Family Guest Post #1

Posted by Jill

Today, I present the first of a small series of guest posts by my family members. The following is a copy of an email from my dad, Tom (aka "TK"). He has a PhD in meat science, 30+ years experience in the food industry, and a lot more common sense than the hand-wringing Chicken Littles over at Yahoo. Below is his response to yet another article about how we're all going to die because all foods are terrible. It's especially funny because the title claims these are foods "experts won't eat." If Tom's not an expert, I don't know who is. So hopefully this little dose of reality will help ease your mind the next time you opt for canned tomatoes or a fresh apple.


First, there are no bad foods. If they really were bad, they wouldn't be food, they'd be poison, or just not food. There are, however, bad diets.
1. Canned tomatoes at 50 mcg/l for bis A - you ever eat a liter of tomatoes, even in a week or month? The problem with bis A is baby bottles. They used to use zinc to coat cans, and lead solder to seal.
2. Corn-fed beef - cattle "evolved" to eat grass, including GRASS SEEDS! Corn-fed just tastes better; that's why it is popular. At least they quit talking about BSE - mad cow.
3. MW popcorn - how much do you have to eat to get a harmful dose? Acetyl from the butter flavor is (WAS) the bigger problem, and it wasn't that big.
4. Potatoes - buy organic if it makes you feel better and don't mind that insect damage causes the potatoes to produce their own noxious chemicals.
5. Farmed salmon - nutritionally inferior, maybe. Sustainable, maybe. Tasty, yes. Cheaper, yes.
6. rBST - guess what? There is BST in organic milk, and pus, too. That's why we pasteurize it. rBST causes cows to produce more milk per lb. of feed, so produce less methane and CO2 to reduce"GLOBAL WARMING".
7. Apples - worms and fungal spores, or pesticide residues - you make the call.
If I eat Surf & Turf with a baked potato, and apple pie with ice cream twice a day, every day, for years, my risk for dying does not increase - it still is 100% (unless Jesus comes first). The question is when. If the risk of disease increases 60%, that sounds like a lot. But more correctly stated, if my risk is 1 in 500,000 for the disease, a 60% increase is 1.6 in 500,000 or 1 in 312,000. Or, I may die a year sooner. That's one less year for the nursing home and Leigh to worry about me.
You should read Freakonomics, about the risk of having a gun or a swimming pool at your house. Or flying vs. driving - the risk of dying in a plane crash is about the same as in a car crash, if stated on a per hour of exposure basis. But, you spend 3,000 hr. a year in a car, and maybe 30 in a plane. Why is flying scarier? Control, or lack thereof. That's why these articles are sensationalized. They give the illusion of control, but over a miniscule risk.
FINALLY:
Alle Ding' sind Gift, und nichts ohn' Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.

"All substances are poisons; there is none which is not poison. The right dose differentiates a poison…." Paracelsus (1493-1541)

TK


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Trauma

Posted by Jill

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out on Thursday (all 3 of them), as well as having a couple of root canals and fillings on the right side, and I'm pretty much terrified. I've already had a few nightmares about it -- the pain, the incapacitation, and the substantial costs to be incurred. Sadly, that will not even take care of all my dental issues, as I'll have to go back over spring break to finish the ever-troublesome left side.


This will be my first experience with sedation dentistry, which is hopefully a good thing after all the dental trauma I've encountered since age 5 or so (abscesses, root canals, cruel hygienists, etc.). I can't have caffeine for 12 hours before or after the procedure, and can't drive for 24 hours after. I'll take the first pill at 7am, get to the office by 8am, and hopefully everything will be finished by 1pm. According to message boards, I will most likely think that about 15 minutes passed during this time. Then, I'll be taken home and put to bed, where I'll probably stay until sometime Friday. I can't eat solid foods for the first day, which I doubt will be a temptation anyway. If all goes well, I won't puke my guts out or get dry sockets, and I'll be able to get through mandatory job training from 8am-noon on Saturday. Then I'll have the rest of Saturday and Sunday to recover before classes resume on Monday.

Hoping for the best... Ehuh...

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Stand By Your Pirate

Posted by Jill

I've got some good posts in the works, I swear, but all I can think about today is Mike Leach. I love Mike Leach. I made a t-shirt with his face on it five years ago, and have worn it to every Texas Tech football game I've attended since. I love his pirate obsession (even though pirate obsessions are usually lame), and I love the insane things he says to reporters. ["We aren't playing worth a damn and we should be." "Fat little girlfriends."] I love that he can't physically smile, just snarl. I love that he never played college football, but is a total badass at coaching it. I love that he has a law degree from BYU.


But most of all, I love Mike Leach for what he has done for the Texas Tech football program. He has transformed it into something Red Raider fans can be proud of. He's led our team to a bowl game every year, and never had a losing season. He's given players like Wes Welker a chance, and was at the helm of the Crabtree/Harrell play that stuck it to the Longhorns in 2008. His air-raid offense and unorthodox approach to football have made him one of the most intriguing coaches in the NCAA. He is a living legend in college sports, and Tech is a better place for having hired him.

Conversely, Tech is a worse place for having fired him. While Leach and our football team have been the subject of some national recognition, and we were still up against a lot of misconceptions and bad attitudes about Lubbock and Tech. ESPN is a major source of this. Their general position has been that nothing good can come out of such a lame, nowhere place as West Texas, and that it's a shocking anomaly any time the Red Raiders score. All of that is BS, obviously, and we were finally getting some traction in combating the idiocy. Not so now. We're back to being a laughing-stock. Thanks a lot, Tech admin.

If you know me at all, or have read this blog for any amount of time, you know I am a die-hard Red Raider. I have 2.3 degrees from Tech, my parents went there, several of my aunts and uncles went there, and my sister is about to graduate from Tech and go on to their medical school. Texas Tech is in my blood. I love the school, the campus, the athletic programs, the fans, the colors, the mascot, the fight song, the traditions, and the city of Lubbock. To see our football team rise as they have, and then suffer such a blow, really affects me. Perhaps I place too much of myself in my alma mater and its athletics, and this might be a wake-up call. I don't know. What I do know is that firing Mike Leach was a STUPID move on the part of Tech's administration, and they have no idea what they've gotten themselves into.

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Uninvited Guests

Posted by Jill

What do you do when there's a small mammal (squirrel? possum? armadillo?) hanging out in the walls of your house, scritching around? And don't tell me to yell "go away and quit destroying my house!" because I tried that already and it didn't work.

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Car Talk

Posted by Jill

I recently accepted an adjunct instructor position with Dallas County Colleges. Yay! Except it's at the campus furthest from my house, yet still in the county. Boo! My beloved XC90 is leased, and until now, I've kept the mileage under control. Driving to far southwest Dallas at least twice a week will pretty much kill that, so I have to trade in Arlo Volvossen on a purchase that I can rack up the miles on. Fortunately for us, A) about half the car dealers in the US are offering 0% APR for up to 72 months with approved credit, and B) it turns out I have kickass credit (high 700s!). So we should be able to get me into something decent. The problem now is: WHAT?


I have a friend whose dad and husband happen to run a prominent chain of dealerships west of the Metroplex, so any Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, Cadillac, Toyota, Nissan, or Hyundai (ha) that I could want would be an option. It's just that I happen to be a Ford/Mercury/Volvo/VW/Audi kind of girl. But at this point, I'm keeping an open mind. Here is my "short" list; what do you think? (PS: It has to be a 2009 model to get the rebates, or I'd just get an XC60 and be done with it!)

Buick Enclave (yeah, really)

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I Am a Mandinka Warrior!

Posted by Jill

Some thoughts while watching Roots (as required by my Slavery in Popular Culture class):


* With a little editing, this really could have been a feature-length film instead of a miniseries. All you'd have to do is remove the comically homoerotic scenes and it would be half as long.

* OJ Simpson was pretty hot back then. Sorry, y'all, but it's the truth.

* LeVar Burton had yet to grow into his face, but I'm happy to say he eventually did, sometime during Reading Rainbow.

* The film industry has made remarkable strides in realism since 1977. I didn't realize how spoiled I was to things not always looking totally like a sound stage.

* When Kunta Kinte's father discovers his son's pouch (confirming that he has been captured by the slave traders), you can see silver fillings in his mouth when he wails.

* Approximately 2/3 of the famous black people in America were in this series.

* Remind me never to sail across the Atlantic.

* How am I only finished with 1 of 7 discs?


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