Emotional Citizens

Because we are all emotional people, I present Gail Collins' article on irrational expectations in the NY Times.

My favorite part:

Let’s complain about Barack Obama. Why doesn’t he sound angrier? Doesn’t he understand that his job right now is to be the Great Venter?

Sure he keeps saying he’s mad. But you can tell that he secretly thinks it’s crazy to obsess about $165 million in bonuses in a company that’s still got $1.6 trillion in toxic assets to unravel. “I don’t want to quell that anger. I want to channel our anger in a constructive way,” he said on Wednesday. Everybody knows constructively channeled anger doesn’t really count. It’s like diet pizza.

If John McCain were president, you can bet that we’d be getting outrage 24-7. McCain would be so angry that we’d be scared that he’d have a coronary or invade a new country. The New York Post would be running “Calm Down, Mr. President” headlines.

Except, of course, the whole reason we elected Barack Obama was because when the economy started melting down, Obama seemed sane and calm while McCain appeared to be a loopy visitor from the Planet of the Overwrought.

I hate it when we make irrational, contradictory demands of our president. But, it seems as if that’s what he’s there for.

Springfield MO in the Times!

I've blogged about Springfield's Cashew Chicken in the past, but now the New York Times is on board!

David Leong, creator of Springfield cashew chicken said: “When I moved here in the 1950s, people kept telling me about fried chicken,” Mr. Leong said. “I did what they wanted. I gave them fried chicken with Chinese oyster sauce and cashews.”

None of the original restaurants are still open, and Leong family that started it all is retired from operating their own Chinese restaurants, but you can still get amazing cashew chicken at a number of places. My favorite is Hong Kong Inn, on Sunshine. It was on my way home from work when I lived in Springfield, and was a weekly staple in my healthy southern/midwestern diet. I also really like Yen Ching, in Ozark. The family has daughters living in San Francisco, so we always chat about that a bit. They do a take on cashew chicken that I adore when it's on the menu. They remove the gravy and add an apple gravy-like sauce, take out the cashews and add apples in, and use the same crispy fried chicken. YUM. Seriously good. Hmmm...I'm kinda scared to go home now. I'll probably gain 20 lbs on the visit.

Anyway, read the NYT article. Not often that Springfield makes it big. :) Well, not since Brad Pitt, anyway.

Getting What I Can For My Money

Operations is not a class that leads to a ton of "aha!" moments. I really enjoyed this quote today from our prof's foray into explaining CSR.

Sustainability:
Transforming our ways of living to maximize the chances that environmental and social conditions will indefinitely support human security, well-being, and health.

~McMichael, Butler, Folke; Science, 2003