Coming to New Mexico This Summer?
Here are some tips.

The cuisine called Mexican Food is sweeping the country. And, it is becoming more authentic. In 1950, I worked in Wisconsin for the summer. I once ordered a bowl of chili in a Wisconsin restaurant and was served what I considered a bowl of vegetable soup with a dash of chili powder. Today, in most of the U.S., a similar order would bring you something we call Texas chili... a dish made with beans, ground beef, and varying amounts of chili seasoning.

Actually, the name Mexican Food is, in itself, not authentic. It should accurately be called Southwest Food. While it is served in northern Mexico, other parts of that nation never heard of an enchilada, and many areas prefer seafood. In fact. one of the best fresh seafood dinners I ever ate was served in a beach side restaurant in Acapulco.

Back to New Mexico, where Southwest dishes are so popular there is a "Mexican Restaurant" on every other street corner, our state legislature actually passed a resolution declaring the Official State Question to be "Red or Green?". It is asked at every Mexican restaurant to determine if you want your meal seasoned with red chile or green chile. And, yes, in New Mexico we do use the Spanish spelling... C-H-I-L-E. Chili refers to that brown stuff from Texas - which we also serve, but more often than not, you will be served true Southwest chile, which contains neither beans or ground beef.

However, the Official Question has given way to a new version... "Red, Green or Christmas?". It seems a lot of us just can't decide if we prefer red or green chile, so we ask for both... red on one side, green on the other... now called "Christmas".

Sometimes you will hear a diner ask his server "Which is hotter?" That is because there are a lot of different chile varieties grown in the state. Green chile, which all chile peppers are before they ripen, ranges from a variety named Barker (which is too hot even for me, and I love hot chile), to Big Jim which I find to be not hot at all.

After chiles turn red they are dried, ground or crushed, and used for seasoning in numerous ways. Again, some species are much hotter than others, and if you are a new customer in a given restaurant, you won't know which kind of chiles they use.

Someone came up with what we call Scoville Heat Units (SHU) to rate the heat of a given chile variety. A common jalapeno chile measures about 10,000 SHU, while some New Mexico green chiles measure only about 1,500 SHU.

Since chiles are an important agricultural crop in New Mexico, New Mexico State University (an agricultural school) takes chile growing seriously and even has a Chile Pepper Institute, to help chile farmers grow varieties which are more drought resistant and more resistant to fungus and insects.

Abot two years ago, experts from the Institute discovered a chile variety in the northeast part of India. This variety, known as Bhut Jolokia, measures over one million SHU!

That's 100 times hotter than a jalapeno! Paul Bosland, director of the Institute, has even developed a hot sauce called "Holy Jolokia", which is to be sampled in moderation.

So, maybe a better question for your restaurant server would be, "Are you serving Bhut Jolokias?". Don't be surprised, however, if they answer as a young waitress recently answered me, "Oh, gosh... I just started first year Spanish and I don't understand that", even though the name comes from India and is not Spanish.

Lest we forget?

We already did!

We so often hear the phrase "Lest we forget" in reference to some historic event. We usually respond by vowing to remember. But we never do.

We forget everything that didn't have a personal impact. Even that is not a guarantee that we will remember.

A few years ago, on Veteran's Day, I wore my World War II veteran's pin, and asked people if they knew what it stood for. No one did. Even some guys who were old enough to be WW II vets themselves.

I emailed a local TV station's news department and asked if anyone knew what WW II vets meant when they referenced the "Ruptured Duck"? They did not reply. Probably thought it was some sort of obscene email.



Here's a pix of the pin, scanned from the back of a booklet issued to discharged servicemen and women after WW II.


I no longer have my original pin. It was the old-fashioned kind of lapel pin that actually fit into a button hole. I wore it one year on Veteran's Day and lost it. My son purchased a replacement for me - the kind that punches a small hole in the fabric and has a clip that snaps on the back.



I can't really fault people for not remembering the pin we called the ruptured duck. At the time of my own discharge from the U.S. Army, many of the vets tossed their vet's pin, and other metals and papers, in a trash can.

This past Memorial Day, I decided to try another experiment. Pretty silly, actually, no one could get this one.

I still have my father's Army dog tags from World War I. I consider that a bit remarkable inasmuch as he was discharged 91 years ago! So I wore them, hanging outside my shirt as I participated in the New Mexico Wine Grower's Association's Wine Festival at the Southern New Mexico State Fairgrounds. Here they are, the round ones, alongside my own rectangular dog tags from WW II.

Those two aluminum disks hanging on a chain aroused no one's curiosity. Finally I pointed them out to some friends, and they seemed duly impressed at the antiquity of the things.

At one point a guy who appeared to be in his late 50's, jokingly asked my wife if she gave a military discount on her artwork. I asked if he was active military and he replied affirmatively, explaining that he had been in the service for 38 years. Because of his unique specialty, he had been permitted to remain on active duty beyond the usual 30-year retirement.

So, I asked if he recognized my "necklace". He correctly guessed that they looked like dog tags, but could not identify them.

We both found it rather interesting that there are 14,606,500 numbers between my father's Army serial number, and my own. When I enlisted, a buddy enlisting with me was assigned a serial number one number higher than mine. Otherwise, I do not know how the Army assigns serial numbers. But it seems about right that there would have been over 14 million soldiers in the three decades that included World War II. I found it even more interesting that both my father's and my own serial number ended with the number 31.

I've tried to think of any way in which the number 31 was significant in either of our lives. No luck.

So, what does it do
to your hair???

We were going out of town for a long weekend. In our dishwasher, unwashed, were the dishes from last night's dinner and the morning's breakfast. No one wants to come home to a dishwasher full of dirty dishes, so we loaded the Glass Magic and Cascade, set the controls to Normal Wash, hit the start button and left.

Arriving home four days later we were surprised to find the dishes, not sparkling clean, but covered with a hazy coating. My wife wondered if we should call the Maytag repairman. I wondered if something had interrupted the machine's wash cycle, allowing the dishes to dry in soapy water.

We re-loaded the detergent and re-started the machine. At the end of cycle number two, there was no change. Glassware was still cloudy. Plates and dishes felt slippery. I wiped one glass with a paper towel and the stuff came off, but not entirely, it still left an oily coating.Then I saw a suspect. Before leaving town, I had emptied a pump bottle of Dove Hair Conditioner in the shower. After shaking out all the material possible, my wife looked at the well-made pump bottle and allowed that there may be some future life for this item. She rinsed it and stuck it in the dishwasher along with the dirty dishes. It was the residual hair conditioner that had left a coating on the dishes.

We now discarded the hair conditioner bottle, but it took two more cycles to get things clean.So, what does this stuff do to your hair? I've often wondered just what they meant by "conditioning" your hair. Now I know - it coats it with an oily substance! And I thought I was through with an oily head when I gave up on Vaseline Hair Tonic! It makes sense. We've all seen a small child with freshly shampoo'd but "unconditioned" hair which static charge causes to stand wildly on end. Oiling it down makes it lie down. Makes it shine. Keeps it from tangling.

Good stuff for your hair. Just keep it out of your dishwasher!

Posted by Sam Bradley - 5/27/2009 10:21:00 AM 2 comments

Time to Burnish My Reputation
- as an opinionated old man!

Here's my take on some current events:

1. Obama: All through the 2008 campaign, some of us kooks said Obama was a fool. It took him less than four months in office to prove us right. But, we didn't know he was also a liar and a cheat. New bills will be published on the net before being signed into law. Still waiting, Prez! He stands shoulder to shoulder with the U.A.W., but calls retired Indiana State Police and teachers greedy for wanting their legally secured investments secure? Etc., etc. But, of course, if anything bad is happening it is Bush's bad! ;-)

2. California's budget mess: Screw 'em. They have millions of barrels of gold (black gold) just off their shores, waiting to be hauled up and put in the bank. Hey, that would even reduce seeping and minimize the risk of getting a tar stain on some beach beauty environmentalist's foot!

3. Health care costs: A. Immediately eliminate all medical mal-practice lawsuits. Dismiss any in progress. All they do is make more John Edwards type lawyers rich. The victims get their medical bills paid - which would probably happen anyway - and a little lump of cash to buy a wide-screen TV, or perhaps a new mobile home. Most goes to lawyers. B. Immediately end free emergency room care. No more treating sniffles in emergency rooms without cash in advance. If someone has a life threatening illness or injury, but no money, treat them, but only after an enforceable, ironclad arrangement for them to pay for their care. If the person is not a citizen, get a citizen to stand for their debt or put them on an ambulance home. C. End direct payment of medical bills by insurance companies. The patient must arrange full payment, then depend on getting a reimbursement from their insurance. Many non-life threatening medical procedures would be skipped if the patient saw the costs up front, and knew he had to pay them. D. Make some care options ala carte. You want a MRI with a million dollar machine? That will cost extra.

The War On Drugs
A Different Strategy

Harry Dimwit Reid loudly proclaimed that the war in Iraq was lost. General Petraeus quietly thought that maybe we needed a new strategy. He devised one and, presto, the Iraq War was won.

To paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen in his famous Dan Quayle put-down, I ain't no David Petraeus, but I think we need a new strategy in the war on drugs. We've been fighting this war for too long, and it seems to be getting worse. We have tried education, "D.A.R.E"; we have tried enforcement, various drug czars, the DEA, border enforcement.

My friends and I used to go to Mexico about once a month because we loved the people, the food, the fun and the shopping. Today we are afraid to go because of the violent drug cartels. We need a new strategy and I think Abraham Maslow showed us one back in 1943 with his Hierarchy of Needs. To fight the use of drugs, we need to give people something they need more than a drug high!

Maslow said our greatest need is not physiological or even safety, but things like Esteem and self-actualisation. Some years ago I addressed a group of proprietary school administrators. It was an early spring day in Kansas City and we had just been hit by a late winter storm that dumped about a foot of wet, sloppy snow on the city. The storm hit after midnight, and at the early hour of our meeting sidewalks had not yet been cleared. Several in my audience challenged Maslow's theories until I pointed out that everyone in the audience was wearing a tailored suit, expensive shoes, etc. It was apparent that "looking good" in front of their peers was more important to these attendees than keeping their feet warm and dry on this snowy morning.

A more current example is our foolish, new president. Obama so loves being adored that he reminds me of a beagle I once owned. This little dog so loved the smell of carrion that if she came upon a road kill, she had to roll in it. She would lie on her back across some dead animal and move like she was scratching her back... anything to rub the odor deeper. Obama is so fond of the adulation of crowds, here and abroad, that he seemingly rolls in it. Homeland security? Naaaa. Not so important. That is so "Bush"!

You think there is no treat that would wean people off drugs? It is working with tobacco - or nicotine, if you prefer. I started smoking regularly when I was 15. I took a job with a company that serviced cigarette vending machines, for pity's sake. If a machine malfunctioned and damaged a package of cigarettes, the pack was thrown away... free smokes for the help! And that was when smoking was sooo cool. I recall the great Edward R. Murrow often photographed with a cigarette. FDR frequently had his long cigarette holder clenched in his teeth. Every movie showed glamorous people smoking. Catchy TV ads promoted cigs with phrases like "a silly milimeter longer" for 101s, or even said that doctors preferred a certain brand. Romantic songs referenced smoking. Johnny Carson smoked on the Tonight show.

We stopped all of that, but smoking only increased. We tried scaring people. I remember being accosted in a mall parking lot and having a big photo of a blackened lung, disected from some cadaver, crammed in my face. It had no effect. We taxed, and are still taxing! In the South Pacific we soldiers paid 75¢ for a carton of cigarettes. Ten packs. Six bits. Today, just the tax on one pack is more than that. We enforced prohibition of sales to minors. That only made smoking a prize you won on your 18th birthday.

Then, we began to make smoking "not cool". I'm not sure how it happened... but all of a sudden, smoking was just not the sort of thing really cool people did. Smoking has seriously declined.

Supposing we all did this... if a friend mentions smoking a little pot, or snorting cocaine, we recoil in disgust. A clear signal that, while we may not worry about the legality of drugs, we just think drug use is something we find repellent.

Gee! All those poor, misguided PETA souls would have something better to do than throw paint on some ladies fur coat. The global warmng goons could go for a cause that really did some good, instead of fighting for causes that punish innocent people.

I smoked for about thirty years and found it very satisfying. Then, I found something more satisfying and I quit, cold turkey. Nothing could make me quit - until I wanted to quit. Why not give old Abraham Maslow's idea a try?

Make NOT using drugs really cool!