NOTES ON "CLIMATE CHANGE" (NOT "GLOBAL WARMING"!)

 Is mass transit THE “answer”?

The internal combustion engine is one of the single most significant devices contributing to climate change around the world.  Of course, it’s not the only such contributing device, but its use and spread are pervasive.  Climate “activists” and politicians, however, have been almost silent about that widespread usage despite its technical deficiencies, except for some general “bleatings” about “clean energy” and legislatively coerced fuel mileage.  Most want to make operating one’s own internal combustion engine more “friendly” to the climate, not to replace it and thus piss off the driver-voters.

The internal combustion engine is, at most, 20% “efficient.”  That means at least 80% of all the energy contained within a burnt gallon of refined gasoline (or Diesel fuel) is shed through the radiator as heat, or radiates off the engine block and exhaust manifolds as heat, or goes out the tailpipe as heat and incompletely-burned fuel, spewed all over the place, coating windshields, vehicle paint and the inside surfaces of the alveoli in our lungs.  That is absurd!  

(For the sake of full disclosure, I own six gasoline-powered motor vehicles, four of which weigh over 3,900 pounds, three of which have quite thirsty, quite powerful V-8’s and, sadly, five of which are in various states of disrepair.  I am also a certified automobile mechanic, having passed the eight ASE “Master Mechanic” exams twice.  Regrettably, “the cobbler’s children have no shoes.”)

Most personal transportation, at least in the US, is provided by 3,000-plus-pound motor vehicles, powered by arguably more “efficient” internal-combustion engines yet individually operated by the owners, driving alone or occasionally with another passenger.  RARELY are such vehicles occupied by more than one adult person, regardless of the purpose of the journey.  Car-pooling is the exception, not the rule.  Why is that so?

For one, it’s obviously more convenient to jump into one’s own car WHENEVER one wishes and drive to WHEREVER one wishes to go.  And park closer.  And do as little walking as possible.  For another, very few people want to have to rub elbows with the hoi polloi who usually ride whatever public transit is available.  It’s just “nicer” to be able to ride alone in one’s own vehicle.  With gasoline selling (currently) around $2.00 per gallon, the “global“ consequences are utterly irrelevant for most.

BUT—

Driving one’s own motor vehicle, especially at night and on weekends, entails individual risks and consequences.  Going out to a bar or restaurant or live-music venue (absent current COVID concerns) entails a not-insignificant risk of drunk-driving injuries and deaths AND/OR criminal-defense and insurance costs and difficulties!  And, there is the congestion created by other drivers and their vehicles.  And, there is the annoying WASTE of time AND FUEL looking for a parking space, and the costs thereof, and the probable WALKING therefrom to the desired venue.  And, most of those undesirable risks and consequences are present, even without the burdens of dealing with one’s own impaired driving.  There are always the risks presented by the impairments of other drivers, as well as those risks that have NOTHING to do with anyone’s impaired driving.  Many drivers are simply riding around, utterly distracted, not paying attention to what is happening NOW!

CONVENIENT mass transit, especially rail transit, could make most of those serious problems much less annoying and risky.  “Convenient” means operating until late in the evening, frequently, AND on weekends, with transit rail beds going everywhere.  Shouldn’t all divided roads and streets hereafter built or “improved” have rail beds routinely constructed in the medians?

We already know how inefficient individual vehicles are.  They must routinely climb and descend grades that are mostly eliminated with rail transit.  Individual motor vehicles leave brake dust and smog in their wakes.  Rail transit does not.  Rail transit can move more people with less energy consumption and less local pollution.  I don’t know the energy “efficiency” of a rail transit vehicle, measured in person-vehicle-mile costs, but I would guess it is much better than “20%”!

There are also the associated costs of of private vehicle maintenance and storage vs. public transit vehicle maintenance and storage.  The latter are mostly paid by TAX DOLLARS, but the former come out of our individual pockets.  As for tax expenditures, I suspect the costs of street and highway building and maintenance are higher than the costs of rail transit building and maintenance.

I also suspect that the polluting effluent of motor vehicles (including Diesel buses) in a congested urban space is much worse than emissions from electrically-powered rail transit, considering that the electricity may be generated at remote sites away from urban congestion.  TAX-FUNDED public health costs imposed by urban vehicle pollution are significant.

So, what about convenience and tax costs?  Yes, one might have to rub elbows with the hoi polloi on occasion, but most personal vehicle usage might be eliminated with truly convenient rail transit, ESPECIALLY if fuel costs $6 or $7 per gallon, as it does in most other places in the world.  Yet, too many people are dependent on their motor vehicles to earn a living, so they would have no choice about paying more for vehicle fuel first if they want to keep their jobs.  Thus, the availability of reasonable alternatives SHOULD precede a legislatively-imposed fuel-cost increase to avoid a horrible economic crunch that would adversely affect local economies.  Too many “tree-huggers” are advocating a higher fuel tax FIRST!  As the Queen of Hearts said, "first the sentence, then the verdict”!

The typical cost-benefit analysis is rife with exceptions and deviations.  Getting an “honest” rendering thereof is problematic, not necessarily attributable to bad intentions.  The variables are gargantuan in number and many are elusive.  So, it may be cheaper right now to travel by one’s own vehicle than to pay for mass transit, ESPECIALLY if politicians foolishly declare that mass transit will “pay its own way,” as they did with Amtrak.  Unfortunately, mass transit is NOT going to “pay its own way.”  NO such system I know of anywhere in the world accomplishes that, and I have ridden rail transit in a lot of different countries and places.  Postponing the acceptance of that reality carries its own ADDITIONAL costs.  Taxpayers will simply HAVE to subsidize mass transit.  Otherwise, lower-income people won’t be able to afford a ticket to ride!  What’s the point of that?

Unfortunately, the poor ”unwashed masses” just don’t morally DESERVE such subsidies in the minds of many, never mind how much sense it makes!  And many voters will surely take out their ire on the “bleeding-heart” politicians who support them.  Understandably, no politician with half a lick of sense will go out on that limb and press for SUBSIDIZED mass transit!  Most of the “unwashed masses” don’t vote!

So the status quo prevails.

But many taxpayers have not fairly considered the many indirect governmental subsidies of private vehicle usage (and air travel) coming right out of their pockets.  Fuel taxes don’t BEGIN to cover the full costs of highway- and road-building or maintenance, nor do gate fees (substantially passed through to passengers as higher ticket costs) pay the full costs of airport construction and maintenance.  There is no “free lunch”!  Get over it!  IF transit provides substantial benefits not reducible to dollars and cents (like cleaner air and lower climate temperatures), perhaps SUBSIDIZED (dare I say “socialized”?) mass transit is the way to go.  Literally.

Voters must be led to “buy in” to the concept.  Voters must be persuaded that, in the long run, such a system will operate to THEIR advantage, both economically AND health-wise.  It’s not enough to pitch the smarmy altruistic purpose.  People are sick and tired of that crap!  They want to know what’s in it for THEM!  

But, all that will require smart and COURAGEOUS “leadership,” which translates as a willingness to risk political defeat!  Worldwide, but it needs to START in the US, because we already have the financial resources to do it.  We can set the good and smart example.  For a change.

Unless AND UNTIL those realities prevail, all the "tree-hugging" blather about “fixing climate change” is just pecking at the margins.

(10/9/20)

THE TWELVE L-O-O-O-O-NG DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

My True Love bailed on me last year.  Christmas was the last straw.

I thought I’d try to do something really romantic and nice for her for Christmas.  I decided to replicate “The Twelve Days of Christmas” by giving her all the wonderful gifts as recited in the song.  Duh.

Twelve days each of “a partridge in a pear tree.”  I picked up some pear tree saplings last fall at a nursery and stored them in my garage.  I found a source for live partridges (“bobwhites”) and arranged to have them shipped to me in December.

Eleven days each of “two turtle doves” (whatever they are).  I got some live doves from the same source as the bobwhites.  I used to shoot both!  And eat them!  Damn, they tasted good!  Especially wrapped in bacon!

Ten days each of three French hens.  Do you have any idea of how hard it is to find FRENCH chickens?  But, I got ‘em!  At least they LOOK “French”!  I can’t tell if they cluck in French or not.  Do those clucks translate as “Pardon my French, but …?”  But I don’t think My True Love will know the diff!  I like fried chicken anyway!

Nine days each of four “calling birds.”  I had no clue what KIND of “calling birds, so I got 36 mynah birds that chattered up a storm!  And they weren’t “fowl-mouthed” like those gray parrots in Florida!

Eight days each of five golden rings per day.  Not real cheap, but not too bad, either.  Well, I thought they LOOKED like gold!

Seven days each of “six geese a-laying,” and six days each of “seven swans a-swimming.”  I’ve got a pond in my back yard, so I could keep them nearby and let the swans and geese hang out there.  I bought a couple of bales of hay and about 18 softballs to make it LOOK LIKE the geese were sitting on eggs!

And then I had to buy a bunch of cages for all those birds.  I got a bulk deal because I needed a lot of them!  I stashed them in my Barn.

Five days each of “eight maids a-milking,” which meant that I had to arrange both the maids and the cows.  I hired some college gals to dress up and pretend to be milk-maids (aprons and Dutch caps), and a buddy of mine who’s a cattle farmer brought in some steers to stand by and munch on the hay.  They didn’t care, and thankfully they didn’t need to be milked at 3 AM!  My True Love would not know the diff!

Four days each of “nine ladies dancing.”  I hired some women from the local Arthur Murray Studio to come in and swoop around.  They meshed nicely with the “ten lords a-leaping” who came in for three days.  It was kind of bizarre, though, watching them all jump and swoop around in the back yard.  It was pretty nippy out there, so I had to pay extra for them wearing the skimpy costumes!

Two days each of eleven pipers piping!  How annoying!  Thank goodness it was only for two days, and only for a little while each day!  They were playing Irish jigs for the ladies and lords to dance by.  I dreaded the possibility that they would be playing that dreary, atonal, pan-pipe Indian-music crap!  It was bad enough, so thankfully it was only two days!

FINALLY, on the last day, January 5, twelve frigging drummers drumming!  I got them from the local high school band.  What a RACKET!  They were outside, too.  You’d better believe it!  I told them just beat the Hell out of those drums for an hour and don’t worry about it.  They furnished their own uniforms, AND they brought some folding chairs, so I didn’t have to worry about any of  that.

By that time, though, My True Love was rather put out.  I think it was when the bird “doo” started piling up around the back door, and we could not walk in the yard for all the poop!  It was EVERYWHERE, and the sloped edge of the pond looked like a paved concrete boat ramp, where the geese and the swans were going in and out of the pond.  It was tough on the dancing ladies and the leaping lords, too!  Those birds had been there for several days BEFORE the ladies and lords got there!  The pipers and drummers didn’t care much, as they were sitting in the chairs they brought (pipers, too).  No marching required, which suited them.

When I thought about it and totaled everything up, I realized that I had set up a numerical “palindrome,” which is normally a word or phrase that reads the same, backward or forward, like “RADAR” or “A TOYOTA”:

12 partridges in pear trees and 12 drummers drumming!

22 “turtle doves” and 22 pipers piping!

30 French hens and 30 lords a-leaping!

36 calling birds and 36 ladies dancing!

40 golden rings and 40 maids a-milking!

42 geese a-laying and 42 swans a-swimming!

That’s a lot of bird poop!  I should have had sense enough to just make all that crap (pun intended) disappear every day and bring the same stuff back again the next day.

Another thing I noticed is that as each equivalent pair increases in total number, the DIFFERENCES between those total pairs reduce by “2”—10, 8, 6, 4, 2.  I thought it was a fascinating mathematical presentation, but My True Love simply did not care, as I vainly tried to explain it.  I was obviously boring her.

She just walked out the door, and I haven’t seen nor heard from her since.

And then the coyotes started eating all the birds.

________________________________ 

PATRIOTISM

I’m not sure I measure up.

What does it mean to be “patriotic”?  To “love one’s country”?  I daresay that judgment is mostly in the eyes of those who already consider themselves “patriots,” and they will surely decide who else qualifies.  Whether we ask them to do so or not.

Must we sing the “National Anthem.”  Recite the “Pledge of Allegiance”?  “My country, right or wrong”?  Defend the “Flag”?  Pray to God, in whom we must trust?  Do those markers all define “patriotism”?  Or is it just the last refuge of a scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson supposedly said?

Article VI of the US Constitution recites that every federal, state and local official (including ALL judges, police, and US military officers) MUST make oath to support the Constitution itself, but NO religious tests for public office shall EVER be required.  That’s all.  So, if one is sworn to support the Constitution, but won’t recite the Pledge, is (s)he not a “patriot”?

I won’t recite the Pledge.  Not anymore.  I haven’t in a long time.  I was sworn in as a lawyer on October 6, 1973, making oath to uphold and defend the Constitutions of the United States and Virginia.  I have not recited the Pledge ever since because I simply cannot pledge (or swear) my allegiance (loyalty) to an image or piece of cloth.  Those are “graven images,” much like the Israelites’ “Golden Calf.”  They mean too many different things to different people.

My loyalty is to the abstract concepts contained in the Constitution, and that is the only oath or pledge I will ever take.  Things like the prohibition against double jeopardy; the freedom of expression; the right to peacefully protest; the rights to have a lawyer, and juries; the right to practice religion—or not; the right to NOT be taxed to support the religious activities of others; freedom from shariah law or other such stuff, etc.  And, most importantly, the RIGHT to expect ALL public officials to honor all that.  Explicitly.

Speaking of patriots, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this past week.  Before she became a federal judge she had practiced trial law, aggressively defending people’s civil liberties, which is the essence of “patriotism” in my book.  She won most of her cases.  Probably lost a few, too.  Nevertheless, she was the LAST true civil libertarian to be on the Court.  The late Thurgood Marshall is the only other one who comes to mind.  

Donald Trump is expected to replace Ginsburg with a “patriot” of his own choosing.  One of the leading candidates is Amy Coney Barrett, age 48, Phi Beta Kappa, a supreme honors graduate of Notre Dame Law School (first in her class), law review editor, and a judge on the federal 7th Appeals Circuit, nominated by Donald Trump in 2017.  She was born the year before I graduated from law school.

Since graduation, Barrett has clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia and, until 2017, she was a law-school professor.  However, just after her clerkship with Scalia, she was in private law practice for only one year.  Nevertheless, she is certainly “well-qualified” for the position on the Supreme Court, but her obvious lack of experience in representing real human beings bothers me.  I am somewhat biased in my belief that only those who represent actual human beings are REAL lawyers!  Those whose liberty or rights are at stake must be defended by the best counsel possible, and that is what makes “America” different from ANY other country!  Lots of countries are “democracies,” but only America seeks to put a leash on run-amuck majority rule!  That seems to be the essence of American “patriotism.”  Certain corporate shills, professors and “activists” may have law degrees and may have passed bar exams, but I don’t regard them as “real” lawyers!  I assume my patriotic biases are not shared by many.

So, I’m not sure that Amy Coney Barrett qualifies as a “real” lawyer under my exacting standards.  She seems quite deferential at times to her fervent Catholic beliefs, and I daresay that is probably a major element for Trump’s consideration.  But I hope that she will honor the solemn patriotic declaration in Article VI (to which she is already sworn) that our Constitution, and not her God’s “law,” is and shall always be “the supreme Law of the Land.”

SUCCULENT

The cold steel blade jabs hard, the skin;

The juices leak from deep within,

Surging hot, like fresh-drawn blood!

You shove the knife down to the wood.

Deep-red slabs flop on the plate;

Two bread slices “emanate”!

Blobs of mayo smack them hard—

It’s no time now to fear the “lard”

Piling thick upon the waist!

There’s only time to smear, in haste,

The waiting mayo on the bread.

Blithely cast aside the dread 

Of increased weight from eating well

That mayo, while drooling swell

The juices running down your chin,

And then consume it, yet again!

JILTED--BOOM!

I used to be insane, but I'm cured now!

Back when I was in the 8th grade (13 years old) in North Carolina, I had been thoroughly schooled in “ballroom dancing,” wherein we learned the “box step” (of course), the schottische (STILL no clue), the polka, etc.  Us guys were wallowing in the ditch somewhere between “snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails” and “Ricardo Montalban,” complete with appreciation for fine Corinthian leather, fine cigars and fine wines.  And, of course, plenty of “English Leather.”

Well, I became rather attracted to a cute gal in my class at school who was also in “ballroom dancing” with me.  I used to eagerly try to dance with her and resented the Hell out of ANYONE “cutting” in on us!  Of course, that was all very proper dancing, way before the slow-dancing “clutch” was invented, wherein the formalities of holding the girl’s hand, with her other hand lightly on my shoulder and my right hand politely touching her waist, were rejected for wrapping oneself COMPLETELY around the dancing partner so that every possible square inch of body surface could be touching the other’s!  Wow!

So, I asked the cute gal to the Junior Prom that spring, and she accepted.   Having to pick up a date and being driven thereto by one’s parent is about the worst thing imaginable, but I thought we had a rather nice evening together.  Sadly, she was rather distant thereafter.  I was crushed.  Then in the fall of the next grade year, our 9th grade, her church youth group had a hayride, and she invited SOME OTHER ASSHOLE to go with her!  I was INFURIATED!  (Still am!)  So, I decided to get “even.”

My best buddy had an older brother who would drive us to the Virginia State Line about 15 miles away to buy fireworks, as I have mentioned previously.  If we really pleaded and wheedled, the vendor might let us buy some really nasty stuff: the “cherry bombs” and the “silver bombs” that were really loud—and dangerous!  We loaded up and came back home.  Then we went to work.

My buddy’s house was about 10 blocks from where the cute gal lived with her parents, which was also about 2 blocks from the police station.  However, we had decided to go “camping” that evening down the street from his house, so it would not be necessary to sneak back into his house after our planned “assault.”

My buddy and I had figured out that the “butch wax” we used by the bucket-load on our “flat-top” haircuts (to make them stand tall and straight) could be used to create “timer” fuses for the firecrackers.  We would unravel the lacquered cloth fuses and flick all the black powder from them, then we’d twist them back up with a liberal dose of “butch wax,” thereby creating sort of a “candle wick” that was VERY effective AND would also give us time to make our escape!  I can still recall the conspiratorial smell of that “butch wax” to this day!

And we did escape.  Under cover of darkness, we slithered down the alley behind her house, entered her back yard, and placed timer-fused “silver bombs” all over her back yard, behind the downspouts, on the steps, the windowsills, EVERYWHERE!  And then we lit them and took off!

We hauled ass down the alley and around onto the street, BEFORE the “bombs” went off, leaped over the edge of the dirt bank along the street and lay flat on the ground for what seemed like a century, our chests heaving like huge bellows.  Then, the beautiful sounds of success tore the still night air!  At least 4 of the 6 or 7 “bombs” we had set went off.  We were elated!

In our “pre-attack” surveillance, we had listened to the various police cars (there were only 2 or 3 in our small town) so we could memorize what each one sounded like, and one had a particular “tick” in the engine.  As we lay on the ground, wheezing, we could hear that ticking” noise go by very slowly after the noise erupted.  We lay perfectly still and perfectly flat and waited for at least an hour, until we did not hear anything else.  We knew that if we were even SEEN walking along the street, we’d be suspects.

We carefully got up and peeked over the curb of the street, saw that the way was clear, then furtively made our way back to our campsite, through the shadows and off the streets.

We eased into our sleeping bags and savored our evening’s success!

GEOMETRIC ART PROBLEM (Updated)

The problem solved may be stated thus:

Using only a drafting compass and straightedge (as did Euclid, the ancient Greek mathematician) draw a random horizontal line (“Line 1”) and locate a point (“Point 1”) some height above Line 1 randomly;  

Then draw another line (“Line 2”) parallel to Line 1 through Point 1;

Then draw a 30/60/90 right triangle with the 90-degree angle vertex on Point 1 and the hypotenuse lying on Line 1.

First, I had to make my own large compass, because no store-bought compass was big enough to achieve the necessary markings.  I made it out of a strip of lath, cut into two longer pieces, two much shorter pieces, and another strip to hold the compass in position and to also use as the “straightedge.”  I drilled 13/16” holes in both ends of the longer pieces and in one end of each short piece.  I drilled another hole some distance from the end of one of the longer pieces and in one end of the “straightedge” piece, then attached all of them with (4) #10-32 machine screws, washers and wing-nuts.  I placed a washer under the head of each screw, then one between the pieces of lath being screwed together, then another washer under each wing-nut.  I screwed one end of the two longer pieces together as a “pivot” for the compass.  I then attached the two shorter pieces to each of the two longer pieces with screws and wing-nuts, then I attached the “straightedge” to one of the longer pieces with the extra hole in it with a screw and wing-nut.  I secured the pencil to one of the shorter pieces with a binder clip and used another binder clip to hold the “straightedge” to the other compass arm.  Finally, I removed one of the other short pieces and drilled a shallow pilot hole in the end, drove a small brad securely into the pilot hole, then ground off the brad head with a grindstone to a fine point and reattached it to the compass.

Next, using the new, homemade compass, I cut two equidistant marks across Line 1 from and on either side of Point 1, then marked a central point (“Point 2”) some distance below the Line 1 with crossed arcs from those marks and equal in distance to the new Point 2 from the old Point 1.  Then I “dropped” a perpendicular (“Perp”) from Point 1 to Line 1 as extended through Point 2 below.  That Perp is thus to be one side of the equilateral triangle used to form the 30° angle on Line 1.  Using the compass, I then measured the distance from the intersection of Perp with Line 1 to one of those equidistant marks on it.  Again, using the compass, I then cut an equidistant arc horizontally from Point 1 over and above the equidistant mark.  Yet again, using the compass, I measured the distance up Perp from Line 1 to Point 1, then moved the compass over to the equidistant mark and cut another arc across the first, that being the measured point from which the parallel Line 2 would pass through Point 1.  And then I drew parallel Line 2.

To construct the triangle, I then used the compass to cut a mark on Line 1 (Point 3) from Point 1 equal to the distance down Perp from Point 1 above Line 1 to Point 2 below Line 1.  I then checked that length from Point 2 to Point 3 to be sure it was equal length.  That creates the equidistant triangle bisected by Line 1.  Every equidistant triangle has angles of 60 degrees at its vertices, so the bisected vertex angle would be 30 degrees.  I then drew a new line from Point 3 to Point 1, showing the 30-degree angle.

I then faintly extended that new line beyond Point 1 and “dropped” another perpendicular from it to Line 1, being on an angle with Line 1, thus forming both the 90-degree right angle at Point 1 and also the 60-degree angle at Line 1, since all triangles contain 180 degrees at their vertices.  I then drew in those respective lines to complete the 30/60/90 right triangle at Point 1.

I intend to paint this construction in full color as a piece of art.

____________________________

FOOD POISON

I’ve been cooking since I was a kid, so there are some basic rules about food I need to get off my chest:

1—So far as I know, there is only ONE hot sauce to use: Tabasco, made in south Louisiana.  And most restaurants are run by a bunch of cheap-ass motherfuckers, because all they will keep on hand is that goddamned pig-slop “Texas Pete,” which is not even MADE in Texas!  It is fucking made in NORTH CAROLINA!

Now, I feel like a treasonous heel because I am FROM North Carolina, from whence many good foods (like pork barbecue) come, but “Texas Pete” sucks!  It is just “heat” with no distinctive flavor!  Tabasco has both FLAVOR and a wonderful bouquet aroma, as well as plenty of “heat,”

The best you can do is carry your own Tabasco with you at all times.  If you manage to go to a restaurant that offers Tabasco, then make a mental note to go back there again.

2—Ground pepper.  I carry my own small pepper grinder with me at all times also.  A friend (now deceased) turned me onto that practice.  I love the flavor of fresh-ground black pepper, and few restaurants have pepper grinders.  But, it’s worth it.  Most pre-ground black pepper is stale.

3—Chocolate.  The darker, the better.  At least 60% cacao.  Sugar is a must, and salty foods are great accompaniments to dark chocolate.

4—Barbecue.  Invest in a instant-read probe thermometer and USE IT!  Perfectly good dial meat thermometers will sell for less than $10 in most any hardware store.  I have a remote-sensing cordless thermometer that transmits the temperature as it rises to a receiver I keep with me in the house, and it allows me to do other things while the meat is cooking.

I was a certified barbecue judge in two different competitive circuits in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, plus I was reared in North Carolina, so I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about barbecue.  I have been cooking it for a long time.  In fact, I was a barbecue “Nazi,” being from North Carolina and refusing to accept that good barbecue could be made with anything besides pork.  Now, one of the things I learned as a judge made me more “ecumenical” about barbecue: that good barbecue comes in many different styles and flavors and meats, kinda like fingerprints or snowflakes.  They are all different, but can be good.  I have come to accept that beef, chicken, most anything, can make for good barbecue, and I am now grateful for that.

Beware of undercooked barbecue.  Good barbecue MUST be cooked “low and slow”—lower heat for much longer periods of time (hours), so that it cooks thoroughly yet does not burn.  The fat needs TIME to be properly rendered out of the meat.  Poultry MUST be cooked to an internal temperature of 175 deg. F. or higher.  Undercooked poultry is DANGEROUS!  It harbors salmonella bacteria which need thorough cooking to be killed.  I always take the temperature of poultry in the “groin” area between the thigh and the carcass, because it seems to be the last to cook.  Also, do not accept poultry if the juices are not clear (NOT bloody) and the meat is not thoroughly done.  Poultry should NEVER be “chewy”!

Well-cooked barbecue (like pork) usually produces what’s called a red or pink “smoke ring” along the edge of the outside of the meat.  That is NOT underdone, so do not reject it as such.  Undercooked meats may be pink down in the INSIDE.  However, pork is done when the internal temperature is at least 135 deg. F.  Most people WAY overcook pork!  “Pink” might be OK.  A rack of spareribs will be done within an hour, even if smoked with only indirect heat.

When in a restaurant, I also prefer to get my barbecue with sauce on the side—many cooks who hurry the cooking process or use questionable meats will smother their renderings in sauce to mask unpleasant side effects.

5—When grilling steaks, consider using the following “finger” mnemonic: 

Next, we move from the knuckles to the pad at the base of your thumb, which can be used, surprisingly, to tell you how a steak feels at various cooking levels.

See: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/the_finger_test_to_check_the_doneness_of_meat/

6—Whole wheat.  I have been working on several recipes using whole-wheat flour.  What I have learned is that whole wheat has a LOT of gluten, so it resists rising, esp. non-yeast rising like with baking powder.  I have added vinegar, baking SODA, a number of things to provoke more rising, but it’s just too “gummy” to cooperate.  Trial-&-error is the best advice that I can give.

7—Invest in a salad “spinner.”  Beware eating unwashed leafy greens, REGARDLESS of what the package says.  “Triple-washed” is BULLSHIT!

8—Pots and pans.  I have found that almost EVERY metal pan (especially aluminum) “releases” foods easier (with less damage) IF it is heated up BEFORE adding shortening.  I prefer to heat the pan up to where water droplets will skitter off the metal THEN spray cooking spray generously onto the HOT metal.  It seems to seal the pores and allow cooked foods to slide right off.  I have not discerned a difference with seasoned cast iron, nor should one use cooking spray on the new “copper” pans that allegedly need no shortening.  It will screw them up.  Heavy pans (like cast iron) cook more evenly and predictably than thinner pans.  

9—“Quick & dirty” old-fashioneds can be made with orange marmalade dissolved in the whiskey with bitters, then ice, added.

10—I think gin-tonics are better with “Schweppes” tonic, NOT “Canada Dry.”  Ugh.  And a fat wedge of lime, of course!

11—I like Bloody Mary’s with V-8 and gin instead of tomato juice and vodka.  “Zing Zang” Bloody Mary mix is the best commercial mix I have ever tasted.  Consider adding horseradish and/or dill pickle juice!

Raise a glass of Corona beer to the coronavirus!

THAT GODDAMNED HAT!

I was scarred for life, years ago, as a spoiled-rotten, car-crazy 15-year-old teenager allegedly growing up in North Carolina and eagerly anticipating my 16th birthday and my due licensure as a motor-vehicle operator.  I was already a very skillful driver.  I just needed the license.

One day in November of 1961 my father brought home from the Oldsmobile dealership he partially owned a Hot-As-Hell metallic PINK 1962 “Starfire” 2-door coupe, with a wide satin-aluminum streak running along each side from nose to tail, a HUGE, thirsty V-8 engine with 4-barrel carb, dual exhausts with throaty rumble, bucket seats, console with “stick” shifter, tachometer, etc.  Those accouterments were the automotive rage in the early 1960’s, and that car had ALL of them!  I almost could not believe my good fortune that I would soon be driving around in that machine, arrogantly dismissing all the girls who would SURELY be desperate to ride around with ME!

Little did I know.

Each day my 16th birthday grew closer, and my slavering appetite got only larger.  I pored over that beautiful, garish car constantly, washing it, waxing it, touching it, rubbing it, loving it, almost LICKING IT!  I was CONVINCED that my father was drunk when he ordered the car, as NO ONE I knew had EVER had a metallic PINK automobile!  I had never even SEEN one nor even HEARD of one!

Then my life crashed and burned.

Sometime in the Spring of 1962, just a few short months before my birthday in August, my father drove home one day in an Oldsmobile “98” 4-door sedan of the same year, the one being then driven by his business partner (and his son, who was a close friend of mine).  I was heartbroken and crushed to learn that those guys had blithely “swapped” cars with each other, and that now my “friend” was going to be riding around in MY car, having raw, unprotected SEX with his hot girlfriend in the back seat of MY CAR!  GOD-DAMMIT!

I DEMANDED to know WHY my father had GIVEN AWAY MY CAR?  How dare he do so?  Just before I was old enough to truly enjoy my unexpected good fortune?  His pathetic reply was that he INSISTED on wearing his goddamned HAT while driving, and he could not comfortably wear his goddamned hat in the “Starfire,” so he preferred the boring old plain-vanilla metallic-silver-with-gray-upholstery Olds sedan that would accommodate his goddamned HAT!  Then he warned me, in no uncertain terms, that I was NOT to bring the matter up again!  He was mean as a snake, especially when drunk, and he was still bigger than I, so I had to back down, fuming silently!

My life was so OVER!

Meanwhile, my worst fears materialized as my “friend” drove around in MY STARFIRE with his hot girlfriend, and I was still walking and riding a bike.  Goddammit, I was pissed off!  I could not BELIEVE how screwed I was!  Then, it got even worse.  Someone (my “friend” or his father) trashed the pink “Starfire” then swapped it for another black-and-white “Starfire,” and my pink car disappeared, forever.  Meanwhile, I eventually got my driver’s license and proceeded to tear through a soybean field one night driving way too fast and overshooting a STOP sign in that “98”!  It had really bad brakes!  That was not discovered, however, until long after my parents had moved to another town and I had already been "imprisoned" in a boarding school for several months!  They never figured it out for sure!

I guess the boarding school was my punishment for threatening to have just too much fun with that Starfire!

FIBONACCI SQUARES

I thought of an interesting progression of the “Fibonacci Series” the other morning.  The Series is the sequence of integers, each numeral of which is the sum of the two preceding numerals in the sequence.  I discovered that the sum of the squares of adjacent numerals in the Series yields higher alternating numerals later in the Series!  I have no clue of any particular significance.

Thus, the initial part of the Series, beginning with zero.  Note that “1” repeats twice, since “1” is the succeeding total of “0” and the first “1,” which necessarily follows “0”:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, etc.

SQUARES:

0, 1, 1, 4, 9, 25, 64, 169, 441, etc.

SUMS OF ADJACENT SQUARES:

1, 2, 5, 13, 34, 89, 233, 610, etc.

It should be noted that above about 13” in the Series, the quotient ratio of adjacent numerals in the Series is the so-called “Golden Ratio” of phi (Φ—“fee”—1.618) or 1/1.618 (= 0.618 = 1/Φ).  

The Fibonacci Series may be graphically projected as the addition of ever-larger squares forming ever-larger, outward-spiraling “Golden Rectangles."  Note that the quotient ratio of the Series increases or decreases by exactly “1” depending upon which “direction” one is going.  Consider that any square, therefore, is equal to the unit “1” since it is the same length on all sides.  That may account for the frequent manifestation of the Series in Nature as semi-liquid protoplasm expanding in all directions as it grows larger, such as the ever-larger chambered nautilus, the sprouting of leaves up a stem, etc.

So, employing the Pythagorean Theorem, the “hypotenusal” diagonals of the ever-larger graphic “Golden Rectangles” were also thus measured as the square roots of the aforesaid sums of the squares:

1, 1.414, 2.236, 3.605, 5.831, 9.434, 15.264, 24.698, etc.

AND, the quotient ratios of these higher adjacent “hypotenuses” more or less continue to manifest as the “Golden Ratio” of phi (Φ) = 1.618!!!  WOW!!

Just for grins, I also looked at the following, but I perceived no patterns or sequences:

ADJACENT SQUARE DIFFERENCES:

1, 0, 3, 5, 16, 39, 105, 271, etc.

DIFFERENCES, WITH ROUNDED SQUARE ROOTS:

⎷-1 (i), 1² + 2, 2 ²  + 1, 4² + 0, 6² + 3, 10² + 5, 16² + 15, etc.

I have speculated as to whether or not an exhaust pipe would scavenge “fluid” exhaust gases more efficiently from an internal-combustion cylinder if the diameter OR circumference OR cross-sectional area of the pipe were progressively enlarged by the Golden Ratio.  The overall length of the pipe would also inject an unknown variable, considering that most exhaust ports are at least an inch or larger in diameter at the start, and the pipe diameter would become very much larger very quickly!  And, consider whether the exhaust pipe should taper smoothly, like a  megaphone or trombone bell, or should it be stepped?  

As exhaust gases cool as they flow away from the cylinder(s), their requisite volume would likely decrease, so a non-flared exhaust pipe might be adequate.  Some drag-racing mechanics have cooled intake manifolds with dry ice to allow more unburned fuel-air mixture to flow into the combustion chamber(s) and have insulated the exhaust manifolds to RETAIN exhaust heat and improve exhaust-gas flows outward.