“In The Devil's Garden” Review and Commentary by D. Vour Part 2 of 4

Review and Commentary by D. Vour
Gourmand and Food Critic at “The Home“

“In The Devil's Garden” - “A Sinful History Of Forbidden Food”
Ballantine Books
by
Stewart Lee Allen

Chapter Two – of Four

We all have favorite foods, and some have traditional places in time, season, or related superstitions ... have you ever tossed salt over your shoulder? Ever been curious why bacon, eggs, toast, and cereal are considered just for breakfast? They weren't for centuries. How did that evolve? We have classic and traditional holiday meals – Turkey feast at thanksgiving comes to mind, or a Christmas Goose, Ham at Easter, even 'Day of the Dead' feasts for the Mexican culture. We all have foods made to celebrate various religious dates. This goes back past ancient Egypt, the Romans, and Greeks.. who have each successively co-opted the others holy day feasts … unto modern times.

Many years ago I saw an intriguing documentary on foods – exploring the idea that food was a big factor why the ancient Roman soldier was so successful. They contrasted what the Roman army ate against the sumptuous banquets and the omnivorous diet of the aristocracy; warrior food, versus royal food. They recreated the soldiers recipes from ancient cookbooks, prepared, and reviewed the flavors of the foods – even checked nutritional values – It was all quite different than modern times I assure you. The food and flavors would never be accepted today, - using herbs, and plants,and ingredients that in modern days would never cross your lips, but were popular favorites of the Roman troops of the day. Flavors that would make a modern person gag. Overripe and putrid foods, and just 'nasty stuff'. Some dishes and sauces were too nasty and not edible by the TV crew. However, the idea that one type of food was only acceptable to certain classes was an eye opener to this omnivorous writer … I never followed up on this interesting idea until this book arrived .. but I digress..

I will try to give a sense of the depth and scope of this insanely fun, informative and equally challenging tome. There is a remarkable range of food information covered, and I doubt that I will ever think about any food in the same way ever again. The author - Steward Lee Allen – makes wonderful and remarkably intriguing connections, and tells amazing and fascinating stories of how foods have been used to shape history. He utilizes a clever format for the sections, the seven deadly sins. He ties these sins to an incredible array of foods and ideas; religious, political, and social. He offers great anecdotes about how these foods have come to associated with the appropriate sins. With 10 pages of fine print bibliography, it is very well researched. Reads like a travelogue around the globe through time and places, past and present, covering the four corners!

Each chapter starts with an appropriate menu to that sin, and there are a few incredible recipes offered from the menus, all done with a delightful bit of tongue in cheek wit liberally applied, reflecting a modern twist on some interesting old foods or drinks – all worth trying at home. Absinthe with Champagne sounded pretty interesting. All look fun, some for curiosity, some because they still taste great ! .

This is a complicated tale of how food has played a role in evolving everything – all aspects of history -- not just physical history, but the whole evolution of our core religious, sociological, anthropological, political, emotional and psychological beliefs! It's a tale of how these ideas and beliefs can be manipulated by society, social organizations, corporations and religions, to affect what we believe, and thus ultimately in modern times : how we buy, eat and see the products we get – often symbolically.

Ketchup, is our modern metaphor for 'blood' (representing a fresh kill when we go out 'hunting' for food -ie driving for a burger). We learn that salads are traditionally 'woman’s food'. As an historical fact, at one time in the 1800's, women were only allowed to eat salads.. meat was forbidden, thus today, commercials selling salads feature women, because we have been inculcated by time and DNA, and traditions, that salads are for 'women folk'.

Conversely, meat is for men. We only see 'He-men' at a BBQ grill in TV meat commercials ! (how would you feel seeing a woman grilling a steak, or a football player eating a dainty salad in those commercials?) - these feelings are created and manipulated to make us think a certain way, by promoting or prohibiting foods! We even have had restrictions on what we can eat on certain days; meatless Monday, fish on Friday. Marketeers know that everyone likes to break rules .. so if it is 'forbidden' or Taboo, you will crave it. We tend to give higher marks to food we feel guilty about. Ever feel guilty eating something? That was because you were manipulated to feel that guilt.. and guilt sells! If you put a warning label on food .. the sales surge ! Why?

This book helps us understand a lot of those why's !

End of part 2 ... to be continued..



In The Devil's Garden
A Sinful History Of Forbidden Food

“In The Devil's Garden” Review and Commentary by D. Vour Part 1 of 4

Review and Commentary by D. Vour
Gourmand and Food Critic at “The Home“

“In The Devil's Garden” - “A Sinful History Of Forbidden Food”
Ballantine Books
by
Stewart Lee Allen

Chapter One – of Four

I just finished reading one of the most interesting books I've ever come across. I found it completely by accident . As these things usually do, I was looking for another book with a similar title, but mistyped the search, and by pure synchronicity 'The Devils Garden' popped up. I saw that it was a history of forbidden food .. which immediately caught my fancy, how fascinating .. I checked it out from the library, and started reading the prologue. I was hooked, … line and sinker! I could see that I was going to be caught up in an exciting maelstrom of swirling, new ideas to me about food: Taboos ! Food as social engineering – who knew?

How could we not be fascinated with forbidden foods? What foods are forbidden? I quickly wondered to myself – hmm … religious food bans of course … (or curse) .. but nothing else came to mind. After reading a few paragraphs, I realized that this was covering way more than just 'don’t eat pork'! I saw a comment about being a taboo to enjoy, and a taboo to not enjoy, eating!? This begs the question, if it's a sin to enjoy food, and a sin not to enjoy food – which side are you on: Saint, or Devil ? With food, don’t both views have some allure?

I love food and cooking stuff, and have always had a curiosity about foods people have eaten in bygone days. Likewise, I've been curious why certain foods are always identified with people or places; think of sauerkraut, and Germany comes to mind, think wine – et voila La Belle France, and pasta is of course “Italian”. Of course today, these items come from everywhere, but we still think of them as things related to those people or places.

What do you think of first, if I say 'watermelon', 'garlic', curry, or 'sweet potato pie' ? I suspect that cultural factors reflect your personal view of these; We ate Chinese food on special occasions. Garlic, when I was a kid, was avoided in school as being for 'Italians, as was the dreaded salami sandwich – garlic breath is death'. Curry was 'foreign food'. I didn’t eat curry 'til I got to college. Watermelon somehow ascribes to black southern culture, as does 'fried chicken' – even while both are readily available anywhere around the world and equally popular or famous ! What about the poor and oft maligned sweet potato, and sweet potato pie, which is not as quite popular as its' Pumpkin pie cousin. The lowly sweet potato was once a product allowed for European royalty only, and now in modern times, it is thought of as something more for 'poor folks'. In spite of this, the sweet potato is becoming respectable and trendy with modern foodies again. The sweet potato, and other veggies are seeing a re-surging popularity among the hip young organic crowd. You could not give kale away 10 years ago. Its only use was decoration on a salad bar. Now kale s everywhere, and in everything !? Our ideas about food are constantly evolving!

We do assign our belief structure to our food. Would you eat a live baby octopus ? Apparently, this is quite popular in Korea – but not so much here in USA.!? My point exactly!. One mans meat is another mans throat choker - err - I mean 'poison'! Snail, grubs, brains offal, sweetmeats, organ meat, wild game, bush meat : how do you feel about eating these ? What emotions are stirred pondering a bite fried insects? These emotions are used to control us, by making certain foods approved, or taboos.

This tale is brilliantly told with compactness and alacrity. The scope is remarkable, making connections, and contrasts with the ancient and modern views on our constantly evolving and changing attitudes, rules, and laws about food, and food items. There are amazing and incredible histories and anecdotes into the whys and wherefores of how these taboos, superstitions, and traditions have come about … and usually not what you previously expected or believed !

End of part 1 ... to be continued..



In The Devil's Garden
A Sinful History Of Forbidden Food

Ripples 8 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

08 Ties of Time

The phone and Whatsit chip joined the residues of a different time.

The plastic containers holding the reminders of her life now held the reminder of another's life.

Outside, along the slim walkway, she sorted through her harvests of driftwood. Tangled heaps in varying states: wet, drying and dried, inversely mimicking her hopes: today, tomorrow and the next.

Selecting pieces of the dried wood, she tied them into a bundle using a worn rope. She didn't think much of the rope. Unraveling and frayed, a pale yellow betraying its age, yet still strong enough to be useful. She had found it on the beach. Another piece of jetsam brought in with the tide along with other trash, much of which, would be washed away on the turn.

A continuous cycle of: Trash in. Trash out.

She placed the bundle of dried wood in the back end of an old car. The car had once been new ... for someone else. Like herself, it had traveled the roads and turnings that make up time coming to rest, at least for a short while, in her possession. It would remain for only as long as she could pay the costs: fuel, license, insurance and the never ending repairs needed to keep an old vehicle running. While you might get a modicum of moral support or token financial allotment for caring for an aged person, caring for an aged car was unique and there wasn't any support for that anywhere. Old cars, like old people, just died. Few cared either way.

Collecting a jacket, a blanket and a recycled plastic baggie with some food in it, she placed these in the car too. Intended as lunch, the baggie was secured with a mangled green twister saved from a grocery visit. Verifying she had already stowed a folding chair, she returned to the kitchen.

Taking the paper from the worn table she folded it neatly and placed it in her pocket.

She picked up her purse; locking the door as she left.

Fine Time Art 03 by KimB 2017

Fine Time Art 03 by KimB 2017

Ripples 7 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

07 Whatsit

The stub of a pencil traced the new information on the paper.

She compared her drawings with the phone: front and back. Arrows pointed to the location of tiny connection points. She did her best to copy the stenciled patterns.

She set aside the phone and reached for the tiny plastic container.

Tipping the contents into her hand, she examined the tiny black and red object.

It was certainly small. One side had some symbols on it and the other side had golden stripes. Avoiding the golden stripes she turned it over. She knew what it was or at least she thought she knew. It was old school now. She smiled, rather like herself. Old School.

Using the magnifying glass to see the tiny symbols, she copied them onto the paper. Funny looking symbols. Broken circles, buckets, numbers and stylized lettering crowded the tiny surface. Notches, dog-ears and crop outs formed its irregular shape. These she carefully added to the paper.

Satisfied that she had copied all correctly, she dropped the tiny object back into the container and snapped the lid tight.

She examined the finished drawing.

Something was odd.

Her eyes scanned the drawing several times.

Something was not right.

She picked up the phone, compared it with her drawing. Turing the phone over and around, looking at it from all angles to confirm.

She hadn't missed anything. The drawing was correct.

There was still something wrong.

The golden bars on the object, now locked inside the plastic container, were there for a reason. They allowed the object to be slipped into a matching slot. But this phone had no such opening. None. The tiny object had been sandwiched between the protection case and the phone. It had fallen out when she pulled off the protector.

It wasn't part of the phone.

Fine Time Art 02 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art 02 by Marion 2017

Ripples 6 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

06 Peppers and Pins

From a drawer, she retrieved a small plastic container and lid.

The kind you get at fast food places for holding hot peppers or dressings. Once washed, they become useful for holding the miscellany that seem to accumulate in every drawer: odd coins, paper clips, brads and push pins. Packaged with cork boards, now long discarded, the colorful pins never seem to get thrown away. Lingering on in drawers; loose pins waiting for an unwary finger.

Carefully, she placed the tiny black and red item in the container and snapped the lid on. She placed it next to the phone.

Now she had two items to consider.

She frowned to herself for a moment then returned her attention to the phone.

Big dogs first, she thought.

With the protective cover removed, she could see more details. Faint engravings. A logo. A manufacture's name. Stenciled patterns. On one edge, neatly hidden in the stenciled stippling, some barely discernible text.

Through a scratched magnifying glass, retrieved from the drawer while avoiding some colored pins that had escaped their repurposed container (the lid having popped off), she peered closely at the minuscule text.

She could see:

A name followed by a mixture of numbers and letters.

Fine Time Art 01 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art 01 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art

[Note: Editor's Post]

Coloring Books were FUN to do as children.

Selecting the never ending colors of crayons, deciding which colors went where and trying to stay in the lines with generally happy results. Of course there were disappointments: broken crayons, missing favorite colors, scribbles and the not uncommon dreaded gash of color outside the boundaries caused by an uncertain young hand or an over enthusiastic application of color.

Later coloring books gave way to sketch books and painting and the DIY world of art.

Make your own and make it your own way.

Coloring books were set aside on the way to adulthood becoming the provenance only of the very young.

Personally, I did miss coloring books. Sometimes I would look at the ones offered up for children remembering hunting for that periwinkle crayon or lamenting the stubs of broken crayons that never seemed to color as well as the unbroken ones. Sketch pads were not quite the same.

Someone in marketing must have noticed.

The makers of coloring books realized there was a ginormous market of untapped coloring book artists just waiting for a chance to color: this time as adults. They recognized that the large block cartoons offered to children would not satisfy the inner coloring desires of an adult and embarked on the possibly hazardous path of offering coloring books for adults.

They built upon the last vestige of time when young people colored between the lines, doing complicated posters that often grace the rooms of high school students and college dormitories.

Building upon the complicated designs of the posters they returned to a book format. Something that would fit in a briefcase or could be carried easily and perhaps sheltered from disapproving eyes. The secret coloring book artist would not be betrayed by a garish cover trolling:

LOOK! SHE'S COLORING!

Suddenly, the inner coloring book genie escaped and an explosion of coloring books for adults are now available. Stacks and stacks of all sorts of books. Hard designs, easy designs, books that include the colored pencils, color by number books, books of favorite characters or movies, books with holiday themes. Colored pencils, gel pens, watercolor felt pens, crayons and every sort of media from ink to glitter are available. No more laments for the missing periwinkle as assorted packs of pencils and pens offer hundreds of colors with duplicates of the favorites.

MrsB has become an enthusiastic coloring book artist. She's passed her enthusiasm to everyone around her. She's taken the challenge of merging DIY art with a fixed format. Her selection of media for any piece ranges from colored pencils to gel pens to well, anything she thinks will be interesting. She mixes gel pen colors: coloring one color on top of another while the ink is wet to obtain unusual and distinct colors.

Of her work she said:

Well, it's not Fine Art.

I countered:

It IS Fine Art because we have FINE TIME doing it!

Thus, our Fine Time Art selection was created.

Look for examples of the art produced by MrsB, myself and perhaps other intrepid secret coloring book artists. The designs will be posted on Mondays. We already have quite a few ready to show.


Our current recurring topics are:

Recurring Topics
Monday	Fine Time Art
Wednesday	Ripples Episodes

We hope that spring will bring back some Gardening Competition... that is if the rain ever stops. And perhaps a few new recipes will make their way on to a page here and there.

And we want to thank all the readers of MrsB blog. We know that people from all over the world visit her pages and we hope they feel welcome here. We hope you enjoy the stories we tell.

No matter where you are: We are all family.

KimB Editor

Ripples 5 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

05 Opening Move

She put the emptied chipped mug, in the tiny sink.

A quick turn of the tap, a quick swish and the mug was set on a towel to dry.

Washing the mug was easy.
Finding the owner of the phone still eluded her.

Returning to the table, she picked up the phone and examined it again. A rubbery protective cover enclosed most of the phone. She looked carefully at the cover and began to pull at a corner. Pulling here and there along the edges, twisting the phone as she went, she worked at loosening it. She worried that she might damage the phone trying to get the cover off. Still, she thought, if the cover had been put on, then the cover could come off.

With nervous fingers she worked the cover over the edges of the phone. It seemed as if the cover resisted her attempts but like a reluctant jar lid, once the vacuum seal was broken, the cover slipped easily into one hand, the phone in the other.

Something fell on the table.

It was small. Tiny. The red and black color nearly lost on the surface of the worn table. Not even as big as a postage stamp.

She wondered, how many still remembered postal stamps.

Can't

Can't is a contraction of the words: can and not

Meaning: unable
Example:

The French can't count to twenty.

American Generals can't keep their mouths shut.

Ripples 4 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

04 By Any Other Name

Plastic bins, holding the fragments of what once was, were stacked along a wall. Remnants of the past. Harbingers of the future.

She got up and crossed the room and began to shift the stack of plastic bins. Rummaging through one of them she returned. An old pad of paper and stubby pencil placed on the table, she sat down, picked up the hot coffee and considered the phone.

It couldn't hurt to try to find the owner, she thought.

Brushing aside a small counterpoint of doubt, she placed the found phone on the paper and traced two outlines: one front and one back. She began to draw in all the features she could see. Buttons here and there. Plugs and connection points. She noted the colors that she could see but an enclosing protector covered the back and sides obscuring parts of the phone.

After labeling the outline drawings with what she could see, there still wasn't anything there to indicate the owner.

She frowned slightly.

She remembered long ago, losing her wallet while riding the municipal bus. She had gotten home with a small plastic bag of groceries only to find that the most important item she owned, the wallet, was missing. Her I.D. and a tiny amount of cash were in the wallet. Losing the money would mean a few extra dinners of peanut butter, but losing the I.D. was far worse.

Dread thoughts of having to stand in line after line at numerous offices waiting for bored and exhausted employees to help her fill out the required forms and obtain the official replacements, generated tears of frustration and anger at her own stupidity. Losing the wallet was just another step on the rung downward. No amount of peanut butter could fix that.

It was to her surprise that the door bell rang. Wiping her still damp face, she opened the door to see a person she did not know, standing there. Polite and well dressed, the person stood there and in broken English spoke her name. Yes, she nodded, puzzled as to what this person wanted of her. Then, as if in response to her expression, the person held out her wallet.

Almost like a dream, she reached for the wallet and opened it. There was all her money and her I.D too. A joy of profound relief flooded her. She stuttered her thanks and gestured for the person to remain. She hurried inside to find something suitable. Taking a small knitted lap robe from one of the plastic bins, she returned to the open door to give her thanks and the gift. Stepping outside to share her happiness, she looked around.

The person had gone.

The wallet, the only testimony that the person had ever been.

Valentines

The valentines I've received over the years has varied from Valentine cards from schoolmates, to boxes of chocolate and flowers from admirers to tokens of affection from husband and my children. In long ago lower grade school days, trading valentine cards with those in class was a ritual we always looked forward to. It was a sort of validation that we were liked by our class mates, and we took satisfaction in comparing the numbers of valentines we received.

I remember one particular valentine card I received when in high school. When I removed it from the envelope, I was surprised to see a fancier card than the type we usually bought at the dime store to give away. This valentine had a bit of paper lace and ribbon. It was signed, George.

Now, there was a boy that I has a secret crush on, whose name was George. He was a year ahead of me in high school, so we didn't share any classes, but he was one of a group that often met at my friend Caroline's house after supper to play games. My secret remained just that. Regardless of the fancy valentine, George never seemed to go out of his way to chat or sit with me during lunch.

Some time later, I discovered the valentine had come from Caroline's younger brother, George. It had never occurred to me that a boy in a lower grade would have sent me such a fancy valentine. Needless to say, we both survived our misplaced affections.

Ripples 3 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

03 Finders Keepers?

The phone was like a lost dog.

It had a home, it had an owner. It had been costly to acquire. It would be costly to replace. It had been wanted, at least at some point.

What do you do with a found phone, she thought.

Her first thought was that she would it would be easy to find the owner, just turn it on and Phone Home. As she considered this, something about the phone made her pause, something about it made her question, something made her uneasy.

Maybe Phoning Home wasn't such a good idea.

In the old days, if you found a lost dog, there was the Lost and Found section in the newspapers. The ads were generally free to place and people knew where to look.

• Found Fancy Dog. Near Corner Park. Call to identify
• Lost Fancy Dog. Near Corner Park. Please Call. Reward.

Now, there really wasn't anywhere to look or rather, there were too many places to look. There were millions of people looking in these on-line places but not necessarily the one you needed to find.

There were always plenty of people willing to claim a fancy dog that wasn't really theirs. The dog would always expose the fake owners.

Can't call the dog? Not your dog.

There would be a lot of people willing to claim a fancy phone.

A lot.

Too many.

For all of it being a "smartphone", it wasn't near as smart as a dog ....
A dog would have tried to find its own way home.

Then again, there were some who didn't want their dog back.

Saving Animals

After I learned about saving wild mustangs on the web pages of the Bureau of Land Management, I surfed other Bureaus of the Department of the Interior, which in turn led to browsing web sites of various foundations and conservancies dedicated to saving wild life.

While wars rage across the planet, one is hard pressed to think of saving wild life when rivers of refugees stream from country to country, seeking safety from falling bombs.

As a child growing up in a small river town in the middle of the country's agricultural area, the only time we saw exotic animals like elephants, giraffes, monkeys, lions and tigers was when the circus came to town and in later years, visits to zoos and aquariums. In those long ago days, the thought that giraffes might become extinct was as absurd as believing in Buck Roger's space adventures.

In the high school class room where we studied biology, the walls were lined with shelves holding stuffed birds of all description. The room was also used by college students and it was assumed that college students studied them, but in those days, birds were the least of my concerns; Robbins were just a familiar sight as they hunted for earthworms in the lawns we passed on our way to school.

It wasn't until I browsed the American Bird Conservancy web site that I learned about bird safe glass. The N. Y. Audubon group has been monitoring the base of a dozen buildings, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Warner Center, for bird kills since 1990. Its estimated that 90,000 birds die each year after flying into glass facades. The solution is bird safe glass.

There are several approaches to creating bird safe glass, silkscreen coating and ultraviolet patterns birds can see, but humans can't. A German company created ultraviolet patterns inspired by the reflective silk strands of spider webs. regardless of techniques used in making the glass, research shows that spacing is even more important. If patterns are placed 2" apart horizontally, and 4" apart vertically, birds will not fly into the glass. Birds will not fly through spaces that are less than 2" high, or 4" wide.

There are hundreds of web sites dedicated to saving birds and more than an equal number dedicated to saving all manner of wild life. Knowing that species come and go, we may not prevent the demise of some. If humans continue to kill humans, AND, continue to search for ways to do so, maybe our species will be the first to go.



ORNILUX
bird safety glass

Mustangs

A few days ago I pressed a wrong number on the TV remote and chanced upon a program showing horses prancing thru dressage movements and working cattle. It was a demonstration-competition of wild mustangs that would be auctioned at the end of the performances. Every year the mustang heritage foundation offers horsemen and women, who have the knowledge and experience and facilities, the chance to gentle and train a wild mustang for public auction. After reading more about the event and checking out the Bureau of Land Management web pages, I learned the following:

Approximately 100 days before the competition is held, wild mustangs are randomly paired with a trainer who has applied and been approved by the Bureau of Land Management, (BLM). Each trainer and a wild mustang spend 100 days working together, preparing to compete in a handling and conditioning class, a pattern class and a leading and riding class. The top 10 competitors will then compete in a free style performance. At the conclusion of the event, all horses will be auctioned.

Mustangs have protected as National Treasures since 1971 when school children across the country wrote letters to congress, but due to declining resources and over population, horses are forced into government holding facilities where taxpayers spend millions of dollars on their care every year. According to the information on the Bureau of Land Management's web site, 42,000 horses in short-term and long-term corrals and pastures are in need of adoption.

Wild horses still roam on public lands, but BLM culls wild horses from the range in order to sustain natural resources, grass and water, necessary for horses and other wild life to continue living on public lands. Every time a horse is adopted and moved from BLM holding facilities, taxpayers are saved $10,000 per animal.

The mission of the mustang heritage foundation is to increase successful adoptions of the wild horses in these facilities. While transforming a wild horse into a sensitive equine partner, adoptions help protect wild herds for future generations.

The events for 2017 have been named Extreme Mustang Makeover. The 6 cities scheduled for this years events are:

• Jacksonville, FL May 18-20
• West Springfield, Mass, June 15-17
• Reno, NV. June 23-24
• Lexington, KY. July 6-8
• Monroe, WA. Aug 17-19
• Ft, Worth, TX Sept 14-16.

These events will feature wild mares, geldings, 4 to 7 years that have been living in BLM off range corrals.

Horse and trainer information, photos and videos of horses along with schedules can be found on:

Extreme Mustang Makeover

Ripples 2 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

02 Cowboy Coffee

The twisted wet wood tossed into the slim walkway for drying, she entered the house.

Not really a house. Not really a place. Not really much of anything at all. Just a somewhere that provided partial shelter from the elements. The roof leaked; a stack of plastic catchalls awaited in a nearby corner. The gap under the doors, providing icy drafts in winter and humid hot draws in summer, had lumps of old towels pushed aside from the nights usage.

A worn kitchen table with two mismatched wobbly chairs, the highlights of the kitchen, held various cooking implements and on one chair, a stack of important papers. The kind of papers that never get sorted or put away, the kind one needs to have at hand but are rarely looked at once they are dropped on top of other equally important at hand papers. A listing pile in constant threat of slipping on to the worn flooring.

She placed the found phone on the table.

She turned to the cabinets, the paint worn from use, and began to prepare a cup of coffee. She smiled at the thought about how she would make the steaming liquid.

Long times past, percolators were the rage, with their boiled and brewed results. Later came drip coffee makers were the hot water was poured into a paper or sometimes gold filter holding the ground coffee. But before that was Cowboy Coffee. Boiling hot water poured directly over coarsely ground coffee. Using a tea strainer made it possible to sip of the dark brew without getting a mouthful of grounds.

She placed a glass measuring cup of water into the secondhand microwave then spooned the coffee grounds into another measuring cup. Glancing at the phone on the table, she waited for the water to bubble. Once bubbles formed along the glass sides, she poured it over the waiting grounds.

Setting her favorite, slightly chipped, mug on the table, she waited for the liquid to darkened and then she poured it through the tea strainer into the mug. She tapped the grounds from the tea strainer into a compost bucket at the sink and sat down.

Hot coffee in hand, she considered the phone on the table.

It was an expensive phone. It looked new.

Whoever had lost the phone didn't drink Cowboy Coffee from a chipped mug.

Ripples 1 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

01 The Beachcomber

The sun was just over the horizon.

The morning breeze was still cool and damp from the long night but the morning sun would soon change that. The water was at low tide; the best time. The sand was smooth and unmarked; there would still be some hours before the beach became crowded.

Like many mornings, she walked along the smooth sand, the soft tide spilling over her feet with its cold chill only to retreat away for a moment's respite and then flow back again, the cold a reminder of the night's hegemony.

Her eyes wandering from side to side, she scanned the waterline. You never knew what you would find. Old bottles, sea shells, trash bags, broken hunks of wood from rotting piers or waterlogged branches washed down from far off mountains and streams into the swirling waters. Battered by wave and sand into smoothed shapes, that dried again, made interesting and sometimes sellable items. People would buy the half decayed branches if they came from the shore.

There wasn't a lot on the shore this day. Perhaps a bit farther on, she thought. Perhaps the next wavelets would reveal the day's treasure. The tide gave and took away again. A race in slow motion.

There. She spotted it. She moved quickly to the twist of wood peeking up from the sand just above the damp line. Reaching down, she pulled it free. A nice trophy for the morning's walk.

She spotted something else there too. No longer hidden by the wood, it glinted in the morning light. She new what it was; the shape man made, the metallic edges visible, she picked it up and brushed bits of clinging sand from the surface.

Someone had lost their phone; now she had found it.

She looked around; the beach was empty still.

Our Privacy Policy Update 2017 v2

[note: Editor's Post]

Privacy. Hmmm. What's that?

You might very well ask.

Privacy and The Right to Remain Anonymous are legal and social norms defined by people. Dogs don't have a right to privacy as anyone who has ever taken a dog out to "do his duty" can attest, but humans often "look away" just the same. Livestock have no choice about where they live or under what conditions; humans decide when, where and how they eat, sleep and reproduce. Even our "new zoos" use pervasive data acquisition in the pretense that they will learn something about the incarcerated animals they hold in various size pens, none of which are anywhere near the size of the animals' normal habitat.

Privacy is: What's in the eye of the beholder.

There are legal definitions that vary around the world and having to update our blog's "Privacy Policy" is just another tick in the box of "privacy compliance" requirements. Of course telling you about your privacy is rather "odd", as is our requirement to try to inform you about what is or isn't happening. By now, Mark Zuckerberg's infamous statement that "privacy is dead" appears to be a fait accompli. Just the same, we have to tell you about the ways in which your privacy has vanished.

There is no way we can tell you all, because we don't know "all". We know "some". We published our 2017 Privacy Policy Statement in December 2016 ¹. Within weeks, some new ways your privacy has been compromised were reported.

Data Harvesting was originally focused on the individual. Who you are, what you do, where you go and most important what you buy and why. After gathering much of that information, the Data Harvesters moved on to the people around you: family, children, friends, co-workers. They have gathered quite a bit about this aspect too. Now, they are moving towards harvesting data from people you do not know.

This may seem weird but what you don't know is actually more important that what you do know. One aspect of this is: "if you don't know" you might be more persuaded to Do X or Buy Y or Believe Z. Another phrase for this is:

There's a sucker born every minute...

The Data Harvested is combined by Data Aggregators into ginormous lumps which are sold to: Anyone Who Has Money.

• All roads lead to Rome
• All data leads to Money

Being able to combine data from various sources is one way to fill in the blanks or to show where the blanks are, like missing pieces of a jigsaw.

What DOES Alexa know?

• What does Alexa know?
• How DO you serve a warrant on an AI device?
• If it's AI where does the Artificial split from the Intelligence?

Reports of a homicide, detailed that an Alexa AI device, which is similar to the Siri AI device, was "in the vicinity" of the homicide. The police believe the AI device may have "heard something". This is because the device is "always on" and while it's supposed to be listening for a command word like: Alexa change the channel or Alexa play for me, it sometimes turns on "by accident". This accidental data is stored and forwarded.

There are 2 places that can store the captured audio data: a) it can be stored "in the cloud" and b) it can be stored in the audio buffer on the device. Think about this last part a bit. The device needs to store "some" part of your conversation in case you use Reverse Polish like Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Tea, Earl Grey, Hot. The so-called AI device cannot make tea until it knows the last part of the command. It has to store some quantity of speech until it gets enough "intelligence" to either make the tea or decides you don't what the tea at all.

• Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
• Tea, Earl Grey, Hot, Not

So questioning Alexa is of prime importance! If Alexa refuses to answer on the basis of being an Artificial entity, they can always strip her down to her bare chips and PEEK that way.

Another possible witness to the crime is "The Smart Meter" installed by the utility company. A large part of the population in urban areas have these "smart meters" installed. Their "smart" part is in making all the Human Meter Readers redundant while allowing the automation of utility billing systems. Since these meters provide precise data about your utility use, they can be very helpful. Were the lights on at 3AM? Did you wash the car or take a shower at 3AM? Or maybe, you were washing the victim's blood off the porch as noted by the large amount of water usage recorded by the Smart Meter at 3AM?

This line of questioning and rebuttal could become common.

• A red light camera captures and logs your image 300 miles away from the time in question (allowing for time zone differences) but only if you can find the right city, jurisdiction or tow truck service that holds images from their face recognition and ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) programs to prove it.
• Or, possibly, the red light camera captured and logged your image within 10 minutes of the locale in question; your cell phone's dictation and speech recognition system captured the evening's dialogue while live streaming the encounter and the nearby Alexa/Siri recorded and uploaded the damning details.

The perfect witnesses? Sounds good!!

Recently, while comparing conflicting local weather reports with friends, no two smartphones could agree on the next day's weather. It was either going to be raining (iPhone) or sunny (not iPhones)², a friend quipped:

"To each his own smartphone technology"

If a "smart" phone can't even report the weather which it retrieves from the cloud, when anyone with a IDIOT device can turn on your watering system from "way over yonder", when security is a NULL for every internet connection and database, plus there are legions of billing errors claimed by utilities and corporations as legitimate charges, and when even time is doubtful, it might not be such a good idea to equate the "intelligence" part of Artificial Intelligence with "reality".

As to your privacy.. you have none.

But you can start working on that...

Hyperface
Anti-Surveillance Textile Pattern
Photograph: Adam Harvey

1. Our Privacy Policy Update 2017: You Have None
2. The "not iPhones" were correct: it was sunny

What now?

I wonder what 17 is going to bring us.  The only thing we know for certain is, 17 follows 16.  When the president elect becomes president, we'll see if promises made in campaign speeches become reality, or disappear as campaign rhetoric. 

As for me, I'll make an effort to keep most of my new year's resolutions.  I cheat a little when I make them by listing things I want to actually do.  In any case, we all know there is no 'woulda, coulda, shoulda'.

I'm starting the new year with several new kindle books downloaded from the public library via Amazon.  I will also spend time 'coloring' in some adult coloring books I got for Christmas.  I've known about adult coloring books for several years, but never contemplated 'coloring' in one myself.  Surprise! Surprise!  I've discovered that its really a lot of fun.  The range of colors in gel pens, along with colored pencils and crayons, lets one exploit all the attributes of color.  I find myself experimenting with color while working the designs. 

Maybe coloring will be the new and different something I try to do every year.  Its certainly a new way of relaxing and spending worry free time  away from TV breaking news.