Down with Conventional Wisdom 

EXPERT (Photo credit: Pete Prodoehl)

One thing that starts to bug you as you get along in years is conventional wisdom- those things that everybody knows to be true but are actually wrong. What makes you suspicious is that over time the story changes. Those ‘experts’ who somehow make a living pretending they know what is best just suddenly tell a different story and pretend that it is the same one.  Not that ‘experts’ ever admit the switch. They just do it. And then, what is even more amazing, it seems that nobody ever notices. We just bounce right on over to the new story without skipping a beat.

Sooner or later you’ve had enough.  After you have this pulled on you a few times, you start to rebel. You wonder who made those ‘experts’ experts. You begin to think that maybe they don’t know as much as they think they do. Woody Allen noticed this years ago.  I’m not a great fan of Woody but as you probably know, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Today, health experts are certain that they know what you should eat, how you should cook it and we don’t question.  These days the buzz is about raw- food, not WWF.  We’ve all been conditioned to the idea that the best vegetables are raw or cooked as little as

English: Cut Green Beans Español: Habichuelas o ejotes, preparados y listos para servir (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

possible. We are told that they are better for us, better tasting and beautiful. Like the sheep that we are trained to be, we buy it. Nowadays everyone makes fun of the overcooked vegetables favored traditionally by the British as gray, tasteless and mushy. Few remember the Southern tradition of cooking vegetables for hours with ham fat. We shudder at the mention because we have been brainwashed to think that eating animal fat is unhealthy. Those beans may taste good but beware the heart attack that will surely follow. Maybe so but I remain suspicious of studies that confuse correlation with causation.  There is another way to cook green beans.

You’re Doing It Wrong: Green Beans

And while we are talking about health myths, aren’t you tired of people telling you how unhealthy modern life is? Aren’t you sick of people telling you to run around and shoot your food instead of going to the supermarket – or even calling in for delivery. Those flipping ‘experts’ would have you believe that you are killing yourself because you have an office job when you ought to be out running down a rabbit. Well the next time you hear that,

hunter gatherers are hot

give them a healthy one finger salute and get on with your life. They’ve got it all wrong.  Couch potatoes are just fine, thank you very much.

Are couch potatoes as fit as ‘hunter-gatherers’?

And finally, are you sick of people telling you that you need to create meaningless and cryptic passwords? Have you given up because you can’t possibly remember arbitrary strings of letters? Well relax because it’s actually much simpler than the experts tell you.

Make strong passwords the easy way

So start the week with a healthy skepticism about anything the ‘experts’ tell you. Chances are you’ve got a better handle on the right thing to do than any of those self-righteous know-it-all’s. Forget about them and their advice. Do it your own way.

The news this week is a mixed bag.

Interesting but not relevant unless you are a smoker who likes San Francisco or an employee who is sick of being exploited. Hold on there!  Now that I think about it, that’s probably most of us. This week, I think we will start with the least relevant story and work up to a grand crescendo at the end. When’s the last time you found any sea glass?

Sea glass becoming harder to find

raw sea glass to be

Maybe you aren’t a sea glass collector. Maybe you don’t even know what sea glass is. No matter, there is less of it these days, a casualty of modern efficiency in the form of plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Not much is delivered in glass these days and most of the rest is recycled so the raw material for sea glass just doesn’t make it to the sea anymore.

San Francisco gets more schizophrenic by the hour. Still known as the place for wild-eyed hippies, stoner parties and anything goes sex, the city gets more weird and puritanical about minor vices like smoking. Indoor smoking has long been prohibited but now the City Fathers want to ban it outside- unless it is pot smoke, of course.

SF Considers Strict Outdoor Smoking Ban – Except For Medical Pot

Finally, in the ‘news you can use’ category is this story. It turns out that panhandlers make pretty good money. The fringes aren’t good but the with holding is great. Tell me why you continue working 9 to 5.

Panhandler arrested, claims to have made $60,000 last year

Just get the permit and insurance

Even more interesting when you read the story. It seems that the Police are fine with panhandling so long as you have a permit and insurance. Who know that the cops were on their side? Tell me why again we put up with jobs?

The officer told Speegle without a permit and an insurance policy he could not panhandle and gave him a warning to leave, but 20 minutes later the officer reported again seeing Speegle panhandle in the same spot.

So that’s the story from the Coot’s News Service for July 22. Hang in there until next week.