Toxicity

It amazes me almost every day how many well-read, informed, progressive people become absolute Luddites when it comes to biotechnology and food.

Just because you can pronounce it: it still might kill you (and vice versa)

Marijuana

If you are a small-government advocate, then you do not have to prove a reason for legalisation; quite the other way around.

Cappelletti Aperitivo

Rather excited to have found this retailing in Atlanta

Cappelletti being a Trentino-based family business, currently run by a friend

Childless, Funfull

Stemming from Kim Cattrall, Nina Steele writes:

"How often do we expect men to account for not becoming fathers? You only have to compare the very public tick-tocking of Jennifer Aniston’s biological clock with the scant mention of George Clooney’s to see this blatant double standard in action. Jane Garvey, in conversation with Kim, admitted it makes her shy away from the issue altogether in interviews."

Yeah, I remember the last time somebody asked my husband about his childlessness, and... no, wait... that literally has never ever happened. 

Riding a bicycle

You know who I would like to meet?

I'd like to meet the guy or gal who is hanging around one day and says "You know what would make bicycles better? No brakes!" And then removed the breaks and put a stop gear in your pedals.

You're a genius, you are. And by genius I mean you are mean.

On-line Dating

Was I wrong all along?

Admittedly I have never tried this, having been in the same relationship for something like a gazillion years.

My view was always in favour of online dating, as it gives an opportunity to communicate a little before you meet somebody in person and get over the initial who are you and why are you here part of a conversation. It seemed safer and easier than meeting in a bar, for example.

But what if it gives you too much time to think it over? You build up this idea of what the other person is, go through your checklist of what you want and don't want, and nobody lives up, of course. Or they do in your head but they don't really. And are you going in to that first date already thinking about the long term possibilities, with all this time to over-think things? Because that's just going in too fast.

So maybe the spontaneous meet in a bar or at a party is, actually, the more genuine experience. You don't have to time to build somebody up - or down - before getting to know them?

Self-Respect

Is not equal to Self-esteem.

My view on the latter has been expressed here before.

Theodore Dalrymple writes on this subject matter as well:

"people who claim it are inclined to demand of others that they take them at their own estimate

...

Perhaps I can illustrate the difference between self-esteem and self-respect in the seemingly superficial matter of mode of dress. In this matter I have changed my mind over the years: I used to believe in the virtues of slobbery, but I no longer do. This is because the slob is in effect saying to you, and to everyone else, I am not going to make an effort just for you. You must take me as I am, and not think the worse of me for that. Slobbery is not absent-minded, as when, for example, a learned professor, absorbed in the textual problems of Aeschylus or some such abstruse matter, puts on socks of different pairs. On the contrary, slobbery is militant. It demands simultaneously that you notice it and take no notice of it. It is self-esteem in the sartorial field. Note, however, that while the slob demands something of you, he demands nothing of himself. It takes no effort to be a slob: to be a slob is to indulge in unconditional self-regard."

Read the whole piece to understand his point.

Lungs

A 1-act, 2-man play with a minimal set can really be one of two extremes: a brilliant production or a complete waste of your time.

Lungs, performed at the Woolfe Street Theatre in Charleston, is the former.



A young couple considers having a child. They are rather annoying, at least to begin with. Their over-analysis seems childish, almost self-righteous.

The play is a spoken musical: the dialogue is beautifully rhythmic, the stage production meticulously choreographed. Fishburne and Haden gave an almost perfect interpretation and held my interest for the full hour and a half.