FACE MASK ‘TYRANNY.’

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Nobody complains when their kid’s school conducts mass shooting drills.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school installs metal detectors and requires everyone entering the school to go through them.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school installs bulletproof classroom doors, doors that are locked from the inside at the start of class.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school hires poorly paid security guards with guns. (We don’t have armed guards at the school where I teach, but the school’s mascot is a ferocious cartoon bulldog.)

Nobody complains about ads in their kid’s school newspaper for bulletproof backpacks and hoodies.

But what happens when people go to big box stores with their kids to buy those bulletproof backpacks? Clerks stop people at the door and tell them that they have to put on face masks in order to enter the store. Then people go nuts. They shout that this is tyranny and say that they have a Constitutional right to go into a store without wearing a face mask. Sometimes they also physically assault the store clerks. Then they are thrown out of the store and have to buy their bulletproof backpacks elsewhere. We don’t have any big box stores here in Berkeley, but you can buy bulletproof backpacks at Bed, Bath, and Beyond at El Cerrito Plaza. Bulletproof Backpacks.

The Constitution. There is nothing in the Constitution about face masks. It is amazing what some people think is in the Constitution. For example, the majority of Americans believe that the Constitution requires that the President has to be born in the United States, but that isn’t true. The President of the United States can be born anywhere in the world. Lots of presidential candidates were born in foreign countries. John McCain ran for president against Barack Obama. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was never part of the United States. Ted Cruz ran for president in 2016, and he was born in Canada. George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father ran for president in 1968. As a child, George Romney faced a lot of discrimination because he was born in Mexico. When he went to school in Los Angeles, other children taunted him by calling him ‘Mex’, but when George Romney ran for president, the fact that he was born in Mexico was not an issue. In 1968, the frontrunners for the Republican nomination for president were Romney and Nixon. The Republicans chose Nixon. After Watergate, a lot of them regretted that they didn’t pick Romney.

Mark’s Face Mask Advice. If you don’t wear a face mask because you fear that your brain won’t get enough oxygen and that you will become irrational, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but that horse is already out of the barn.

SALES OF $100 CHOCOLATE BARS ARE COLLAPSING.

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Due to the Covid epidemic, sales of very expensive chocolate bars have fallen off the cliff. Chocolate bars that sell for $100 or more are mostly sold in places that are now closed, places like luxury resorts, cruise ships, and duty-free shops. However, you can still buy most of these products online. Here’s where you can buy a To’ak Art Series chocolate bar. To’ak Chocolate. It’s $450. That seems like a lot of money (at least to me) for one chocolate bar, however, their packaging is much, much nicer than mine. Gift wrapping is extra. I don’t provide free gift wrapping, but if you are willing to pay me $450 for one of my chocolate bars, I will gift wrap it for free. To’ak Art Series Chocolate Bar.

SUR LA TABLE DECLARES BANKRUPTCY.
Sur La Table will be closing 50 of their 120 stores due to their recent bankruptcy filing. Like a lot of other chain stores that have recently declared bankruptcy, Sur La Table had a lot of junk debt. This is something that I predicted in my April newsletter. I expect that many more companies with heavy junk bond debt will be doing the same. I hope Sur La Table won’t close their Berkeley store. I like to browse around there, but I rarely buy anything there. They sell Fran’s sea salt chocolate covered caramels, an excellent product and Barack Obama’s favorite candy, but they cost $100 a pound. Sur La Table is the place to go in Berkeley if you want to buy a $500 kitchen knife or a $5,000 home coffee maker. Coffee Maker. I am not sure who buys this stuff. Although Berkeley is a college town, I don’t often see people of college age at Sur La Table, but then, how many college students buy $500 kitchen knives and $5,000 coffee makers?

ZEBRAS!

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I think zebras are fascinating animals. Have you ever wondered why zebras have stripes? As improbable as this may sound, it is a form of camouflage. Zebras are very vulnerable to predators. Zebras don’t have claws; they don’t have sharp teeth; and they can’t run very fast. Zebras travel in herds, and their stripes make it difficult for lions and other predators to focus an attack on an individual member of the herd. The herd looks like a moving blur. I don’t know of any other animal that uses this method of camouflage. Take a look at the photo below. Which of the zebras in this photo is looking at the camera?

NEW IN THE CHOCOLATE ROOM.

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Orange Cranberry Muffins.

I made orange muffins a couple of months ago, but I was disappointed with the results. There wasn’t enough orange flavor in them. The problem was that I used orange juice. Now I am using orange zest, and these muffins are much better. Orange zest has more flavor in baked goods than orange juice.

ABOUT ZEST.

What is zest? Zest is the fine shavings or scrapings from the rind of oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruit.
Preparation. Always wash oranges for zesting thoroughly to remove both dirt and wax. Many growers spray wax on oranges to make them shinier.

What to zest. Only use the outermost skin of the orange. Never use the white pith beneath. It is bitter and should not be eaten. You can freeze zest for future use. Orange and lemon zest freeze very well because of the natural oil in it. Add zest to beverages, baked goods, pasta, and vegetable dishes for a flavor boost!

What tool do you use? I recommend a microplane zester. They sell for around $10 on Amazon.

What is the best kind of orange for zesting? In my opinion, the best oranges for zesting are the ones that you steal from a tenant’s orange tree, which is what I do. They are also the cheapest oranges! Likewise, the best lemons for zesting are the ones that you steal from a tenant’s lemon tree, which I also do. If you don’t have any tenants or if your tenants don’t have orange trees or if your tenants won’t let you steal their oranges, then navel oranges from the supermarket will do just fine.

WHAT WILL LIFE BE LIKE IN THE BAY AREA AFTER COVID19?

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We all know that the driving force in the economy of the San Francisco bay area is the high-tech industry. The COVID19 epidemic has made big changes in the way that people in the high-tech industry live and work, and some of those changes will be permanent. Most high-tech workers in this area are now working at home, and many of them will never return to working at an office. Some San Francisco tech giants, including Twitter and Square, have told most of their employees that they can now work from home permanently.

HOUSING. The fact that high-tech company employees are now working at home explains why rents in some bay area cities are falling but not others. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in San Francisco has fallen 9% since May, 2019. In Mountain View, average rent fell 16% and in Cupertino 14%. However, in Oakland, rents rose 5%, and rents in Berkeley are holding up too. In other words, rent is falling in cities where big tech companies are headquartered. Now that high tech employees are working from home, and many permanently, they can move to nearby cities where the rent is cheaper. The average 1-bedroom apartment in San Francisco currently rents for $3,400 a month. See: Rent Jungle. However, the average 1-bedroom apartment in Oakland is $2,500 a month. A person working at the Salesforce Tower may have been willing to pay $4,000 a month for an apartment nearby for the convenience of being able to walk to work, but what about now? For a recent college graduate in a high tax bracket and with student loans to pay off, being able to save over $1,000 a month on rent by moving to the east bay is a no-brainer. No one knows when this epidemic will be over, and when it is over and tech companies have reopened their offices, how many people who are now working at home will go back to commuting to the office 5 days a week just like before? Some tech people working at home may feel that they can now move far away from the bay area to places where rent is really cheap, places like Lubbock, Texas; where you can rent a modern 1-bedroom apartment that’s walking distance from Texas Tech for $500 a month. Of course, a lot of high-tech people currently working at home will still need to live near Silicon Valley when this is over so that they can attend meetings and conferences. Plus, there are a lot of people who work at home 4 days a week but who have to go to the office 1 day a week. I know people like that. Besides, how many people would really want to move from Palo Alto to Lubbock?

OFFICE SPACE. If working from home becomes the new normal for the high-tech industry, what will happen to companies that rent office buildings in Silicon Valley and downtown San Francisco? What will happen to companies like We Work? And what will happen to the businesses near high-tech company headquarters that depend on income from the people who work there – or used to work there – places like spiffy bars and restaurants in San Francisco’s financial district?

A FEW GOOD PROJECTS.

If you are looking for things to do because you are spending more time at home now because of the virus, here are some good projects.

1. Emergency water. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, all the water mains in the city burst. Some people in San Francisco didn’t have potable water for months. What would you do if that happened today? Everyone who lives in earthquake country should have an emergency supply of water. Gallon jugs of water are very cheap. You can also just clean out empty plastic milk and juice jugs and fill them with water. Store water jugs in a basement or bike shed or garage just in case they leak.

2. Dump expired food & meds. What’s in the back of your refrigerator? When was the last time you went through your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets and dumped expired food or food that has gone bad? There are a lot of foods that people never check the expiration dates on because they think they are edible forever, products like ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, etc., but that isn’t true. All food goes bad with time. You should also go through your medicine cabinet and replace expired meds.

3. Clean out your closets. When was the last time you went through your closets and got rid of the stuff that you have no possible use for? I am constantly amazed at the stuff that people store in their closets. I once had a tenant who called me over because the light bulb in his living room closet wasn’t working. I couldn’t get to the light fixture because the closet was full of used paper shopping bags. I told the tenant that I would return to fix the light after he removed the bags from the closet. When I returned, there were piles of shopping bags all over the living room. It turned out that the problem was just a burned-out light bulb. I know several other people like this, people who never throw out shopping bags, no matter how many they already have. Some people will not throw out empty boxes either. I know someone with a basement filled to the ceiling with empty boxes.

4. Start a Goodwill box. Start putting things that you have no use for in a giveaway box so that everything is in one place. Ask yourself if the things in this box are actually salable or just junk. People leave junk at thrift stores at night that should go in their garbage can instead. Thrift stores have no use for cracked dishes, broken appliances, or old mattresses. It is illegal in California for stores to sell used mattresses. On the other hand, thrift stores may actually want your old shopping bags.

HONORING CONFEDERATES ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES.

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The University of Nevada Rebels. Confederate statues are being removed from college campuses all over the United States, but what about their sports teams and mascots? Have you ever heard of Hey Reb? The official nickname of the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) is The Rebels, and the team’s mascot is Hey Reb. Whenever I go to Las Vegas, I see people wearing Hey Reb t-shirts. I also see them at gift shops at the airport and in hotels. Hey Reb is an old Confederate soldier with a huge white mustache. Hey Reb is often depicted carrying a Civil War era rifle. He sometimes also has a cannon. But why?! Nevada was a Union state, and slavery was never legal in Nevada. During the Civil War, Nevada Territory contributed significantly to the Union war effort. The 1860s was the height of the Comstock Lode, the biggest concentration of silver ever found in one place in all of history. The mines in and around Virginia City shipped hundreds of millions of dollars in silver back east to finance the Union war effort. Nevada was admitted into the Union in late October 1864, one week before the presidential election. There weren’t enough people living in Nevada at the time to qualify it for statehood, but Nevada was admitted into the Union anyway in order to give Lincoln a few more electoral votes. So, considering its history, why is the mascot of UNLV an old Confederate soldier? In 2016, after a mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina; the UNLV student newspaper changed its name from ‘The Rebel Yell’ to ‘The Scarlet & Gray Free Press’, but that was as far as they were willing to go. The majority of the players on UNLV’s football team are black. What do you suppose those black football players are thinking when they win a game and then a guy runs out onto the field dressed up like an old white Confederate soldier to congratulate them and do a victory dance?

Update: The University of Nevada Las Vegas has just announced that they are considering replacing Hey Reb with a new mascot. Well, I have a suggestion. I think that their new mascot should be named Hey Sucker! Hey Sucker! would be a bankrupt gambler with his pockets out to show that there is nothing in them. Hey Sucker! could be of any race. Las Vegas casinos will accept the life savings of anyone, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. They are very democratic about that. What do you think of my idea?

WHAT HAPPENED TO MUFFINS?

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Muffins used to be far more popular than they are today. Lots of restaurants used to put a basket of muffins on the table at dinnertime as an alternative to sliced bread, but you rarely see that anymore. I used to manage a restaurant where we did a big breakfast business. Our most popular breakfast was the ‘Lucky 21’ combination. It included 2 eggs, bacon or sausage, coffee, and a muffin. I made the muffins. The ‘Lucky 21′ breakfast cost $1.21, so obviously this was a long time ago. Today, most restaurants that have muffins on their breakfast menu offer them as a meal option, not just as part of a meal. Why? It’s because muffins got huge! I’ve started making muffins again and making them the same way that I made them when I managed that restaurant long ago. My muffins contain between 150 and 200 calories. By comparison, a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cake muffin contains 590 calories. Costco muffins contain over 600 calories. Some Cinnabons contain over 1,000 calories. As muffins got bigger and bigger and more and more filling, restaurants stopped including them in meal combinations. At some point, the muffin became the whole meal, and then restaurants stopped serving them. Restaurants would rather sell you a meal than a muffin. I am nostalgic for the days when a muffin was the size of an unfrosted cupcake, not a loaf of bread, and was just part of a meal.

FAKE BLUEBERRY MUFFINS.

Another reason for the demise of muffins is that the quality of the ingredients went downhill. For example, 50 years ago, blueberry muffins had blueberries in them. Today, most packaged blueberry muffins and blueberry muffin mixes are made with imitation blueberries. Look at the photo below of Martha White Blueberry Muffin Mix. The photo on the box shows muffins bursting with blueberries and fresh whole blueberries in front of them. But if you read the ingredients on the side of the box, you will find that what looks like blueberries are actually ‘artificial blueberry bits’. Most blueberry muffin mixes are made with imitation blueberries, and it isn’t just blueberry muffins that are made with fake blueberries. A lot of blueberry pancakes, blueberry waffles, and blueberry breakfast cereals are also made with fake blueberries. Some products that are marketed as health food, like blueberry granola and nutritional bars, are also made with imitation blueberries. The reason for this is simple. Fake blueberries are much cheaper than real blueberries.

Real Blueberries That Aren’t Real Blueberries. There are a lot of blueberry products that say they are made with real blueberries but that doesn’t mean what you think it means. Take a look at the picture below of Kellogg’s Special K Blueberry Protein Meal Bars. This appear to be a healthy product, filled with real blueberries, but if you read the ingredients, you find that what appear to be blueberries are actually ‘blueberry flavored cranberries’ that have been dyed blue.  Special K Blueberry Bar Ingredients. There are many other ‘blueberry’ products like this on the market. It works this way – if a product contains imitation blueberries, but the imitation blueberries have some real blueberry juice in or on them, then the manufacturer can say that the product is made with ‘real blueberries’. So, here is my question….should we call a cranberry that has been dyed blue a blueberry? It is blue, and it is a berry, but to my way of thinking, a blueberry is a specific kind of berry. A blueberry is not the same thing as a blue berry. Note the space between the words ‘blue’ and ‘berry.’ What do you think?



NEW IN THE CHOCOLATE ROOM.
Cinnamon Streusel Muffins. These muffins are also known as cinnamon crumbcake or coffee cake muffins. ‘Streusel’ means crumb in German and Yiddish.  These muffins are my personal favorite. Best of all, they taste just like the cinnamon streusel muffins that your old German Aunt Johanna used to make! Well – at least they taste just like the cinnamon streusel muffins that my old German Aunt Johanna used to make. A word or warning…because I don’t use preservatives, my muffins will go stale in just a few days at room temperature or in the refrigerator. I store them in my freezer. They freeze very well. Most packaged muffins contain preservatives. The worst are the bagged mini muffins that are made for vending machines and dollar stores. They typically ‘stay fresh’ for 60 to 90 days according to the manufacturers. My guess is that you will live longer if you don’t eat them.

ABOUT FACEBOOK MESSENGER.

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If you want to send me a message, either send me an email or a text message. I do not use Facebook Messenger, Twitter Direct Messages, or other messaging apps. Your privacy and security go down as the number of companies that have access to your communications go up, and I can’t think of a good reason for using messaging apps that offsets that. I also do not open email attachments unless I know who sent it and who created it (You shouldn’t either.)

WORST APPLICATION EVER.

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I used to manage a restaurant here in Berkeley. Part of my job was to hire new employees. Normally, people are on their best behavior when they are trying to get something, like a job, an apartment, or a loan. However, sometimes people would say very insulting things to me while they were applying for jobs. Some people say insulting things to me now while they are applying for apartments. On one occasion, an applicant for an apartment looked me in the eye and said: “I hate landlords” while I was reviewing his application with him. I have asked people who run businesses if they ever had an experience like that while interviewing a job applicant. Several said: ‘Yes’. A psychologist I know explained this to me. She said that when a person applies for a job or an apartment while he is insulting the person who can give him that job or apartment, it is probably because he wants to be rejected. A person may apply for a job that he doesn’t want just so he can collect unemployment insurance. A person may apply for an apartment that he doesn’t want in order to please his parents who are nagging him to move out of their house and get his own place. And sometimes, people say insulting things without even being aware that what they are saying is insulting. The Kitchen Crier was one of those people.

The Kitchen Crier.  In 1999, I rented a one-bedroom apartment in the Rockridge district of Oakland. Over 50 people came to my one and only showing, and 20 of them turned in applications. That wasn’t unusual in 1999. It was the height of the Dot-Com Bubble of the late 1990’s. Besides, Rockridge is a very desirable neighborhood, and there aren’t a lot of apartments in Rockridge. At the end of the showing, I sat down on the living room couch to review the applications I received. I thought I was alone until I heard the sound of somebody crying. I got up to investigate. To my surprise, I found a young woman sitting at the kitchen table, crying, and holding a handkerchief over her eyes. There was a partially filled-out rental application form on the table. I said to her: “Are you OK?” She shook her head and said: “Yes,” so I went back to the living room. I wondered why she was crying, but I didn’t know what to say. After a while, she came out of the kitchen. She had stopped crying. Then she looked around the living room and started crying again. I said: “Is there anything I can do?” She shook her head and said: “No. It’s just that my mother warned me that I’d wind up in a place like this, but I didn’t believe her.” Then she handed me her rental application and walked out. I watched her drive away – still crying. I don’t think that she was trying to be insulting; however, she was aware of the fact that she wasn’t the only person who wanted to rent this apartment. A lot of people left applications while she was there. The apartment wasn’t a dump. I don’t rent dumps. It was in superb condition. As you may have guessed, I rented the place to somebody else.

WHY YOUR GRASS IS NOT GETTING MOWED.

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I know that your grass needs mowing, but I have told my gardener not to come here. I want you to know that I am not doing this from neglect. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, it is now illegal in Alameda County (and most of the rest of California) to hire somebody to mow your grass or do gardening work unless it is to “prevent a dangerous condition such as fire prevention or tree trimming and not for cosmetic or other purposes, such as upkeep.” (Alameda County Health Officer Order, Section 13. Definitions, ‘f’ Essential Businesses, ‘xiii’ Arborists, landscapers, gardeners.) I don’t understand why the health department isn’t allowing gardeners to mow people’s grass. ​​If a gardener is working alone and no one else is in the yard, where is the risk? ​Besides, the​ grass at Berkeley city parks and school playgrounds is getting mowed. ​I don’t see the logic of this, but nevertheless, it​ is​ the law.