RSherman
RSherman's JournalLocal restaurant just changed to buffet only
A friend invited me to lunch yesterday. We went to Brooks BBQ in Oneonta, NY, which has been open since 1961. Brooks chicken and ribs are basically legendary. While I've had Brooks BBQ at various events, I've never eaten at the actual restaurant.
My friend lived in Oneonta and was a frequent flyer to this business. Well, when we arrived, she was quite flummoxed. The hostess explained that our choices were take out or buffet only. Linda really wanted to eat in, so we paid $29 each for the buffet. Customers choose which meat they want: chicken, ribs, brisket, pulled pork, or some combo thereof. We were given a token to present at the meat station. There were two other stations for sides: one with tossed salad fixings, mac and potato salads, rolls, etc. The other contained hot sides such as mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, etc.
"All you can eat" buffets are really a waste for me since I don't eat that much. There is no way I could eat $29 worth of food. And, there is no option to package up leftovers, so all uneaten food is thrown away.
I get that restaurants are experiencing staffing issues, so maybe this prompted the change?
I also understand that many people enjoy/prefer buffets.
I won't return again as this format does not work for me. Also, concerned about the food waste, I googled to get more info. and found many articles including this one:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/impact-buffet-food-waste-environment-mercy-chepng-etich-lang-at/
Opinions?
Considering Jan. 6 and promised forthcoming "blood baths", quotes to pay attention to:
"From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible."
George Orwell, 1946
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
Voltaire
"According to this paper, you'd never know there's a problem at the border"
Today, a friend invited me to lunch about 60 miles away. After that she wanted to shop at a little mom and pop store she used to visit when she lived there. While she was shopping, I stood in front of the counter to cash out. The man behind the counter folded his newspaper and pronounced "according to this paper, you'd never know there's a problem at the border or that there's a man named Biden or that he has a son...."
No "hello" or any other greeting. Not "are you new around here". Just his proclamation.
Why would he just assume I would agree with him? Because I'm white? Because I was well dressed?
Sheesh! I should have just put my item down and waited outside for my friend.
Two book suggestions for women
1. "Women Behind the Wheel"
"Cars helped women secure the right to vote, changed the nature of romance, and influenced both fashion and child rearing customs. In the just over 100 years since their inception, cars have created possibilities for commerce and romance even as they exposed women to new kinds of danger. Women Behind the Wheel explores the uniquely gendered landscape of the automobile, detailing the many reasons why cars are both more expensive and more dangerous for women drivers."
https://www.amazon.com/Women-Behind-Wheel-Unexpected-Personal/dp/1639365591
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1241321758/women-behind-the-wheel-nancy-nichols-car-culture
2. "All in Her Head: Medicine Matters" A book by a female physician
"For as long as medicine has been a practice, women's bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by women’s own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences. The result is a cultural and societal legacy that continues to shape the (mis)treatment and care of women"
https://www.amazon.com/All-Her-Head-Medicine-Matters/dp/0063293013
"Official Secrets"/Bush 1 & 2 and Blair should have been jailed for war crimes
“All warfare is based on deception.” Sun Tzu, The Art of WarRecently, the movie “Official Secrets” popped up on the Youtube channel. It tells the story of Katharine Gun who was a British linguist who worked as a translator for the GCHQ. She leaked an email which requested aid in a secret operation to bug the UN offices of six nations: Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, and Pakistan. These were the six "swing nations" on the UN Security Council that could determine whether the UN approved the invasion of Iraq. The government charged her with an offense. Many people stepped forward to urge the government to drop the case, among them Daniel Ellsberg (the US government official who leaked the Pentagon Papers). The case came to court in February 2004. Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer evidence. In May 2019 The Guardian stated the case was dropped "when the prosecution realized that evidence would emerge ... that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful." The British government further tried to lean on Gun by trying to deport her husband. (Much like the Bush administration outing CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame because her husband was broadcasting the truth).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Secrets_(film)#:~:text=To%20exert%20pressure%2C%20the%20British,certificate%2C%20proving%20the%20relationship's%20authenticity.
Tony Blair: From the start of the War on Terror, Blair strongly supported the foreign policy of George W. Bush, participating in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was controversial, as it attracted widespread public opposition and 139 of Blair's own MPs opposed it. As a result, he faced criticism over the policy itself and the circumstances of the decision. Playwright Harold Pinter and former Malaysian prime minister accused Blair of war crimes. In an October 2015 CNN interview, Blair apologized for his "mistakes" over the Iraq War. The Chilcot Inquiry gave a damning assessment of Blair's role in the Iraq War.
Bush 1 pushed the US into the first Gulf War using similar lies and propaganda. First, Bush claimed: Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression.” The Pentagon stated that satellite photos showing a buildup of Iraqi forces along the border were the source of this information, but this was later alleged to be false. A reporter for the St. Petersburg Times acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images made at the time, which showed nothing but empty desert.
Next, Hill & Knowlton, an American PR firm, arranged for an appearance before a group of members of Congress in which a young woman identifying herself as a nurse working in the Kuwait City hospital described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor. The story helped tip both the public and Congress towards a war with Iraq: six Congressmen said the testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq and seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate. The Senate supported the military actions in a 52–47 vote. However, a year after the war, this allegation was revealed to be a fabrication. The young woman who had testified was found to be a member of Kuwait's royal family and the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the US. She hadn't lived in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion. After finding no evidence to support the fake testimony, President Bush repeated the incubator allegations on television, over and over.
GE, which profited from the Gulf War, owned NBC and provided more propaganda. The government of Kuwait was a major GE shareholder.
Bush 2 pushed the US into Iraq a second time, again, based on lies about weapons of mass destruction. His administration outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. Her identity as a covert CIA operations officer was leaked by officials in the Bush White House to undermine the credibility of her then-husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, after he criticized the administration's decision to invade Iraq. “I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," he wrote in a NYT op-ed after he was sent to Niger by CIA officials on a mission to investigate the country's sale of uranium to Iraq. Eight days after Wilson published his op-ed, columnist Robert Novak identified Plame as an "agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," and cited two senior administration officials in his piece "Mission to Niger.” The revelation culminated in the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison in 2007 for lying to the FBI and obstructing justice in the investigation into the leak of Plame's identity. Libby's sentence was commuted by Bush and he was pardoned by Trump.
So, Bush 1, Bush 2, and Tony Blair lied, ruined the lives of their own citizens who opposed the war and exposed the lies, and are responsible for the deaths of members of their militaries and of Iraqi citizens. And, none were held accountable. Terrible.
Funny truck driver story
I had a friend who was a truck driver. He invited me to go along one time. I was surprised how much time was spent travelling, then waiting to be loaded/unloaded, then driving back. Sometimes when the "lumpers" were at lunch or behind, we had longer waits. One of these delays occurred at a WalMart facility. We checked in at the office then were directed to a little lounge with a phone and vending machines. Drivers sat around talking, playing cards, etc.
After quite awhile, the phone rang. My friend, Ron, answered it, then looked around the room and called "Juan Nonteen? Juan Nonteen?" He went back to the phone and replied that no one named Juan was in the room.
A little while later, I remembered the girl in the office had a southern accent (we live in Northern NY). I asked Ron, do you think it's possible the office was calling by truck number rather than the driver's name? Couldn't 119 sound like Juan Nonteen? OMG, I was right! We laughed and laughed (although I never understood why Ron wouldn't know the office would call by truck # rather than by name?)
Harvard Removes Human Skin Binding From Book In Its Collections (Whoa!)
https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2024/03/harvard-human-skin-binding-book/"Harvard Library has removed human skin from the binding of an 1880s edition of Arsène Houssaye’s book Des destinées de l’âme (The Destinies of the Soul, 1879), held at Houghton Library. The volume’s first owner, French physician and bibliophile Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839–1933), bound the book with skin he took without consent from the back of an unclaimed deceased woman in a French psychiatric hospital where he worked."
Baltimore bridge victims were immigrants in riskier, hard-to fill jobs
This message needs more publicity! For the MAGA crowd who portray immigrants as "non human", criminal, etc., they take jobs that others won't. And, they are quite often exploited.
https://www.marketplace.org/2024/03/27/baltimore-bridge-victims-were-immigrants-in-riskier-hard-to-fill-jobs/?fbclid=IwAR2uAyISC4rG-roTtpY8v797EGKj3TyDUzSUWOatzsJtGcnWccOdkzrP3Z8_aem_AX9fOdtx_NIIqMb1YjKBV7bR_GqtDcXkViD1DX2g3-_r9tnvQPmBkx5UKh_9TlpuVGZTcHxiXHlHH13YGyh-8M72
Stories of immigrants who clean up after hurricanes in TX and FL (where they are perhaps the most aligned by those governors!):
Undocumented immigrants clean up after storms in FL. No one else wants to do it. Then DeSantis falsely claims they are there to "ransack" after the storm. Ugh. I heard an interview a few years ago in which immigrants report sleeping in and under their cars while cleaners working for FEMA are given hotel rooms. They are constantly harassed by law enforcement.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/11/1128184363/undocumented-immigrant-workers-are-helping-clean-up-florida-after-hurricane-ian
IMMIGRANT DAY LABORERS CONFRONT A PERFECT STORM OF EXPLOITATION IN HURRICANE HARVEY CLEANUP
Texas leads the nation in construction industry deaths, and labor organizations in Houston say they’ve seen a spike in wage theft since the hurricane.
https://theintercept.com/2017/11/13/hurricane-harvey-houston-immigrant-construction-workers/
While outrage against Repubs is warranted, Black maternity and infant mortality has been unacceptable for way too long..
The recent death of Krystal Anderson highlights the health disparities in Black birthing women.
Even Serena Williams, who has resources and is in amazing physical shape had trouble. The day after giving birth to her daughter, she was short of breath. Having experienced blood clots in the past, she had no doubt that she was struggling with a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. The trouble was no one believed her.
Dr. Chaniece Wallace, a Black pediatrician in Indianapolis died in 2020 due to preeclampsia complications two days after giving birth to her daughter.
In 2023, Tori Bowie, an elite Olympic athlete, died of complications from childbirth. Tori Bowie, who captured gold as a sprinter in the Olympics and the world championships, died at age 32 from complications of childbirth, according to an autopsy report.
Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications.
In NYC, the Black maternal mortality rate is 9 times higher than their white peers.
In the US, Black people are twice as likely to have a preterm birth, birth a low weight baby, or have a child that dies before the age of one.
A 2019 survey that polled pregnant women of all races showed that 22 percent of Black women reported mistreatment by a health care professional during their pregnancies and childbirth. They are twice as likely as their white peers to report being ignored by a health care professional when they reported symptoms or asked for help.
Preeclampsia is 60 percent more common in Black birthing women than in their white counterparts.
Source: Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons With Racism in Medicine by Uche' Blackstock, MD
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