Where am I eating?

Last night while driving home, I passed a young boy selling tomatoes along the side of a back-country road. Having been raised on a back-country road myself and having had a lemonade stand and having had slung tomatoes at passing cars, the site struck several cords of nostalgia with me.

I pulled in a lane just past him to turn around and buy him out of his stock, but alas, I only had $2. Damn my credit card reliance!

I’m sure the tomatoes would have been tasty and, if asked where they came from, he probably would have turned around and pointed to a nearby field or garden. It’s nice to know where your food comes from. The thing is that we don’t have a clue where most of our food comes from.

Food doesn’t come stamped with a “Made in” label. I never knew how scary all of this was until I listened to this story on NPR’s Here and Now. Countries exporting food to the USA don’t have to meet any certain standards. It is the responsibility of the USDA’s 450 (that’s right only 450) inspectors to make sure the food we’re getting isn’t laced with rat poison, or feces, or the feces of poisoned rats. In total, they inspect a fraction of one-percent of all foods imported into the USA.

The scariest part of the Here & Now interview is the discussion about China. China was shipping us something, and that something had too-high levels of something not good for us. The USDA informed the Chinese company. What did they do? Instead of taking out the something that’s not good for us, they added another chemical that would fool the USDA’s test.

As for the Chinese killer dog food – the Chinese company was trying to cut a corner by including less protein (apparently protein is expensive) in the dog food, but more of a chemical that would fool tests into thinking that there was a sufficient amount of protein in the food. This chemical just happened to be lethal to Fido.

If food came with “Made in” labels, I would be looking at them and thinking twice before I bought something “Made in China.”

For more on where our processed food comes from, you should check out “Twinkie Deconstructed” by Steve Ettlinger. Steve traces all of those multi-syllabic ingredients on a Twinkie wrapper to the places of their origin, a sort of “Where am I eating?” quest. I just started the book and, for me, it’s a bit too technical for my enjoyment, but it is pretty cool to learn that Twinkies and bombs have more in common than that they will kill you. They share ingredients!

And if you are looking for more Ohio produce Nostalgia take a peek beyond the cut.

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Transformers, Made in China

Would you pay $4,250 for Jetfire or Optimus Prime?

That’s how much they are going for on ebay. This makes me happy because I own both action figures. Sure, they aren’t in the box and have each have swapped some paint with the Deceptagons. But still, it’s about time the world realized the value of Transformers. Although, I think we’ve over-valued them a bit.

Even if my figures were in mint condition, I would not sell them. Not because I have some sentimental attachment to them (I do), but because I wouldn’t want to take advantage of some schmuck who would pay any amount of money to get his hands on an original Optimus Prime (OP, I’m down with it!).

Transformers only aired for two years in the early 80’s. Their resurgence in popularity reflects my generations newfound buying power. 10 years ago OP probably went for a few hundred on ebay, but now you could go to the car dealer and buy a real car for what he costs.

What torks me off is that some dork actually bought some of the original Transformer toys and didn’t play with them:

“Wanna come to my house? I got Optimus Prime for my birthday.” And once at the house, “No…No, don’t touch him. He’ll be worth a lot of money in 25 years.”

That’s the kind of kid that needs the crap kicked out of him.

Wired magazine has a pretty neat write-up on the cartoon and the toys. Apparently, the toys came first and the cartoon was a marketing idea. I don’t care. I still love OP and his loyal band of Autobots. Originally, they were made in Japan, but now, of course, like shoes, they are made in China.

Fiction vs. Non-fiction

It might set you free. Mark Twain said when in doubt you should tell it. And sometimes it just plain hurts.

But above all, the TRUTH is expensive.

Two weeks ago Annie and I drove to Kokomo to meet Science-Fiction author John Scalzi. Actually, I bribed Annie to come along with the promise of lunch, and afterwards, while I was in the book store chatting with John, Annie slept in the truck.

Meeting John and seeing his pile of books waiting to be signed and sold got me thinking. A large number of John’s books take place in his head. He doesn’t have to buy plane tickets and spend 3-months living in hotels and eating out. He doesn’t have to pay translators. He doesn’t have to get vaccines or buy malaria medication. He doesn’t have to be griped at by ill-tempered corporate Vice Presidents.

In one of my favorite Scalzi books, the Android’s Dream, he spends the first 4 to 5 pages on an international incident involving a farting device.

I like getting out to places meeting people and getting my hands dirty, but how nice would it be to fabricate entire worlds and their farting devices while sitting in my PJ’s in my office?

One of these days I’m going to have to jump genres to fiction. But first, I probably should write a non-fiction book, seeing how I’m pretty much genre-less at the moment.

That reminds me…I’ve got a book proposal to write. My sample chapter will be on Bangladesh. I’ll chime in with highlights as I go.

Happy 4th of July all you Ugly Americans

Today, we celebrate all things American. Namely, the cheeseburger! I’ll be eating me a few. (Actually, I’ll probably only eat one. I still have my travel appetite, which is that of an 85 year-old-grandma. That’s what rice for every meal does to me.)

In honor of American cheeseburger eaters across the nation, with their ketchup coated chins, an essay against the term “Ugly American:”

The Search for Ugly America

We’re fat. We’re loud. And we’re proud to be American. Screw the rest of the world! That’s what I say.

Think about Bram Stroker’s Dracula for a moment. Was it one of the tea drinking British twits that took out Dracula, the blood sucking Romanian, in the end? Heck NO! It was red-white-and-blue-bleeding, straight-talking, bowie-knife-toting, Yankee Quincy Morris.

I keep hearing this stuff about Ugly Americans and I don’t like it. Sure I agree that we are kind of fat and greasy, but Ugly?

Business for Diplomatic Action (BDA), a non-profit organization, is launching a program this month to teach Americans to be less Ugly. In their publication, The World Citizen’s Guide, they lay out how this can be accomplished: speak lower and softer, don’t use any slang, listen as much as you talk, and dress up.

Apparently, no matter how fast or loud we talk to foreigners they won’t be able to understand us. Who knew? And if we are wearing flip-flops and a tank top there is no way they will be able to understand us because they won’t be able to stop staring at the tufts of hair on our shoulders and back.

I am just as guilty as the rest of us. I try to be nice and polite. I don’t wear tank tops, but I have been known to talk with a strange accented, fast-paced, loud staccato when trying to get my point across to non-native English speakers. Usually this doesn’t annoy people, but it makes them laugh. It makes me laugh.

Does that make me Ugly? No, but my long straight nose does.

I do understand what the BDA is trying to accomplish. I had a friend traveling in South America on business and his co-worker was an Ugly American. They were at a market and the merchant told him how much money he owed in the local currency and my friend’s co-worker said something like: “How much is that in REAL MONEY? IN DOLLARS?

As a nation we are culturally-isolated – we border as many oceans as we do countries. Unlike Europe, where a three hour drive may take you through three countries, here in the US a three-hour drive may take you from Ohio to exotic Indiana - maybe. We aren’t used to dealing with people who don’t sound like us, who don’t use our currency, and who don’t know all of the words to “Take me out to the Ballgame.”

So we are a bit Ugly. But the French are a bit rude, the English a bit prissy, the Aussies are drunks, the Germans are perverts, the Israelis conceited, etc. etc. As humans we can’t help but label nationalities with certain qualities even if they are wrong. This sort of prejudice is not pretty, but it exists.

I’ve had foreigners tell me that I am pretty nice for an American. Of course I am. I was raised in a small town in the Mid-west by loving parents who instilled in me a strong sense of values. The Americans that these foreigners met must have been from the East or West Coast.

People on the East coast are loud and annoying; Westcoasters are a bunch of pot-smoking hippies. That’s where the Ugly Americans are. In the Mid-west and the South we’re pretty. Well maybe not people from Kentucky and Arkansas. But people from Ohio. Except for people from Cleveland or Akron – they’re strange. But people from my part of Ohio we’re great, real winners, with genuine likeability. Well, not always people on Elm Street seem to be bunch of jerks…

Regardless, of our inherent lack of beauty, if it wasn’t for the brashness and boldness that our great nation engrained in Quincey Morris the world be overrun with vampires. We’d all be minions of Dracula.

Think about that!