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Hostage Drama

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Today’s post comes from Dr. Larry Kyle of Genway, the supermarket for genetically engineered foods.

Let’s talk about Bamboo!

I don’t like it. Once it grows beyond the “shoots” stage, it’s impossible to eat. Most people I know don’t care for it as curtains for flooring either. So I could get through a typical day without thinking very much about bamboo, except for one thing. Bamboo is a major, major food for pandas. And we just heard yesterday that climate change could destroy bamboo forests and leave the already endangered pandas with nothing to eat.

That’s why desperate authorities begged me to take their money to apply Genway’s unique but strangely successful approach of random and unsupervised experimentation to the potential panda problem by creating a bamboo variation that can grow at any temperature.

Yes, they begged me to save these charming creatures from the ravages of climate change and starvation.

But I refused!

I did it for three reasons.

  1.  Pandas have no money and can’t shop at Genway, so creating a new food for them is a waste of my time.
  2. We don’t do unsupervised experimentation using other people’s money, because it quickly becomes un-unsupervised.
  3.  Fixing bamboo so it can grow in spite of climate change will not solve the problem.

Americans need to do less driving. That’s the quickest way to reduce greenhouse gasses. But changing that habit will be very difficult, and I’m afraid science can solve it as quickly as intimidation can. That’s why I would like to suggest that food companies and political leaders join together to take another food hostage until climate change is stopped and the pandas are saved in a proper and sustainable way.

My suggestion – French Fries.

Yes, I know it’s a cold-hearted approach. But only when there is a terrifying personal cost will we even begin to consider not taking the car. Something dear has to hang in the balance. Think about it. The complete loss of French Fries would be emotionally devastating. And it would be a great step forward in the promotion of healthy lifestyles.

In other words, win-win, except for the political penalty to whomever proposed it and became its champion.

President Obama, are you listening? You’ve just been re-elected and you can’t run again. There is political capital in the bank and you’re looking for something significant to cement your legacy. You’ve already done the politically impossible by passing “Obamacare”. You’ve done something visceral by getting Bin Laden. Why not finish with something emotional and sweet.

How does “He Saved The Pandas (and the Earth)” sound as a legacy?

It’s simple. Take French Fries hostage. As the bamboo forests decline, ration the fried potatoes. Forge a connection between our favorite food, and their favorite food. Force America to change its ways and the pandas will live!

This is certainly a departure for Dr. Kyle, who would normally avoid politics and stick to science. But perhaps he has a point – some problems can’t be solved in the lab.

Driving or French Fries. Which is more important, and why?

89 thoughts on “Hostage Drama”

  2. Dr. Kyle, you’re ruthless! As if it weren’t enough that Obama is going to have to raise taxes to prevent us from going over that fiscal cliff, now you suggest he ban French fries too. Have you no heart? Now, I can’t recall the last time I had French fries (although I love good ones), so for me it wouldn’t be a huge sacrifice. I don’t drive much either, but I have to admit that I feel trapped when I don’t have access to my car. The trouble I’m having with this concept is that I can’t wrap my brain around how not eating French fries is going to solve the climate change crisis; what am I missing? I’m sure some baboon will set me straight.

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    1. PJ, I think what Dr. Kyle is saying is that we, as a people, don’t really care whether pandas have anything to eat. His solution is to use the power of the federal government to link the availability of french fries to the availability of bamboo. If the pandas don’t eat, we don’t eat (french fries). Thus the only way to get our french fries back is to solve the climate crisis.
      He is assuming there is a high correlation between greenhouse gas producers and compulsive french fry eaters. Since you don’t drive much and also don’t care much about french fries, you are living proof that this tortured linkage might actually be valid!

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      1. Ha! Good luck, that’s all I can say. As it is, we can’t convince almost half the people in the US that there is a connection between greenhouse gas and climate change; some people don’t even believe that climate change is occurring. Some wing nuts don’t believe in evolution or that the earth isn’t flat. We’d no doubt would have an easier time convincing these crackpots that shooting all gays, blacks, Muslims, take your pick, would solve all of our problems.

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        1. i can understand your position on what to do about climate change, PJ. I seems to be impossible to change the public’s lack of interest in this. Just remember that there have been a lot of changes that have taken place that seemed impossible at the start. There are people working on the climate change issue and they have done some significant work already that is important even if they are largely being ignored.

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  3. Good morning. I guess that’s a start on solving the climate change problem. If that doesn’t work, what’s next? Maybe pizza? I remember that during a gas shortage, many years ago, we were asked to slow down to 55 mph to save gas. We could do that again to cut down on burning gas. I think there would be a big revolt is we were asked to slow down. No one wants to do anything like that these days. We are in too much of hurry to drive ourselves over the cliff which is sure to happen if we don’t deal with climate warming. I am hoping the message of Climate Parents will start being heard. They are at http://www.climateparents.org .

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    1. I am all for limiting driving, especially daughter’s, since she was so impatient to get to the hair dresser this morning that she didn’t wait for the garage door to completely open before backing up, and tore the wind foil off her car and also destroyed the garage door.

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        1. I was told by the nice receptionist at Midwest Doors that ours was the second call of its type this morning.

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      2. I guess this is a benefit of living in a small town-the garage door guys are already here and the door is back on the track and I don’t think any of it needs to be replaced!

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      4. I had a friend whose foot slipped off the brake and hit the gas pedal as he was waiting for the door to open so he could enter. He destroyed the door, went through the back wall of his garage, and the front end of his car dropped four feet off the embankment at the very back of his garage.

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        2. You always hope the kids have a good safe small accident or two early in their driving career. Now eating french fries while driving, is not safe.

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      5. those wind foils that hold the back end down while you are cranking it around the corners of the old dirt road at 85 90 mph? ah. i would let my kids have one.

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  4. the trail is now being forward to the rest of the world where maybe they can watch the stuff the baboons can fix while we contemplate life on the trail. i am proud to have veekayyses solve problems with us and now that dale starts at 2am the folks over in the parts of the world where they get up earlier can look at what we will be handling while they are on their morning coffee break we are wiping the sleep out of our eyes and they will be waiting to see how we solve the challanges the universe throw down in front of us. its good to be on stage before the baboons get up to go about our business of saving the world.
    the offering of dr larry kyles to ration french fries could work. the driving is always going to be dwarfed because every mile we drive less the chinese have ten times as many drivers to grey up the cosmic cloud and nullify all that we do, but french fries? they will not be ordering ketchup to go with their chopsticks and peking duck. we can make the saving of the chines pandas a true american mission. we are the french fry eaters of the world and can make a difference. if all of a sudden mc donalds and burger king had to start throwing away french fries because no one would order them just think of what an impact all those pandas could have. the realization that the bamboo forests are dying may be because of global warming but i think the matching up of french fries to global warming is a very baboonish thing to do.
    we do have a lady here in washington state who has solved the bamboo genetics problem of having them take so long to reproduce. she has a company that is raising bamboo to add to paper industry and many other areas that dr larry would never get involved in.
    http://www.startribune.com/business/161636585.html?refer=y
    but we can do french fries.

    i noticed the washington state lady because 20 years ago i worked with a guy to try and set up greenhouses on the sites of the thermal discharge sites from the industrial dumps into the river like blackdog in st paul and also in montecello nuclear facilites and found out how cool bamboo growing is. maybe if we just go ahead and fix the global warming thing with french fry resistance and then move on to fixing the bamboo thing we could start mass producing pandas around the world and start marketing panda brand french fries. we could sell them at coffeee shops and market them as fair market french fries. now that we have world exposure thanks to veekayyes we should be able to get this done quick. sherrilee get back her quick and lets to work, enough of this globetrotting. cmon baboons this is a call to action.

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    1. Okay, tim…..get to work. I’m sure you can come up with even more ideas to stop global warming. If our government starts taking the issue of global warming more seriously, we will be in a better position to work with other countries, including China, on solving this problem.

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  5. Pizza coffee beer added to the rationing and put a 2000% tarriff in place for the mbe food group. That would get a response. Mbe stands for milk bread and eggs, anything with one of those items would be made part of the effort. Let’s go out and right the world

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      2. up to do repair work on the relay station station out in the yard at 2 and again at 5 this morning kind of gives you a bit of odd energy at the start of the day. relay station is the holding tank for all the liquids that come out of the orifices of this house. its on the fritz and now i have an opportunity to become an expert at relay station pump functions to add to my resume.
        love dr kyles premise that the panda food source being solved by have bamboo altered to live in globally warmed planet does nothing to fix the problem.unsupervised projects become supervised when money is concerned (hd radio anyone) and pandas dont have money so they cant go to genway stores. their is a cry for a liaison here. baboon liaisons r us is the voice i hear ringing in my ears. lets get some bamboo into those pandas food environment and figure out how to make a green world in the process.

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    1. It was not long after this widespread embracing of the potato that some genius decided to drop slices of it into a pot of boiling fat. The identity of this individual is unknown; the French claim it was one of their countrymen, while the Belgians fiercely hold that it was one of their own who first frenched a fry. Expert opinion on this matter is divided as well. Whatever the case, by the 1830’s deep fried potatoes had become a popular taste sensation in both France and Belgium. It took another hundred years for them to become a fast-food staple in the United States. Although Thomas Jefferson is rumored to have served them in Monticello as early as 1802—a daring thing to do at the time, since tubers were still believed to lead to death unless the poisons were boiled out of them—it was American soldiers, having been stationed in France (or Belgium, depending on who you ask) during World War I who brought back a hunger for the fried potatoes they had eaten while overseas. Although today fries are commonly eaten in many other countries, they are only associated with the Gallic culture here in the U.S.
      from
      http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/9.2/fries/fries-09.2.html

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  9. I would have to keep the driving, just to get my wife to all her medical appt.s Today we start a whole new place for me to sit in waiting rooms–PT.

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  10. I can easily live without french fries but I’m gonna need my car for my new job in Northfield. Now, chocolate rationing would be a whole other dilemma!

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      1. Thank you! It’s about 33 miles one way. December will be frightful with mandatory training in Anoka and Vadnais Heights. I’ll also have to work some night shifts and I’m feeling uncertain about that. But, I’m eager to return to nursing and excited about the new venture. I’ll be more sporadic here beginning in early December.

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      1. Hey, great idea! It used to smell like Malto Meal and popcorn balls in Northfield at this time of year. I could smell Malto Meal when I was there a week ago. I don’t know if they still make the popcorn balls.

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      2. so now can you just screw off at the state offices til you clear out? anything you need to get your fill of before you depart. those walking trails around the lake sounded nice but nov, dec is a good time to go.

        i dont think you can get to anoka from your part of the world. get new snow tires. vadanas heights is dales stomping grounds. i bet he’d buy you a coffee on your way home one afternoon

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    5. Congratulations on your new job, Krista. I second tim’s advise of good snow tires; don’t wan’t nothing to happen to ya drivin’ on those slick roads in winter.

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    7. I agree with Krista. Ration french fries all you want, especially the fast-food type, but please don’t ration chocolate. On second thought, ration things like Hershey’s Milk Chocolate all you want, but not brands like Theo, Valrhona, and others of that type.

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  11. They say trouble comes in threes. We have two this morning; tim’s pump and Renee’s garage door. I hope that rule doesn’t hold. I don’t want any one to be number 3. Well, it seems the pump and the door have been fixed, so at least that’s good.

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  12. French fries are good, but if Dr. Kyle was bribing me with sweet potato fries I’d be putting poor old Kuro up on blocks or turning her into a planter, like the first image on this page: http://www.inspirebohemia.com/2011/07/unique-garden-planters-and-displays.html.

    I’d like to point out that not only does bamboo feed pandas and add to stirfries, but it can be turned into lovely yarn (and lightweight, durable needles) for animal-free knitting. One might also be able to spin panda fur into yarn, but we’d still need to save the bamboo, either way.

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        1. heavy points on the renewable resource product list. and after looking at how scuffed up the hardwood floring is in my house i wish i had the impossible to beate it up qualities bamboo offers because it is solid grain all the way through. i like seatle. their head is on straight about the little things which end up being big

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    3. Years ago, I bought some sheets at Target that were made from bamboo. They have worn so well. I checked the shelves a few months ago, looking for more of the same, but could not find any.

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      1. And yet, Target sells bathroom towels that are 25% bamboo – I bought some during the summer. I wonder why not the sheets?

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  13. Greetings! I’m still scratching my head on this one, although I’m pleased to see Dr. Kyle with us again. Only Dale could have written about bamboo, pandas, global warming, french fries and genetically modified political mumbo jumbo and have it all make sense and seem relevant. Personally, I could do without either of them. I detest driving, although it is a necessary evil. As a general rule, I avoid french fries. But since french fries are presumably classified as a vegetable for school lunches (sad as that is), I guess they deserve more respect.

    Well, not from me — I see them for what they ~really~ are — glorified pseudo food enveloped in that irresistible siren call of hot fat and sodium chloride. I’ll have none of it, I tell you, none of it! … oh, maybe just one, they smell sooo good. OK, maybe just one or two more … can’t let them go to waste. MUST EAT ALL FRENCH FRIES!

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  14. Um…are these plain old every day french fries or the fries they served at the old Annie’s Parlor on West Bank dipped in sour cream and/or hot fudge sauce?…if it’s the latter, I’ll give you the keys to my car right now.

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      1. No – but you could order a big plate of fries with a side of sour cream. Also possible to order a side of hot fudge (though a hot fudge malted works just about as well – and then you get ice cream, too…).

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  15. I was going to say that I no longer need French fries after having discovered a number of version of “oven fries”, but I think that may be missing the point. What was the question again?

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