Assembled in the USA from 100% Chinese parts.

A number of the people on my flist posted about the death of Marie Smith near the day it happened. Yesterday, the Economist published her obituary, which I include here for its poignancy.

From http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10640514:

Marie Smith

Feb 7th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Marie Smith, the last speaker of the Eyak language, died on January 21st, aged 89

BEYOND the town of Cordova, on Prince William Sound in south-eastern Alaska, the Copper River delta branches out in silt and swamp into the gulf. Marie Smith, growing up there, knew there was a particular word in Eyak, her language, for the silky, gummy mud that squished between her toes. It was c'a. The driftwood she found on the shore, 'u'l, acquired a different name if it had a proper shape and was not a broken, tangled mass. If she got lost among the flat, winding creeks her panicky thoughts were not of north, south, east or west, but of “upriver”, “downstream”, and the tribes, Eskimo and Tlingit, who lived on either side. And if they asked her name it was not Marie but Udachkuqax*a'a'ch, “a sound that calls people from afar”.

( Full text here, because the Economist expires its articles. )

As a child she had longed to be a pilot, flying boat-planes between the islands of the Sound. An impossible dream, she was told, because she was a girl. As an old woman, she said she believed that Eyak might be resurrected in future. Just as impossible, scoffed the experts: in an age where perhaps half the planet's languages will disappear over the next century, killed by urban migration or the internet or the triumphal march of English, Eyak has no chance. For Mrs Smith, however, the death of Eyak meant the not-to-be-imagined disappearance of the world.

(Why am I not surprised California won't allow you to sell a grilled hot dog?)

From http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/dining/the-bacon-wrapped-hot-dog-so-good-its-illegal/18276/:

The Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog: So Good It's Illegal

Jailed for selling L.A.'s famed "heart attack" dogs, licensed street vendors are fighting back

By DANIEL HERNANDEZ
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - 10:15 am

Not quite Mexican and not quite American, the bacon-wrapped hot dog, like the city that so fervently embraces it, has a curious romance about it. You can smell one from blocks away. The grilled bacon, twisted around a wiener, is topped with grilled onions and a mountaintop of diced tomatoes, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. Then one whole grilled green poblano chile is plopped impossibly on top. You take a bite and think, This is so good, no wonder it's illegal!

Among working-class downtown shoppers, belligerent clubgoers and adventurous foodies, devotion to the famed "heart-attack dogs" is strong and strident, a source of raw L.A. nostalgia.

"I probably saw my first one while I was trying to pick up 18-year-old girls at Florentine Gardens," says Eddie Lin, a food blogger at deependdining.com, who has rhapsodized about the bacon-wrapped dogs on local public radio.

To get them, "I go to places like the 99 Cents Only store in Reseda or other Hispanic working-class neighborhoods in the Valley. Parks are good too. It's the only street food L.A. can really claim as its own," Lin adds. "It's illegal and yet it's a ubiquitous part of L.A. culture."

Edit: It appears it's a county ordinance: "Instead, she prepares dogs the only way the county Environmental Health Department currently allows, by boiling or steaming. Not grilling. And grilling is the only way to make a classic L.A. bacon-wrapped hot dog."

From http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_burman/2008/01/is_canadian_a_racist_slur.html:

What does the word "Canadian" conjure up in your mind?

Polite? Peacekeeping? Harmless? Heroic? A weak-kneed, pot-smoking, sexually-permissive anti-American? Or, perhaps, cheap?

This is a question being debated this week with both intensity and some humour in a variety of internet blogs in the United States.

The trigger point occurred over the weekend on the popular American website The Huffington Post, quoting a brief Canadian newspaper story that revealed that the term "Canadian" is being used in parts of the U.S. as a euphemism — as code — for a racist characterization of black people.

The comments wander off into how much one should tip in a restaurant, but I guess that was inevitable given the last two sentences:

The most startling revelation for me is that many Americans apparently tip 20% when they go into a restaurant.

That’s quite odd.

Perhaps one is supposed to tip less in Canada.

http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2008/01/lanes-full-of-m.html:

The bowling alley and billiards hall has been on Day Street since 1939, and four generations of the Sacco family have overseen it. At one time, there were 19 bowling alleys owned by Sacco's in the Boston area, a number that dwindled over time. Sacco's Bowl Haven is the last remaining, but as of this spring, its doors will close permanently.

Time to go back for a visit or two before they close.

Various banks spent lots of time and money in the last decade lobbying Congress to get the bankruptcy laws changed so it would be more difficult to wipe out credit card debt.

Now, the same banks are finding that debtors are deciding to pay off their credit cards instead of paying their mortgages. Foreclosures are now at a record, and the banks are getting stuck with the foreclosed houses in a sagging housing market.

From http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a0EKOfVyqCD4:

The new bankruptcy laws are helping drive foreclosures to a record as homeowners default on mortgages and struggle to pay credit card debts that might have been wiped out under the old code, said Jay Westbrook, a professor of business law at the University of Texas Law School in Austin and a former adviser to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

``Be careful what you wish for,'' Westbrook said. ``They wanted to make sure that people kept paying their credit cards, and what they're getting is more foreclosures.''

Washington Mutual, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. spent $25 million in 2004 and 2005 lobbying for a legislative agenda that included changes in bankruptcy laws to protect credit card profits, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan Washington group that tracks political donations.

The banks are still paying for that decision. The surge in foreclosures has cut the value of securities backed by mortgages and led to more than $40 billion of writedowns for U.S. financial institutions. It also reached to the top echelons of the financial services industry.

People are putting their credit card payments ahead of their mortgages, said Richard Fairbank, chief executive officer of Capital One Financial Corp., the largest independent U.S. credit card issuer. Of customers who are at least three months late on their mortgage payments, 70 percent are current on their credit cards, he said.

``What we conclude is that people are saying, `Honey, let the house go,''' but keep the cards, Fairbank said Nov. 5 at a conference in New York sponsored by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The new bankruptcy code makes it harder for debtors to qualify for Chapter 7, the section that erases non-mortgage debt. It shifted people who get paychecks higher than the median income for their area to Chapter 13, giving them up to five years to pay off non-housing creditors.

``We have people walking away from homes because they can't afford them even post bankruptcy,'' said Sommer, a Philadelphia- based bankruptcy attorney. ``Their mortgage rates are resetting at levels that are completely unaffordable, and there's nothing the bankruptcy process can do for them as it now stands.''

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was the biggest overhaul to the code in more than a quarter of a century. The old law, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 that was signed by President Jimmy Carter, had loosened requirements for debt forgiveness.

Financial companies began a coordinated lobbying campaign for bankruptcy reform in 1998 when the American Financial Services Association, a trade group representing credit card companies, joined the American Bankers Association to form the National Consumer Bankruptcy Coalition.

Campaign contributions from the coalition and its members totaled more than $8.2 million during the 2004 election that gave Bush his second term in office. Two-thirds of the donations were given to Republicans who supported the bankruptcy changes, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The group, later renamed the Coalition for Responsible Bankruptcy Laws, has since disbanded. Its members included Washington Mutual, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, MasterCard Inc., and Morgan Stanley.

Oops.

From http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/more_on_foreigners_and_their_exotic_languages.php:

Something I like about the Chinese approach to their own language is that it resembles America's approach to English - and differs from the French (or Japanese) attitude about their respective languages. The French and Japanese, in my experience and in general, are prideful about the special elegance of their language, and the unlikelihood that outsiders can communicate effectively in it, let alone elegantly.

Americans are much more utilitarian in their view toward English: they've heard a million versions of it within their own borders (Brooklyn, Alabama, Little Havana, Nigerian emigrants, etc) and expect that everyone should give it a stab. Something roughly similar applies in China. People have heard a million versions of Chinese; often the regional variations make it hard for people to understand each other; but they expect that outsiders should make a stab. So, try we do.

True enough. Even I've heard lots of versions of Chinese, and I haven't even spent that much time there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/world/europe/12metric.html:

By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: September 12, 2007

BRUSSELS, Sept. 11 — Britons and the Irish can still down a pint of beer, walk a mile, covet an ounce of gold and eat a pound of bananas after the European Union ruled today that the countries could retain measurements dating back to the Middle Ages.

Under a previous European Union plan, Britain and Ireland would have been forced to adopt the metric system and phase out imperial measurements by 2009. But after a vociferous antimetric campaign by British skeptics and London’s tabloid press, European Union officials decided that an ounce of common sense (or 28.3 grams) suggested that granting a reprieve was better than braving a public backlash.

( article continues behind cut )

Britain and Ireland officially use the metric system, but imperial measures are still often used alongside their metric equivalents.

Under the European Union decision, they can retain miles on road signs, and pubs may continue to serve pints of beer. Other goods must be sold in metric quantities, but retailers can display imperial equivalents.

A British government spokesman praised the decision as good for Britain and international trade.

In particular, to post articles about sex from non-sexually related magazines.

This one is from Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/08/cz_af_1008health.html), and is entitled "Is Sex Necessary?"

A few quotes:

"The best that modern science can say for sexual abstinence is that it's harmless when practiced in moderation. Having regular and enthusiastic sex, by contrast, confers a host of measurable physiological advantages, be you male or female."

"[B]y having sex three or more times a week, men reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half. In reporting these results, the co-author of the study, Shah Ebrahim, Ph.D., displayed the well-loved British gift for understatement: "The relationship found between frequency of sexual intercourse and mortality is of considerable public interest."

"Seminal plasma contains zinc, calcium and other minerals shown to retard tooth decay. Since this is a family Web site, we will omit discussion of the mineral delivery system. Suffice it to say that it could be a far richer, more complex and more satisfying experience than squeezing a tube of Crest--even Tartar Control Crest."

But read the whole thing. They obviously had fun compiling it all.

From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/weekinreview/12kolata.html:

EVERYONE knows men are promiscuous by nature. It’s part of the genetic strategy that evolved to help men spread their genes far and wide. The strategy is different for a woman, who has to go through so much just to have a baby and then nurture it. She is genetically programmed to want just one man who will stick with her and help raise their children.

Surveys bear this out. In study after study and in country after country, men report more, often many more, sexual partners than women.

But there is just one problem, mathematicians say. It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women. Those survey results cannot be correct.

Sex survey researchers say they know that Dr. Gale is correct. Men and women in a population must have roughly equal numbers of partners. So, when men report many more than women, what is going on and what is to be believed?

“I have heard this question before,” said Cheryl D. Fryar, a health statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics and a lead author of the new federal report, “Drug Use and Sexual Behaviors Reported by Adults: United States, 1999-2002,” which found that men had a median of seven partners and women four.

But when it comes to an explanation, she added, “I have no idea.”

The most likely explanation, by far, is that the numbers cannot be trusted.

I know, I know, it's such a shock that people lie about sex...still, I liked the article, and I'm glad missmoreland posted it. Thanks!

( Full text behind cut, because the New York Times expires its articles )

I've been off the net for a few days, so I missed posting this NYTimes Op-Ed piece by Trevor Corson, author of The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, From Samurai to Supermarket. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/opinion/15corson.html)

So Americans are stuck between chef-driven omakase meals at elite restaurants that cost a fortune and the cheap, predictable fare at our neighborhood places. Both extremes have deepened our dependence on tuna — at the high end, on super-fatty cuts of rare bluefin; and at the low end, on tasteless red flesh that has often been frozen for months and treated with chemicals to preserve its color.

What we need isn’t more tuna, but a renaissance in American sushi; to discover for ourselves — and perhaps to remind the Japanese — what sushi is all about. A trip to the neighborhood sushi bar should be a social exchange that celebrates, with a sense of balance and moderation, the wondrous variety of the sea.

I suggest that customers refuse to sit at a table or look at a menu. We should sit at the bar and ask the chef questions about everything — what he wants to make us and how we should eat it. We should agree to turn our backs on our American addictions to tuna (for starters, try mackerel), globs of fake wasabi (let the chef add the appropriate amount), gallons of soy sauce (let the chef season the sushi if it needs seasoning) and chopsticks (use your fingers so the chef can pack the sushi loosely, as he would in Japan). Diners will be amazed at how following these simple rules can make a sushi chef your friend, and take you on new adventures in taste.

In return, the chefs, be they Japanese or not, must honor the sushi tradition and make the effort to educate us — no more stoicism. They must also be willing to have a candid conversation about the budget before the meal; it’s the only way American diners will be willing to surrender to the chef’s suggestions. Sushi should never be cheap, but it also should never be exorbitant, because that makes it impossible to create a clientele of regulars.

Fraternizing with the chef may be a tough habit for Americans to take up. But we’ve had sushi here now for four decades, and it’s time for a change — both for our sake, and for the sake of the embattled tuna. Let the conversation across the sushi bar begin.