Being Well Endowed.

I’m talking about colleges, of course. A while back I wrote a short post about the inferior endowment problems at Reed (the innuendo just keeps on giving). Now an economist/blogger named Felix Salmon raises an interesting question: Why don’t colleges spend their endowments during rough times to avoid the admissions and service cuts that they are currently enduring?

It seems like colleges are beholden to the same growth principle that drives publicly traded companies that says that simply sustaining the current level of profitability is not enough. The result must be an exponential increase or else that result is a failure. I just don’t get it.

Why I Love the Mercury

Things like this.

Everyday Salsa

So since I acquired a tiny little food processor/chopper around Christmas, I have realized that there is no longer any need to buy salsa. Ever. I haven’t experimented with trying different kinds of salsas yet because I mostly just love really spicy, tomato-y, cilantro-y salsa, so I’m still working on getting tired of putting that on everything (like my breakfast of potatoes and eggs this morning).

So, for anyone who has even a tiny food processor at their disposal, there is no longer any need to consume that substance known as Pace Picante, which seems to have a half life of about 10,000 years. It only takes about 10 minutes to make your own salsa, and you can make it spicy as hell. You can probably make this with fresh tomatoes as well, but you should squeeze a lot of the juice out first because in my experience blended fresh tomatoes = very watery salsa.

Everyday Tomato Salsa

1 can diced tomatoes

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 jalapeno, chopped with seeds removed

¼ of a red onion

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon hot sauce (Louisiana, Cholula, etc.)

Juice of ¼ of a lime

1. Put all the ingredients in your food processor/chopper

2. Process/chop it up real nice

3. Eat it on any one of the five million things that salsa is good on. Preferably a burrito, though.

Better Than Your Grandma's Chicken Salad

Oh, so your Grandma had the most delicious chicken salad EVAR, did she? You used to look forward to eating every time you went to her house, eh? And even though she shared the recipe, it seemed like no one could replicate Grandma’s delicious chicken salad, huh?

Well my Grandma had a chicken salad like that, too. However, there was one thing that was neglected in her chicken salad, and hence in the chicken salad of my mother and all of my other family members’ as well. Specifically, the salad was neglected.

Grandma’s chicken salad was a tasty combination of mayonnaise, chicken, and celery with some tarragon. It was tasty, but chicken, celery, and mayonnaise does not a salad make. So I have my own version incorporating such salad-like elements as bell pepper, onion, tomato, grapes, and fresh herbs on top of the old staples. It’s delicious, and this is certainly something that you can wrap up in a tortilla with some lettuce make an awesome BURRITO.









Better Than Your Grandma’s Chicken Salad

½ a large hothouse tomato
½ a red onion
½ each of a red and yellow bell pepper
2 celery stalks
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 cup mayonnaise
3 whole chicken breasts (BOOBIES!)
2 cups chopped green grapes
1 Tablespoon of Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons tarragon
2 Tablespoons paprika
Fresh thyme, oregano, rosemary (optional)
Salt and peppa and a little garlic powder

1. Boil the chicken in a pot of salted water for about 12-15 minutes.
2. Chop all them delicious vegetables, herbs, and spices and put them in a big mixing bowl
3. Take the chicken out of the pot, let it cool, then tear with your fingers or a fork and put it in the big mixing bowl.
4. Mix in the mayo and mustard and stir it all up
5. Put it all on some toasted bread (maybe with a little sweet relish?) and a plate with some regular Lay’s potato chips
6. Try not to scream as you have a foodgasm

Friday Night Meyousic

More Food Thoughts

Just to clarify the last post, I don't see any coherent moral prohibition against eating humanely raised meat. I think that in the current state of our food system, the more vegetarians the better, because many Americans eat a ridiculous amount of inhumanely raised meat, and vegetarians help counteract that.

Neither does that mean that our meat consumption shouldn’t be reduced dramatically. Of course, I’m really only justifying my own consumption, but I don’t really feel bad about it.

My Omnivore's Dilemma

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a great book, but anyone reading this blog has probably known that for about a year now. I read about two thirds of it last summer, but then school started, and I never got to read the last 150 pages or so. But now I did, and they were really the best part of the book. The last third (or perhaps half) of the book covered Pollan’s trip to Polyface Farm in Virginia, where he encountered the most delicious sounding meat I’ve ever read about, and his "hunter-gatherer" meal.

Pollan’s thoughts on the ethics of eating animals in general are also described in detail in the last half, and they seem to somewhat parallel my own feelings on the subject, although he is certainly more eloquent. I have never really had a justification for why I eat meat, but it never seemed wrong to me. I think it’s maybe because my general philosophy on eating has become “eat the things that people have been eating for thousands of years”, and meat is firmly within that category. Pollan doesn’t necessarily advocate the eating of meat, but he does provide what seems like a coherent argument against a moral prohibition of the act.

One important argument that he makes against the “animal rightists” as he calls them addresses the equivalence that is drawn between animal and human life. I haven’t read Animal Liberation Peter Singer, and perhaps I should instead of accepting Pollan’s characterization of his position as purely “utilitarian”. However, according to Pollan, one argument advanced by a utilitarian position such as Singer’s is that we should grant the same rights to a chimp, a dog, or a pig as we would to humans because, in fact, many chimps are more intelligent and capable of emotion than either young or under-developed human beings. So Pollan poses the question of animal testing: If we must test a medical product on a mammal, should we do it to rats or retarded humans?

The answer is obvious, of course, but it does address what seems to be the logical extension of a utilitarian argument that envisions complete equivalence between species. Despite how awesome monkeys are and how bad I want one to be my friend, they are not humans no matter how closely we are related. We feel a certain connection to other humans that we do not naturally feel with other animals, and it's probably not a coincidence.

Pollan also addresses animal happiness, which in the case of domestic animals is probably best represented by a life on Polyface farm. Yes, they die in the end, but chickens don’t survive so well in the wild, either. So if we end consumption of the meat of domestic animals, that could very well lead to the extinction of one or more domestic animals...Is that a good thing? Pollan points out that these animals have evolved to become dependent on humans, and it was, at least until recently, a successful evolutionary adaptation.

Something that Pollan mentions, which I don’t think he needed to, is the “Vegetarian’s Dilemma”. He says that he feels like a burden on people when he goes to their house for dinner, and that vegetarianism makes life more complicated or more difficult or something, etc.

But…really? I don’t see this at all with my vegetarian friends. In fact, I enjoy accommodating them because it makes me cook new vegetarian things that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I don’t necessarily think anything is lost by not eating meat, as Pollan seems to imply, but I also don’t see any moral reason not to. But I think it's becoming more and more well known that Americans eat too much meat. And in the current state of our food system and environment, the more vegetarians the better. More restaurants offering more vegetarian options, more people eating vegetarian meals at home, and more people just being exposed to the reasons to not eat meat would be an improvement.

Anyway, read the book if you haven’t, or if you’re too lazy, go see the movie version. And ya know what’s good either vegetarian or omnivorous? BURRITOS.

Friday Night Meyousic

More Policing!

I remember in high school there was a rumor that someone had invented a roadside test for detecting marijuana in someone’s system. This caused alarm for many people who had enjoyed relative security in their stoned driving (as opposed to the more risky drunk driving).

However, the public is much more likely to support legalization if we find an effective method of testing drivers. Presumably the police would be much more supportive, also. So perhaps investing some of the money we spend shooting at smugglers on the border would be better spent finding an effective roadside test for the police to regulate stoned driving.

Some worry that legalization would lead to an industry that is dependent upon people using marijuana consistently and spending their money on it, much like tobacco or alcohol. But we regulate alcohol and tobacco marketing specifically for this reason, and I see no reason that the same can’t be done for marijuana. The “grow your own” policy of allowing growing, possession, and consumption but maintaining the illegality of selling marijuana maintains the black market for people who don’t have a garden to grow it in, and so we would just continue wasting our police and throwing people in jail for a drug that is relatively harmless.

More Taxes!

There really is no reason not to have a tax on plastic bags. Sales taxes are somewhat regressive, but that’s easily solved by handing out canvas bags to poor people. Maybe two canvas bags twice a year to anyone that gets food stamps? There’s fucking plastic bags all over every city and highway in the United States and it does not need to be that way. In my personal experience, it just doesn’t occur to most people that paper or plastic is unnecessary. Also, it's actually a lot easier to carry groceries in the stronger canvas bags.

The Irish taxed each bag at 15 cents and they were using 90% less bags in three months. Now that is some effective taxation, my friends. Seattle is considering doing this in November. I hope they pass it.

For British Eyes Only

Apparently the Obama people don’t want anyone to prove that we tortured people. Isn’t it a pretty well established fact to everyone that has been paying attention?

Truthfully, I don’t care all that much as long as don’t torture more people. I just wanted an excuse to post this video. See if you can spot the Guantanamo detainee:

American Wasteland

Courtesy of Southern California: