Today’s lunchtime news chum starts off focused, but then wanders off aimlessly. We begin with some interesting articles on geography and history:
- Geography and History. We talk all the time about “securing our borders”, but most of us don’t even understand why our borders are where they are. In truth, there are all sorts of reasons a border is drawn where it is. The New York Times has an interesting discussion of our northern border—that is, why is the border with Canada at the 49th parallel.
Next, a lot of people forget that California has islands… and if they know that, they forget about anything other than Catalina. The LA Times has an interesting article on Santa Rosa Island, and the ranching family that is finally leaving it. I can’t remember if this was the island from “The Island of Blue Dolphins”.
- Hotel Breakfasts. Speaking about hotels brings us to the subject of hotel breakfasts. On the mid-priced end, there are the breakfast buffets. The economy is impacting those: frequently, locals are crashing the buffets to get free food. That doesn’t happen at the high end hotels, which don’t deign to have free, or even low-priced food. How about a $15 bowl of oatmeal? For that price, I’ll go to Starbucks or McDonalds, thank you very much.
- Where Does Food Come From? Lastly, our discussing food brings us to the question of where food comes from. In particular, baby carrots and pig wings. First fact: Baby carrots are not young carrots, they are the misshapen adult carrots that are cut down to an appealing size. Second fact: Pigs don’t have wings (nor can they fly)—rather, “pig wings” are a new way of marketing ham shanks to a populace to whom “shank” is a dirty word.
