Tofu, the dog, visits Chico State
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
Tofu, a six-month old puppy, plays with his owner at Chico State. Tofu is one of the many dogs that regularly visits the campus.
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November 29, 2007
The Battle of American food, revisited
There are reports this morning that the Food and Drug Administration is holding hearings concerning a subject that depresses me every time I go shopping at the local grocery store. As I wrote in the series “The Battle of American Food” in August, located in the August archives, there is almost nothing available that isn't loaded with salt.
My store already has a condescending attitude concerning sugar-free foods. They have these bones that they can throw me, over here someplace. During Thanksgiving, they ran out of sugar-free pumpkin pie, while there was enough sugar-based food to power a fleet of humvees.
The store changed hands, and in the process changed their soda distributor. Previously there were several sugar-free varieties of house brand soda. Now they have one, sugar-free cola. With that perspective in place, I know they will do nothing to provide us with salt-free or low sodium alternatives.
Those who merchandise pre-packaged food see no market in providing the food that I and millions of other Americans need. In the news reports I heard this morning, they said that the stuff loaded with salt can bring us hypertension. Back in the day I was diagnosed with high-blood pressure after eating pre-packaged food from the time I was able to sit properly at the Formica kitchen table.
I might want a can of cream of mushroom soup today, but even the lower-sodium alternative would send my 2,000 milligram sodium budget into a tailspin. If one existed that I could eat, it would be priced so high that, as a starving student, I cannot afford it. I have to avoid all the processed meat products, from sausages and hot dogs to any pre-packaged sliced beef.
While that means I have to do without so much of the food that I grew up with, my blood-pressure has gone down, and my ankles don't swell at all. This is a change I can deal with, but not happily. The lesson I learned with sugar is that it easier for me to do without than for the grocers to provide me with something that will make me happy.
If I have the problem though, imagine what the rest of America faces, and doesn't see.
November 20, 2007
New Chico State caps
In discussions I heard this morning on KGO radio 810, it was pointed out that a principal in New York was suspended for defending a student that wore a t-shirt that read Intifada USA. During that discussion the swastika and the Confederate Battle Flag were mentioned as equal symbols of hate.
A new hat appeared at the Chico State Bookstore that follows the popular fashion of this day. It comes in both black and olive drab, has a flat top, and bears the words Chico State. I bought one of these because it is reminiscent of the uniform caps worn by American soldiers in the mid sixties. Since I wore a 1550 olive drab uniform in the Air Force Reserve, the cap brings that service to mind, even as it has a more sinister identification and identity.
In the American Studies class I'm attending at Chico State, we are reading the book Finding Manana, by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Mirta Ohita. She documents growing up in the post-revolution world of Fidel Castro's Cuba, and as someone who came over to this country in the 1980 Mariel boaatlift, where thousands of people fled the Castro dictatorship, she sheds light on the structured and strict world that Cubans found themselves in.
As further documented in a Public Broadcasting System report on the Bay Of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, Castro was commonly seen in an olive drab uniform with a stiff version of this flat top cap.
The name of this new Chico State cap, which with matching olive drab shirt and trousers can reflect the horrors on the Cuban communist government and all those imprisoned for being counter-revolutionary, or died escaping this government, reflects how little the youth of today know of actual history. Nobody would dare wear a swastika or confederate battle flag on campus. But what is wrong with wearing this new cap, named for the leader of Cuba?
Chico State calls it the – Castro Cap.
November 12, 2007
Happy Veteran's Day
Photo by Gary D. Brune Copyright 2007
Shot this morning from the Circle of Flags at the Paradise Veteran's Hall. Due to rain, the Lion's Club elected not to complete the Avenue of the Flags, but this section had been set up before the drops fell.
November 03, 2007
Big Chico Creek stopped by beavers
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
Big Chico Creek as shot from the major bridge at Chico State two days before workers with the city of Chico and the California Department of Fish and Game modified a beaver dam to re-establish water flow. Dr.David Brown, professor in the Geological and Environmental Sciences department of Chico State, said that this was the first time he had observed the flow had stopped in 10 years.
November 01, 2007
Pacificaton efforts successful. Happy November 1, 2007
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
Reports from Chico and San Francisco concerning the parties for last night's Halloween ceremonies indicate the police were reasonably happy last night. After rowdy parties in Downtown Chico, and the Castro district of San Francisco, police and societal efforts to keep the holiday a lot more low key were largely successful this year.
This headless horseman pumplin found in Paradise seems to be the most threatening thing about October 31, 2007. And that is the way society wants it.