Much Maligned Portuguese Drivers

I had a great deal of fun driving 1500 miles in Portugal the last couple of weeks. Tales of “dangerous drivers” were told when folks heard we were going there. I loved the drivers. Sure, they drove fast and got really close before passing (overtaking), and cut in quickly. They really knew what they were doing. In the time I drove there was maybe only one or two close calls, but close may just mean a driver with really good instincts and reflexes. They know lane discipline. Many drive very fast but they don’t weave around. They get on your tail until you move over. All I really had to do was keep in the lane where my speed was expected, that would be mostly the inside lane, and let the speed demons fly by.
We spent quite a bit of time on “wiggley” and narrow mountain roads. Here, defensive driving is the key to survival. The middle of the road is the favored “lane” for native car and truck drivers. With a little care, and anticipating someone in the middle of the road on every curve, we got where we were going with a minimum of “squeaks” from the passengers.
I had a ball!!! Can’t wait to get back to Italy and try those guys again. In 5 minutes of looking I couldn’t find a single photo of an accident in Portugal, so the tragic results of one in Holland must suffice. It really is tragic: hundreds of cases of Grolsch beer on the road, most smashed.
Image: http://www.johnmariani.com/archive/2005/050828/index.html

The Disease of Being Different

“Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn't just trying to prevent lesbianism by treating pregnant women with an experimental hormone. She's also trying to prevent the births of girls who display an "abnormal" disinterest in babies, don't want to play with girls' toys or become mothers, and whose "career preferences" are deemed too "masculine."” (1) And so begins the description of an article that chronicles an idea so repugnant that one wonders if it is serious or another “Snouter” hoax (2). It is serious. Unfortunately.
In a sincere, I hope, attempt to treat a fetal genital defect, the claim is that the “cure” for lesbians from their terrible tendency to live has been discovered. The consideration of embryonic “treatment” such as this goes way beyond the bounds of experimental medicine and enters the terrible world of Nazi medicine. What the hell are the people thinking (thinking?) that take this nonsense seriously. This “theory” (I hesitate to elevate the ideas even to a small “t” theory) supposes that all lesbians start life with some androgenic “abnormality” that should be treated. Hitler thought brown eyes were evidence of genetic abnormality. Could it possibly be that a wide range of embryonic androgens is NORMAL? And that the expression of several genes produces a NORMAL range of expression? Could it be that the range of human sexuality is NORMAL, like the range of height? Could it be that being strictly heterosexual is ABNORMAL? I don’t know or care. I do care that the battle to get rid of designating gay or lesbian or bisexual or asexual people DISEASED is just now being won, and along comes this crap. Being different is NOT a disease. It’s a blessing. Celebrate diversity, don’t modulate it to extinction. I have all kinds of friends from all kinds of communities. I love them all. They are all different. So am I.
1. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/06/29/doctor-treating-pregnant-women-with-experimental-drug-to-prevent-lesbianism
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia
Image: http://www.women24.com/LoveAndSex/Gay/Homophobia-is-damaging-lives-20090401

Just Whistling Dixie?

Two observations that are possibly related: One: I was looking at laptop specs yesterday and noticed the following: “easily upgraded to 500 gigabytes to give plenty of room for photos, music and videos” or something close to that. This computer has a 40 gig hard drive and has 18 gigs free. Two: huge numbers of people have some kind of portable device plugged into their ears for many hours a day so they can listen to “my music” whenever they want to.
When is the last time you heard someone whistling? Rephrase that: when is the last time you heard someone young whistling?
My life has a soundtrack. Music is nearly always in the background of my thoughts, and I often whistle favorite tunes. Many of my friends from long ago whistled. My father and grandfather were whistlers. Whistling keeps me company, just, I suppose, as “my music” keeps techie people company. So those critical thoughts I think from time to time when I see half the people on a subway train with iPods are misplaced. They are just listening to the soundtrack of their thoughts, like me.


Ahhh, but there is a difference. My soundtrack doesn’t need batteries. And I have to wonder about the creative force that thinking music and making music must require. Musings of an old fart, or keen observation of a creative mind? What do you think I think?

Whistling Dixie def. :http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whistle_Dixie
Whistler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNtMpPFM7M0
Image: http://www.picturesof.net/pages/090612-183133-718048.html

Do You Want to Live FOREVER?

Living Forever? Ask Aubrey de Grey.
Just got home from healthy shopping (yes, I want to live as long as possible, too) and heard a discussion that alluded to the theories of Aubrey de Grey (1) on the expansion of life to 1000 years or more. Not as an old fart, but rejuvenated to age of about 30, there to stay indefinitely. de Grey has a Ph.D. (not earned) for his work. He has his own foundation, first named the Methuselah Foundation, and now Sens (for Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) where he is employed as the director and researcher into aging.
The support for Sens is very rich people who hope to live a very long time. The rest of us? We get the ‘trickle down” benefits. The really poor people? They get to take away the garbage, eat bugs and a bit of rice and kill each other in ethnic and religious conflict, like they do now. Talk about a Utopian world. An over class that lives forever and an underclass that does all the work. And way too many people for sustainability of good old earth.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I would love a few more decades of active life. Maybe even 3 more. Medicine is going that direction now, and I may be able to catch a ride. The world cannot support an entire population that lives forever. Nonsense.
So let’s keep medicine going on helping treat chronic diseases of the aging population while at the same time finding cures or preventions for all the rest of the diseases that kill us. Ooops. That leads to more population, doesn’t it? Bugger.

1. http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-vision_reflections/eternal_3237.jsp

Image: fr.toonpool.com/cartoons/methuselah%20anachro...

Sierra

She was a sweet little dog. Dark brownish with a kind of square head and body. Her best buddy was a dufus big black Lab named Bear. She was a neighborhood friend. After being abandoned by her owner in the 1990’s Sierra was adopted by all the surrounding families. She made the rounds, ate here and there, got biscuits from everyone and generally kept watch. And she hung out with Bear.
I met her and Bear when I came to look at a house for sale. I pulled into the driveway and two dogs, one very large black Lab and one small squarish brownish dog walked slowly up to the truck. I didn’t know they were pushovers looking for a biscuit then. They looked possibly dangerous, especially Sierra. So I waited in the truck and shortly they ambled off for a cool lay down on the road.
A few weeks ago someone killed Sierra. Ran her over. Bear is still moping around looking for his pal. I can understand how a small dark dog that likes to lie in the road could get hit by a car in the dawn light. What I can’t understand is just driving off. It is unlikely that the killer was a stranger. There is no traffic on the road that isn’t residents going to work, especially at that hour. Except the paper guy, and he has been on this route a long time. No, I think whoever killed her knew her. And that makes it even worse.
Sierra was near the end of her life, old, nearly blind, nearly deaf and in some pain from doggie rhumatiz. She would have gone soon anyway, but peacefully. This ending to a sweet life was just wrong. But then life sometimes is, isn’t it?
(The picture isn't Sierra, but she looked like this, only brown.)
www.hillstapestrydesign.com.au/kits.html

Piri Piri: A Love Affair

A simple small very hot pepper, sometimes called a bird’s eye pepper. But that is just the beginning.
Centuries ago, Portuguese traders introduced the piri piri pepper to Mozambique (1) and the use of this wonderful fruit spread across Africa. At home in Portugal, people rapidly developed a taste for the sauce made from piri piri. Over the centuries, various verities of hot peppers were used, and various recipes were invented to make a hot and tasty pepper sauce.
A few days into our trip to the northern half of Portugal, we had dinner in a small, local and new restaurant. No sign. No customers at first. Not really set up yet. The owner agreed to make us a meal with wine for 10 Euros each, and we sat and waited. Bread, olives and cheese to start, then small pitchers of red and white wine, both good quality table wines. Then the main course: thick grilled veal steaks and rice. The veal was perfectly cooked and the rice with beans was excellent. And spicy. Bernard, the chef, spoke some English and told us the main spice used was a piri piri pepper. He brought one out to show us, and it was indeed a bird’s eye pepper.
Since then we asked for piri piri (always available as a sauce) at every meal, and used it liberally on rice or meat or sandwiches. There was an almost endless variety of ways to make and serve it, but always it was hot, spicy and tasty. My favorite was peppers smashed with fresh lemon juice and mixed with a little Scotch whisky. The flavor of the whisky pretty much goes away, but the alcohol releases much more of the “heat” (capsaicin) and makes the sauce tangy and fiery.
In the South, we have several stock pepper sauces, like Tabasco, Krystal, Pick-a-Pepper and many others. These are all different and more or less used the same way. None are a good match for homemade piri piri sauce in Portugal. You gotta try it if you get the chance. I will perfect the whisky recipe and send it on. Bom apatite.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_piri
Image: http://www.fiery-foods.com/article-archives/89-photo-essays/1800-my-20-favorite-chile-photos