Just A Suggestion

If you're asked to be a commencement speaker, make sure you know which college did the asking. For example: let's say you've been asked to be the commencement speaker at a former women's college that only began admitting men in 1988: don't praise the school for producing notable alumni such as Billy Graham and Dennis Hastert.

When addressing the class of 2010 at Wheaton College, a liberal arts college in Norton, Massachusetts, Ann Curry seemed to be thinking about Wheaton College, the evangelical Christian school in the suburbs of Chicago.

The Week in Food

You think rabbit's expensive? Heritage turkeys too pricey for you? Behold the budget breaker that is the sheep pig.

You've made a brownie pan in the shape of a chocolate bar? Hershey's lawyers would like a word with you.

Sorry, but when I think about places to go for brunch, Burger King isn't on the list.

A sandwich consisting of bacon and cheese between two fried chicken filets? It's messy, really bad for you, and very, very popular.

Some people say we should less meat for the sake of the environment. Rosana Yau has another idea.

The Way We Think Now

From a New York Times article on the notion that not getting getting a college education is the best thing for some people:

Professor Vedder likes to ask why 15 percent of mail carriers have bachelor’s degrees, according to a 1999 federal study.

“Some of them could have bought a house for what they spent on their education,” he said.

Because everyone knows financial gain is the only reason anyone should have for pursuing higher education. It's not as if knowledge is a good in and of itself.

America's Finest at Work

It's about three weeks now since the men in blue saved Times Square from the threat of a ticking non-bomb created by an incompetent...I mean, a criminal mastermind, so now Homeland Security is trying to head off the next danger facing us:

Vermont farmers.

Or, to be more specific, Vermont farmers whose lands border that hotbed of smuggling and terrorist training camps: Quebec.

The Department of Homeland Security has told Vermont dairy farmer Clement Rainville that unless he sells the 4.9 acres of his hayfield that are on the Canadian border to the U.S. government, they will simply seize it under imminent domain.

Adjacent to the Rainville family farm is the Morses Line Port of Entry (a Port of Entry is the official term for one of those roadside stations where border officials stop you, look at your passport, and ask you inane questions that are none of their business). DHS wants to upgrade the Morses Line Port of Entry facility, which was built in 1936.

I can understand the burning need for a new facility at a PoE that carries the burden of vetting 3 cars an hour* and is open four hours a day.


*When it's really busy.

The Week in Food

University of Texas scientist have seen the future of medicine: chilli peppers.

Japan: go for the gardens and Mt. Fuji, stay for the cucumber-flavored Pepsi.

I'll have some rotten shark meat and a side of ram's testicles, please.

In case you're worried you haven't been doing it right, here's how to eat sushi.

And in case you missed it on BoingBoing, here's how to make Spam musubi (because I know you've been wondering).

News Roundup

The Arizona Department of Education is now requiring schools to remove from classrooms teachers who speak heavily accented English or who make grammatical errors.

Why do I have a feeling that the targeted teachers won't include light-skinned teachers with strong Southern* accents who use "good" as an adverb and haven't mastered the subjunctive?

Mexicans....dogs...to Iowa congressional candidate Pat Betroche, there's not much difference.

But arguably it beats being likened to grasshoppers.

Thanks to six years of lobbying by his mother and the intervention of his Congressman, eight-year-old Mikey Hicks is no longer on a TSA list subjecting him to extra security measures. Other kids--some of them as young as five or six--aren't so lucky.

And this morning Sarah Palin thanked the people of Michigan for "clinging" to their "guns and religion" and railed against "big government and big spending." I wonder if that big spending her audience is so against includes the $7.3 billion in federal funds awarded to Michigan?

*Or Maine, Bronx--insert the American accent of your choice.