Starry Wisdom

On Wednesday (May 27, 2009) I was lucky enough to be able to see a preview performance of the film Food, Inc. at the Metreon. It was actually a Yelp event, probably the best one I’ve been to. In addition to a preview of the movie, the filmmaker Robert Kenner, and Michael Pollan (well known for his food journalism as of late) were on hand for a Q and A after the screening.

Since I’ve been interested in the topic of this film for a long time (at least a decade if not more), and have read several major books on the subject (Pollan’s, as well as another contributor to the film, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation), and I just saw Pollan speak at at a Long Now seminar just a few weeks prior, I didn’t really learn anything new during the movie. However, it was interesting to see things I already knew reinforced by the motion picture medium. The movie is a wonderful survey of the issues related to food health and safety that are in large part a product of the colossal agribusiness system in the United States. There are many origins for the problems we have now, including the “Farm Bill”, particularly how it evolved over the last few decades of the twentieth century; the “fast food” lifestyle of the population of the United States; and, most disturbingly, the vast curtain that’s been drawn across the populations eye’s by agribusiness and their friends in the government.

Time is ripe for change in many areas, and we shouldn’t overlook our ‘food’ policy. There is a draft food safety bill currently in congress which addresses many issues of food safety that are cause for concern, but it is far from perfect. Of particular concern to me is that it seems to favor big business by the yearly fee structure, as well as the traceability requirements (particularly the interoperability clause in the bill. Now, paper or an excel spreadsheet should be interoperable, but…). $1000 a year per facility is nothing for big business, but for a small operation it’s a lot of money. True, there is an exemption for farms that sell directly to consumers and restaurants, but there are plenty of small producers who would be adversely affected. I don’t have the full picture of the economics, and I know that funding any changes is important, but this method is particularly regressive. Some sort of sliding scale based on revenue would be a better idea (or perhaps a corporate tax increase? there’s always hoping). There is also a call out to put in a requirement for facilities to self-test for pathogens and report positive results, which seems like a good idea, but not a panacea.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know exactly what this bill should do or how it should be changed to be most effective and fair. I did read this interesting blog post that argues that smaller is better, and in a lot of ways that makes sense at many levels (except the top, but frankly, feck them). Now, a small food producer is not necessarily safer than a large food producer, BUT any negative outcome of their production would be contained. And smaller generally means more local, which means savings in carbon output (but, well, this is a complex issue since the majority of carbon used in farming is in the growing of the crops, not in the transportation – and anyway, exploiting the various seasons across the country makes sense. Just because I live in CA and can get fresh produce year round from local farms doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t export our food to the rest of the country).

We’re used to some things in this country. Super cheap junk food, cheap meat, and expensive vegetables. This leads to a particularly awful, unhealthy, and ecologically unsound diet. A little bit of change in the way americans eat (and the way our food is provided), could have vast implications in our health, and environment. It’s a very tangled web, and I could probably talk or write about this for hours and still be making almost no sense to anyone who is new to the issues. But the important thing I want to do is get people thinking, because thinking about these issues brings up some inconvenient truths. And I can’t see a better way to get this into the mainstream than Kenner’s movie. I urge everyone to see it, and to suggest it to everyone they know. I also urge you to contact your congresspeople and urge them to give us a useful and sane food safety bill – something that’s been needed for a long time.

Note – videos linked may not be 100% SFW.

The Mighty Boosh is a UK comedy duo composed of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. They’ve had three tv series (seasons) of the most surreal, crazy, and amusing show. In the latest season, which they are showing on Adult Swim, they have a few very catchy songs. In particular, the main song from the first episode, “Eels Up Inside Ya” has been in my head all day. Unfortunately embedding is disabled on the version from the show, but here is a live version. Please enjoy:

Also, as bonus, an interview with them on Jonathan Ross a few years ago. This is made more amusing by the fact that John Barrowman is seen on the couch with their backup Shaman and Gorilla about 7:30 into the video:

Ok, I promised to write more about this, so I will. The reason why we have to have this special election rather disgusts me. Basically, it is a kowtow to the minority Republicans in the state legislature, who really only have one goal – to lower taxes for corporations. This is clear because the budget that was provisionally passed (more on this in a bit) includes lots of cuts in services, while at the same time lowering corporate taxes permanently, but allowing for personal income tax to increase. This is simply amazing. And the reason why they were able to this is that the budget requires a two-thirds vote to pass, thanks to Prop 13, and of course the state needs a balanced budget because unlike the US government California cannot print money.

So the state needed to pass a budget because otherwise no one would get paid (including people getting tax refunds) and to pass a budget, the Governor and majority had to deal with the minority. And the way the deal worked out was “we will pass this budget, but we need a special election with the following constitutional amendments on it, and if they don’t pass, the budget is toast come February.” And what do they all contain? More constraints on how money is spent, and backdoors for lowering taxes when times are good (we’ll talk about this when I discuss 1A).

There is a second demon from Prop 13 that has lead to this path, of course. The property tax limitations limits income when times are rough – the state’s main and pretty much only way to generate revenue is via personal income tax, because corporate income tax gets axed by the Republican minority, and because corporate property is taxed at its value in the 1970s.

What to do? Start over. Raise the constitution and reconvene to make it new. Not going to happen, but I think that’s the only solution. Note this is basically a rant, and not really meant as anything else. Useful information in this series will begin in my next post on the subject, to discuss Prop 1A.

I watched the latest James Bond movie, A Quantum of Solace this weekend. The movie was as bizarre as it’s title. pretty much. The plot featured a bad guy who was definitely not good, but not a giant mastermind – but of course I think this is an introduction to the modern SPECTRE, Quantum. Or maybe not. There was not super cool tech in this movie, not even an in car-defibrillator, but I guess the super cellphone and the special computer desk were considered gadgety enough.

I decided that I like Daniel Craig a lot, while at the same time not being a huge fan of his Bond character interpretation. Of course it might not be his fault, but that of the writer and director, but Mr. X from L4yer Cake is more suave than his Bond version could ever hope to be. Still, he’s better than Timothy Dalton, for sure.

As far as a rating, it’s about 3.25 out of 5.4 rabbit turds, on a rabbit turd scale. – pretty low for Bond!

On a lighter note, I will leave you with this, the theme song as if David Bowie had sung it:

I, like many guys around my age, spent countless hours as a youth in front of the Nintendo Entertainment System(NES). On the NES there are three games that strike me as iconic:

1. Super Mario Bros
2. The Legend of Zelda
3. Castlevania

I owned all three of these, and of them, I finished the first multiple times (but I admit I was more amused by the turtle trick than actually finishing the game)

Zelda was a fairly easy game to finish, in that you had save games, and infinite continues to accomplish it. I will admit the first play through probably took me a couple of weeks, but mostly because of time spent trying to figure out puzzles, not dying randomly.

The final of the three, Castlevania, that was the tricky one. I never personally finished the game, and it was a good game where I made it to the penultimate boss, the Grim Reaper. I don’t think I ever made it past him, or if I did it was only a single time. I saw a friend of mine cower before and die to the mighty Count Dracula on a single occasion, but that was it as far as the end of the game goes.

Now, imagine my surprise when I find this pair of videos this morning:

Not only is the game finishable within 15 minutes, but the damn Grim Reaper is as easy as any of the rest of the bosses, thanks to the mighty holy water secondary weapon. If only i had known this then…

The past week has proved to me without a doubt the old saying “time is an illusion.” With the jet lag coming back from Italy (which pretty much took me a literal week to get over) and the return to daylight savings time this weekend, I have come to realize that we really should abandon walltime, and just proceed on our lives as the sun tells us to.

I wanted to go out and get coffee today, but I also realized it was a nice day to take a bit of a Walk. I also wanted to take a couple of pictures for my friends photo website, 52Clix, so I brought my camera with me. I was delighted to find some neat things within just a couple of blocks of home!

First of all, here is a typical view (well, it’s often a bit foggier, but Potrero Hill is remarkably clear so this view isn’t completely atypical) down Kansas street from 20th:

I walked down 20th to the park at the end of the street (Well, where it ends on Potrero Hill – 20th Street keeps going on the other side of Potrero Ave, but we’ll get to that soon). I walked around the clearing a bit, and found this nicely framed view of the Mission:

I walked down to the path that is a bit down the hill from the clearing, mostly to take a rather pedestrian photo of Sutro Tower, the big TV antenna that looms upon San Francisco like the Eye of Sauron. I rather like the way this one turned out, though. The street that goes out to the hill in the distances is the other section of 20th Street, which starts up again on the other side of Potrero Ave.

Now, when I was walking down there I noticed a garden area which was connected to the park. I walked to it and it was a community garden – The Potrero Hill Garden, and it is open to the public for viewing and appreciation. There wasn’t all too much growing of interest, but I found a cute statue with sunglasses:

And also, the bees!

And for a bit more context, here is a view looking up (East) from the back of the garden, towards the inhabited part of the hill:

After I was done in the garden, I thought I would walk down San Bruno, I knew had to end by Mariposa, but I figured I would just see what was there going down the street. I was pretty surprised to find a pedestrian overpass, crossing 101, at 18th street – even though I’d driven under it probably hundreds of times, and never thought to look for it. It’s actually a pretty neat bridge:

It’s also a shortcut towards my eventual destination, Coffee Bar. Instead of having to go all the way down to 17th street, and cut back to Mariposa, I can cross the expressway at 18th and not have to double back at all.

I’d never really walked down Potrero Ave before, so I thought I would walk back up to 20th street to see what the view up looked like. It’s actually pretty neat to look back up that way. In the photo below, the structure at the top is the shed at the back of the community garden:

After that, I meanderd over to Coffee Bar, to get my planned coffee and do some reading. I ended up getting some food and a beer after I finished the coffee – having such a choice of beverages handy is quite nice.

After a couple of hours, I headed back, cutting back up the overpass. I decided to walk down 18th Street to Kansas, and just cut up there. I happened to come across an open house at 18th and Rhode Island. I took a picture to remind me to look it up to see how much it was going for. Here is the house, which is pretty cute:

And next, the MLS listing for it. Yes, the house is listed at $725,000! I plan, just for my own amusement, to follow this house and see when it sells, and try to see how much it goes for.

The complete set of photos from my walk can be found here.

Also, when I got home, and looked up community gardens in San Francisco. It turns out there is one not too far from my place that might have open plots. I wonder if I should look in to that – it might be fun! Anyone have any opinions on that?

So, I cannot claim that things are settled yet, but yesterday night I powered through unpacking the kitchen so I can cook again. So I have cooked the past two nights – more info on this will follow later in this post. But first, I must discuss my new favorite thing – using the xbox 360 to view downloaded vidoes over the network. Quite simply it is able to access video files stored on a windows PC (or another computer that runs the windows media player sharing protocol) and then show them on your TV. This is cool because I have a lot of British TV shows in .avi format. Historically I watched these mostly on my macbook pro, usually lying on my bed. Occasionally I would hook the laptop up to the TV via HDMI and watch specific things, like Doctor Who episodes, like that – but it’s sort of a pain. This is quite seamless, and simple, and great. The 360 is the best console I’ve ever owned.

Ok, on to food. Last night I made carnival squash with chili-maple oil:

1 small squash (acorn, carnival, small butternut)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 small dried chili

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2) Cut the squash in half (crosswise for roundish squash, lengthwise for butternut). Scoop out the seeds. Spray the cut side with cooking spray. Bake face down on baking sheet for 45 minutes, or until flesh is soft when poked with skewer
3) While the squash is baking, seed the chili and cut in to thin strips. Melt the butter and mix with the syrup and chili strips.
4) When the squash is done, allow to cool slightly, then either brush the halves with the butter and serve whole, or scoop out the flesh and mix with the butter.

Tonight I made some garlic cooked shrimp with “BBrazilian style” collard greens. The shrimp were just cooked in olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and a little bit of wine until done – simple. The recipe for the greens, which I got from wohali (I halved it):

1 1/4 pound collard greens, stems and center ribs discarded and
leaves halved lengthwise
3 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon olive oil

1) Stack half of collard leaves and roll into a cigar shape. Cut crosswise into very thin strips (1/16 inch wide). Repeat with remainder.
2) Mince and mash garlic to a paste with 3/4 teaspoon salt. Heat oil in a
12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat until it shimmers, then cook garlic, stir
ring, 30 seconds. Add collards with 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook, tossing, until
just tender and bright green, 3 to 4 minutes.

I am sitting here at my “bestie” Erin’s place watching her fold laundry. She says she has the cutest underwear. Anyway, I came over to her place to store some things in her garage.

The apartment is very far from being set up, but some important things have been accomplished today. I bought some curtains from Bed Bath and Beyond (hurray for 20% off coupons) to try to make my bedroom darker. They claim to block 99.8% of light, but the seem to let a bit more light than that through. Still it’s much darker than before, and maybe I’ll be able to sleep past 7AM tomorrow! I hung them using an abandoned rod on a living room window. I also ran cat 5 through a wall to the little office room, so that the router can be by the computers that need to be plugged in directly. I made a few too many holes in one wall, and I’ll need to paint it. It’s OK, because the color of that wall isn’t ideal anyway. I bought spackle and paint and etc so I can do that tomorrow. I guess in some ways doing this stuff was procrastinating the unpacking and organizing, but these improvements will make the place more livable.

Tomorrow morning we have a walk through at the old place with the landlord’s mom. And then that will be about that, I guess. I hope to be done unpacking by the end of 2008, so that I can buy the couple of pieces of furniture I’ll probably need early in 2009 and finish organizing. I guess I should work on unpacking the kitchen stuff asap so I can start cooking again.

Moving day is Monday, so my primary activity this weekend is packing. I feel like it is going at a reasonable rate, but it is super tiring. Also it’s all dusty up behind desks and what not – and my skin is all itchy, and I have either a bug bite, or a particularly bad reaction to dust or some other substance I’ve come in to contact with on my left forearm. Seeing as the skin there is sensitive (just below the elbow on the inside) it’s probably a reaction, and I am glad I have some prescription caliber topical steroids around…

Time for a short break playing Fallout 3.