The finished site can be accessed at http://www.cheesesalad.org/

I’ll be updating the site from time to time with new recipes, so check back periodically!

(Gasp!  Shock.  Really?  Yes.)  Why?  Numerous reasons:

One, I was a coward as a kid.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  I also didn’t learn to swim or climb trees, for exactly the same reason.

Two, the bicycle is an insidious device.  With only two wheels and (in my case) a seat designed to give you crotch bruises, these suckers are anything but fun for the novice.

Combine that with certain feelings of inadequacy (having an older sister and cousin who could already ride perfectly and certainly weren’t patient enough to help me learn), frustration with relatives (PLEASE, Dad, do NOT walk up to me after I’ve killed my ass and ask me in the perkiest tone you can muster if I’ve been “practicing riding my bike”), and an uncontrollable feeling of terror whenever the thing goes too fast and you have a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, I learned a few helpful things today that should help to minimize discomfort, panic, and injury for anyone who’s just starting out on a bike, but especially me.

Lesson One: How Not To Ride A Bike

1. My sister’s method: Start at the top of a shallow hill and coast down, keeping your feet a short distance from the ground.  Repeat until you stop going into panic attacks.

Why?  Because this happens: The bike starts going too fast.  You try in vain to brake, by touching the ground with your feet, but by this time it’s already too late.  You have two choices: fall over or stand up, hold on, and skid along the ground while the bike humps you from below until it finally stops.  Then, if you have something else in common with me, you hyperventilate for the next few seconds.

2. Mother’s advice: Disregard sister’s advice.  Get on the bike, push off, and start pedaling.

And be ready for Panic Attack #2, because – again, only if you’re like me – as soon as the bike starts to pick up speed, you freak out.  Assuming the bike ever picks up speed in the first place.  The alternative: you try to pedal, the bike tips over.  You try to correct the problem.  It fails and you have another panic attack.

(Although this might seem a bit self-serving, I do not consider “having a panic attack when I lose control of the bike” to be the same as “being a coward”.  I am fairly sure that a coward wouldn’t have gotten on the stupid bike to begin with.)

Anyway, this is the method I found that actually works:

How To Actually Ride A Bike

First of all, you know all those seasoned bike-riders you see out there with their feet on the pedals?  They’re not you.  Unlike you, they’re actually comfortable with what they’re doing.  You are not – or so I assume, because if you were I expect you would know how to ride the thing.

So here’s what you do: Keep your feet on the ground.  Lower the seat until you can get a good grip on it.  Start at the top of a slope (a gentle slope), sit on the bike, and walk your way down.  Yes, walk.  While you’re on the bike.  When you’re a bit more comfortable, you can even start to pick up some speed.  Run a little.  Walk it back up the slope and go down again.  Whee.

All right, so it’s a little childish.  But let’s be serious here: would we rather look a little childish, or kill our elbows, knees, shins, ankles, and nervous systems trying to ride the thing some other way?

(Oh, and here’s a fun tidbit for future adult bikers: a podcast about adults learning to ride for the first time. We’re not alone out there.)

But I think it’s about time that I give the Internet dues for a little more than the basics.

See, I learned a few “medical” basics from my mother.  Don’t eat raw meat, stay away from rust, don’t kiss anyone while you have a cold sore; the usual.  Most of it is pretty basic, and most of it is pretty sound.

But a lot of it was shrouded in good, old-fashioned, down-home country hogwash.

Raw meat?  Perfectly safe (if prepared properly).  Rust?  Not a magical “spawning point” for tetanus.  Cold sores?

Hoo… cold sores.

Otherwise known as oral herpes (and there’s a reason for that, folks), cold sores are a lip-based invasion of the herpes simplex virus.  And, like Mom said, they’re especially contagious when you have a blister.  What Mom didn’t say is that they’re also contagious when you don’t have a blister.

Nor did she tell me that the repeated cold sores I suffer are manifestations of the same viral infection. Or that a bit of adventurous lovemaking could give my hypothetical partner a nasty case of lower blisters – or, as they call them in the medical industry, genital herpes.

Yup.  Thanks to some overzealous relative who thought it was an absolute must to kiss the cute little kid, I have a proper STI.  Cool, huh?  In other words, I have to take care – even when I don’t have a huge, painful blister on my lip – not to transmit the bugger to any sexual partners.

I don’t think I can adequately describe how mad I am right now.   I feel on some level that I was being taken advantage of.  I was three years old – barely old enough to understand what a cold sore was, never mind that I could catch it from a seeming innocuous kiss or that the infection would last me the rest of my life.  The darling relative to whom I owe the infection obviously had no clue either, or she wouldn’t have gone around kissing little kids.

I know I certainly don’t feel like kissing anyone right now.

Am I overreacting?  Probably.  It’s not a big deal to prevent infection (in the genital area, anyway) – basic protection should cover it.  And an oral infection, while annoying, is hardly a lifebreaker.  But I’m mad.  One of my family members, whom I trusted implicitly, gave me a virus that I will never be rid of and will impact me for the rest of my life.  Darn right I’m peeved.

(Edit: Mom says that I may eventually get over it.  She’s probably right.  But I’m still irked.)

But I digress.)

I was thinking about God, and Christianity, and prayer (I do that a lot, as I was once a Christian myself). Specifically, I was thinking of one doctrine – never heard in my church, but touted in a few others – on the subject of prayer.

It goes like this: “God always answers prayers. He just answers them in one of three forms: Yes, No, and Wait.”

Forgive my impertinence, O Mighty Pastor, but having thought it over, I believe you are incorrect.

When you pray, what do you hear? Is there a Great Cosmic Voice that booms down from the heavens, offering you the word “Yes”, “No” or “Wait”? If you’re most people, probably not. The only thing that you get is an oppressive silence that you have to try to interpret – or just to wait and see what happens.

In other words, there is no answer. Or, if you want to be liberal about it and say that God’s silence is an answer, then that answer can only be “Wait”, since you must invariably wait until something happens (or doesn’t happen) to find out what the “actual answer” was.

Of course, this is a dodgy proposition at best, since prayers, when they are finally “answered”, are almost always answered in the vaguest ways possible. You ask for some financial help? Something you need to buy is on sale. Need a new car? After two weeks of searching, you finally find the one you need on Craigslist. These kind of events are so vague that you can’t even know for sure if they were the answers to your prayers. What if that sale was the result of a poor Hindu woman begging Vishnu to have pity on her? What if the owner of the car cast a spell on it to make it look more attractive to buyers? Or what if – as it happens sometimes – your purchase of his car was just a matter of two people with similar needs taking initiative at roughly the same time? You could ask God, but it won’t do you any good: he only answers in “Yes,” “No” and “Wait.”

By and large, though, the greatest complaint I have about this claim is that it is not backed up anywhere in the Bible. In fact, the Scriptures are fairly clear about what you should expect from a prayer: Knock and the door will be opened. Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. If ye have faith even to the size of a grain of mustard, you shall command a mountain “Move over there,” and it shall move.

If you talk to a Christian about this, though, it breaks down fairly quickly. None of them will claim to have moved a mountain – and if they did, no one would have a reason to believe them. Very few have even professed a miraculous recovery from an injury or fatal disease (at least when the malady was previously confirmed by an independent party). Why? you ask them. Their response: “Because I didn’t have enough faith.” Which again contradicts scripture. Faith as a grain of mustard, remember? In order for someone not to have enough faith for their prayers to be answered, they would need to have no faith at all. In other words, they would need not to believe that God exists or that he can do miracles. But they must believe, because they continue to pray for them.

So which is it? Does God answer prayers? If so, he seems to do this in a tumultous and unpreferential fashion. Or do some people who pray – the “Yes, No, and Wait” people in particular – not actually believe in the being they are praying to?

So there I was, checking out my life as represented by a long beach with footprints on it.  It was easy to see which parts were the bad ones; they tended to have hard rocks and crabs mucking about.  One particularly rough time was marked by a giant sinkhole and several bits of broken glass.

One thing bothered me, though: I noticed that, as I examined the tracks where Jesus and I had walked, the parts of my life that had been the hardest were home to only one pair of footprints.  Naturally, I asked Jesus about this: “Jesus,” I said, “was there some particular reason you thought it was a good idea to take off while I was going through the rough spots?”

“Silly child,” he said, “those are the times when I carried you.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, “so what are these other footprints, about a couple yards away, that look like some drunk guy staggering around?  Look, there are beer bottles.”

“Er-” he said, “well, that was the Devil, coming to tempt you.”

“They match your sandal prints,” I said.

“We shop at the same store.”

“Okay,” I said.  “Here’s the time I got married.  Best day of my life, with me and my wife and my family, and there’s only one line of footprints.  Don’t tell me you needed to carry me through that?”

“…I was flying.”

This is what it’s like trying to argue with Christians.  It doesn’t matter how many arguments you bring up, because they are fully capable of inventing endless rationalizations for your questions/protests.  Some of them are Biblical, but many of them come from the Christian themself.

The problem with these arguments is this: they’re nice, they’re tempting, and they explain things easily, but they are not canon.  Ergo I cannot accept them as an explanation.

On another note, as in the story above, the explanations tend to get exponentially sillier the longer you argue.  See the whole “the snake was Satan in disguise” silliness.

Thank you, sir.  We need more men like you.

I remember, way back in the day, when you used to be a respectable movie-making company.  Back in the days before you discovered CGI, remember?  Back when you were still making films like The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado.

Those movies… they were classics.  Funny (El Dorado), inspiring (Egypt), mostly-timeless incredible pieces of cinematography (both).  No, they weren’t the most “hip” things ever.  And they certainly weren’t up to Disney’s level, but not for want of quality.  You guys made some fine movies.

Then came Shrek.

The great thing about Shrek was that it was different.  It took a classic fantasy world, turned it on its head, then blended it with the modern world to create a unique, entertaining and seamlessly brilliant piece of work.  It was an instant hit, and with good reason – it was complete genius.  No movie could ever have been its equal.

Especially not the shameless rip-offs you guys have been producing ever since.

Yeah, I’m not blind to what you’ve been doing.  In your greed for cash, you’ve decided that the only solution is to reproduce everything that you thought we loved about Shrek, then wrap it in a new package and cram it down our throats.  Shark Tale? Shrek underwater.  Madagascar? Shrek on a deserted island.  Shrek 2 & 3? I think they speak for themselves.

The latest piece of crap you throw at us is Monsters vs. Aliens, a.k.a. Shrek with a Female Lead. And you’ve fallen into the exact same pitfalls.  Good story?  Check.  Star-studded cast?  Check.  Decent acting?  Strong script?  Houston, we have a problem…

Monsters vs. Aliens could have been so much better than it was.  It starts out with a good premise.  It carries it with an awesome cast.  But that is as far as it gets.  The script – which would have made a great first draft – is shaky and weak, and soon collapses under the weight of its own pop-culture references.  The characters, with the exception of Susan, feel flat and unrealistic.  Dr. Cockroach is supposedly a human scientist who mutated himself in an accident many years ago – except that he acts like he’s been a roach-man his entire life, and that life seems to have started maybe two weeks ago (during which time he learned modern dance moves and the expression “OMG”).  Link is even worse, with no obvious motivation even to live – he gets a passing reference to a fitness obsession, but this is treated like a throwaway gag.  At least Bob and Insectosaur, being inherently mindless characters, have a good reason – but none of the characters manage to feel like anything more than wall decoration.

And then there’s the acting.  Oooohhhhh, the acting. As I said before, the movie has a decent story – the tale of a young woman whose (personal) world is effectively destroyed on her wedding day, and who must learn to cope.  Unfortunately, she also lives in an alternate reality where all humans are obnoxious, overacting Pixar ripoffs – a common flaw in Dreamworks’ CGI films.  The characters speak as though they’re under a time limit – presumably because every character feels the need to supply a witty line in EVERY scene – and Susan’s voice is almost unbearably shrill.  The film, whose success seems to ride largely on its incredible cast, manages to distort every actor into a mangled, barely-recognizable caricature of themselves – to say nothing of the visual designs.

I know you guys can do better than this.  You did Sinbad – a silly but largely entertaining piece of work – and you did Kung Fu Panda, for goodness’ sake.  Admittedly, the latter falls into many of the same pitfalls as MvA, but you pulled it off.  Probably because it was set in a fantasy world where realism would have required the characters to speak Chinese.

Here, you were dealing with our world, our time period, and our people.  And, in your overzealous efforts to make the film accessable to the Blu-Ray generation, you blew it.  You took an incredible story and turned it into a shallow, largely pointless waste of an hour and a half.

Congratulations.

During the 1950′s, racism was still going strong.  Black people were considered, for reasons we now know to be completely bunk, to be inferior to white people; this was taken as an acceptable cultural and biological assumption.  Suggestions to the contrary were few, far between, and desperately needed.

Enter the comic industry, producing – among other comics with similar messages – Judgment Day.

The premise of the comic is as follows: On an alien planet ruled by robots, a human has just arrived.  His job is to tour the planet, check out its technology and social norms, and determine whether the robots’ society has advanced enough to join the United Federation of Planets Galactic Republic.

Initially, he is impressed – they have made great technological strides, and have very spiffy systems in place to allow new robots to be constructed and taught in a hurry.  They do appear to be ready.

But then the astronaut discovers something off: the robots are practicing segregation.  While the orange robots live in privilege in a clean and pleasant city, the blue robots are shuffled off, made to scrape out a meager living in a dingy, unpleasant area.

The astronaut is disenheartened by this discovery, and informs his orange-robot tour guide that until they abolish this practice, they will not be allowed to join the Galactic Republic.  He offers some advice to his guide on how he could begin to change things, then blasts away in his spaceship.

Safely in his ship, blasting back to Earth, the man finally removes his helmet.  It is revealed that he is black.

Almost as soon as it was written, the story began to make a stir.  The Comics Code Authority kicked things off, telling the writer that the hero could not be black – effectively proving that it needed to be published.  And published it was, in its original form, where it received a tremendously positive response from its readers.

“Congratulations to… the artist, and… the author, for the best story ever written by E.C.  We have never read a story in a comic with so much meaning and moral…”

“…The horribly accurate picture of the human race is drawn with bold, unmistakable strokes.”

“…Never have I seen the “race problem” handled so perfectly.”

You can read the comic – and the rave reviews, printed on a final page – at http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/54803.html

The USDA recently published an exhaustive list of the people they do not discriminate against.  Unfortunately, they failed to include vegans in that list.

This brings up the obvious question, which the site is not afraid to ask:

Does the USDA employ any vegans? Perhaps … if they keep their veganism under-wraps and don’t make any waves. I wonder how much chance this vegan has at landing a job at the USDA?

“Make any waves”?  If by “making waves” you mean “bitch about meat production while at work”, then no, they wouldn’t hire you.  Your job is a place to get work done, not to tout your dietary beliefs.

Frank Language continues the silliness:

I think “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a good policy when looking for a job; most people feel threatened when you tell them you’re a vegan, don’t you notice?

Apparently this guy is delusional enough to confuse my annoyance with intimidation.  That said,  he’s right: “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a good policy when looking for a job.  When people look to hire someone, they’re not looking for information about your personal beliefs.  They only want to know whether you are qualified for the job.

But I am sick to death of pro-abstinence educational groups and the way they promote it on their websites.  They tout abstinence as “the only 100%-effective protection”, and further rave about its amazing abilities like it’s some kind of miracle drug, concluding that its effectiveness can only be flouted by peer/media pressure.

So I thought I’d take a few minutes and explain exactly what is wrong with many of their claims.

Myth #1: Abstinence is a form of protection.

Abstinence is a form of protection like bald is a hair color, atheism is a religion, and not getting in a car is a safe driving practice.

In other words, abstinence is not a form of sexual protection.  It is a form of sexual behavior, just like oral sex, anal sex, and masturbation.  (Though unlike the first two, masturbation can be used in conjunction with abstinence.)

Myth #2: Abstinence is 100% effective.

Against conception, yes.  But again, so are oral sex, anal sex, and masturbation (all of which are more entertaining than abstinence).  And abstinence is certainly not 100% effective against STIs.  Many diseases that can be contracted through intercourse can be contracted through other means – such as AIDS, which can be obtained through the use of a contaminated needle.

Also, no protection method or sexual practice can protect you from oral herpes.

Myth #3: The greatest causes of abstinence failure are peer pressure (your friends are doing it/everyone is doing it), partner pressure (you don’t want it, but your partner does) and media pressure (the guys on TV are doing it).

It is true that teenagers are impressionable people, and they are eager to please their peers.  It is likewise true that, due to this impressionability and enthusiasm, they are more likely to imitate their peers or do things that they think will garner them respect – sex included.

But this method of thinking – that abstinence only fails because someone or something was pressuring you to have sex – is inherently flawed.  Firstly, it insinuates that sex is just another “teenage problem”, like drugs or alcohol – and that it can only happen if your willpower to abstain fails.  Secondly, it fails to acknowledge that most normal teenagers have very strong sexual desires of their own, and do not require any pressure from anyone to decide to have sex.

Myth #4: Sex = bad, abstinence = good.

This last claim has, fortunately, been relegated to the back burner, even on most pro-abstinence sites.  However, the idea is still prevelant that sex is bad or abnormal, and that abstinence is the best or “default” position.

Let’s take this from the top.

Name four things that nearly all animal species need to survive.  Food, water, air… and sex.  Without sex to create new individuals, a species will die out.  Humans are no exception to this.

But sex’s benefits don’t end with the production of offspring.  Since sex is necessary for survival, it also happens to be intensely enjoyable for many species.  It triggers the releases feel-good hormones, lowering stress and causing general happiness.  Assuming that the act of having sex is not inducing more stress than is relieved by these hormones, sex can improve an individual’s general well-being – and, being an inherently intimate act, can help to forge close bonds between two individuals.

Humans are not the only species to take advantage of this fact.  Other animals, including apes and dolphins, have disexclusivized sex from its original reproductive capacity and now use it for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes for dominance, sometimes to promote good social interaction, and sometimes just for a bit of fun.

Yes, sex can be dangerous.  Unwanted pregnancy can lead to taxation of the mother’s resources and contribute to overpopulation.  STIs can also be contracted (they, like humans, require sex to survive – though for a different reason).

Like a long walk on the beach or an evening cuddling in front of  a movie, sex is good for people.  And, like the examples above, it is something special – something that most people would rather save for someone they care about.  And it is also dangerous.  Like driving or exercise, one should learn how to do it in well-informed and responsible manner before taking it up.  But I see no reason why an individual, taking conscientious steps to protect both themselves and their partner, should not partake in sex.

But only if they want to.