Fast Food

Could have written this myself:

His premise is simple: Food, especially fast food, is making people fat. Apparently against their will or ability to resist … It’s hell living in a rich country with too much to eat, isn’t it? Heaven presumably would be a hungry nation where food is scarce and otherwise tastes like tofu.

It gets even better:

Allow me to translate: By combining sugar, fat, and protein in certain ways, food vendors are trying to make their products taste so good that you’ll eat them. Scandalous.

I really liked this particular rant. Meant to link it last week, but I was a little preoccupied.

The City

George Sessions Perry on San Francisco (1947):

It’s civilized and robust, and its shoulder wouldn’t fit a chip. When you point out something wrong with the place, its people relish that defect too — because it’s a valid part of San Francisco.

My, how things change. San Francisco has long since lost any sense of humor about itself; criticisms are often seen as evidence that the individual uttering them somehow doesn’t “deserve” to be here.

One thing, though, is now clear: San Francisco has not been the largest city in the Bay Area for more than a decade, and the Census Bureau has recognized the fact. And no amount of whining about how cosmpolitan, beautiful, or popular the place may be will change this one simple truth…

Stupid Heart

Sigh…

For those of you who are keeping tabs on my life, Friday’s cardioversion didn’t work and my heart remains arythmic. I was looking forward to the whole thing finally being over and done with after two years, but it apparently wasn’t meant to be. I’ll find out about the next step in a couple of weeks…

The whole thing made me a little bummed out and preoccupied all weekend, but Mark helped take my mind off it by taking me down to the city on Friday afternoon for a bit of DVD shopping and by taking me out to dinner on Saturday night. And I discovered my boss is right about at least one thing: Gaspare’s on Geary Boulevard does in fact have the best pizza in San Francisco…

Free Speech?

As much as I’d prefer not to give a certain radio talk show host (and, ummm, FORMER TV personality) any more publicity than he’s already received, I will point out that it’s very unappealing to watch a self-described “conservative” (who should, one assumes, know better) whine about how his First Amendment rights were violated and what a “victim” he’s become…

First, as I’ve said before, one’s right to free speech does not include the right to use anyone else’s facilities for this expression (despite a wrong-headed ruling by the California Supreme Court). Second, I was under the impression that taking responsibility for one’s own actions was rather high on most “conservative” checklists…

But, of course, this realization could only come from a logical, rational, and thoughtful analysis of the issues, which is not something for which this particular personality (nor most of his “nation”) is well known. After all, reasonable commentary generally doesn’t work well when shouted…

On a completely unrelated note, I really crave one of these (thanks to Jim in NC for the pointer)…

Trip Recap

New and exciting for your Sunday afternoon: pictures and commentary on the recent trip with Mark to Greensboro, Charlotte, and Atlanta.

Some afterthoughts:

I would now, without reservation, consider a move back to the east coast, probably not to Greensboro, but to Charlotte or Atlanta. Anyone with a spare job in either city, please let me know.
I think Mark was enamored of the region as well.
I miss my mommy and my daddy.