The Good Rabbi's Blog

So Saturday was the broadcast of the Live 8 concert. It promised to be quite an event, as the G8 conference gets underway in Scotland. The event was broadcast live from ten different countries (members of the G8). Celine Dion managed to cause quite a stir by not appearing live, but rather sending in a performance from Vegas (the actual U.S. portion of the concert took place in Philly). It was apparently a huge deal, as both of Celine Dion's fans were highly disappointed.

Good morning, everyone. First off, I must apologise for the delay in my updates to this weblog. There are a number of reasons for this, first and foremost because my current class has been extremely taxing, and also because I've done a bit of travelling lately, as I've made a trip back to the East coast of the USA to visit some friends and family. The good news is, I'm back now, and there is no dearth of things to talk about. I'm working on an update for my educational pursuits, and what my thoughts and observations are from my European Cuisine class, but for the time being, I thought I'd do something I'm pretty good at - complain.

So these past few weeks have been that time of year where the brainless masses decide that they're meant to be singers, and line up to audition for the American Idol competition. I think that this is perhaps one of the clearest windows into the soul of the American psyche that I've ever seen.

After a few days of unbelievable amounts of rain in the D.C. area, we're starting to dig out and get back to normal again. We've basically received (in three days) approximately five times as much rain as we normally get for June and July combined. Amazingly enough, the basement seems to have held up well. In digging through some items that I need to get through, I found this story, which has amazingly gotten very little press. Apparently, there is a vast left-wing conspiracy, at least in the blogosphere.

Well, as if the world isn't fucked up enough already. As further proof that anyone can bring a lawsuit, here's a guy out of Oregon that is suing Michael Jordan and Phil Knight (the founder of Nike). For what, you might ask? For looking like Mike (really). What is this world coming to? I'm going to get some ice cream.

After another Thanksgiving, I thought I’d ease everyone back into the daily grind with something unusual for this web site: a culinary op-ed of sorts. Recently, the people in charge of New York City have begun a debate on whether or not to ban trans-fatty acids in restaurants. In order to understand the implications of this, it is necessary to know a little bit about what trans-fatty acids are, and why officials would want to ban them.

Normally, fat comes in four types: saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and trans fatty acids. Saturated fat (such as butter, coconut oil, and palm kernel oil) is solid at room temperature, and is generally quite bad for you, in that it has been shown to be correlated with heart disease. Unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature (olive, canola, soybean, corn, and vegetable oils), and while still bad for you, are less bad than saturated fats (although the fat content in your diet should come from unsaturated fats as much as possible).

The trouble is that all the flavour and goodness in various recipes comes from saturated fat. Some enterprising companies have discovered that if they add Hydrogen to an unsaturated fat like vegetable oil, it takes on properties that make it behave like a saturated fat (in terms of taste, texture, and body). These hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils (which are sold as margarine, vegetable “spreads,” oleos, and shortening) are also called trans-fatty acids (or TFA for short).

Recently, authorities have become concerned because of a link between TFA’s and a number of health problems. TFA's have been shown to raise the level of LDL ("bad") cholesterol, while lowering the level of HDL ("good") cholesterol, which leads to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke. Also, there seems to be a correlation between TFA consumption and obesity levels. The federal government, which is in an excellent position to enforce such a ban nationwide, has been silent on this matter, so some municipalities have started to take matters into their own hands. New York City, as the first major city to consider this, is being watched very carefully. Fast-food restaurant chains such as McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's, worried about potential drops in profit margins, have already (supposedly) started investigating alternatives for their fried foods.The proposed ban would only encompass restaurants. People would still be able to purchase margarine, shortening, etc. for home use.

As a professional chef, I am opposed to this sort of regulation for two reasons. First is because it’s badly written legislation that unfairly targets restaurants. Only restaurants would be subject to a ban on ingredients that are otherwise perfectly legal to use. Restaurants generally use a shortening in their deep fryers because it’s cheaper to use, and it doesn’t have to be changed as often as oil (and believe me, changing the oil in a commercial deep-fryer is not trivial). As such, the practical implication of this ban would be to quadruple the cost of anything fried.

The second reason I am opposed to this ban is because I really believe that it is not for a government to regulate what I eat. I am an adult, and I should decide what level of risk I’m comfortable with. I understand that there is a large amount of obesity in our society, but at the end of the day, people are responsible for their own diets, and for their level of activity (or lack thereof). What will happen if this ban comes to pass is that restaurants will most likely revert to using saturated fats such as butter, which is why the American Heart Association does not support the ban as it is currently written.

This sort of regulation first started in the late 1970’s when officials were concerned about Peking duck (which requires that the duck is hung to dry for half a day). It then moved to artisanal sausages and salumerias, and now to TFA’s. As a result, a lot of old-style artisan work is being lost. I admire the New York City government’s intentions, however the practical implications would be to shield people from one danger, while exposing people to another. Where does this end? If they come after Five Guys next, then my friends, the terrorists have truly won.

Ever since I started working at a certain government agency that you interact with every April 15th, I've been amazed at the sheer and utter incompetence of many government people. The funny part is that the government has an army of contractors (like me) that they use to do their work (see you never really want to tell a government person that they have to finish their coffee break, lunch hour, etc. They get particularly ornery about that sort of thing). It's gotten unbelievably bad lately, in that there are a gazillion contracting firms there.

This allows the government to say they've cut the federal work force, even though they really haven't. The true cost of government projects is staggering as a result, since most contractors have an incentive to develop systems about 75% of the way, and then they have the government agencies by the balls to finish and/or support their system. Private companies (or even public ones for that matter) are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and are able to get around just about every rule that was put in place.

So managing all these contracts with all these governmental agencies is a major pain to do, albeit necessary. So how does the government evaluate contractors' performance, making sure that they don't screw over the "great American People" and continue to provide some degree of value? Well, believe it or not, they don't (wait for it). They (wait for it) do what makes sense in this situation (wait for it): they hire a contractor to do it.

Only the government is stupid enough not to see the inherent conflict of interest that arises from having a company evaluate its competitors. The government is allowed to hire contractors to perform duties that are not "inherently governmental." That's about as inherently governmental as it gets, and they can't be bothered to do even that effectively. It's high time that they stop worrying about things like "diversity" (yeah, I said it. Diversity is not a goal - equality is. Having a Black/Latino/Asian/etc. on your staff simply because they're Black/Latino/Asian/etc. is just as demeaning as NOT hiring them because they're Black/Latino/Asian/etc.) and start worrying about how to effectively govern and take care of "the peoples' business."

Ok, this is now officially getting ridiculous. Something seems to be very wrong with the chain of command at the Boston Police department. First, in 2004, the police harassed a protester by pretending he might be standing on a bomb. Then, there was that ludicrous episode where they acted like a bunch of retarded monkeys in the face of an ad campaign promoting the Aqua Teen Hunger Force on the Cartoon Network (yeah, the same campaign had been running in ten other cities, and nobody else freaked out).

Now, they're going to the trouble to make sure a traffic counter can never kill anyone. See, they actually thought it was a bomb. What's next? The Boston Police: putting the error in "terror."

Well, as usual, it's been a while. Between my job searching, my traveling, my wedding planning, and fixing my bathroom sink, I've been swamped lately. Now, we've finally turned the corner on the most meddlesome part of planning a wedding: invitations. This leads to my first rant of the evening.

Why is it that Microsoft has to make everything so damn complicated? We have about 153 invitations going out, each with two envelopes. I figured that I could just set up an envelope document in Word (where each "page" would be an envelope layout), then just stick a stack of our envelopes in the printer, and print the whole thing all at once. As I found out, Word doesn't support that, so we had to do each envelope one at a time. Pain in the ass, I say. Now, I know what you're thinking - why didn't you just use labels? Well, put plainly, because my fiancee is weird. I wanted to, since each page prints thirty addresses, but well, there comes a point when you just can't understand what the hell brought you to this point in the first place.

Second, I've recently come to the conclusion that the majority of people in this world are simply too stupid to breathe. As evidence of this, I put forward the iPhone. Can we please stop talking about this on every site, at every minute of the day? I've watched people spend hours or even days in line, waiting to spend $600 on a phone that has yet to prove itself. It's not like you're waiting in line for tickets to an incredible concert or something that you know will sell out in a matter of minutes. You're waiting in line to buy a phone. A particularly expensive phone at that. An expensive phone that has never been proven in the marketplace. As anyone that has any experience with anything electronic will tell you, you never buy the first version of anything. Wait a while, until Apple fixes the inevitable problems, and then buy the next version. It's incredibly stupid. Personally, I prefer the jPhone