In Praise of Olive Garden

Rolling back to work from paying a lunch-time bill, worrying about the squealy fanbelt and whether or not the district Christmas Party next week will be a logistical success or a horror fest, I caught sight of the Olive Garden Restaurant in town and remembered a warm summer afternoon spent there with friends.

What is with the snootie people who refuse to grant that place the status of a real Italian restaurant? What is it with the foodies who poke fun at it in their fancy magazines? Olive Garden sends its culinary staff for training to Italy, for crying out loud (sorry, Chase)-- which may be more than some poseur pricy places can say.

Only a redneck yokel would confuse their menu with real Italian food, the snobs say, a beer-belly redneck that couldn't tell you the difference between burned biscotti and Brussels sprouts.

Well, reckon I done mewtated into one o' them there yokelly-types then, because I enjoy a meal at Olive Garden now and then. I also appreciate the prices. Maybe that's what annoys the snooty folks. Can't stand to see the kind of people who have to keep driving on a squealy fanbelt until payday enjoying the privilege of fine cuisine, Olive Garden style.

A dirty little secret

It’s a dirty little secret, a dirty little lie.

Because smokers, by conventional wisdom, are weak-willed reprobates, they deserve whatever fate has in store for them. And only smokers get lung cancer, so nobody else needs to worry about it.

How much of the above paragraph did you find to be false? I contest virtually every word. And the second sentence is a killer.

Many, many people – and for reasons unknown, although science suspects estrogen may be to blame, a high percentage of them are Women – get lung cancer even though they’ve never smoked nor habitually been around smokers.

Do a little googling on the Internet and you will be horrified at the stories of people whose symptoms were ignored, because they weren’t smokers. Or who asked about having tests because the cancer runs in their family, and were put off, again, because they weren’t smokers.

This you must know: Any organ of the body can get cancer.

An organ such as the lung, which has unique exposure to pollutants, is vulnerable to cancer – from radon, diesel particulates, formaldehyde, etc. – even if one never smokes nor spends time with smokers.

Genetics can play a role, too. Being Female can increase the chances, as previously noted.

Whether you smoke or not, don’t assume that you don’t have the risk. And do not allow your doctor to put you off either.

Some smokers get lung cancer. Some non-smokers do, too. It is just as worthy of research as any other cancer. Its sufferers deserve just as much compassion.

Meditations upon Youth

She is dancing
my little niece-in-law
pirouetting to choreography
of Her own design.

She is pure as a dewdrop
lovely as a little fawn
utterly perfect
a young Goddess whirling in the living room

Then She shoves Her Sister
off the piano bench
and makes Her cry
Human after all, beautiful but flawed

Of India

Lone Grey Squirrel has expressed in beautiful words, in his blog today, what so many of us thought when we heard of the horror in Mumbai.

India is a beautiful country, working so hard to become a 21st century success story.

India did not deserve this.

Good news out of China

Sometimes I need to be reminded that, in spite of the Orwellian thuggery that rules China, ordinary people there are no different than their counterparts in Oslo or Oklahoma. They care about their children and about making the world a better place.

I was heartened to read that tens of millions of Chinese people now heat their water with rooftop solar water heaters, saving the electricity equivalent of 54 coal-fired power plants. That is far more impressive to me than some PR environmental stunt by the central authorities, such as shutting down a factory and throwing people out of work. Grassroots, not jackboots.

Azerbaijan for December

New month, new place.

It will be fun to learn about a country about which I know absolutely nothing. It took me a little while to even find it on a world map.

Last of the "a" countries, a fitting end for 2008.