anybody heard about this_ anthony bourdain tomato?

TomatoFest announces the release of “Anthony Bourdain Tomato” seeds.

“Anthony Bourdain was an American celebrity chef, author, and television personality who explored the cuisines, culture, joys and essentials of human existence around the world. He was an icon to me, and many others, who love food and cooking as a most enjoyable way of gathering people together to celebrate our humanity.

“We wanted to pay tribute to Anthony Bourdain’s life by honoring his legacy with naming a tomato after him, a tomato heretofore unknown, that we have identified as particularly outstanding for its excellent flavors and beautiful, heart-shaped appearance, the ‘Anthony Bourdain Tomato’.

“We found it suitable that ‘the world’s most popular fruit’, a tomato, would carry Tony’s name and story through future generations in a way that would enrich the lives of many.”

can anyone recommend a good cell phone microscope?

been looking around, and there doesnt seem to be much between the $10 piece of crap, and the $200 pro ones.
i want to get one for my grandkids. i may just throw in the towel and get a lens set that has a macro.
just want them to have fun looking at stuff. not anything specific.

this hunt has made me hate the amazon rating system. things get 4 stars, and you look through and see that the one stars say this is a total piece of crap. one claimed to have a 1000x magnification. not even possible.
not going there for xmas.

random comments about microscopes welcome.

cross posting- cliffordu update, and some serious questions.

an update on cliffordu, and an appeal to the great du braintrust.

for those who missed previous posts, oldtimer cliffordu was diagnosed earlier this year w als.
he has gone from a strong and vital man to basically a quadriplegic in a few short months. the docs are stunned at the swift decline. the usual course for als is approx 5 years.
the current guess is that he has 3-6 months, tho they have been saying that for 6 months already. nobody really knows.

anyway, i recently visited him for 4 days.
he is in better spirits now that he is out of the va hospital, and into an apartment.
he can talk pretty well, tho he is on mechanical respiratory support that gets in the way. he has an adaptive communications gizmo that allows him to surf the net and type. this took ridiculously long to show up, imho, but he has it now and is feeling much less cut off.

he does still have a lot of muscle mass, unlike other folks that i have seen who are in the final stages of this horror.

being a staunchly honest and self aware person, he is trying to adjust to the idea of letting go of hope. i cant imagine a harder thing for a human to do. even when it is clear that that is the reality.

he has a lot of support from his old friends, many of whom he has gone to great lengths to help through their life struggles. his caregivers are very sweet.

please chime in here w your thoughts and remembrances. he will be reading this.


now for the braintrust thing-
because cliff is a veteran, he is getting va care. it is a presumptive service related disability, even tho he is a viet nam vet and long separated from the service.
this presumption covers all vets, regardless of when and where they served.

according to cliff, 60% of all new cases of als are in vets. their decline is generally much more swift than other victims of this cruel fucking disease.
there are possible explanations for this floating around out there, including that the intense physical activity of service is somehow a trigger. since cliff was quite the buff dude before he became ill, perhaps there is something to this. but studies that i looked at trying to find other populations w similar possible triggers are not conclusive.

here is where the mystery starts making you go hmmmm.

neither cliff nor i have been able to figure out just how the military decided to step up on this.
against a backdrop of the still ongoing fight to cover agent orange disabilities, this seems to have arisen out of the ether.
no lawsuits, no real debate, they just rolled over.

why? how? and what do they know?
as far as i can tell, if they know something, they are not sharing it w the researchers who are racing the clock to find a cure.
tho the va is involved in some drug trials, i have yet to find any research based on any specific knowledge.
if they are sitting on evidence here, that should be a damn crime.

this is a link to the announcement about this. i have found a couple other sources that pretty much just parrot this.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41405.pdf

so, dear, amazing du braintrust, please chime in w any info you may have that bears on this.
anything. any little thing.

i will be writing to my senator, the great tammy duckworth, and also john tester.
when i get this written i will post it here so you can share w your electeds, or anyone else that might have info.


and just a word about me, for no real reason.
i have been a hospice volunteer for the last 3 years. i never thought that the things i have learned in this would have such a personal focus, but then we all do or will know someone who is in need of this sort of care.
also, i am inordinately fond of cliff. tho i remember him from his old days here, i did not really interact that much w him. could be cuz i was a mod and he was a good natured lounge troll. lol.
but i found him on fb about a year and a half ago, and have gotten close to him.
as w most of my charges, i find it a privilege to be trusted and allowed into people's lives in these hard circumstances.
i am far away, but will continue to do what i can to support him.