Did I Tell You to Click There? Oy! I Meant HERE!

CALL YOUR MOTHER

Peg: ‘A few months ago, my father e-mailed that video you posted to my sister and me. She watched it and told me that she was sobbing by the end. I assumed she was, once again, being my nit-wit little sister . . . until I watched it and had exactly the same reaction.’

THEN BAKE HER SOME BANANA BREAD

Tim Bonham: ‘Mike wrote: ‘You would be proud of me. I went to the store and saw the produce guy putting all new blemish-free bananas on display and pulling the bananas that had some brown spots off display and putting them into 3 very large boxes.’ My mother has been doing something like that for years. Started late one Wednesday night after choir practice, when she stopped at the grocery store and found the produce manager throwing bunches of slightly brown bananas into the garbage. She told him that was foolish, they were still good; in fact, brown ones were the best for banana bread. So he said take all you want, just bring in some of the banana bread. So she made some, and dropped off a plate of fresh banana bread at the store a couple days later. The next Wednesday night, he told her the bread was great, and he had a couple of cases of brown bananas in back for her. That exchange has now gone on for 15 years. Through several sales and name changes of the store, two location moves, and many produce managers. The old manager always tells the new guy about this, they always introduce themselves and tell how much they like fresh banana bread. Coming home from college, and having Mom tell you that you can help mash some bananas for banana bread is fine, until you go into the kitchen and see that there are cases of bananas! (And I don’t even like banana bread that much.) But you could tell your readers that if they take these excess bananas and bake them into banana bread, they can then freeze that. And it freezes much better than the fresh bananas do.’

☞ This is way beyond Cooking Like a Guy™, but if you need a recipe, click here. Or, as Kathi Derevan suggests, how about using them to make Smoothies? (My recipe: put two bananas in the blender, some OJ, some ice – hold your thumb on “liquefy” – and if no one else is around, drink straight from the blender jar. Having a party? Add Myer’s rum and a little Coco Loco. Oh, what the heck. Add it anyway.)

BUT HURRY

According to Popular Science (thanks, Brian), “The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction.”

BAD ADVICE

Last week, I gave a couple of examples of really bad advice we get as children . . . “I before c except after c” . . . you can’t refrigerate bananas . . . and I invited more such from the audience. Jonathan Pond went way off the reservation and tried to turn this into a money site (of all things) – People: we are here for the recipes! – and then cheated by appending to his recollection of bad advice an example of good advice.

Can’t anyone follow instructions?

Jonathan writes:

“Worst advice from your parents: ‘The first thing you should do when you start your first job is to put a year’s worth of income in a savings account in case of a financial emergency.’ An obedient child then spent the next 14 years adding savings to the emergency account, all the while earning 2%. Best advice from your parents (probably given when you were an adolescent): ‘For one moment’s pleasure, you could end up paying for the rest of your life.’ While at the time you may have thought they were talking about something else, they were actually talking about credit cards.”

SHROOMS

Mark W. Budwig: “Take your mushrooms out of plastic wrap and put them in a paper bag; they keep three times as long without ever getting slimy. In fact, if they’re fresh and firm to begin with, they’ll keep for a week and a half or longer, just drying out slightly.”

☞ Now that’s news you can use.

Moving on . . .

GOOD QUESTION

David Sirota asks: “How is it possible that Democrats and the media have not reminded the public that President George W. Bush three times was given the chance by U.S.military commanders to eliminate Abu Musab al Zarqawi, but three times he refused? This is not conspiracy theory – this is fact, as reported by NBC News. Why aren’t the Democrats constantly asking this question when the GOP attacks them over national security?”

In part:

Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe. The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.

“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq. The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it. Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

CORRECTION

Dan Albro: “Although I agree with the cause espoused by the ‘Velvet Revolution’ link you posted, I was unhappy that you posted a link where merely clicking on it would cause an e-mail of support to be sent out to who knows where. If you post such a link, please indicate on your site what will happen if you click on it and let the reader decide whether to click or not. Otherwise you’re tricking readers into expressing support for something they may or may not support.”

☞ I screwed this up somehow. When I visited the site, it gave me the option to send an e-mail urging Congress to support Rush Holt’s election protection legislation. I did, and I guess it gave me a thank-you screen that must be what – blearily – I linked you to. So, never fear, you sent no inadvertent e-mails. You just got the thank-you screen. THIS is the one I hope you will click. SORRY!