Food Event

On Wednesday I went to Campus trends food event. I was really glad I went to this event because I unexpectedly received a great meal. I had a spinach salad with cranberries topped with a tasty red vinaigrette dressing to start off with. The main dish was a potato fritter type thing and flat-dish vegetarians pizza. For desert there was some great chocolate cookies. Limeade and tea was available for drink. Not thinking there would be food there I made the tragic mistake of eating before hand, and doubling down on dinner made me a little drowsy.

I didn't really hear much conversation about the upcoming plans for the Campus trends, but if turnout is any sign things look promising. I asked around a little bit but I am not sure how they are going to get funding for all of these great things, like setting up another cafeteria in the basement of the Bernard center.

For entertainment there was poetry reading, stand-up comedy, and live music (mostly acoustic folk stuff) at the end they had a jazz/rock band that was really good. Don Conney got on stage and asked to people to sign a petition to get western to de invest from oil companies. I found out that many colleges around the country have de invested their money from oil companies and Western is now following the trend.

It was all very entertaining and informative.I am glad I went.

Food traditions

I found Lexi's presentation very enlightening. The Jewish dietary laws seem to make a lot of sense. I going to guess that the average American Jew has lower rates of obesity and diet caused health complications, because of the laws. I assume eating pork in the pre modern era was risky business, and it isn't completely safe now.

One of my favorite restaurants is Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. Zingerman's a somewhat traditional Jewish deli in Ann Arbor. Lexi's presentation gave more insight into the Jewish food tradition and perhaps more reasons as to why I like this place so much.

The presentation really seemed to tie together many themes of the class. Tradition and food often go together. I wrote the first paper in this class about how food builds and sustains the social ties that make life so valuable. Families that eat together like i am sure Lexi's does have must get a lot of satisfaction from those regular interactions. Growing up or next door neighborhoods where Jewish and I would celebrate certain things with them (spin the dreidel and stuff like that) I remember eating at their house quite often, but I can't remember exactly what we ate, outside of the food being really good. My own family does not have a food tradition like Lexi's. Most of what my family eat growing up was typical American fare (German, English, and Irish dishes) with the occasional exotic dish thrown in for good measure.

From Lexi's presentation and from visiting the restaurants around town I have become well aware of the many different food traditions that exist right here in little Kalamazoo. Growing up in Kalamazoo I did not realize just how many culture's exist in a town of this size.


 

Climate Change Lecture

I found the Climate Change lecture to be very informative, interesting, and above all scary. My knowledge of the physical sciences is pretty rudimentary so the Dr.'s lecture really helped me out and presented a wealth of material in way I could understand. I left the lecture with mixed feelings. I was somewhat distraught given the challenges we will face in upcoming decades yet there was more than a glimmer of hope, especially given the voice we have in voting. Fred Upton has a powerful voice in Congress and has used that voice to block some legislation regulating climate change. Paul Clements a professor in the political science department right here at WMU is running against Upton.

After the lecture I did a few quick Google searches through the poplar media to find some dissenting opinions on the subject, expecting that most of those opinions would in someway be tied to interests of industries that would be hurt due to carbon emissions legislation. (cap and trade) Most of the articles in the mainstream media that I could find that resisted carbon emission legislation were from the Wall Street Journal. As a reader of the Wall Street Journal I have found the actual reporting content of the WSJ to be fairly balanced, but the editorial page has a pro-business bias. The overall view of climate change from the editorial writers of the WSJ is that climate change is being caused by humans, but that the overall effects are ambiguous an therefore we shouldn't do anything drastic if at all about it. The WSJ recently found 16 accomplished scientists to dissent from the IPCC consensus opinion, but all of those scientists have ties to Petroleum industry think tanks or aren't in the specialty of climate science.The piece has been vigorously attacked, fortunetly.

Beer and UFC

I was reading an interview the other day of Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather if you don't know is in the opinion of many the best pound for pound boxers in the world, and perhaps one of the greatest of all time. Floyd was asked his opinions about mixed martial arts and UFC, which is booming in popularity especially among young males. Floyd said something along the lines of "UFC is for caveman and beer drinkers, civilized people should't do things like that." The statement got me thinking. Beer drinking is associated with rough rowdy behavior while other alcohol drinks are associated with sophistication. Just imagine if somebody said "UFC is for wine drinkers," I doubt that quote has ever left anybody's mouth.

So why is beer drinking often associated with two men rolling around the ground beating the crap out of each other; an activity even boxers find barbaric?

I can't answer that, but it does seem that drinks at times reflects on one's lifestyle. Wine drinking is associated with having a discriminating palate and higher socioeconomic status. Beer is what Homer Simpson likes.

But does an appreciation of wine really mean one has a more developed taste buds than somebody who drinks beer? I have a tough time believing that especially after reading this article.

Malaysian Food

I did a little more research on Malaysian Food. Because Malaysia's population can be divided into Malaya's, Chinese and Indian the cuisine is a mixture of those food traditions. This explains why the dish I ordered at Raza Ria seemed so similar to a Chinese dish you could get at any number of Chinese restaurants around town. From the customer service person at Raza Ria I found out that the place has been in business fro 10 years and is family owned. I assume many of the ethnic restaurants around town are family owned, or many different families get together and pool their resources to start a restaurant.

Raza Ria

I went with my dad to Raza Ria, a Malaysian and Indonesian restaurant on West Main yesterday. Raza Ria is in the midst of semi-strip mall type buildings that dot West Main after you have traveled out of downtown and past the Henderson castle. The inside was nothing fancy, little more than cafeteria table and chairs like most cheap Chinese restaurants. The place had a unique smell that is hard to describe. The room was loud as the chatter from the kitchen overflowed into where the customers eat. A teenager of Malaysian or Indonesian descent but fully Americanized took our order and we sat down. I ordered shrimp and chicken mixed with vegetables and my dad ordered rice and beef. My order looked and tasted like a a typical order from any Asian restaurant. I was somewhat disappointed because I was hoping for something a tad more exotic. My dads order looked like dog food, one can't judge food by what it looks like but in this case you could, it was sort sort of beef dish. My dad got sick a day after the meal but I am not sure it's because of the food he ate; it's a mystery. If I go back to Raza Ria again I think I will make sure to order something more exotic, I enjoyed the vibe of the restaurant but the food I received but the food  was a tad too generic compared to what I had hoped for. Just by talking to the customer service person I learned a lot about Malaysia. If you ever do go to Malaysia don't bring any drugs because the punishment for that is death, also don't order the beef.

A movable feast part 2

In Page 50 - 100 Hemingway writes about bicycle racing, horse races meeting other great writers and daily life in Europe. It seems like their is a aimlessness to Hemingway's life outside of his craft of writing. Gertrude Stein dubbed Hemingway's generation the "lost generation" and I can see why. One of the most striking lines in the book I have read to far was Hemingway's claim that he doesn't trust anybody who wasn't in the war. Although not specially described in the book the reader does get the sense that World War I loomed large in Paris of the 1920's. While reading "The movable feast" I often wondered how Hemingway got the money pursue all those activities and interests on a starving artists wages. It seems Hemingway drank at a lot of bars and cafe's, he was sort of a drunk and later in life succumbed to alcoholism leading to a suicidal end. "A Movable Feast" so far as painted a picture of a vibrant artistic community of Americans in Paris, the type of artistic scene that was romanticized and de-romanticized in the Woody Allen film "Midnight in Paris" where Hemingway's character is certainly intriguing. Hemingway mentions writing the story "Up in Michigan" He had a cottage on Walloon Lake which is a very beautiful place. My family took a vacation up their one summer. The perch fishing is excellent.

I think it's interesting that young people of the 1920's were refereed to as the lost generation as our generation has also been referred to as a lost generation.

The Hunger Games

For some reason I couldn't really get into the Hunger Games, maybe the plot was a little to far fetched or something. The income divide and quality of life in the book certainly wide ranging and horrifying. I wonder if the author is trying to make some critique of our own society and the growing income gap. I think the reason this book is so popular among teens is because it puts usual high school problems into perspective and provides thrills. I think the book will grab my interest in the next set of chapters.

Jurgis, Sabino and the American Dream

Reading about Jurgis and listening to our guest in class got me thinking about the American Dream and what it means. It seems that the response to the question, What does the American Dream mean to you? reveals a lot about people's background and worldview. Comparing the story of Jurgis in the Jungle with our guest in class with Sabino's seems to give two sides to the American story. Jurgis failed to achieve his dream while Sabino really improved his economic well-being and is confident that his children will have even more economic opportunity. If we were to judge the American economic experience just by listening to both Jurgis's and Sabino's stories it would be easy to get the impression that the ability climb in socioeconomic class is easier now than the past, but is this true?

I started doing some research to find if Sabino's success and Jurgis's failure represented American society as a whole during their respective times. One of the most balanced and nuanced articles I came across was entitled "The Mobility Myth" in the New Yorker. The "Mobility Myth" points out that in virtually any society that has ever existed economic mobility has never been the norm, yet America in late nineteenth century had greater economic mobility than Europe. Stories like Andrew Carnegie starting out as a boy factory worker and later becoming the worlds' richest man made a deep impression on the American psyche, as those rags to riches stories were unique to America. When Upton Sinclair published the Jungle, sociologist Werner Sombart noted that most U.S workers felt they had a good chance of rising out of their class, according to the article.

Things changed in the second half of the 20th century. Americans are no longer more economically mobile than Europeans and there are certain parts of America that are the least economically mobile in all of the devolved world. Despite the lack of class mobility in comparison to Europe take home pay doubled from the late forties to the early seventies in America. People who didn't move up in economic class still saw their wages increase.

ch.14-20

In the first part of the reading Jurgis and his family are still functioning. Slowly Jurgis becomes more and more disillusioned with his life in America and starts drinking heavily. Jurgis's despair is worsened by Ona not coming home one night. Ona eventually admits to Jurgis that she has been forced into prostitution by Connor her boss at the factory and has been raped by him. Jurgis in a fury attacks Connor and is sent to prison. Jurgis finds himself in prison during Christmas eve and recalls the joy had had with his family during the previous Christmas. The judge at Jurgis's trail does not believe his story and he is sentenced to 30 thirty days in prison. Once Jurgis gets out of prison he suffers a tragedy of events, he finds that the family has been evicted, Ona dies in childbirth and he loses his new job.

In chapter 14 through 20 it becomes obvious that the American dream is not working out as planned for Jurgis and the family. These chapters really how the dark underbelly of America's economic system at the dawn of the new century. It's obvious why Sinclair choose the title of "The Jungle", as life in Chicago during this time is like that of a Jungle, with Jungle law. Sinclair portrays Chicago urban life as a situation where the poor have no power and little, everybody must fight for them-self or perish. Sinclair indirectly ask's the reader to put themselves in Jurgis's shoes and probes the question, what would you do? As the book progresses it becomes obvious Jurgis has few options, he does what he can but overall he can't really change his hard life. It becomes more obvious to the reader in these chapters that Sinclair really detests the American economic system of his time and is advocating real and substantial change. Sinclair was a socialist, and saw that as a correction to the problems Jurgis and his family faced.

I think these reading is extremely relevant to the economic issues of today, as many today are questioning the validity of the American dream. To me the American Dream has meant fluid class lines and social mobility, but I think it means many different things to different people. Historical America did have more fluid class lines than Europe but things have changed.

The Jungle ch.2 to 5

I have read the Jungle before but I think it will be good to go back and read it again. I forgot that in the beginning of the book the tone is so optimistic. Jurgis represents everything that is great about America. He wants to do honest work and make his way in the new world. The think the beginning of the book really starts off like a Horatio Alger story that is very much ingrained in the American consciousness. Perhaps Upton Sinclair wants the reader to think of Jurgis as a soon to be rags to riches figure climbing the social ladder to wealth and predominance, which I guess is the American Dream. The part when Jurgis and his family are offered a loan for a house reminds me of the whole recent sub-prime mess. Optimistic immigrants coming to this country only to be stuck in dirty low paying jobs still occurs. So far reading the Jungle has illuminated many present day social conditions by giving the similarity to those conditions in the early part of the 20th century. I am excited the read more of the Jungle and figure out how this story all plays out as I have forgotten much of it. I happened to come across a book review the other about the history of the meatpacking industry which was very interesting that goes along with our reading, although coming to somewhat different conclusions.