Changes in Food Choices

1695foods/ 728 words

April 18, 2013

                                                        Our Changing Foods

a column by

Harley L. Sachs

Food choices have changed drastically over the years. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s the typical restaurant menus offered, besides steak and pork chops,  liver and onions, chicken and dumplings in a white sauce,  meat loaf, half a roast or fried chicken, scalloped potatoes and various generic soups like chicken noodle or tomato. You could find ham or pot roast.  Hamburgers were White Castle sliders or Wimpy, inspired by Popeye’s burger gulping pal. You could order a grilled cheese sandwich,  egg salad or a hot dog.  Fish? Well, there was perch or cod.

Outside of cities where there were large Jewish populations, there was no such thing as a bagel. You had to find a delicatessen to get a pastrami sandwich with an authentic kosher dill pickle.  Only Jews heard of lox and bagels with or without a schmere of cream cheese.. Only in places like New Jersey did anyone ever hear of something called pizza. Even chili was relatively new, an import from the Southwest. There were occasional Chinese restaurants serving not authentic Chinese foods, but American chop suey and chow mien. How much has changed since then!

I never heard of a taco until I visited Bob, my best friend from high school, who had moved to California in 1949. A taco was ethnic Mexican food and didn’t reach the Midwest until later. He also introduced me to giant prawns at a restaurant near the Salton Sea.

Today there are bagels in every grocery store, though the New York aficionados will deny that they are authentic unless boiled first. They come in all flavors, plain blueberry, whole wheat, and “everything.” Now, of course, prawns and similar shellfish of all sizes can be had frozen in the big grocery stores. Tacos are everywhere, and MacDonald’s and Burger King, Wendy’s and other burger joints compete  with upcoming Subway which cries “eat fresh,” a comment on the places where burgers  may sit, waiting for customers, until their company-designated expiration time runs out.

My first exposure to pizza was in Newark, New Jersey in 1953 when I visited a roommate from college while on my way to Germany and army service in Heidelberg. That pizza was a memorable, milestone meal. Now they are everywhere, in all sizes with your choice of toppings.

Today you would be hard pressed to find liver and onions on the menu of most restaurants. There are occasional meatloaf offerings, and chicken is Southern fried, dipped in batter. KFC dominates the Southern Fried Chicken business and is all over the world.

We have become foodies. Portland, Oregon, for instance, has become the foodie capital of the world with literally hundreds of ethnic food carts clustered wherever there is sufficient foot traffic. A food cart, being on wheels, is taxed only as a vehicle, so there is no property tax, much to the chagrin of real restaurant competitors. At least, those offer dining indoors. 

Those early Depression days of basic meals are over. We have become epicureans. Now, thanks to the post Vietnam War influx of immigrants, we have Thai, Indian, and Vietnamese dishes in additional to previous waves of immigrants with their ethnic foods like Poles, Germans, Russians, etc. The English bought us fish and chips.  The food carts offer just about everything you can take away.  Sampling a different place every day you could indulge literally for years.

It’s all about choices, but if you long for a dish of liver and onions or chicken and dumplings, you may have to look a long time. As for fish, thanks to depleted stocks, cod has almost disappeared. Now we ubiquitous farmed seafood: salmon, steelhead, tilapia, prawns, and hush puppies grown in ponds and pens. They are crowded together in water polluted with their own excrement. To counteract the bad effects of swimming in their own filth they are fed antibiotics which we get to absorb second hand.

In those early days of the Great Depression we ate locally grown foods. Now my menu includes melon from Costa Rica, bananas from Central America, tilapia from Thailand, pineapple from Indonesia, various foods from China, even lamb from New Zealand (when I can afford it!). The list goes on and on. To paraphrase Dorothy, when it comes to food  we aren’t in Michigan any more. Our stomachs are world travelers and we don’t even have to leave town.

Premise of the Second Amendment

The Premise of the Second Amendment

a letter by

Harley L. Sachs

All this imbroglio about gun control and gun ownership justified by the Second Amendment misses the essential condition: “In order to establish a well-regulated militia…” None of those gun owners are members of a well regulated militia. The Second Amendment was created at a time when memories of colonists under an oppressive foreign government were still fresh and there was a need for resistance. This has been extrapolated by the NRA into a fear that our own government will take away our guns.

Some will argue that the states already have a militia, which is the National Guard under the control of the governors, but the Federal Government has the authority to mobilize the National Guard, and has sent our state armies to foreign lands to fight. The National Guard, then, cannot be construed as a militia to protect us from our own government.

What the Constitution appears to enable is a home guard. We have no home guard, and we have no well regulated militia. Being part of the official militia should be a condition for ownership of military-style firearms.

Job interview for an Intelligence Agency

This was prepared as a monologue for a playwriting workshop:

1066 words

The Job Interview

Good morning. I have your application for employment with the agency and I’ve read your essay with great interest. I understand that you are keen to serve our country’s intelligence service. Your minor in interpersonal relations and your foreign languages skills are a plus. I also see that you are aware that 95 percent of this work is rather dull research, not unlike what you experienced in graduate school. One difference, of course, is that for us as a field agent you will deal with primary sources. But there is a caution, which you must be made aware of before we go any further with your application.

I’m sure you are familiar with the James Bond movies. Double-O-Seven is his code number and he always identifies himself as “Bond, James Bond.” In this business you will never reveal your real name. You don’t know mine, and your application has only a number identifier keyed to the date. We do not number our agents, for if there is a Double-O-Seven there must be an O-Six and so on.

Ours is the name that is never spoken. You are never to mention the name of this agency. If in Washington should you meet people socially, the most you can say is you work for some government agency, but not us. In fact, for all you know, we might be some other agency than the one you think you applied for. But I assure you that I do represent a United States agency, and not the Mossad or the Venezuelan Embassy. Granted, in this business you can never be a hundred percent sure of anyone or anything.

James Bond carries all sorts of weapons and is provided with a fancy car and various gadgets. You will never be armed. No Beretta, no tear gas fountain pen, or any of that gadgetry. Your only tools will be your camera and your pencil. Unlike those folks in the World War II resistance, you’ll not be trained to use a secret radio transmitter.  You will be trained in tradecraft and possibly the use of certain ciphers.

 In the movies James Bond kills dozens of bad guys. Did you notice that they are killed, but never get hurt? And Bond is never arrested for involuntary manslaughter, not put on trial, doesn’t go to jail, and is not executed. Nor does he attend the funerals of his victims or meet his victims’ families. James Bond is a comic book super hero. If you have fantasies about being a super hero, forget it. This job is not for you. It is best that you are invisible.

We will provide you with a cover story. It will be something innocuous, but plausible. For instance, until her cover was blown by Mr. Cheney, Valerie Plame ostensibly worked out of a Washington law office. Her outing cost seven of our agents their lives.

 Your pay with be two tiered, your public pay, and the real salary. For instance, if your cover is to be a homeless person who sells Street Roots, you will live the life of a homeless person and spend only what you gain by begging and selling the newspaper. The rest of your pay will be held by us in escrow until such time as you leave the agency, retire, or die, as the case may be.

Partly because of current budget concerns, we can only offer you a position as a contract agent. That means you are a private contractor and not an official employee of this agency. We do that for several reasons. You will be subject to the self-employment Social Security tax. Therefore, you do not qualify for any benefits such as vacation pay, health insurance, unemployment, disability, or the pension plan.

If you spend lavishly, far beyond the means of, for instance, your cover as homeless person, you will be suspected of being a drug dealer or of doing something else illegal. To avoid that temptation, we withhold a portion of your pay in case you mess up or decide to go over to the opposition. In that case, your savings with us are forfeited. The longer you work for the agency, the more you risk losing should you mess up.

You will be required to sign the Official Secrets Act and all your activity will be classified. No one, not even your spouse or partner, not your mother or your father, is to know what you really do or what your real job is. It is a double life, not so very different from the life of a man who has a mistress or is a criminal. In fact, you must be aware that when you are working outside this country espionage is a crime. You are a criminal. If you are caught, like Gary Powers when his U2 plane was shot down over Russia, we will deny we know anything about you. Since you are not an official employee of the agency, we do not know you. You will be hung out to dry. If convicted and imprisoned, as Powers was, you may get lucky and be traded for one of their spies that we have caught. Under the Geneva Convention, if you are a soldier in uniform and captured you need only reveal your name, rank, and serial number. If you are not in uniform and are a spy you may simply be shot.

There’s an international trade meeting coming up. Should you be hired, we may ask you to attend as your first assignment. We may point out certain delegates we would like you to cultivate. Be friendly. Listen to their problems and their stories. If you are successful, they will soon think you are their best friend. You will report everything to us. You will never know what we do with your reports. You will not know what action we take as a result of your activity. It is possible that, because of their contact with you, a foreigner, they may be in jeopardy. They have their own security people at work and if they suspect that your target has betrayed their country, he or she may be arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or killed. You, by betraying their confidence, will have betrayed them to us. Can you, for the sake of our country, betray people?

 Now do you still want this job?

The Sachs Firearm Bill

The Sachs Firearms Bill

Preamble

Though the 2^nd Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms for a regulated militia, ownership and use of a firearm is also a responsibility.

Who Shall Own or Possess a Firearm?

Whereas the Constitution provides that a citizen shall be permitted to bear arms, that right shall be restricted to citizens who have not been convicted of a felony and are deemed mentally competent to pass a psychological background check. Undocumented (illegal) aliens may not own or possess a firearm of any kind. Foreign tourists with hunting licenses may possess a rifle or shotgun during the hunt.

Classification of firearms

A hunting rifle or shotgun may be owned or possessed by anyone holding a valid hunting license. Hand guns are not considered hunting firearms and no one under eighteen may own or possess a handgun. Unlike hunting weapons intended for killing game, the primary purpose of handguns is to kill people.

Registration and Insurance

All firearms must be registered with the police and insured for liability. For instance, if a gun is stolen, the gun owner must report the theft to the police within seventy-two hours. Should the stolen gun be used in a felony, the gun owner is culpable as an accessory and liable for damages and subject to prosecution, just as if he were the driver of a getaway car for a bank robber who kills a clerk. The driver is also guilty of murder.

If a gun owner lends a firearm to someone the owner is still responsible for damages resulting from the misuse of said firearm. Renters of a firearm for hunting must take out a liability insurance policy for the duration of the hunt.

Insurance of all firearms is to protect the gun owner from losses through theft and misuse. Should a person be accidentally wounded, the insurance policy may provide some liability protection in case of a lawsuit for damages or wrongful death. Such coverage may be attached as a rider on a home owner’s or renters’ policy.

Firearm owners must be prepared to show proof of insurance and registration at all times when the firearm is in their possession. Owners with carry permits must be prepared to show proof of insurance, license to carry, and registration just as a car owner must show a valid driver’s license, proof of registration, and insurance in a traffic violation.

Endorsed by

                                      

                                             Name of elected official or representative

                                                                                                  

Gun insurance

Guns are not toys. They are lethal weapons. Just as in order to drive my car it must be registered and insured and I need a valid license, a similar approach to guns should remind people that owning a lethal weapon is a serious responsibility. Instead of banning guns by type and magazine capacity, let’s require liability insurance and registration along with licenses to carry. The insurance industry could readily attach a rider to your home owner’s or renter’s policy. If stopped by the police a gun owner would have to produce proof of insurance and license, just as I must do if I am stopped in a traffic stop.  If I don’t have those, my car may be towed; for a gun owner, the gun could be impounded until the owner produces proof of insurance.

When I taught English to the Swedish police in Stockholm, you could own a gun but until you had a gold marksmanship medal you could not remove it from the shooting club. One of my students had to carry a weapon on the job, but could not have a gun at home himself as he was not qualified.

Protect your privacy on the web

Tor, a barrier to internet snoops

a column by

Harley L. Sachs

What with surveillance cameras everywhere,your grocery chain central computers knowing everything you buy and your gps capable of knowing when you’ve broken the speed limit or skipped a stop sign, or even your TV set capable of watching you instead of the other way around, it’s a wonder there’s any privacy left. If you’re worried about someone knowing what web sites you visit, fear no more. The US Navy, the Swedish government and other groups finance the Tor Project and it’s free!.

The original purpose was to aid governments and police agencies in keeping their investigations away from prying eyes, the free software also serves people with nefarious interests. Isn’t that typical? It’s like the old Mad Magazine Spy versus Spy cartoons. Just when a new technology is developed for good purposes, someone turns it to something nasty. When the internet was invented (by Al Gore or someone else) nobody anticipated that 40% of its use would be for international pornography.

It’s not enough to download and install the Tor program. You must use its browser and follow the instructions or your attempts at privacy will be circumvented. There is ample documentation available on the Internet. The idea is to conceal your IP address, so you can’t use flash player and other programs which can trace back to you. So no addons or plugins. Tor encrypts the web sites you visit.

The secret to how the system works is the routing. Your surfing is routed through other computers, and the more there are of them the better. In spy tradecraft this could be described as using cutouts, such as using a dead drop to pass your message onto a courier you never meet who passes it on to another she has never met. It’s like putting your message under a rock in the park to be picked up by someone else who puts it in a hollow tree, etc. In the case of Tor, the chain of communication is through other people’s computers, which may include yours when someone else is using Tor..

The risk there is that your hard drive may inadvertently, unknown to you, be a temporary parking place for some kiddie porn. That happened to a student in Graz, Austria. He volunteered his computer as a link in the Tor network, but when the police found the porn, he was accused of being a child pornographer and has charges pending. It’s a bit like arresting the mail carrier for having incriminating post in his bag.

The Internet overview of the Tor Project and its uses states, “Individuals use Tor to keep websites from tracking them and their family members, or to connect to news sites, instant messaging services, or the like when these are blocked by their local Internet providers. Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site. Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.

“Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they're in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they're working with that organization.”

General Allen should have used some sort of secure cutout for his love letters. Of course, his method was to post draft letters to a phony gmail account his girl friend also had access to. The messages were never actually sent. They were opened, read, and never went beyond the draft stage.  A better option would have been to encrypt the messages using  free pgp encryption, but that demands your writing the message, encrypting it, destroying the original, and then sending it. This is tedious and of course if someone can see your’ve got encrypted messages they might be curious.

There’s much more to the Tor Project than can be covered in a single newspaper column. Study it carefully and follow the instructions meticulously or you may inadvertently give away your IP address.  Then all your efforts at internet privacy will be for naught.

More about "The Misadventures of Cpl Sachs"

Well, it's not only completed, but the little 116 page book is now set up at lulu.com for sale as a paperback for $9.95 and on the ebook readers--Kindle, Nook, and at Lulu for only $4.00. It's amazing that I could piece together so much about the mere 21 months I spent in the US Army back in the 1950's at the end of the Korean War. I wasn't much of a student at Indiana University and certainly no soldier though the army provided me with an assortment of uniforms. I realized as I completed this memoir that the army was the only time I ever had a "real" 9-5 style job. As I report in it, I had zero sex life before the army but was "normalized" by the time I was discharged. My last official duty was as a  guard on a train taking prisoners to Bremerhaven for transport to Leavenworth federal prison. The worst offender was being sent to the slammer for fornication, or maybe it was adultery. He'd seduced or been seduced by a number of officers' wives while working as a porter at a dependent hotel. I thought fornication was SOP,. standard operating practice in the army, but the Universal Code of Military Justice does in fact have adultery among its list of actionable offenses. General Petraeus please note. My own sexual exploits,such as they might have been, are not in the memoir, for, as I remind readers, Mother said it was never proper to kiss and tell. However, the love story is obliquely depicted in my MA thesis, "The Golden Grape," which is in the Indiana University library. "Queer Company" is the novel I wrote about the experimental training unit I was assigned to at Camp Breckinridge.A copy of that is in the US Army historical archives, but it's available as an ebook and paperback. I can't remember if I sent a copy of "The Golden Grape" to the archive or not. My own archive is in the warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky.The book was revised as "A Woman for Sam." It's still in manuscript form.
I suppose "The Misadventures" is my own equivalent of "Beloxi Blues" which was Neil Simon's military novel. My memoir is not a novel, of course. It's a remembrance of my own "Grand tour" of Europe in 1 1/2 day weekends. It's written for my daughters, but anyone who might find it interesting can obtain it. At times it is humorous.The identities of my pals in uniform have been kept confidential. They know who they are.