This hat does everything -- badly

I'm not usually one for hat commentaries -- most hats look awful on me, and you know what they say about people in glass houses -- but I saw a hat this weekend that's worthy of note (a near-replica of which appears here), as it manages to inexplicably combine two contradictory hunting-hat ambitions:

1) Camoflage, the holy grail of hunting garb, a pattern that allows the wearer to stealthily disappear into the bush and brush and wait for prey. The goal of camo? To avoid being seen.

2) Safety Orange, the day-glo eyesore that announces to fellow hunters, "I am not prey, as is made obvious by my rarely-seen-in-nature-color outwear." The goal of safety orange? To ensure that you are seen.

Therein lies my confusion with this self-contradictory chapeau: orange camo? This is failed functionality at its best---in fact, I can't even think of an apt analogy: A sign that says "stay back" in a font so small you have to get close to read it? A restraining order written with invisible ink? Perhaps there is a legitimate reason, but it seems to me that it's simply a gratuitous use of hunting cliches. Camo says, "hunting enthusiast"; orange says "hunting safety"---so what does orange camo say? "Hunting accident."

Alien water logic

NASA launched The Kepler this week, a space probe designed to look for planets that may share earth’s atmospheric characteristics, and thus the capability of sustaining life. According to a news story on FoxBusiness, "Kepler is designed to find the first Earth-size planets orbiting stars at distances where water could pool on the planet's surface. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life.

Anyone who pays attention to NASA's efforts knows that water is the holy grail for NASA scientists. That’s what we were looking for on Mars, among other things – such as Martians. That's what we're looking for everywhere, with only the thinnest veil hiding the fact that we are actually looking for new places to call home. (Wise planning considering we're unlikely to get our security deposit back on this planet.) Check any NASA staffers Christmas wish list and "water" will be near the top.

I am no scientist, but I am amazed that we are able to think so far outside the box as to create a solar-powered space probe designed to observe the orbital patterns of satellites around 100,000 different stars, yet our imagination is unable to comprehend that “life” on other planets, in other galaxies, may not look like what “life” looks like on earth?

Experts explain that certain planets cannot support life because they are too cold. But that means too cold for the type of life we associate with earth. This seems like a serious limitation on our thinking---that the rules as we know them here apply everywhere, to everything. It's like spending the money to fly across the Atlantic, training across Europe to get to Italy, then looking for an Olive Garden because, well, isn’t that what Italian food looks like?

I am assuming there is some logical reason for this thinking---the immutable laws of science neither bend nor break in environments with different gravitational and climatic atmospheres. But there is so much in our existing world that gives cause for questioning those laws, or at least our ability to comprehend those laws: We have no explanation for psychic visions, for reported ghost sightings, for the emotional complexity of falling in love, or the certainty we feel about the existence (or lack thereof) of god. And it's not just the metaphysical world: We are regularly discovering new species of life in remote rain forests, a prehistoric shark found swimming alive, organisms living in the direct path of 572 degree thermal vents in the 36,000 feet deep Mariana Trench who "show an incredible resistance to temperature extremes by having different proteins which are adapted for life under these conditions."

I'm not saying we shouldn't be looking for water elsewhere in the universe, I'm just concerned that our obsessive focus on this single commodity might impede our ability to recognize elements that do not fit our preconceptions. It's like looking for mayonnaise in the refrigerator: We've used the same brand of mayo for years, so I know the label completely; if we buy a different brand, the jar still looks very much like mayonnaise, but it takes me forever to find it in the fridge because it doesn't look like the thing I'm expecting to find. I can look right at the jar and not recognize it because it doesn't look like the narrowly-defined item I am hoping to find. I hope NASA isn't making that same mistake.

Photo credit

Turn that frown upside down

Too much bad news. That’s what callers to a radio show were saying this morning, that the media’s constant reinforcement of bad news makes the struggling economy a self-fulfilling prophecy. But with the daily news of mass layoffs, business failures and escalating unemployment, how do we put a positive spin on the news?

Quite simply---invert the numbers:

Oregon unemployment has risen to 9%? Then let the headline be:

Oregon employment continues to hover at 91%

A major manufacturer lays off 5% of their workforce?

Major manufacturer continues to employee 95% of staff

Down Jones drops 2%?

Dow Jones industrial average retains 98% of value

See? The “facts” are the same, but a steady flurry of numbers above the 90th percentile offers a more reassuring backdrop to our economic concerns. In fact, it doesn’t have to stop with economic news:

Mayor Adams lies about relationship with 18 year old man?

Sam Adams tells truth about more than 99% of his relationships.

Well, okay, that sounds weird. Maybe it should stop with economic news.

A cheat sheet for the bible?

Regular readers know that I am enamored of simplified study guides. Whether long form Idiot's Guide books, or short form laminated placemats, I enjoy the oversimplification of massive ideas into small, digestible bytes. (Sorry, pun unintentional.) As I scoured Amazon recently for something completely unrelated, I chanced upon "Faith Charts", a product that summarizes concepts of Catholicism into convenient six-page documents. The first that I encountered was The Bible at a Glance.

I grew up Roman Catholic, and got the impression from my priests and catechism teachers that I should read the bible, not study a Cliff Notes version that offers a chapter-by-chapter synopsis along with quick bios of central characters and roots of the the major dramatic conflicts. The Bible at a Glance seems to cater to the laziest common denominator of the 21st century human by offering a shortcut to reading history's ultimate best-seller. As I recall, the Bible is often referred to as "The Word of God"---frankly, it's a bold act for the publishers of this piece to assume the task of editing God's word to a size smaller than many direct-mail brochures.

This Faith Chart begins, "What is the Bible?" Frankly, that's a rudimentary start, akin to a pamphlet on brain surgery starting with, "What is the brain?" I can't find a good image of the other contents, but according to Amazon, The Bible at a Glance covers "what it is, who wrote it, how to read it, the books of the Bible, where to find..., and more!" My favorite part (seriously) is that the illustrations throughout are all stained glass images, providing both vivid color, stylized images to support the text (so Joseph and Mary don't accidentally look like stars of a new Fox drama), and the familiar of the churches of my youth.

This summary strikes me as a strange concession to modern appetites. I understand we're all strapped for time, but commitment to a religion isn't like committing yourself to the TV show Lost: For that, a little org chart to understand Ben's relationship with Daniel Farraday's mother is a beneficial tool. The Bible is the word of God---considering that the reward is eternal life, perhaps the long version is worth the time it takes to read it?

Peculiarly, I could find only three titles in the Faith Charts line: The Bible at a glance, Catholicism at a glance, and St. Paul at a glance. Frankly, I immediately thought of the bumper sticker, "Jesus is Coming..and boy, is he pissed." Taking a backseat to St. Paul in the Faith Charts publishing chronology probably isn't going to help with that problem.

Identity crisis

I attended a party on Saturday where a woman informed me that I looked strikingly similar to Eddie Izzard. My first thought was, "Heck, I'll take that."

My enthusiasm for being compared to a man who once spent much of his public life in drag (and maybe still does) comes from the fact that I like Eddie Izzard. His stand-up is fantastic, he's the best thing about Ocean's 12, and I don't care that the stranger at the party was comparing our fleshy faces rather than our comedic skills. I'll take Eddie, because the last time someone said I looked like a celebrity, it was Chris O'Donnell.

With half-hearted apologies to Batman's Robin, I don't want my name and Chris O'Donnell’s to appear in the same sentence. The man is the acting equivalent of a one-hit wonder, and it's the kind of hit that makes people say, "Hmmm, can you hum it again? It's not ringing any bells." Sure, stalk him on IMDB and it looks like he's been "working", but if anyone knows him (and by anyone, I mean me), it's from those dreadful Batman movies of the 1990s. He's an example of Hollywood's genetic recycling process, where a man with enough acting talent to pass high school drama and with eyes as blue as Newman's can be heralded as the next Paul Newman, at least until he stinks up the screen so much that everyone decides that Leo Dicaprio or Emile Hirsch is a better next Paul Newman. (Wait, or is Emile Hirsch the next Leo Dicaprio?)

I once met an older woman who looked stunningly similar to Lauren Bacall, and I said so, and she smiled back, "Lauren Bacall is much older than me." I immediately scrambled to explain that she didn't look like Lauren Bacall today, she looked like the iconic Lauren Bacall---the essence, not the particulars. I'm sure she got that a lot, but I wonder if she felt about Lauren Bacall the way I do about Chris O'Donnell, and had to go through her life wincing as strangers made a pointless comparison to a movie star. (She really DID look like Lauren Bacall, much more than I look like Chris O'Donnell.)

Personally, I don't think I look like either of these guys, but at least with Eddie, I can see the eyebrows are similar and his face could use a diet, so there's that, though it's hardly enough to warrant a call-out. (He actually looks more like my brother Tim.) But if I have to be compared to a celebrity, I'm happy to have it be a foul-mouthed drag queen. To paraphrase Little Nicky, I'm no George Clooney, but I’ll take Eddie Izzard over Clint Howard any day.

Fancy that

If I'm to believe the packaging, McDonald's serves "fancy ketchup".



My first suspicion that the ketchup wasn't actually fancy was the decision to package it in a flimsy plastic pouch, like the marketing department insisting that "fine" should be added to the text of the label on a box of wine. "Fancy ketchup" should arrive in something special, like a specially designed match box so that the push-through drawer reveals your ketchup in a ready-to-enjoy format. With the deflated-ketchup-balloon system, every time you open a packet you accept the possibility that you will be decorating yourself with drops of tomato sauce. Maybe your hand, maybe your sleeve, maybe the appearance of a mob assassination on your lapels. They are far too volatile for anything more than "plain ketchup".

What's supposedly fancy about it, anyway? Squeezed out, it doesn't sparkle. (Sparkle is a sure-fire path to fancy---my daughters fancy princess fairy army will support me on that.) The texture is ordinary. (I expected fancy ketchup to have the consistency of warm brie cheese; this was the texture of cold tomato soup.) There are no herbs. (I'll share a secret: there's a million to be made on herbed ketchups. Basil ketchup would make a burger sing, sage ketchup for meatloaf. No longer will customers have just one ketchup bottle in their fridge---they'll have the ketchup section in the door, right next to bloated salad dressing section. Ahh, the joys of profit via manipulation of consumer appetites.)

Frankly, I can find nothing fancy about it. I think it ought to be relabeled. I'd suggest "just ketchup" but that has a quasi-green vibe, like we took out all the bad stuff, which in ketchup's case would be the ketchup. "Ketchup" wouldn't work because the consumer would wonder, "Is this ketchup fancy ketchup?" confused that the omission might have been a design decision rather than a removal of the fanciness. No, the answer is culinary accuracy: "mere ketchup"

"That burger smells good---what've you got on it?"
"Mere ketchup."
"Dude, you're still using mere ketchup? You need to get hip to Bill Reagan's Gourmet Ketchups. This burger would pop with some of his thyme ketchup."

Gluttony is a dubious virtue

One of the food-bearing watering holes in my neighborhood has opted to use their plastic-slotted-letter sidewalk sign to advertise one of their new food specials:
"One-pound Monster cheeseburger with fries $8.95."

One-pound burger. One pound of ground beef is what we order at the supermarket to make burgers for our whole family---me, my wife, my daughter, and a mini-burger for the dog---and even between that gang, the dog winds up with more than just her mini-burger. One pound of ground beef is what you’d get if you ordered a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder and told the cashier, "And add three more patty slabs."

My question is simple: Why? One pound of ground beef on a bun is literally larger than your stomach. Our hunger responds 15 minutes later than our appetite, and since it likely takes longer than 15 minutes to eat a one-pound burger with fries (it would take me the better part of an afternoon) the last bites of that burger strike me as more the completion of a dare than the final satisfaction of a growling belly. My friend Steven was extolling the virtues of one of Portland’s favored chicken-fried steak purveyors, and his description of his favorite included its reasonable size; when talk turned to other restaurants who serve oversize portions of the same item, he said, "I don’t want my meal to be a challenge." In such a challenge, reaching the finish line is hardly a victory.

I suspect this is meant as an enticement in a down economy, a huge meal at a somewhat affordable price, but it’s also the residue of the old "more is better" mindset, the misunderstanding that if plenty is satisfying, more than plenty must be more satisfying. It’s the mentality of the 64 ounce Big Gulp and all-you-can-eat pasta joints ---these things create the illusion that we need to consume as much as possible in order to maximize the "value" of the investment. But it seems to me that the best way to get value is to start by making better investments.