Thursday, May 24, 2012

Showing Great Respect

Mesa Prep is a charter school near Phoenix, AZ.  Their baseball team is really good, and incidentally their starting 2nd baseman is a 2nd basewoman.  Twice this year they played Our Lady of Sorrows, a school of kind-of Catholics for whom the actual Catholics are just far too liberal.  Both times OLoS refused to play Mesa Prep if they fielded their starting 2nd baseman.  They apparently have a rule prohibiting co-ed sports.  So Mesa prep didn't play their best player at 2nd and won both games.

In their league championship Mesa Prep decided that they wouldn't sit her, and OLoS forfeited.

Here's a fun couple of paragraphs from the Washington Post article about the game:

The [OLoS] statement also said the school teaches boys respect by not placing girls in athletic competition, where “proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty.”

Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the U.S. branch of the Society of Saint Pius X. The group represents conservative, traditional priests who broke from the Catholic Church in the 1980s.

So these boys are learning to respect Paige Sultzbach by refusing to play a game where they will never be forced to touch her.

Mesa Prep remains undefeated, and in every single measure of success, Our Lady of Sorrows just couldn't be more defeated.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Purity

From the food52 blog:

Himalayan Salt: Hand-mined from ancient sea salt deposits from the Khewra Salt Mine in Pakistan, Himalayan salt is rich in minerals and believed to be one of the purest salts available 

How can salt (NaCl) be both "rich in minerals" and "one of the purest salts" at the same time?  "Pure" means not having stuff in your substance that isn't the substance itself.  If you are talking about salt, than then minerals other than salt in your salt makes that salt impure.

Impurities might be good, but they are what they are.

I've been hearing about Himalayan salt now for several years, and it's always hyped as a miracle medicine that can cure you of essentially any ailment, and it can do it in a variety of ways.  When some substance that is purported to actually exist somewhere is said to be able to cure you of anything, then it is helpful to ask about the health of the people living near the miracle substance.  Nepalis who mine this salt do not, despite all the claims for this miracle drug, live forever.

And, by the way, most Himalayan Salt is mined in Pakistan hundreds of miles from the Himalayas.

God Bless Marketing.