Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Category: Commentary

• Scrapple, Scrapple, Scrapple

  Posted at 8:35 pm by kayewer, on August 27, 2011

  Lovely scrapple, wonderful scrapple. . .sorry, I was revising a classic Monty Python song about Spam and made it into a scrapple anthem.  I had scrapple this week, but a coworker wasn’t too happy about it when I told her.

  After I mentioned it, she read about this traditional local food in Wikipedia, and the information there didn’t make it seem so appetizing.  The article mentions that processors use the pig parts that aren’t sold as other things, such as the head, heart and liver, and cook them in a broth to which they add flour and “mush” it together into a loaf.  Images of stewing pig heads in rows of pots must have turned her stomach.  I’m sure it’s not quite that gross.

  Habbersett, the maker of a popular scrapple, says the ingredients include “Pork stock, pork, pork skins, corn meal, wheat flour, pork hearts, pork livers, pork tongues, salt and spices.”  So there is lots of pork, pork, pork, pork. . .sorry, Monty Python again.

  Rapa, another scrapple maker, uses stock, liver and snouts.  Really, when you think about all the chemicals that go into some of the products we’re expected to digest (carrageenan, anybody?), I don’t think it’s gross to use any edible part of anything natural.  The native Americans (Indians) didn’t waste anything on a buffalo, and I’m sure that clean snouts and organs are just as edible as those on a chicken (oh my mouth is watering for chicken livers) or cattle.  (Vegans and vegetarians, I love you and respect your choice not to eat these things.  I also appreciate your reading this blog and thank you for sending any non-vitriolic replies on the subject).

  Considering other regional foods such as pepperpot soup made with beef tripe (look it up, folks), or lutefisk, or things prepared with ghee–which, unfortunately, I can’t get past my nose–I find the idea of scrapple not quite so distasteful. In fact, it’s spicy and delicious in a sandwich or by itself.  That and pork roll are special treats in this region, and I’ve grown up with them.

  On the other hand, the other day I finally broke down and tried a clam.  It was a tiny one, smaller than a dime, with black bean sauce.  I found it rather chewy and bland, but I was glad to see them in a buffet where I could try one without feeling I wasted my money on a whole entrée which I might not have eaten.  The idea of mollusk flesh resembling loogies has never suited me, but after seeing the reaction to my enjoyment of scrapple, I figured I should put my sense of adventure where my mouth is and try something new.  They’re edible, but I wouldn’t shell out (bad pun) money for a plate of them.  Sorry.

  Some folks won’t be convinced to try scrapple.  Fine with me.  But know that it exists and some folks like it, and that doesn’t hurt anybody.  Pass me some white bread and ketchup for my scrapple sandwich, please, and here’s to whatever is on your plate today.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged scrapple

• In the Cell-ar

  Posted at 2:18 am by kayewer, on August 21, 2011

  Some folks over-use their cell phone plans; I under-use mine, and it’s still going to cost me.  My plan might well be an ongoing no-win scenario.

  Sure, some of the folks we all hear about who are cellular addicts practically have their thumbs surgically attached to their devices and a Bluetooth(R) glued to their ears.  Plans costing $50 a month or more get eaten up in text messages and minutes and burn holes in people’s wallets all the time.  For folks like me, who are on a budget and only use the phone for calls we really need to make (not to tell a friend the new hairdo looks great or the dog likes his new diet food), it’s hard to get a plan that works for us.

  Monthly plans are not budget friendly if they are the equivalent of a tank of gas (or two) every month and you either don’t use it enough, or talk and text through them before 30 days run out and have to add more.  Whether you use the phone that often or not, it’s money out like so much water down the drain.

  Pre-paid plans give you a phone and a monthly, quarterly or yearly payment option that gets deducted only as you use the device, and normally the best option is to pay for a year.

  Unfortunately the phones aren’t always the most inviting to use.  I’ve been through three phones; one was a step above ancient when I was politely told in a letter from my carrier that I had no choice but to upgrade.  You know your phone is older than dirt when your cellular carrier makes you give it up.  I kept the second phone until even its logo was ancient.  The third was recommended to me by a nice salesperson who introduced me to getting the Internet on my phone.  It loads sometimes, on a good day, but the screen is too small for a true webpage experience.  Still, it was within my budget, and it still enables me to make calls and check my email.

  The problem is my habit of not using the phone for everything except personal hygiene.  I can’t play “Angry Birds.”  I can’t speed text because the keyboard is not QWERTY (oh my).  After so much hitting a number button six times to get the character needed, texting gets to be bothersome.

  Oh, and did I mention the screen is tiny (like an oversized postage stamp)?

  So I’ve paid loyally and annually for a year of usage, but after awhile you can’t pay for another year because too much money is sitting in your prepaid account.  Ouch!

  I recently went to the phone store to discuss my problem with the helpful representatives there.  A nice salesperson (or should I say associate) called the big bosses at the main headquarters for help.  There really was none.  The funds on account can’t be refunded or applied to something else like a better phone so I can text on a full QWERTY keyboard.  The only solution is for me to try to find a way to use the phone more, and quickly, so I can lower my balance enough to continue with my current plan.

  Use it or lose it.

  Public phones are going away, and more people are on budgets than ever before, and we mean wallets so tight the presidents’ faces on the bills look like they’ve gotten a facelift.  You’d think the cellular carriers would be more accommodating.  I’m going to try to talk and text gaily for a while to see how much of my own money I can whittle away to satisfy my carrier’s rules and policies, but I can’t help feeling oppressed and helpless with something I had hoped would be a help rather than a hinderance.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged AT&T Cellular, cell phone plan

• Less Comics Relief

  Posted at 1:59 am by kayewer, on August 14, 2011

  To the Philadelphia Inquirer and its Readers:

  The comics page changed this week, and it shrunk.  What’s up with that?

  The idea of increasing the cost of a newspaper has always been to also offer an incentive to readers.  In this case, unfortunately, more means less.

  Some popular strips, including “Prince Valiant,” are gone.  The paper is offering a chance for readers to vote for a new comic to be added to the roster, but not without losing “Rex Morgan, MD” and “Lio.”

  There is nothing more relaxing than to come home from a day at the office, sit with the newspaper and enjoy the laughs and nostalgia provided by comics.  In the old days, strips like “Dondi” and “Dick Tracy” were popular.  They were around long enough for me to enjoy them.  They’re gone now.  Classics like “Peanuts” couldn’t possibly be pulled from circulation without risking mass subscription cancellations.

  Just because the cost of living has gone up, the cost of laughing doesn’t have to.

  Also, one full-page which used to carry comics is now filled with the evening television listings and puzzles.  Some of the puzzles have been enlarged and others shrunken, to add to the further alienation of readers.  Now nearly all of the paper requires the use of my reading glasses.

  If newspapers want to continue to thrive, they must evolve into better harbingers of news.  This doesn’t mean shrinkage but growth, in the form of better articles, classier photography and more entertainment value.  By removing comics, nobody benefits; readers lose interest, artists lose jobs and the paper loses customers.

  At least bring back “Prince Valiant.”  It’s one of the best drawn strips.  Also, it was remiss of the Inquirer to leave whole story lines unresolved without giving readers advance notice.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary, Theatre/Movies/Entertainment | 0 Comments | Tagged comics, Philadelphia Inquirer, Prince Valiant

• About a Theme

  Posted at 2:13 am by kayewer, on August 7, 2011

  I am still working on the writers group anthology project.  We’re trying to come up with a theme, and I think I have one.

  Which also means I’m ready to face the idea firing squad when I share it with the rest of the group.

  When posing an idea to a group, the outcome is as unpredictable as using eight-sided dice with one side damaged.  That, naturally, is the side that always comes up.

  Sometimes your idea results in a blank stare, as if you’ve just magically spoken Lithuanian.  That silence is then broken by one person who says “Hmmmm” contemplatively.  The group pessimist may respond that it’s too much of something or too little of another.  The person who is the designated opinion to end all opinions may decide either way depending on which side of the hammock they fell out of that morning.  Just because you meet to exchange ideas doesn’t mean everybody is ready for them.  If your coffee hasn’t kicked in, the best ideas on the table might as well have been unsaid.

  In other words, just like in our government, nobody seems to agree on anything anymore.

  I don’t know what is so darned inconvenient about making concessions in life, so we can set a standard that might work well for the most people.  Sure, in a population as large as ours, for every 100 people given an idea on which to vote, 45 may totally agree, 15 may be on the fence, 10 will hate it and 30 will vote with their alliance, which could be anybody among the other 70.

  The ten who hate the idea won’t want to change their lives one iota to accommodate something new.  The allies don’t like to go against their gang.  It’s the other 15 who make or break an idea, because with the changes come suggestions from all sides, and some of them will alienate 1/2 to 1/3 of those 15 on the fence.  So as those swing votes go, there goes your majority.

  We have five people to vote on a theme for our anthology.  The first round of voting went about as well as the last two weeks in Washington as our supposedly elected representatives of the vox populi tried to iron out a deal that would cover our debts after we apparently (when and how, I don’t know) went to Chinese lenders for money we couldn’t pay (or something like that).

  But I digress.  Sometimes an anthology doesn’t have a unifying theme (unless you’re writing for a certain spiritual soup series of books), but other ideas have been panned curtly as not being suitable, and we can’t move forward without one.  Theme means the title, and the title makes or breaks sales.

  Mine will be simple.  I’ll put it to the group.  I don’t know how they will vote, but I’m ready to be rejected.  I’m a writer, so I should be prepared for that.  Maybe it will be a good idea that gets panned, or a bad one that gets the okay because everybody voted with their alliance.  Who knows.  I’ll suggest it anyway.

  It’s not as if I’m agreeing to a loan from China.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged anthology, book title, theme, writers group, writing

• The Mysterious Comcast Converter Box

  Posted at 2:34 am by kayewer, on July 31, 2011

  I get the hinkies with my converter box.  It sits on the television pretty well because my so-yesterday set is still running well, so I have no reason to go out and buy a skinny flat screen and have no place on top on which to balance the box.  The scary part is the front of the box; sometimes when I turn it off it has one little light shining a bright path across my carpet, sometimes two.  What’s with the “One Light, Two Light, Green Light, White Light” thing, anyway?

  Recently Comcast changed the On Demand menus and didn’t seem to actually make much of an effort to tell the customers about it.  Suddenly the realm of options to scroll between screens had disappeared.  Would I be stuck in one menu hell for all eternity unless I turned off or unplugged the set?  By chance I happened to see one of their coming attractions segments in which a helpful lady explained that you can return to previous menus by pressing the “Last” button on the remote.

  That’s when I discovered the “Last” button on the remote.

  Apparently, along with the lessening of American jobs, helpful instructions seem to have also become a premium.  When you get a manual with a product, it’s 100 pages long (20 in English, another 20 in Spanish, and others in various European dialects or Asian characters running vertically and horizontally).

  I really don’t think I’m too old to be hard to instruct via a manual.  I also don’t believe that everybody out there can operate every function offered by a product the minute it’s outside a box, unless they are proud parents of a third grader.

  At least the converter box provides some pleasant auxiliary lighting when the television is off.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary | 1 Comment | Tagged comcast, converter box

• Charities: Mail I’d Like to Get

  Posted at 2:39 am by kayewer, on April 3, 2011

  It feels good to give to charities, especially ones that you know are legitimate and do things in keeping with your philosophies on how to make positive change in the world.

  The problem is, charities don’t know when to stop asking you for money.

  Once you contribute anything to a charity, they automatically send you an acknowledgment and enclose another form to send more money.  Sometimes mailings come 2-3 a week.  People don’t even get salaries weekly anymore (folks I know get bi-weekly pay, and then it’s direct deposit).

  Just once I’d like to receive a mailing like this:

  “Thank you for sending your $– check for our cause.  We used your donation to help ——- with their ——-.  They would not have gotten —— without your generosity.  Next month ——  will need our help with ——.  We look forward to contacting you then, and hope you can provide another donation to help them.  Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of your month, knowing you have helped somebody.”

  And what about the infamous anonymous person who will match every dollar contributed with two of their own?  Just give the charity the darn money:  you don’t have to tell us about it, even if it was given by the greatest humanitarian on the planet.  Just use what you’re given.

  The other thing that bugs me about begging mail is the guilt trip brought on by the gift items they enclose hoping you will feel obligated to “pay” for them.  I have enough pseudo-metal key chains to outfit a locksmith shop, more address labels than the most prolific letter writer could use in a lifetime, and enough scratch pads and greeting cards that I feel the senders must be solely responsible for deforestation.

  If everybody gave a penny to 100 charitable causes, those causes would have all the money they would need for a lot of good deeds.  Think about one penny, given by millions of  people,a nd what good it could do.  It’s just like my philosophy that the lottery would do better to give 350 people one million dollars than give one person 350 million dollars, but that’s for another topic.

  Anyway, I recycle all the junk mail from over-eager charities, and I give when I can.  That’s the idea:  if you have it to spare, give it.  Just don’t push the issue.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments

• DTV: One Minor Detail

  Posted at 10:21 pm by kayewer, on June 13, 2009

  On Tuesday, June 9, our region experienced an extreme weather event unlike any we had seen in decades.  My neighborhood in particular was directly in the path of the most volatile storm cells, and hail fell in spots.  Across the street from my home, a neighbor’s tree succumbed to the wind, downpour, lightning or a combination of any of them, and blew over onto a garage.  Fortunately no vehicle was inside and nobody was hurt.

  The power also went out for nearly three hours.

  Barely 72 hours before the scheduled June 12 transition into the digital age of television, we found ourselves breaking out something that was in its last hours of existence:  the little battery-powered portable TV/radio/cassette player we kept for emergencies.  The screen was only three inches, and it was black and white (horrors!), but we picked up the local newscast without power simply by popping nine D batteries into the back of the gizmo.  At least we were able to find out that no other imminent danger was on the horizon in the absence of electricity.

  Just for the heck of it, we set up the little battery-loving machine next to our main set in time for one network’s official countdown to switching off the analog signal:  suddenly, at 12:15 PM, the little picture turned to snow and wavy lines.  It was a strange experience.

  What, we wondered, will television networks do to inform the public during future power outages?

  According to the website DTVanswers.com, our power-outage helpmate can survive the conversion with a similarly battery powered digital to analog converter if the proper connections are in the back.  Doesn’t it seem rather odd to have to take your portable and a converter and two sets of batteries to, say, the beach or campground?

  Some folks might be thinking it’s better to pitch the old stuff, but if you’ve seen what happens to the world’s forgotten electronics on shows like 60 Minutes–children in countries like India sorting through piles of wires, metal and chemical waste to sift out profitable bits to sell or recycle–you’d give it another thought.

  Analog television still has a purpose, and I fear it may be needed in the future, as we modernize ourselves to the point of no return.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary, Theatre/Movies/Entertainment | 0 Comments

• The British are Groaning

  Posted at 12:54 am by kayewer, on February 1, 2009

  I was unsure which part of the British invasion to talk about this week:  the decision in Britain to drop the use of apostrophes on street signs, or the total ignoramus on ABC’s latest installment of Wife Swap whose rhetoric curdled the milk in my tea.  Then I decided that either way the poor Brits, for whom I do have a high degree of respect, didn’t need my spleen-venting at all to feel bad this week in light of both of these disasters.

  First, just because people have issues about where apostrophes go in grammar usage, why remove them?  Can’t we just get along with them and fix them when they’re put in the wrong place?  We need tolerance, not grammatical exile.

  Second, just because a Brit becomes a US citizen doesn’t mean he can’t appear on television and totally alienate the whole country if not his family and friends if he wants to.

  I’ve never been to England (I will confess that the snobby Brit is right in that I am one of those Americans who have no passport), but I thank God for the knowledge that 99% of Brits are not like that fellow (everybody like Jo Frost on Supernanny makes up for those like him any day).

  Britain gave us Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Hammer Films.  Britain gave us a monarch any country can admire (she’s still at it and going strong).  They gave us Dr. Who and Monty Python, Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” (note that I got the apostrophe right) and another definition of the word “bangers.”  What’s right about Britain far eclipses anything wrong.

  So I won’t go off on these matters any longer.  Pass the clotted cream.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged apostrophe, wife swap brit

• The Problem with Human Beings

  Posted at 1:42 am by kayewer, on January 18, 2009

  So much attention is being given to the fact that Barack Obama is the first Black/African American to be elected President.  That’s a milestone.  However, we are still a backward species in that we have to note the fact that Barack Obama is the first anything to be elected.  Any human being with the credentials and drive should be eligible to be elected, and if we were a few steps above the other primates, we wouldn’t have to bat an eye about it.

  Barack Obama is also the first person with a first name beginning with the letter “B” to be elected President, as well as the first with a last name starting with “O.”  Nobody mentions that.  Instead we bring up the history of America being built on slave labor brought over from across the Atlantic and so forth, and make this election a microscopic examination of how somebody with darker skin behaves when endowed with a world leader title.  I’m sure he’ll do just fine.

  He will make speeches, come up with policies, sign bills, go on walks with the First Pet (which I think should be a Labradoodle, thereby making it the first such pet in the White House), shake hands with other world leaders and address large bodies of officials about issues vital to worldly life on planet Earth.

  He will also face challenges both familiar and new.  And yes, he will probably make a false move here and there.  We all do that, and his heritage will not make him more or less immune or susceptible to any of it.  He will be our new President, and we will call him Mr. President or Commander in Chief:  one lady will call him husband and two little girls will call him Dad.

  Once the Obama term ends, firsts of anything in that most honored seat of our nation will seem ordinary:  even the idea of a Mrs. President.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Obama

• The Wal-Mart Stampede: Backlash

  Posted at 1:25 am by kayewer, on November 30, 2008

  On Black Friday 2008 (November 28), a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, NY became the scene of what I consider one of the most horrendous acts of inhumanity.  A worker attempting to open the door at the Green Acres mall location at its 5:00 AM opening was pushed to the ground as the metal door was mangled by a massive crowd of what was estimated as 2,000 people, and he was trampled to death as indifferent shoppers flowed into the store in their anxious quest to spend their money on post-Thanksgiving bargains.  Police officers administered CPR but the man was pronounced dead at the hospital an hour later.  A woman who is eight months pregnant was also taken to the hospital after getting jostled; mother and child fortunately should see Christmas this year.

  When the store staff attempted to close the location due to the death, it is said that angry customers exclaimed that they had been waiting all night for the privilege of shopping and the melee continued.  It is very likely that, had the Wal-Mart attempted to shut down, there would have been a seige.

  Ladies and gentlemen of the human race, who the hell do we think we are?  How can anybody who participated in that opening not be ashamed of themselves?  How could a person pull out a penny or a credit card, or the cashiers continue with business, knowing that somebody got KILLED for a manufactured piece of commerce.

  It’s a miserable enough time from the Friday after Thanksgiving to January 2, with US citizens starving to death, bankrupt, being beaten or abused or trying to conquer cancer.  Yet the consumeristic cha-cha-cha continues right through human misery and death.  Have you ever seen people so anxious, desperate, even begging for the privilege of giving their money over to a retail store.  Isn’t it sad that they would kill for this year’s hot item and not blink an eye.  It is enough to make the Almighty shudder in misery.

  Maybe Wal-Mart should play the security tape on local and/or national television, so the world can see who shared the responsibility for this maniacal display.  Surely the police are looking for those who destroyed the main door in their quest to race to that all-important bargain, and some accountability is needed for the sake of the dead man’s family.  Unfortunately nobody can prosecute the evil in human nature with the same methods, but those who were there should feel guilty of passive participation at least.

  Most of all, I feel for the gift recipients whose presents are tainted with the blood of a man whose family Christmas will never be the same again.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Black Friday, Wal-Mart

• Past Posts

  December 2025

  S	M	T	W	T	F	S
  	1	2	3	4	5	6
  7	8	9	10	11	12	13
  14	15	16	17	18	19	20
  21	22	23	24	25	26	27
  28	29	30	31

• Feedback

  	Eden on Getting the Message
  	Eden on The Unasked Questions
  	Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9
  	Eden on The Poison Field
  	Eden on Final Tally