New Oreo

They are messing with the world's best store bought cookie, the legendary Oreo cookie.  I defy any human, except those food snobs and health nuts out there, to say that the Oreo isn't a delicious treat. That chocolate cookies that encases the whatever that stuff is in the middle, is about as deep chocolate taste as possible in a cookie. Kids love to dunk them in milk and adults love to hide the fact that they secretly eat them. So in response to the latter, the makers of the Oreo have decided it will add "Oreo Thins" to its permanent lineup in the U.S. starting next week, just for adults. The adult Oreo cookie looks like regular Oreos and have a similar cookie-to-filling ratio except that they're slimmer and have fewer calories.

The original Oreo started in 1912, but in this age of PC dieting the company figures a gimmick like a slimmer Oreo may entice adults to eat more Oreos. It might give adults an excuse to eat them. Since the thin Oreos can't be dunked the new thin ones may be ignored by kids. besides, kids like that thick white filling. Oreos made a "double stuff" Oreo some years ago for those who like the filing, and that Oreo is a big seller today. The thin Oreo may become to the regular Oreo what grape juice is to wine, an adult version and a child (and we adults who like childish things) version.

Oroes are about as versatile as a cookie can be.  Manufacturers now put them in everything sweet. There are Oreo candy bars, Oreo ice cream, Oreo brownies, Oreo pies and what may be the best sweet pie crust of all. Just crush about 16 Oreos in a food processor and the amalgamation (no melted butter or any liquid needed because the cream center binds the mixture) makes a great pie crust for a cheesecake or any other sweet pie one bakes. Just about every version of Oreos (they make them in vanilla as well as chocolate and there are endless versions of filling flavors) has been popular.

The traditional Oreo is one of the world's most popular cookies.  So why are we shaming ordinary, beautiful, perfectly delicious Oreos with a trendy more healthy thinner one?  The Oreo company describes the new cookie as “more sophisticated” than regular ones. Are cookies supposed to be sophisticated?  Leave the sophisticated act for wine and just give me the ordinary Oreo.

Pluto

We just got a look at the (former) planet Pluto. The New Horizons probe, after a nine-and-a-half-year journey spanning more than 3 billion miles, got close to and then zoomed past Pluto and its five known moons snapping pictures that will tell humans about things far away in space.  Uh, as Captain Kirk used to say on that TV show Star Trek, we have boldly gone where no man has gone before. Flying at 31,000 mph, the photo session will last about 30 minutes as the spacecraft speeds through a narrow target zone., and then the craft will zoom away from Pluto and toward the next space curiosity.

Until recently, the best picture of Pluto consisted of pixels, some brighter and some darker, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. New Horizons photos will took images  with such high resolution that if they were taken over New York City, they would reveal major roads, wharves along rivers and ponds in Central Park. Gee, I hope there are no little green men on Pluto.

I can barely understand those cheap science fiction movies I sometimes see on TV, so I haven't a clue about the science benefits to knowing more about Pluto. But this is a victory for technology, its continued rapid improvement. It's a good kind of technological advancement because it gives us knowledge and reveals unknowns. In our age of triviality there are far less important technological innovations (like your cell phone and its apps). So in a sense, this technological achievement is a leap backward, to the days when we paid attention more to the value of things than the price. A little seriousness and less fluff might help us to start thinking more for ourselves again.

Hmmmm But I sure hope that the Kardashians don't figure a way of creating a reality TV show from Pluto.

Awarding What?

Did you see that ESPN, the world's leading sports broadcast network, is giving Caitlin (Bruce) Jenner an award for courage? He is being given the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for....well...I am not sure what. But I suspect it's because he told the world that he no longer considers himself to be a male anymore. That's it.  He didn't dodge bullets in combat or risk his life saving a drowning child. He switched sexes.  I get the connection between ESPN and the award winner in that he was he 1976 Olympic Gold medal winner in the decathlete event. But ESPN didn't award him anything for sports achievements.

I used to be that you had to do something to get an award. Is changing one's sex an act of courage? I guess in these times courage is defined as whatever the trendy decide it to be. The Jenner award makes about as much sense as when the Nobel Prize Committee gave the 2009  Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 to President Barrack Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." The Committee said that Obama should get it (he had barely been sworn in as U.S. President and had no accomplishments when the award was given) because of his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons." Really? Have they checked Obama's vision lately?  Obama has been a  dud as president and more wars and killing rages around the world now that at any other time in world history, largely because most of the world sees Obama for what he is, a weak and incompetent president who promotes peace by hiding from his responsibility to ensure it.

I suspect that Jenner got his award because it is cool now to support alternate life styles, and that Obama was given the award because simply he is black. People who are born of black skin are said by the left to be deserving of things like awards because people of white skin "oppress" them.  But praising people for nothing is as common today as is elevating reality TV "stars" to their current sanctified state. The culture is dying and its vision is so cloudy that it knows not what is and what is not.

Perhaps the many bizarre awards just reflect the confusion in which we live today. The left, which has created and nurtured the Age of Confusion in which we live, apparently finds reality too painful. It seeks to alter it by changing our language to be more politically correct, denying the unpleasant and by insisting anyone who challenges its view is a "bigot" or worse..a "Republican".  Recently, for example,  the left wing that runs the state of New York banned the words "dinosaurs," "birthdays," "Halloween" and dozens of other topics on city issued tests. That is because they fear such topics "could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students", which would make them fail the tests.

There are tens of thousands of similar disconnects from reality throughout the world today. We in the U.S. are not alone in the sewer of political correctness. Sigh....I think the inmates are taking over the world, and I don't know where I fit.  It sure is less fair and fun out there than it used to be.

Yulin Summer Solstice Lychee and Dog Meat Festival

You may want to bark at me or even bite me for writing what is below, but remember that I am just the messenger of this dog-gone crazy news. It's word of China's summer 'Yulin Summer Solstice Lychee and Dog Meat Festival', in which 10,000 dogs (and some cats too) are beaten, killed and cooked for human consumption. Uh, The Dog Meat Fest is considered a festive start of summer in Yulin.  But even the dictators in China are embarrassed about that cultural event.  Yulin’s government has banned public slaughter and advertising using words “dog meat,” though it claimed that although locals had held small get-togethers in the past, the citywide festival was a myth. It is not.

Traditional in Yulin says eating dog meat brings good luck and health. But this event has caused embarrassment and anger from locals and others in China, largely because of the influence of the many Internet via social media sites that talk about and show it.  Even a tech hater like me gives a thumbs up  to that.  Eating dog meat is legal in China, but the dogs are supposed to be raised on farms and certified for human consumption before they are sold.  Animal rights advocates in China though, say dogs in Yulin are stolen from farms and family homes when they are killed.  I guess that is "fast theft food" for the Yulin crowd.

Besides the idea that killing and eating animals that are beloved pets for many is obscene, those opposed to Fido entrees say that the festival promotes crime and food safety concerns (China is ranked the second highest for the number of people who contract rabies and Yulin is one of the country's “top 10 cities” for rabies cases among humans) . Just as South Koreas forced its restaurants to stop cooking dog meat when that country hosted the Summer Olympic Games, China knows that most of the world thinks eating Fido is a savage behavior and would like to see the Yulin Fest disappear.  There are currently many nation-wide protests in China against the Dog Meat Festival, so the locals say that instead of slaughtering dogs in the streets, they do it in secret.

To we westerners such practices are revolting. The dogs are tortured, skinned alive and sometimes cooked while still alive. That a human pet (dogs have become very popular pets in most of China) would be treated in that way is alarming  and bolsters the claim in that the progress of civilization has a long way to go.  Meanwhile, cows, sheep, chicken, pigs are slaughtered in the west without anyone objecting beyond ensuring humane slaughter of the animals.  But in the end, if we can judge a society based on how it treats its animals, China has a long way to go before we can consider it a civilized society.

World Naked Bike Day

Have you heard about 'World Naked Bike Ride Day'?  It's an odd annual event for those of us who think it's much nice to appear in public in clothes. Too, for some like me, it is leftism taken to an extreme.  According to the Naked Bike Ride organizers, people ride their bikes naked or nearly naked in many cities across the world for the following reasons.

• Save the planet! shifting to a carfree lifestyle is one of the most powerful things a person can do to make a real difference in reducing negative environmental impacts on this planet.
• It's time to put a stop to the indecent exposure of people and the planet to cars and the pollution they create. We face automobile traffic with our naked bodies as the best way of defending our dignity and exposing the vulnerability faced by cyclists and pedestrians on our streets as well as the negative consequences we all face due to dependence on oil, and other forms of non-renewable energy
• Breathe easier. If you stand in a closed garage with a running car, you will die in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of thousands of cars in our cities create dirty, unhealthy air
• Body image/self awareness. Cycling promotes body awareness, the fact that one can achieve a more healthy lifestyle from the exercise we achieve by using self-powered transport
• Self-sufficiency. Cycling makes us non-renewable energy sources, less dependent oil
• Think Globally, Act locally. Cycling promotes local cycling businesses and local cycling organizations.
• Less is more. WNBR strips the complexities from modern transport to a simplified message of cycling. For the vast majority of most peoples' transport needs, cycles are the right vehicle for the right job. "You don't need a wheelbarrow to carry a pea".
• The unabashed vehicle of the revolution. By cycling naked we declare our confidence in the beauty and individuality of our bodies and the bicycle's place as a catalyst for change in the future of sustain ability, transport, community and recreation.
• Community building. Bicycles create public space, enhance street life and build a sense of community
• Peace of mind. People are looking for places where they're not constantly being confronted with cars. It's just like non-smokers seeking smoke free space.

I hope they are only kidding, but I am afraid they are not. But I could add to the list that the World Naked Bike Ride is also about exhibitionists who find solace in group public indecency. That's fine by me, because I am not one who will watch their show anyway. If i want to watch naked I want to see pretty naked.  Must the naked riders pretend they are protesting whatever that mush above said? They might be better received if they just proclaimed they wanted to show their love muscles and jugs. We all can relate better to that. Somehow the ridiculous charade of riding a bike naked as a means of attacking perceived world problems just doesn't inspire very much.

There is a Naked Bike Ride in both my former home of New Orleans and my new one of Portland, but I don't think the naked riders have had any impact on the problems that they think are real. Perhaps the main reason is that the majority of naked riders I have seen in photos don't have the type of bodies I would want to see. Uh, their bodies  look more like my body than they look like that of a Greek God or Goddess. Perhaps there should have some appearance criteria in order to ride nude. The prettiest bodies would get to pedal in the nude and the bodies that make a person upchuck his lunch would have to be bundled heavily in  all available clothing. I think most riders would wind up clothed.

So I am confused about this summer event, and think I'll wait to watch until something more titillating is in the works. Let's see. I have a suggestion. How about the New York City Rockette Dancers holding their first Nude Rock of Knockers event. Now that would be a relevant protest.

Camera Day

Oops! The world had another one off those "days" and as always, I missed it.  June 29 was Camera Day, according to something called 'Your Take's you are supposed to take your best shots and share them on line.  On Your Take's version of Camera Day you are supposed to log in with a Face book or Google account at the your take web site and start uploading your best shots of whatever lifts your spirits (sigh...that might mean a million more cat pictures). Your Take selects the best photos and uses them in the USA newspaper each year. basically, any idiot can push a button and take a photo, so this could be the "art" best suited to my limited abilities.

Your Take is just one of the web sites that promotes the amorphous Camera Day (it's really an unofficial holiday). I looked on line and could find no one who claimed to know how Camera Day started or who founded it, but I acknowledge that despite my ineptitude with cameras (and every other technology known to man) once in a while I do appreciate a good picture. For many people, a camera is a vital tool to record important events in the family and in the world.  It creates the memories that we share and look back upon in our lives and the lives of society. But then, there are the cell phone camera addicts who do none of that. Instead, they just annoy us with selfies showing how stupid humans can be.

I am always at least a decade behind others in adapting to a technology, if I adapt at all (most times I don't want to adapt).  In fact, the camera I own today is one of those point and shoot for idiot varieties I bought in 2007 and rarely use it. The world should thank me for that.  I don't want complications with my technology. For me the more involved, the more features on a camera the less likely I will ever use it. But with digital technology, using a camera has never been easier. Unfortunately though, cameras are built into cell phones and this makes the cell addict twice as annoying as pre camera phone days of so long ago.

Those cell cameras are proof that too much of anything can become bad, because we now are assaulted with an endless array of photos, quickly forgotten and discarded.  Remember the old days of print photography images? We snapped pictures sparingly,  treasured them, and put only the special ones in photo albums that were used as historical recording. But now, with some many pictures so easily taken dumped on a hard drive, we no longer separate the important from the inconsequential. And most of what we shoot with our cameras today is inconsequential mush. Today's easy photo image recorder is like the cook who serves us steak for dinner every night. The steak soon becomes ordinary and then tiring to eat.  With so many pictures snapped the value of the good ones is debased to some degree. hence, every five minutes someone will shout to us, "Hey! Look at my cute cat photos." There should be a particularly painful place in hell for the cat cameraman.

But my complaints are a bit overstated. The camera is an irreplaceable tool used to record and replicate memories, events and people/places. Before the invention of the camera, the only resource to document a vision was a painting (the reason for all those old portrait paintings). As bad as those cat pictures are to take today, I sure don't want to be forced to endure an assault of cat paintings. May all your cat pictures be directed toward others.

EB-5

Portland, Oregon is one of those small, big cities. It's somewhat isolated from other bigger cites and is quite provincial in it's outlook. Economically, Portland is not a force to be reckoned with.  Many of the best educated young from the city leave for greater economic opportunity, sort of like my former home, New Orleans. Portland, uh, needs investment help if it wants to become a vibrant economic city. But it's getting a little of it recently in the form of a federal immigration program that I had no idea existed. According to a law passed in 1990 by the U.S.

Congress started the program to fund foreigners help fund big commercial real estate projects when offered a U.S. Green Card fast and for the whole family (Several Portland buildings have had such foreign investment).  The EB-5 program lets them get U.S. residency simply because they have money they are willing to invest in a U.S. construction project.  Hmmmm Seems to be a contradiction to what our politicians say about equality in immigration.

The EB-5 program has backed most of those projects in cities that are bigger than Portland,  including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, because that's where most foreigners want to live. To get into the program one needs to have $500,000 to invest into a building project in a high unemployment area, or $1 million in a location with normal employment rates. Almost no one chooses the $1 million option because the people using this program are not multi millionaires.  They are often young, upper middle class types who borrow from family members to accrue the $500,000 needed.

The investment  they make must create at least 10 full time, permanent jobs. That's the justification for the program. Congress says it's worth letting some people jump to the head of the immigration line if they create jobs for Americans when they come. Once they plunk down the $500,000 investment in the (usually it's to build expensive high-rise buildings that require a huge financial investment from many investors)  the investor receives a Green Card for themselves, their spouse and any children under the age of 21. The process is quicker and easier than the traditional Green Card application process, and most people can move to the U.S. a couple years after the investment is made.

There are 10,000 Green Cards available through the program each year and around 85 percent of the investments come from China. The Chinese like it because, even though most of the people who participate in the program and are not wealthy,  they do it to get the citizenship and also to benefit their children. The U.S. still has the best colleges in the world and if one wants to succeed in the global economy, it's an advantage for the kids to go to U.S. universities.

I wonder if this program is common elsewhere. I have heard that a number of capitalist countries use similar lures for foreign money, so maybe it is. The fact is though, EB-5  has evolved into primarily a real estate funding source for big projects. But it's unfair to those who want to reside here, may have more or unique talents to contribute to the U.S., but don't have $500,000 to pay to do so. It's also somewhat secretive, maybe putting national security at greater risk and it makes some of those who choose the EB-5 vulnerable to fraud.  No doubt many of them will lose some or much of their $500,000 investment.

But we live in a world driven by economics. I guess it's "buyer beware" for both the investors and for the United States. So be it.