Best If Used By 12-25-1995
When you consider the dreadful truth about food poisoning, you would expect a government-mandate for labeling the stuff we eat. There isn’t one. The FDA does require that baby formula have a “Use by…” date, but once you’re off the bottle, you’re on your own. The lack of a legal requirement hasn’t kept food manufacturers […]
The Smell Test
If you’ve ever owned a pair of Adadas shoes or worn a Rollex watch, you probably grasp the appeal of fake stuff. The Chinese are well-known for their addiction to fake stuff, although no one is really sure why. It might be simple economics (fake stuff is cheaper), or it could be the lack of […]
Portrait of a Thumb Addict
Healthy people suck their thumbs. It’s a proven scientific fact. Thumb sucking benefits heart rhythm and breathing, while also regulating the muscles engaged in peristalsis of the digestive tract. Surprisingly, thumb suckers become emotionally independent at an earlier age. TS is definitely “nature” rather than “nurture”- many babies have been sucking for several months before […]
Buzz-Kill Tech
For those who are not up to speed on the latest jargon, here is a working definition of “buzz-kill.” The “buzz” – You meet an attractive woman in a bar. You buy her a beer. When you smile and clink bottles, they light up and begin flashing in synch to the music. She laughs in […]
Lip-Synching Cars
As a Prius owner for 7 years, I know this story well. In parking lots, pedestrians ignore me. They make absolutely no effort to move out of the way. When running on electric power, my car is nearly silent; so much so that there is a serious debate over whether or not Toyota should be […]
Air Travel a’ la Carte
Pilots frequently give some version of the same speech during a flight – “We realize that you have lots of choices for air travel, and we thank you for choosing us.” It should come as no surprise that there is a strong correlation between airline profitability and customer service ranking; people do pay […]
Rush to Judgment
Dr. Benjamin Rush was a highly respected physician and medical administrator in the early 1800’s. He was enormously influential, and widely known as a man who got things done. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and is one of the founders of American psychiatry. Dr. Rush did not […]
The Dangers of Profiling
I am a white male adult of average height and weight. I have no discernible accent. I am generally friendly, and I make eye contact when speaking with someone. Nonetheless, I am occasionally singled out by the TSA for some form of additional scrutiny before boarding a flight. I recently watched a younger male […]
Killer Technology
As a society, we appear to embrace the idea that death is inevitable, and that inflicting it on another is sometimes justified. War, abortion and capital punishment are three examples that come to mind. The latter two form a convenient litmus test for liberal vs. conservative labels. Liberals generally support abortion but oppose […]
Turd Burgers
Spoiler Alert! If you are eating while reading this, or getting ready for a meal, I suggest you come back another time. At the latest count, there were 6,998,608,412 people on the planet. The United Nations estimates that around 850 million of them will go hungry each day. This presents a serious challenge for both […]
