaster classifications. Even if they have just experienced a major flood or hurricane, they find it easy to convince themselves it will be a long time before such a thing happens again. Every such disaster turns up half a dozen people who claim this is the third or fourth time they have "lost everything", but they keep coming back.
The reason has to be financial, I'm sure . It is a matter of economics in the final analysis, I'm sure, but it works both ways. If a person has legal possession of a specific site - be it on the seacoast or in a known flood plain area in the mountains, he or she is going to find it difficult to simply it give it up or to sell it for a price which they deem to be far too low. Others, finding such property available, find the reduced price to be attractive and are willing to take a chance on the floods not coming again, at least, for any time soon. It's a gamble of sorts.
I have know places, however, which are located just ten or twelve feet above the water's edge who have lived in that same place for generations and have never been inundated by any serious flood waters. To some, just the potential danger involved is all the more reason to live there. It adds an element of adventure to everyday existence for many.
It would seem that insurance costs alone would be high enough to discourage such construction, but, on the whole, I dare say, such builders don't worry too much about insurance of any type. I have often wondered how local building codes can permit construction on land which is known to be prone to erosion and of literally sliding into the sea. This would indicate that the building codes are, often, political tools to be used for all sorts of purposes other than the safety of human lives.
California is one of the prime offenders in such building, both along the coast and inland on land which is unstable and subject to brush fire hazards,as well. As California grows to 50-million or more in population, it is going to get a great deal worse, too.
We point at them, and that makes us feel a bit better, as we go right on doing the same silly sort of thing here at home wherever that may be.
A.L.M. June 9, 2003 [c495wds]
Sunday, June 08, 2003
GIVE OR TAKE
I have no idea who calculated it, but it is claimed that in order for one to read the books now in our Library of Congress one would have to have clear title to at least fourteen thousand years - give or take a few hundred years either way.
That's a lot of books and a great deal of reading and it, of course, could not be done anyway because the words contained in the new books coming in would always exceed those having been read.
Unless I have been mistaken all these years, I have an idea it is part of out system to require that two copies of everything published must be deposited with the Library of Congress., That would be, of course, every copyrighted item published, which cuts down on the volume somewhat, I would say.
Even then, the monumental pile of printed stuff which would be coming in would b enough to build a few Egyptian pyramids ,or a new wall of China every few months. Where, I wonder do we keep it all, or is Washington. D,C., considering the acquisition of additional lands in surrounding states. Or, it may be that a portion of the holdings are shared with regional libraries all over the nation. That may be part of plan to keep the nation balanced and thus prevent any capsizing into the Potomac Rive wetlands or into the already polluted Chesapeake Bay. When you consider the sheer amounts of copyright protected drivel this might involve you have to think in high figures only a good politician can use with any confidence. The redeeming thing in it all may be the wordage which said two copies were be “deposited with” the Library of Congress. But,does that mean they have to save them?
The published materials would be of all types, and not at all representative of the best our social heritage. What a record these gems might reveal! Earth explorers, centuries from now, might get a rather warped view of our civilization.
I've had trouble, just this past week, in realizing it has been fifty-nine years since D-Day of World War II. For me to even try to comprehend how much material has been written, printed, collated, bound and read in just those few years, is futile.
How much of it all is contained in electronic form, I wonder? Is such a copy considered legal? Certainly we much he beyond the concept of simply stacking copies of every magazine, book, music, recipe in the endless amalgam. Much better, I think on discs, in a fully conditioned area in a file somewhere. Even such a collection would become, in time, a killer for storage. To meet the coming need for extra room we must look to the Moon and Mars. Better get with it, there, NASA. We are going to need either the Moon, or Mars - or both. Better fix those new Mars kiddie cars to carry books and papers.
A.L.M. June 7, 2003 [c540wds]
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