My latest food craze

Each summer I succumb to a food craze of some sort. Usually, I crave something pickled. I have no idea why. In past years I'd crave spicy tuna sandwiches with pickle slices across the top -- on burnt toast. Gotta be burnt. But I hardly ever eat animals anymore and anyway, now that the Gulf's ecology is so shady, it's probably not safe to eat.

This year I found myself craving Victoria Marinated Artichoke Hearts. I put them on all my nice, non-animal sandwiches and have been doing this for about a month now -- and it's not getting old. In fact, it's totally taken over my life. I cannot get enough of them.

And then just now -- like it was a miracle sent to me by god -- I stumbled upon the Victoria web page! And on that blessed page there is a product I must eat immediately: Victoria Marinated Artichoke Salad! I gotta have it! Fair warning: if you're between me and a jar of this at the supermarket, get out of my way.

I'm addicted, what can I say? Do you experience voracious, seasonal food crazes? And if so, what do you crave?

As the 9/11 iconography turns

This is how legends are created by our intrepid, independent press:

NEW YORK (AP) — Cardinal Edward Egan was eating breakfast when then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani called to say there was a tragedy and the churchman was needed. A police car would soon be outside the chancery to take the leader of New York's Roman Catholics downtown.

Egan didn't know exactly what had happened in lower Manhattan that morning as he and his priest-secretary hurtled through the city . . . He would spend the next several days anointing the dead, distributing rosaries to workers as they searched, yada yada yada. 

That's just what you need to do in a crisis: call some twit priest who's on a first-name basis with sky fairies so he can mutter incantations and give bits of plastic away. I'm sure that helped a ton. And many thanks to the inestimable Rudy Giuliani for calling this jerk instead of someone who could, you know, do something. The reporter's reverent tone makes me ill. "There was a tragedy and the churchman was needed." Indeed. I hope the church paid the writer well for this slavering bit of iconography.

Two sci-links

I was intrigued by these stories today. No time to post about them so I'll just share the links:

Flame retardants linked to lower birth-weight babies
and
Parents' stress leaves lasting marks on children's genes

Both stories are scary.

PS: The Apple Store in Danbury was affected by a flood from Hurricane Irene so they're only starting to work on my computer today. Better late than never, I guess.

Dolphin language looks like human language

There's an article at (where else?) physorg today about dolphin intelligence and language. (It's also about alien communication but I'll leave that aside for now.) Although we don't understand the language used by dolphins, it seems to follow the same basic patterns of human speech. Here's an excerpt in case you don't want to read the whole article.

Think of all the different sounds human beings make as they speak to each other, the different letters and pronunciations. Some, such as the letters ‘e’ and ‘t’ or words such as ‘and’ or ‘the’ will occur far more frequently than ‘q’ or ‘z’ or longer words such as ‘astrobiology’. Plot these on a graph, in order of the most frequently occurring letters or sounds, and the points form a slope with a –1 gradient. A toddler learning to speak will have a steeper slope – as they experiment with words they use fewer sounds but say them more often. At the most extreme a baby’s babble is completely random, and so any slope will be nearly level with all sounds occurring fairly evenly. It doesn’t matter which human language is put through the information theory test – be it English, Russian, Arabic or Mandarin – the same result follows.

What is remarkable is that putting dolphin whistles through the information theory blender renders exactly the same result: a –1 slope, with a steeper slope for younger dolphins still being taught how to communicate by their mothers, and a horizontal slope for baby dolphins babbling. This tells us that dolphins have structure to how they communicate.

We're not set apart from the other animals. The differences between us and them are a matter of degree. This story lifted my spirits. There's still so damn much we don't know about ourselves, our planet and the relationships among all of Earth's residents. And yet we feel free to kill any creature and pollute the planet at will, as if we and we alone lived here. We are an infant race, just beginning to understand the complexities of the world around us, and yet our M.O. is so arrogant. This makes no sense. We're babies.

The rest of the article is fun, especially the part about looking for alien intelligence out there. G'wan, go read it. Here's the link one more time.

Interesting op-ed on inaccurate quotes

Brian Morton wrote a short, interesting article for the New York Times today. I don't usually read op-eds by people I don't know but I dove into this one because I hated the title:

"Falser Words Were Never Spoken"

That was the best he could come up with? Falser? This is an example of a sentence that should not have seen the light of publication. Editors should have rewritten it instantly to avoid use of the almost illiterate, though strictly allowable, word "falser". It's just not good usage, kids. "Is Christianity falser than other religions?" See how silly that sounds? (Though the sentiment is in the right place.)

Anyway, much to my surprise the article is interesting. And from my days of working at a newspaper I know headlines are usually written, or rewritten, by the copy edit desk. So I don't blame Morton for the sad headline, especially after he turned out such a good article. Give it a shot and see what you think.

But kids, promise me you won't use "falser" at home. Okay?

I'm losing it

Life without my fabulous iMac computer is awful. I'm making believe it's okay but I can't hang on much longer. (I know, I know: it's not like losing your house in a hurricane or flood. But still.)

I mean, it's nice that I have a replacement that allows me to check the internet and compose a post or two but I don't even have my passwords or favorite links or email addresses. And as you know, those are the things that make the man. So what's a guy to do?!

I planned to write this week so I could feel productive even without my computer. I have two short stories that are demanding that I write them: "The Learning Graveyard" and "Eve in the Quantum Garden of Eden". They want to be written; they really do. But my notes for these stories are on the computer that's in in the shop. And I can't work on any of my books because they're on that computer too, along with my writing software.

Life without writing is a waste of time. I can't believe I used to live like this. Thank dog I saw the light and started writing stories.

UPDATE: I wrote the above post last night. But then this morning I woke up and wrote half of "Eve in the Quantum Garden of Eden". It's funny and very enjoyable to write. Oh, and a second update: there was a flood at the Danbury Fair Mall where my computer is being fixed! I'm afraid to call and ask them how things are. At least I've got that computer backed up. In a worst-case scenario I'll just get a new computer and load all my old info onto it. And hey, I'm writing!

Harry's cute but what's with the military schtick?

Okay, sometimes I think "Prince" Harry is cute(ish). Men don't really get cute until their mid-40s, but for a young feller he's not so awful. The nicest thing about him is that there are tons of photos of him with his pants falling off. (Example here.) One always approves of such behavior in moderately attractive men. But what is this military thing all about? To me, he seems to adore it in a fan-boy sort of way -- can't get enough of his military adventures, our Harry. (Their Harry?)

There's a story out today about him doing even more army stuff:

EL CENTRO, Calif. (AP) — Prince Harry — a British Army captain — will train at two U.S. military bases in California and Arizona as part of an Apache attack helicopter course conducted by his country's Defense Ministry. 

What's with this guy? I'll bet he has sex with his uniform (partly) on (and partly falling off). Seriously, I think the guy's got issues. He loves war (and soldiers; just saying). The lad loves his mates and says so quite often -- can't bear to be parted from them. Perhaps he played with soldiers too often when he was little. You'd think Diana would have put the kibosh on that, but there you go. He makes no sense to me at all, but he is cute(ish).