Home Canned Spaghetti Sauce

I've been experimenting... This is the current iteration...

We grew the tomatoes, and garlic, could have saved a bit more on cost by growing the herbs, carrots, peppers and celery as well without too much trouble. My cost estimation came in at about $2.00 a quart - cheaper then the expensive stuff at the store, not as cheap as the cheap stuff. That did include cost of Jars, so over the years that cost could drop to as low as $1.25 a quart, which is fairly competitive. Chemical free too...


25 lb tomatoes
1/2 cup oil
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 Stalk Celery, minced
1-2 Carrots, minced
4 yellow onions, chopped
1C Red Wine Vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup salt
4T Dried Oregano
2T Dried Parsley
2T Dried Basil
2t crushed red pepper flakes
2t Worcestershire sauce
2 Bay leaves
1/2 t Black Pepper
1C lemon Juice
6x 8oz cans tomato paste
3 Green Bell Peppers, Seeded, Chopped

Directions

1.  Select and set aside eight nice looking, firm tomatoes. Peel, and juice the rest of the tomatoes, pour into a large stock pot. (I got about 12 quarts of sauce), on low heat (just enough to bring it to a slow bubble.

2. Heat Oil in a frying Pan. over medium to medium high-heat. Add Minced garlic, celery, and carrots, and Chopped Onions. Cook well (you want brown bits on the bottom of the pan). Deglaze the pan with the Red Wine vinegar and add to Stock pot.

3. Add the remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the Tomato Paste and the Bell Peppers. Let that bubble over low heat for an hour or more.

4. Thicken with tomato paste.

5. Remove the Bay leaves, and add the chopped bell peppers. Dice and add the eight reserved tomatoes.

6. Pour into Sterile canning Jars, leaving 1/4" head space. Lid and process. Appropriately. (I used a water bath canner, and processes quart Jars for 40 min).


When ready to serve, add cooked meat, mushrooms, etc.. and enjoy!

Feminism, Racism, Women Drivers and Pollution Control

A few days ago, we were driving from Logan to Lagoon. At one point a car went bombing pat me like a crazy- I am guessing 15-20 over the speed limit, and weaving through traffic. I noticed the driver was female, and quite unconsciously said to myself. "Yep, another crazy female driver". I immediately began cataloging the many times I had in experienced rude, selfish , inconsiderate drivers who completely disregarded the law and the safety of others- nearly all were female.

Then my nerdy, logical, critical thinking persona kicked in. "Really?" it said. "Is that really true?". So I paid close attention for the next several minutes to every reckless, self-absorbed driver. More men than women. Now with critical thinker in full swing, I still could not draw any conclusions, because I was also aware that there were more men driving, and I had no idea what the normalized ratios were.
(if there were 2 crazy men for every 1 crazy woman, and as many male drivers as female drivers, then the normalized ratio is 2:1, therefore more men are crazy drivers, if however there were 4 times as many male drivers as female drivers, then the normalized ratio is 1:2 and more women are crazy drivers. See how that works?)

But it did give me a moments pause.Why was it that I remembered mostly bad women drivers? Why did I unconsciously see, bad female drivers? I had heard a few jokes about women drivers growing up, but enough to so completely condition me? Decades later? No, I don't think it is that simple. While that "humor" may have help construct the Filter initially, something was still reinforcing that filter.


Yesterday, I saw a blurb about Emma Watson speaking before the UN regarding a "#heforshe" campaign, and as I read it, I had an epiphany of sorts, An observation occurred to me. That movements like Feminism, Black pride, and so forth, no matter how good their intentions may be, they are in fact a part of the problem, rather than the solution. You see the very names they give these movements, organizations, inherently (unintentionally I am sure, but nonetheless) invoke, "us vs. them". You see you are measuring equality compared to ... what? Women's rights compared to men's rights. Black rights compared to white rights. It is inherent in the very name of the organization. And that alone creates a filter. If you are in favor of a particular "female equality movement", or "<insert  race > equality movement" you tend to notice all of the injustices, and are quite blind to all the evidence which suggests otherwise. If you are on the other side of the debate, you easily recall statistics showing that female executives earn more than their comparable male counterparts, but seem oblivious to many atrocities committed against women worldwide.

And speaking of statistics. Both sides of the argument have their very own sets of numbers, and arsenal of anecdotes, and both sides are quite confident that the other sides numbers are inaccurate or even fallacious, and that anecdotal ratios are 100:1, 1000:1 or even greater in their favor.

Us vs. them. The filters are firmly in place. Just why is it that we are worried about violence against women? And how it compares to violence against men? Aren't they both equally bad? Shouldn't we be working to eliminate violence, period? How messed up are we that we instead invest our time in keeping tallies?

I remember hearing in the news when Obama was elected, that is was a great stride forward, a victory for racial equality.I remember thinking "No it isn't. If anything, it is a step backward." the very act of the media calling attention to his race was the evidence of that. It would only have been a victory, if no one had taken notice of his race.

Think it isn't relevant? Think that we "Have to do something?" That was the argument that was used to push emissions legislation through in Utah recently - legislation which will cost millions to implement, and which will - according to the numbers gathered by those in favor of the legislation - do almost nothing. It will make a less than 1% difference in the pollution problem. Millions for a less than one percent gain. Money that could have been used to feed countless families, or invested in R&D to find a real, practical solution the problem. But no. With filters firmly in place, we forged ahead, driven by our emotions and  our anecdotes. Sometimes, maybe it is better to Do nothing now, than to Do something stupid now.

So here's an idea, instead of pledging to seek fairness for <insert race, gender, religion, etc...>, how about we pledge to be nice to everyone, and support and defend any individual who is being mistreated, without worrying about their gender, race, skin color, religion, or shoe size?

#nofilters




"Charity is .... resisting the impulse to categorize others."
   -Thomas S. Monson

Eliminating the disabled.

This post could be considered a follow-up to my previous post, but in fact this one has been on my mind for years.

There are all kinds of disabled people in this world: blind, deaf, paraplegic, quadriplegic, down's syndrome, autism, anxiety disorders.... We generically tend to lump them under general terms, like disabled or handicapped.

Actually, those terms have fallen out of grace in recent years. In fact I heard a woman on the radio talking about the need to eliminate the term "handicapped" from parking slots at stores due to bad connotations, and instead "use something like... special, or reserved..."

The Germans had a different term around the time of Hitlers rise to power: "Nutlos Esser" or "Useless Eaters", though it wasn't actually their idea, the concept actually may have originated in the United States. John Harvey Kellogg (of Kellog's cornflakes fame) was a great champion of eugenics in the US. (Though it predates him as well, bits of it show up in the writings of Karl Marx. Ideas were also borrowed from Darwin, and even earlier, Plato and others.

The Philosophy which Kellogg championed, was that humans, as the top of the food chain, had no natural predators, and thus must be self-responsible for the "culling of the herd" to eliminate the genetically weak, or inferior. If not, they would continue to breed, diluting the evolutionary advantage of humans, and from an economic standpoint, the healthy and "normal" individuals of society wold be overburdened with the cost of caring for the sick, the diseased... the inferior. Mr. Kellogg's solution was mandatory sterilization of inferior people. Take away the ability to pass on inferior genes and they will simply... die out. Hitler liked the idea, and took the the next logical step. If these people are a burden on society, simply eliminate them from the outset, so that the world's resources won't be wasted on them, and will instead be used to accelerate the evolution of the genetically superior. The end result being stronger, smarter people, more wealth, less poverty, more health, less illness...

Now the one point they had right was the fact that, if the population of "disabled" grows too large, the burden to care for them will overwhelm the rest of the population which will inevitably lead to collapse. There are practical limits to how many people one person can provide food, clothing and shelter for.

But they had the entirely wrong idea as to how to eliminate the "disabled"

I think there is a much better approach. Here are the crucial steps:

1. Stop the "warm fuzzy talk" and use correct labels. Terms like "special" are useless. "Handicapped" is equally useless, slightly better if properly prefixed (physically, mentally). Blind would be better still, as it gets closer to an accurate description of a specific challenge a specific person faces. can you imagine expecting a doctor to correctly treat you after being told only that you had a case of "sick"?

You want a label for the parking stalls? how about "Mobility Impaired"? That's the point of  those spots isn't it? A place close to the front door, with few impediments, to facilitate those who find getting around a greater than normal challenge?

And don't let the ignorant take words away. retard is a valid word with a valid, useful meaning ("verb - delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment."), just because some moron misuses it, doesn't mean we should stop using it appropriately. Keep dropping misused words from the language, and in time there will be no words left.

2. Acknowledge the challenges/weaknesses - Everyone has strengths. Everyone has weaknesses. It is stupid to pretend otherwise, and even dumber to overstate a weakness. A person with no legs is not likely to excel in professional soccer. That doesn't mean he can't be a good swimmer, or motivational speaker (Google Nick Vujicic).

3.Identify Strengths - we spend too much time focusing on what a person with disability "x" can't do. Why not focus on what they are able to excel at instead? The blind often have sharpened hearing, With autism, there are a number of specialized skills which often emerge, musically, computationally... I have a nephew who has hydrocephalus. He has a sharp mind for faces, and an enormous positivity, and kindness. When I watch him interact with others, I often find myself thinking that what is holding him back from doing more in this life is our inability to communicate with him. I think he has a great deal of sage advice he could share with the world, if only we could understand what he is trying to tell us.

3. Change the environment - In some cases perhaps the only thing holding a person back is the way we have constructed the world. Justin Sewell is attributed with saying “TEAMWORK: A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.” One of those human nature things- we people get together and build societies, and when we do we tend to shape them in our own image. It is a reasonable thing to do, but all to often, we overdo it. We expect everyone to be "just like us", to think "just like us". What we call normal, may only be normal in our mind. Example: Roughly half the human population is lactose intolerant, so which then is "normal", the ability to digest milk, or the inability? I think British people have an accent, they think I have an accent, so which one of us speaks "normally"? roughly one of every 5 youth is diagnosed as ADHD. One of five. Twenty percent. Is it really a disorder, or just a different "normal"?

Instead of expecting everyone to accommodate us all the time, perhaps we need to learn to be more accommodating of them. One example of success in this area is specialisterne, a company that specializes in contracting and placing autistic employees. They have taken the time to understand their employees, and they have adapted the workplace and job selection to the specific talents and challenges their employees face. An entire class of "useless eaters" are now productive participants, as a result.

And that ultimately is the way to eliminate the disabled. Understand them, accommodate them where possible, and give them the means to be self-reliant and successful. Don't limit them.

We humans are uniquely able to engineer the means to enable our success, to alter our very environment if need be. We use that ability daily to enable us to live in environments whose conditions exceed the significant limitations of our rather frail bodies. We can do the same thing for these, so-called disabled, and in doing so, we can remove the disability. No longer charity cases, no longer "useless eaters", no longer dependent on the good will of others, or the strength of the economy, because they are themselves contributors to, drivers of economic success.

Mental Health: Is it really a disorder/illness?

I was just listening to a radio program, talking about mental health, and the need to have a "real conversation" about mental illness.

They of course talked about the usual suspects. Dealing with the stigma of mental illness, recognizing that mental illnesses are as real as other illnesses, handicaps, etc...

I had a thought though, which I have never heard addressed: What if some of these disorders, aren't actually disorders? What if some/many of these disorders are only disorders because we as a society have overly-restricted the definition of  "normal"?

Take ADD/ADHD as an example: This country, I would argue, only exists because of ADD/ADHD. It would take a person with ADD characteristics to overlook the enormous risks and potential consequences, abandon all they had, and cross thousands of miles of ocean to come to  an unknown, wild land and try to build a new life from nothing! And it would take an ADD brain to survive some of the events the early settlers experienced.

What if many of these people are in fact perfectly healthy, normal people, who are struggling, suffering because society has allowed a few nut-jobs to incorrectly define "normal"?

What if there is a simple way to "fix" them, not by medicating them, but by accommodating them?

Autism is one case where this is starting to happen. What about other "disorders"?

What if many of these shooting tragedies suicides, etc... could be prevented by changing the conversation from disorder/illness and treatment to understanding the different characteristics/qualities of people, and adjusting our society to accommodate them?

Modern Disease and Mobility

Random thought of the day:

I have hear a fair amount of speculation regarding the causes of modern diseases (including cancers and various autoimmune disorders), Some of the more popular theories I have read tie it to diet, or to the increased use of chemicals, pesticides, etc.. (one more recent theory I mentioned in a previous post suggest a link between 1st world poverty and modern disease).

Of course, some of these seem unlikely, because the timelines don't really fit. For instance the assertion that the introduction of Grains, or the agricultural diet is the cause. The modern disease timeline goes back hundred of years, agricultural diet goes back thousands. The processed foods, or pesticides argument is closer, though there are still some holes in the correlation.

But I just had a random thought this afternoon. What about modern mobility? We have, and take advantage of an increasing ability to traverse in large numbers over vast distances. A simplistic but supporting example:

It has been reported that small, isolated groups tend to have less disease. a family, living in complete isolaion, for instance. However, if they come in contact with other groups, they tend to have low resistance the bacteria and virii those visitors are carrying with them. This was considered to be a major contributor to the decimation of native american populations when Europeans arrived in the new land. Native Americans lived primarily in smaller tribal groups, with relative isolation, and limited travel. Their immune systems weren't prepared for the disease the white man brought from Europe.

But if that were the case, why then were the pilgrims not equally decimate by Native american diseases? Much of it may be explained by the points in this article- in short the introduction of rats (specifically the black rat) and fleas as carriers/transmitters, and comparatively poor hygiene of native american populations (respecting soil, water and food).

But what if there is something else that plays in as well? What if there is a (complicated) equation which can be derived, relating...

Population Size
Population Mobility
Range of Mobility
Viral and/or bacterial interactions relating to population, distance, and time

vs. rate of adaptability of the human immune system?


(Yeah, probably some multi-variable calculus involved in that).

What if, with our increasing ability to traverse increasingly large distances, in increasingly shorter times, we have created an environment in which our immune systems simply can't evolve fast enough to keep up with the intermingling and evolution of bacterial and viral strains?

That was my random thought for the day.

Dog Stew

I made a dozen red currant and blueberry oatmeal muffins last night, thinking they would make a great breakfast. I tried one. It was delicious! Then my kids called from California. The phone was wigging out, so I ran downstairs to use my office phone. When the call was over, I went upstairs to resume looking for something to store the muffins in.

Only there were no muffins to store. Just a grinning dog, lying on her back attempting to look cute.

I told my boss about it at work, the next day and suggested that I might be considering dog stew for dinner tonight. He didn't seem to think that would taste as good as the muffins.

What if it isn't true?

I was asked this question by a friend, when I was in College. My first year in college, I had been back from my Mission for... maybe 6 months. I think it came up in part because he had been proselyted by a group of religious atheists - I have always found that aspect of Atheism a bit humorous. They eschew religion while being a religion themselves - In the sense that a religion is an organized collection of beliefs, or world views relating to humanity, and providing some sort of structure. I am not referring to atheists in general, but rather that group of zealous atheists who preach with conviction that science has proven the non-existence of God. Science can neither prove, nor disprove the existence of God at the present time, nor is it likely to be able to in the foreseeable future. You may be able to make a case regarding certain qualities of an intelligent being, but not dis/prove one.

But back to the question. "What if it isn't true?" At the time I was grossly incapable of answering the question. Fresh from a mission, I was still positively brimming with missionary-ness. I could not even comprehend "It" not being true. I have matured somewhat in the ensuing years (probably not much), and thought I would take a stab at answering that question now.

So, what if it isn't true? What if there is no God? What if all those we have been following over the years, believing they were "men of God" were all part of an elaborate conspiracy, or more likely (applying Hanlon's Razor), were men with an incredible abundance of imagination, and an incredible lack of ability to distinguish between fact and fancy? Well, then I have part of an enormous fraud, which has been perpetuated through millenia. I have been giving up 10% percent of my income, untold hours of my time - I've been following a bunch of rules and guideline's - all for no reason.

But what does that really mean for me? Ignoring the human frailties which are part of any organization run by humans, whether founded by a divine being or no, what are the actually fundamental implications of my devotion to this fraud? What are the actually tenets and objectives which the Church itself - not individuals within the church - has attempted to instill in me?

At the core, it is all about aspiring to something greater.  The most fundamental, core doctrines are love, and personal accountability.  Seriously, take some time to pick it all apart, lay it out, and look at the big picture, recognize the influence of stupid, which is part of all human endeavor and distill the core meaning. It is all about taking responsibility for my actions, accepting my faults, and seeking to overcome them, it is about not blaming others but recognizing that I am responsible for me. And then, in what seems to be a contradiction of the former, it is about recognizing the influence which I have on others. About understanding that what I do can influence others, can shape others. And because of this core belief that we are the offspring of a deity, Those "others" are literally my brothers and sisters. All children of a Loving God and all therefore of infinite worth to him. If that is the case, then why would I not do all in my power to help them to achieve their full potential?

Putting that in simple, temporal terms, If I have a dear friend, who I know is a recovering alcoholic, am I going to pressure him to go to the Bar with me? NO! To do so, to put my friend at risk of Jail, of Death... it would be unconscionable! So in that same vein, if all around me are my brothers and sisters, it makes sense that I should do what I am able to help them to be happy, healthy... the best they can be.

And that is the core of what I have belonged to. The gospel of Jesus Christ fundamentally is about improving myself, being responsible for myself, avoiding things which could lead to addictions, and embracing things which improve my knowledge, health, happiness and overall well-being, and helping others as best I can, or at the very least, not being a roadblock to their improvement.

So, I try to avoid things which are harmful for my physical body, I try to eat good food, get sufficient sleep (I said try), I try to treat other with respect, to keep my anger and selfishness and pride in check. I give money and time to my church, to build church building where people can gather together to fast and pray together, to share messages of hope and faith with one another, to inspire each other and "bear one anothers burdens". I give money to my church to help build schools, to help provide resources to those who have fallen on hard times; see to their immediate needs and help them get back on their feet.

I have invested considerable time in an organization which has encouraged me to follow the example of one who spent his life seeking to help, to heal, to lift, and to love.

What if it isn't true? What I have gained far exceeds what I have lost.

What if it is true?