Monthly Archives: August 2020

WHAT IS A RENTER?

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There are many ambiguous words in the English language. ‘Renter’ is on the top of my list. Is a renter a tenant or a landlord? Suppose you say: “Max rents the house on the corner.” Is Max the tenant or is he the landlord? Does Max pay rent or does he receive rent? Google Dictionary defines ‘renter’ as ‘a person who rents an apartment, car, or other object. That definition doesn’t help. ‘A person who rents an apartment’ could be either a tenant or a landlord.

AUTOANTONYMS.‘Renter’ is an autoantonym. An autoantonym is a word that has 2 opposite definitions. In other words, the word is its own antonym. My Uncle Maurice got me interested in autoantonyms when I was a kid. He still likes them. Here are a few examples of autoantonyms.Clip can mean to attach or to detach. If you clip papers together, then you attach them, but if you clip an article from a newspaper, then you detach it. I remember this word was on Uncle Maurice’s list.
Dust can mean to remove dust or to add dust. If you dust your living room, you are removing dust, but if you dust donuts with powdered sugar, then you are adding dust.
Off can men to activate or to deactivate. ‘The dog set off the burglar alarm, so we turned the burglar alarm off.’
Oversight can mean failing to see mistakes or trying to find mistakes. ‘An oversight by the company’s CPA led to a million dollar loss. His oversight was discovered by the oversight committee.’
Table can mean to start a discussion or end a discussion. If you table a meeting, you are starting a discussion, but if you table a motion at the meeting, then you are removing it from discussion.
Trim can mean to add or to remove. What does it mean to ‘trim a tree?’ If you trim a Christmas tree, then you are adding decorations, but if you trim a tree in your backyard, you are removing unwanted branches.
There are dozens of other autoantonyms in the English language.

CAN YOU REALLY OUTRUN AN EXPLOSION?

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Last week, I saw the movie ‘Chain Reaction’ on TV. In this movie, Keanu Reeves is a chemist working in an alternative energy lab. A massive hydrogen explosion destroys the lab and the surrounding neighborhood. However, Reeves escapes by outrunning the explosion on his motorcycle. He does the same thing at the end of the movie. There are dozens of movies like this, movies in which the hero outruns an explosion. I never took a physics or chemistry course in college, but I am suspicious that you can actually outrun an explosion. James Bond does this quite often. In ‘Golden Eye’, James Bond blows up a military base, but he escapes by running faster than the explosion is expanding. In Rambo movies, Sylvester Stallone outruns explosions in the jungle. In the TV show ‘Star Trek’, the Enterprise is constantly outrunning explosions, including exploding stars. They do this by going to ‘warp speed’, which is many times faster than the speed of light. The show never explains what warp speed is. When I was in college, I saw the movie ‘Krakatoa – East of Java.’ I recall that the title of this movie annoyed me. I was good at geography, and I knew that Krakatoa is west of Java. In this movie, just before the Krakatoa volcano explodes, people get on a sailing ship and sail away. They escape because their ship is sailing faster than the explosion. The majority of my tenants are working in chemistry labs so maybe one of them can explain to me how you can outrun an explosion. People are constantly doing it in movies, but I am very skeptical about this.

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND. The worst state song in the U.S.

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When I was a child, I could not understand why there were Confederate statues and monuments all over Baltimore, where I grew up. There were no statues of Union generals or of Lincoln. I knew that Maryland was a Union state, even though it was also a slave state. Most Marylanders who fought in the Civil War fought for the North. I also didn’t understand why the official state song was – and still is – ‘Maryland, My Maryland.’ The lyrics of this song are just Confederate propaganda. It was written during the Civil War by a Confederate naval officer. Most people in Maryland have never read or thought about the words to the state song, but maybe they should. ‘Maryland, My Maryland’ refers to Abraham Lincoln as a ‘tyrant’, ‘the despot’, and ‘the vandal’.  However, the nastiest line in this song refers to the United States Army as ‘Northern scum.’ Think about that. The United States Army is just ‘Northern scum’? When I was a kid, I was sometimes required to sing ‘Maryland, My Maryland’, but after a certain age, I just refused to sing it. There have been many efforts to revise or replace this song, but all efforts have failed. In 2016, some Maryland state legislators tried to get just the words ‘Northern scum’ removed from ‘Maryland, My Maryland’, but even that was voted down. In 2017, the University of Maryland marching band announced that they would no longer play ‘Maryland, My Maryland’. In 2018, the Maryland state legislature again voted against making any changes to ‘Maryland, My Maryland’. In February, 2020; the Maryland House of Delegates appointed a panel to “review suggestions for a new state song”, but the panel was disbanded due to the Covid epidemic. And remember – Maryland was a Union state!

BATTLE OF ANTIETAM.

The only major battle in the Civil War that was fought in Maryland was at Antietam. Most people think that Gettysburg was the most important battle in the war, but it was really Antietam. That’s because Antietam was the battle that doomed the Confederacy. Antietam was the bloodiest single day in the entire war. There were over 20,000 casualties. More importantly, Antietam changed the Civil War from a war to preserve the Union to a war to end slavery. A few days after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln felt that too many men had been killed at Antietam to put the country back together just as it was before the war. After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it became politically impossible for Britain or France to enter the war on the South’s side, and that doomed the Confederacy.

NEW IN THE CHOCOLATE ROOM.

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Cherry Chocolate Chip Muffins. These muffins are made with equal quantities of cherries and mini chocolate chips.

Maraschino Cherries. I use natural dried cherries in my muffins. Most commercial cherry muffins, cupcakes, ice cream, and candies are made with maraschino cherries. Maraschino is not a type of cherry. It is a method of preserving cherries. Maraschino cherries are made by bleaching cherries in a brine made of calcium chloride and sulfur dioxide for 1 to 2 months. This process removes all color and flavor from the cherries. Then the cherries are soaked in sugar syrup, artificial cherry flavor, and red dye. Maraschino cherries have an extremely long shelf life, which makes them popular with food processors. Maraschino cherries are pretty, but they are not good for you.


Cherry Chocolate Chip vs. Orange Cranberry Muffins. It can be hard to tell cranberries from cherries in baked goods, but there is an easy way to tell which of my muffins is which. My cherry-chocolate chip muffins are baked in red muffin cups, and the orange-cranberry muffins are baked in orange or copper colored muffin cups.

Why No Muffin Bakeries? There are lots of cupcake bakeries and donut shops, but the only bakeries that specialize in muffins in the bay area make them for a niche market. There are bakeries that just make gluten-free muffins, and there are bakeries that make muffins for dogs. Lately, mochi muffin bakeries have been popping up in California. But why aren’t there bakeries that just sell normal muffins? I suspect that the reason that cupcakes and donuts outsell muffins is simply because cupcakes and donuts have a lot more sugar in them.