Monthly Archives: January 2017

GRIZZLY BEARS AND GUNS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

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Our new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said at her Senate confirmation hearing that she thinks that public schools should have guns in them –  just in case grizzly bears attack the students. Frankly, I had never considered this danger before; however, I have now given this matter a lot of thought, as I am sure Secretary DeVos has also. The big question is this – just where in a public school is a student at greatest risk of a grizzly bear attack? Below is my list, in no particular order.

 


1. The cafeteria garbage cans were my first thought. Bears are famous for raiding garbage cans; however, school cafeteria garbage cans are normally kept outside the school, and Secretary of Education DeVos says that she is worried about grizzly bears inside schools, not at the garbage cans outside.

2. The cafeteria itself. That’s where the food is and that’s where cooking odors originate from. Bears are famous for their excellent sense of smell, and they follow cooking odors.

3. The gym locker room. There is really no good place for a grizzly bear to hide in a typical classroom. If a grizzly bear was hiding anywhere in my classroom at Orinda Intermediate School, I am sure that my students and I would see it as soon as we entered the room. However, most school gyms have rows of high lockers in them, giving bears places to hide.

4. The gym shower room. If a grizzly bear attacked a student in a hall or classroom, there is a risk that the student may have a concealed gun on him or in his backpack, but students in the shower are naked and therefore unarmed. (Note: Students in California are prohibited from bringing guns into public schools with them, but in many states, both teachers and students are allowed to bring concealed loaded guns into their classrooms with them; including Texas, Wisconsin, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, and Arkansas.)

5. A school bake sale or Girl Scout cookie sale. If grizzly bears are checking the calendar of upcoming events on a school’s web site, they could wait until the next Girl Scout cookie sale, where they could snatch a lot of cookies and possibly some delicious Girl Scouts as well! The reason I put this item last is that I think that most grizzly bears lack internet access.
 

So where do you think that school kids face the greatest risk of a grizzly bear attack?

GLUTEN INTOLERANCE – The Fad Disease Of Our Time.

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Fat-Free is out. Gluten-Free is in. It seems that about once every 10 years, people decide that some common food is evil, a single specific food that makes us sick and fat. 10 years ago, the evil food was fat. Do you remember when fat-free products filled supermarket shelves? Some of these products were a mystery to me, like fat-free mayonnaise. I have no idea what fat-free mayonnaise is made out of, and I don’t care because I will never buy it. Kraft still makes this suspicious product. I also still see fat-free half and half, fat-free sour cream, and fat-free cream cheese in supermarket dairy cases. These are also products that baffle me. I was just at Berkeley Bowl, where I saw ‘Pam Olive Oil.’ The label says that this product is fat-free and has zero calories per serving. Fat-free, no-calorie olive oil?? What do suppose that is? It sounds bizarre. Fat-free olive oil? Really?

Today’s evil food is gluten. It seems like nearly everyone these days is gluten intolerant, gluten sensitive, gluten allergic, or has celiac disease. About 1/4 of the people who come to my chocolate room tell me that they can’t eat my chocolate dipped shortbread or molasses cookies because they contain wheat flour. That’s OK with me. It saves me money since I give all my cookies away for free.

40% of Americans believe that they are gluten intolerant or avoid eating foods with gluten in them because they believe that eating gluten is bad for their health. However, if you think about it, gluten intolerance couldn’t really be that common. Western civilization could never have developed if such a large portion of the population couldn’t digest wheat normally. Wheat is the basis of all Western civilization, from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome to Europe and America today. The people who built the pyramids of Egypt had a diet based on wheat bread. So did the people who built the Parthenon in Athens, the aqueducts of Rome, the medieval cathedrals of France and Germany, the Panama Canal, and the Googleplex.

Over 90% of people who believe that they are gluten sensitive can actually digest gluten normally. That was the conclusion of a lengthy study conduced at the University L’Aquila in Italy and published in Digestion magazine. Many other universities have conducted similar studies and come to similar conclusions.

So – how come so many people falsely believe that they are gluten intolerant? It is very simple. We are bombarded every day with anti-gluten TV commercials and supermarket displays. Manufacturers of gluten-free foods tell us over and over that gluten is bad for us and that we can improve our health and lose weight effortlessly by buying and eating their products. However, gluten-free doesn’t mean ‘healthy’ or ‘low calorie.’ Many gluten-free products are loaded with sugar, chemicals, and fat. Coca Cola, fried pork rinds, Hershey bars, and Big Dipper huckleberry ice cream are all gluten-free, but you aren’t going to improve your health or lose weight by eating them. We are also bombarded with TV infomercials in which celebrities tell us how they lost 50 or 100 pounds simply by cutting gluten out of their diet and eating rice or corn instead of wheat.

Yes, some people really are gluten intolerant, and celiac disease is a real disease, but how common is it? Celiac disease is a hereditary disease that affects about 3 million Americans, or roughly 1% of the population. People with celiac disease should never eat gluten. There is a lot of debate in the scientific community as how many people are truly gluten sensitive, but the actual number is a small fraction of what most people think. If you think you have celiac disease or are gluten sensitive, tell your doctor and get tested for it. Most people who believe they are gluten sensitive actually aren’t.

TIERED HANGERS.

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I have never had a tenant who told me that his bedroom closet was too big or that he had more storage space than he could use. Do you need more space in your closet to hang clothes? An easy solution to this problem is by making a simple tiered hanger. Go to a hardware store and buy a 2′ length of lightweight ornamental chain like the one in the photo below. It should cost under $5. Hang the first link over a hanger in your closet. Then hang additional hangers on every other link. Using this simple method, you can hang 6 shirts in the space of 1!

HEIDI AND THE ANTS.

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In most American cities, when a tenant tells his landlord that he has ants in his kitchen, it is usually because he wants the landlord to kill them, but this is Berkeley where things are different. I was just reviewing a series of emails that I got several years ago from a tenant who had ants in her kitchen and wanted me to get rid of them – but without harming them. I think you might enjoy reading this exchange. Here are some of the emails I received from her about this subject. There were more emails about this from her, but I can’t find them all. I changed her name in the letters below. Her name wasn’t actually Heidi. My stepmother had a dog named Heidi, but I never had a tenant named Heidi.

Dear Mark:
The ants are back. I have tried everything, but nothing works. I have even tried yelling at them.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I have been meaning to talk to you about this for some time. I know that you have been yelling at the ants in your kitchen. I can hear you from my office. However, yelling “Get out! Get out!” at ants doesn’t work. I don’t know if ants have ears, but I am sure that they don’t understand English. I will come over and spray something in your kitchen to get rid of them.

Dear Mark:
Will this spray kill the ants?
Heidi

Heidi:
Yes. I use a product that is made from the oil of orange peels. It is not harmful to people, but it destroys the respiratory system of ants and other insects. They die quickly because they can’t breathe.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I don’t want you to do that. That sounds awful. How would you feel if you couldn’t breathe? Let me think about this for a while. I was hoping you had a spray that would just keep the ants away, like mosquito repellent keep mosquitoes away.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I don’t have ant repellent. I don’t even know if such a product exists. I use orange peel oil because it is non-toxic to people and safe to use in restaurants and home kitchens. However, this product does kill ants. I doesn’t just repel them.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I need time to think this over. Please don’t do anything until I say so.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
OK. Think it over. I will spray or not spray your kitchen as you wish. There are many products on the market that will kill or repel ants, but I don’t know of any, aside from orange peel oil, that are safe to use in a kitchen or around food. I have investigated this matter.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I found 6 more dead ants in my kitchen this morning. I found 4 dead ants in my kitchen yesterday. Did you spray that stuff in my kitchen? I don’t think there is anything in my kitchen that would kill ants. I found most of the ants on the top of the sink near the soap. Do you think the ants might have eaten the soap and died? Is soap poisonous to ants? If it is, do you know of a brand of soap that won’t kill ants if they eat it.
Heidi

Heidi:
I did not spray your kitchen. You told me not to. Frankly, I think it is silly for you to worry about the health of the ants in your kitchen. You have probably killed hundreds of ants by just walking on the grass in your yard.
Mark

Dear Mark:
Wow! I have been thinking about what you said about walking on ants in the yard. You are probably right. It makes you wonder if it is OK to walk in the yard. I have been taking the ants in my kitchen outside and putting them in the yard, but I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. It is depressing, but I know you are right. I am now taking the ants to the back porch and dropping them off into the yard. Some of them may get hurt in the fall, but that’s better than walking on other ants in order to save the kitchen ants. Don’t you think? What do you think I should do?
Heidi

Heidi:
Do whatever you think is best.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I asked my mother for her advice about the ants. She thinks that trying to save ants is stupid. She says that she kills ants all the time. My mother thinks that I have too much time on my hands. She says that instead of trying to save the ants in my kitchen that I should come over to the church today and help her make brownies for gift baskets for our very old members. What do you think?
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I agree with your mother. If you change your mind and want me to spray your kitchen, let me know.
Mark

Dear Mark:
Would you like some brownies? My mother and I made a lot of them today at the church for gift baskets. We made too many of them. They are very good. If you want to spray my kitchen, go ahead. I have lost interest in the ants.
Heidi

In any other city in the U.S., a tenant like Heidi would be considered bizarre, perhaps even unbelievable, but nobody who has lived in Berkeley for a long time would be surprised by a story like this. Landlords in Berkeley have to deal with tenants like Heidi all the time. When inexperienced Berkeley landlords ask me for advice, I tell them that the key to successfully dealing with someone like Heidi is patience, lots and lots of patience. – Mark Tarses