Why do so many women think men "should be" just like women except for the penis? Really, why? Of course, we can ask why do men wonder why women aren't just like men except for (fill in the blank with the obvious salient difference). The bottom line is that men and women are only similar at best but since men and women each have a wide range of natural intelligences and behviors which at some extreme actually overlap, we see the pointlessness of using one perceptual standard as a ruler by which we measure the other in anything like a definitive way.

Never the less, we are endlessly fascinated by asking the question but if we really want to understand humans you really only have to watch monkeys a lot.

I like bacon, as do most people. It's one of the foods that everyone seems to relished in one form or another everywhere on earth. I even had some chinese bacon at a I suspect it's instinctive by now. Nobody has to convince a child that raspberries are edible...or crabapples, even when they are bitter, because we exhibit an instinctive desire to eat 'em and that would be a survival strategy worth reproducing...and one could easily see that the meat hung to dry near the smokey hearth's fire would sustain those who felt safe instinctively to eat it.

My dad, for whom I'm caregiver, has some pretty serious kidney problems and the salty stuff is a big no-no...so lately I've taken to make my own using de-boned pork shoulder. It turns out that almost all pork these days is already injected with some brine, so I slowly dry out a few slabs of this under the cover of my grill, without fire (or very little fire and only briefly) and with a smoldering aluminum foil sachet of wood chips burning for a few hours. It comes out beautiful and tasty (though a little bland by most american's hyper-salt-numbed tastes)...and sooo smokey. It's also leaner so I will typically cook it by frying it until crispy it in olive oil, and season it with coarse ground black pepper and garlic while frying...awesome. Of course, my version won't survive in the fridge for long without extra salt and other preservatives like nitrates and stuff...so I freeze mine and then when it's not too hard I pre-slice it and re-wrap with wax paper between the slices and keep it zip-locked in the freezer until needed until my old man's instinctive hunger for bacon will crave and require it. Sounds like a lot of work but it's one of the most pleasant chores that make the lives of our dependent parents more worthwhile and enjoyable.

And having been to Zingerman's many times I have to agree with their view...particularly if it tasted like their double smoked home-style peppered bacon. Truely the holy grail of bacons in my opinion.

Thanks Patrick for continuing to publicize your perspective on this subject. It is NOT one that we hear too much, but rather it's one that the leadership who is in charge doesn't hear enough, or the fallout from which they think they are immune...and so far they have been proven to be.

Keep exposing these idiotic policies and let's hope some citizen action results in these security frauds being exposed for the neurotic dim-wittedness that so characterize the current level of proficiency when it comes to nearly all aspects of governmental control that invade our daily lives.

...I'm lookin' forward to reading why your hate winter, spring and autumn too. Each season has its discrete charms and we never tire of reading them inverted.

And funny how stories of others' embarrassment over sexual behaviors are typically so especially humorous to humans. I'm currently under the thrall of explaining human behavior in the light of evolutionary psychology and can't help but wonder if this seemingly instinctual propensity for crypticism when it comes to our own sexual function, in contrast to the open laughter often elicited by seeing or imagining others in the situation, is related to mating success in our socializing simian past.

I'd suggest our raconteur try to view it in that light and perhaps see the humor in it too when percieved externally, and with that find the embarrassment extinguised...and ready to continue with what anyone would have to describe as a pretty successful sex life and one that has found porn to be a kind of spice for the sexual appetite instead of a toxin as it's almost always portrayed for decency's sake. Cheers!