Monday, July 31, 2006

Question

Have you noticed that some folks swear off using a microwave (despite the obvious energy consumption benefits vs. a traditional stove or range) to cook food, citing some unspecified health concern? And yet these folks don't seem to have an issue with clamping a cell- or cordless phone to their ear? I wonder if they would refuse an x-ray or a spin through an MRI machine also? And do they recoil in horror from wireless internet hotspots? Do they refuse to hike the granite hills of Maine without protective clothing? Do they eschew brazil nuts ("..the world's most radioactive food due to high radium concentrations 1000-times that of average foods")?

Just wondering what I'm missing here. Perhaps its not about background radiation. Perhaps microwaves cause ebola.

8 comments:

Joe said...

The same people bitch about wind turbines spoiling their views, yet don't mind the hillsides spotted with cell towers.

Mondale said...

Folk like that are hippy bastards. They should be rounded up and put in a field and then ravaged by bored and hungry Tory wives.

Wisdom Weasel said...

Joe; I'm sure people fall back on that quote from Emerson, "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". To which I say, fuck you Emerson, you pretentious arse. That's Ralph Waldo, not the Brazillian footballer, btw.

Mondale; I am always amazed how little it takes to bring out your inner Tebbitt. I am terrified of what you will be like when you are 60.

I've been thinking about a recent statement by the Bishop of London I read on the BBC, in the context of doing things that you know in the abstract can cause harm:

"Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions."

Aside from the sin nonsense, I think to know something and fail to either act on it or amend your lifestyle accordingly might come into play here. I'd humbly suggest that the microwave is the least inconvenient or pleasurable thing to give up in the list in made, and its done more for show than for any reasoned purpose.

T. Oklahoma Bandwagon said...

I'll send this along to my former roommate Steven, who is among those to whom you refer. I'm pretty sure it's a Communist plot -- the same people who keep denying that the Mayans invented Television. Wake Up America!

Bill Norris said...

I don't own--or want--a microwave. Mostly I think they make lousy food. I could give a rat's arse about radiation.

Wisdom Weasel said...

See? Bill has a good reason. If someone said "I don't think they make good food" when sniffing at me for nuking my tepid cup of tea or a crappy hot pocket I had to grab for lunch, I could get behind that. Instead I get looked at as if I'm exposing us all to gamma ray death.

I wonder if miso soup cooked in a microwave would get warm, or would there be a standoff?

Jim said...

Every time I see one of these freakin' techno earrings dangling off someone's earlobe, I want to rip the sucker off. Stupid me, I made the mistake one day of trying to engage someone in conversation, because I thought the Bluetooth-configured idiot was talking to me, not his homey on his cell (I missed his headpiece).

Joe, I'm happy to see I'm not the only one "ripped" over the whole wind turbine controversy.

Wisdom Weasel said...

Wind turbines; I'm all for 'em. I'm willing to have a debate about the envrionmental pros and cons (renewable energy versus impact on migatory birds, for example. If one of the reasons I oppose drilling in ANWAR is the impact on wildlife I have use the same considerations for wind turbines). I don't however think we have the luxury of arguing over subjective aesthetics. In this day and age, efficient design has to be key.

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