Uses for Amazing Summer Tomatoes #1

Tomatoes become something of an obsession here in Valencia during the summer months. You really need to work hard to think of new ways to eat them, unless you just want to pinch a bit of salt on a cut slice which always works for me.

Sandwich with tomato, mozzarella cheese, tzatziki, basil, and garlic mayonnaise. This is sort of a Greek, Italian, and Spanish hybrid. I thought that maybe I went overboard on the ingredients—just stuff I had in the fridge. Then I ate it. Nope, definitely not too much.

To be continued...

Humor Highlight of Friend’s Visit with His Family

It’s almost time for the paella to hit the table where oldest child is tutoring youngest child on fractions or something which I'm not sure is even legal on vacation. Exasperated father who feels kids aren’t moving quickly enough to set the table shouts at youngest daughter, “Stop doing math!”

I’m pretty sure that was the first time those words were ever uttered by a parent to a child.

Every time I hear those three words in my head I laugh out loud which has been about 30 times so far. This may be the funniest thing that I've ever written and all I did was a bit of journalism.

P.S. As I watched this morning while the parents got three kids ready to head to the train station I couldn’t help but make comparisons between this feat of logistics and the Normandy Invasion

Momento más gracioso durante la visita de un amigo con su familia

Es casi la hora de comer y el hijo mayor enseña a la hija menor algo de fracciones, cosa que probablemente es ilegal en las vacaciones. El padre está exasperado porque los niños no se mueven lo suficientemente rápido como para poner la mesa y grita a su hija, “Deja de hacer las matemáticas!”

Estoy seguro de que fue la primera vez que esas palabras fueron pronunciadas por un padre a un niño.

Global Climate Stupidity

Another of the great lies of conservative dogma is their insistence that doing anything to clean up the environment is futile and destructively expensive. That's the same as living like a pig because cleaning up is too much trouble.  How much is the improved health of the American people worth to Republicans? I already know the answer and it’s not much. When they talk about freedom for the individual what they really mean is freedom for wealthy individuals and if the poor don’t like it they should just work harder and if they want cleaner air they should vacation in Aspen.

From The Atlantic:

In some cities, policymakers have had success with creatively limiting the exposure of asthmatics to pollution. For example, in Stockholm, Sweden, a “congestion tax” levied by cameras on vehicles in heavy-traffic parts of the city reduced smog and emissions and in turn reduced asthma attacks among kids by as much as 50 percent.

But why should America let a 50% reduction in childhood asthma get in the way of your right to own a 12 cylinder automobile or force you to put a filter on your industrial smokestack that is puking out toxins into the community?