"Best Café in the World"

Not that many vegetarians or vegans reach the pinnacle of their sport, but England's James Willstrop has—he's the number one squash player in the world (on the right in the picture). Having traveled the world for 10 years as an athlete, he recently compiled a list of his 10 favorite vegetarian restaurants. Of the four listed in the United States, one was South Philadelphia's Grindcore House (and here)—Philly's first and only vegan coffee shop. Here's how Willstrop described it (for his complete list go here):

6. Grindcore House, Philadelphia
More a café than a restaurant, Grindcore is an unlikely presence in a south Philadelphia neighbourhood, free of shops and businesses. They often play hardcore music (at a moderate level) which is almost incongruous with the feel of the place. High points are the comforting sandwiches, and I can't believe how good the chocolate peanut butter bomb is. If you can't handle soya or cow's milk in your coffee then there are almond and rice milk options. For me, the best café in the world. If there was one of these in Leeds then I would never find time to train.

(Shameless plug: the Grindcore House was co-founded and is co-owned by my son David [who doesn't play squash]. Nice work, Dave!)

Am I Missing Something Here?

With the recent discovery of a cow in California found to have "Mad Cow Disease" (BSE—bovine spongiform encephalopathy), facts about the disease, and its potential for being transmitted to humans, have been repeated in the news.

Here's something I didn't know: According to Marion Nestle (note: those are two separate links in case you want to click through), professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University and author of many books on food and public policy, some 34 million cows are slaughtered in the U.S. every year. Of these 34 million, only 40,000 are randomly selected and tested for the presence of BSE. If my math is correct, that means one cow out of every 850 is tested for the presence of the disease.

To be clear: Those numbers don't say that the chances of encountering BSE in beef are 1:850. It says that one in 850 cows is tested. The chances of consuming tainted beef are much lower given the rare occurrence of finding afflicted cows.

But still, the fact that a cow was found with BSE means that the disease is out there. With a testing ratio of 1:850 I would not, were I a meat-eater, be feeling very confident about the purity of the "other 849" that aren't tested—especially given the death sentence represented by this disease for those who develop the human version of BSE (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) from eating tainted beef.

In light of the discovery of BSE in the afflicted cow, the USDA issued this statement:

"The beef and dairy in the American food supply is safe and USDA remains confident in the health of U.S. cattle. The systems and safeguards in place to protect animal and human health worked as planned to identify this case quickly, and will ensure that it presents no risk to the food supply or to human health. USDA has no reason to believe that any other U.S. animals are currently affected, but we will remain vigilant and committed to the safeguards in place."

But—does testing one in every 850 cows justify the confidence expressed in the above statement? How would I feel about flying cross-country on an airplane if only one out of every 850 planes was given even cursory pre-flight maintenance and checks before taking off? Or only one in 850 was given the routine periodic detailed checks that planes undergo?

Knowing that this disease exists in the meat supply (remember: an afflicted cow was just discovered), I wouldn't be feeling too good about my chances of avoiding it if I included beef in my diet given a 1:850 testing ratio.

Am I missing something? In case I'm not, I'm sticking with my plants-only diet.

Faster Up and Down

My ISP is Time Warner Road Runner. Each time they have added a speed boost I have upgraded to the faster service. I recently upgraded from Road Runner Turbo to Road Runner Extreme (about $10 more per month) and am pretty pleased with the result. (There is one faster level—RR Wideband—but it's a business-class service and way expensive.)

I did Upload and Download speed tests at SpeakEasy.net using each of the eight cities available for the test, then averaged the results. The average download speed from all points around the country was 29.43 Mbps and the average upload speed was 4.92 Mbps. I can definitely tell the difference in the way web pages load and how long it takes to send an email containing pictures—all faster.

RR Extreme requires a new modem which comes with an added benefit: it is also a wireless router—modem and wireless router in the same unit. So my computer is hardwired to the modem but I also now have a wireless router for using wireless devices in other parts of the house.

This is the front of the modem—also shows the two antennae in the back for the wireless broadcast:

And the rear of the modem. The coax cable for Internet is on the right and four LAN (Ethernet) ports are in the middle for the router, of which I am only using two (plus an unused USB port).

Set up required a call to Time Warner tech support so they can configure the modem/router on their end, but it was pretty painless.

Not Done with Blogging, but Done with Blogger

I have used the free Blogger software to write this blog from the beginning and it has always seemed adequate. However, I am far more impressed with the blogs and web sites I see that are built on WordPress. (You can see if a site you like is built on WordPress by choosing "View Source" under the Mac's "View" menu, and search [Command-F] for "WordPress." If the word is found in the HTML source coding, it's a WordPress blog.)

The company that produced Blogger software was bought by Google a while ago, and the long, controlling arms of Google have much of the Bloggerati, including me, up in arms. I was out of town for a few days and came home to find that my G-Mail (Google mail) address—which I never use for anything—was showing in the header of my blog. Since that is not my primary email address, I didn't want it there for the public to mistakenly think it was my email and contact me at that address since I never check my G-Mail account. But I couldn't remove it. (I am assuming the G-Mail address is visible to all, not just to me.)

I also discovered that I had to sign into the Google system to make any changes in my personal blog—change any existing features, create a new post, etc. And I realized that it was when I am signed in to the Google system that my G-Mail address appears at the top of my blog; when signed out it goes away. But I can't access my blog without signing in.

Here's the upper right corner of my blog page when signed out, showing no email address:

And here it is when signed in—automatically showing my G-Mail address:

I also found that I had been switched to the new Blogger posting software which everyone is going to be forced to use. I have tried it in the past and found it really cumbersome compared to the original posting tools. The forums are full of people complaining about the new software.

So—I'm not done blogging but I'm done with Blogger. As soon as I can, I'm going to switch to WordPress on a dedicated web site of my own. That won't be free (WordPress does have a free version), but at least I won't have Google intruding into my life and telling me what I can and can't do. (I realize this post will have very limited appeal. I'm posting it in hopes that it will add to the voices of others not happy with Google's actions vis-a-vis Blogger.)