Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

by Tom Mueller

Much olive oil is doctored with cheaper olive oil. What's the story behind that? 

• Most people can't really tell the difference between high and low quality oil. Great olive oil can have a bitter & peppery test that turns many people off.
• Of all the oil produced by great olives, half is low quality (useful for soaps and lubrications) a third is good for frying after its been deodorized.  Only the rest is good enough to be high quality extra virgin olive oil.
• Unlike cheap wine, most cheap oils are perfectly usable and just taste neutral.
• Great olive oil is best fresh. To sell high quality oil year around, manufacturers have to chase the olive harvest in different parts of the world, then blend as necessary to achieve a consistent test for there customers.

All by way of saying, if a little cheaper, neutral testing oil was snuck into the olive oil blend at some point, the consumer would never notice, and would probably appreciate the cheaper price.

In Other Worlds

By Margaret Atwood.

I should read more Atwood. Sometimes you hear that she is very feminist. She might respond that writing female characters that have their own inner voice doesn't make you a feminist.

In Other Worlds is Atwood's survey of science fiction-- or speculative fiction-- or both. Her point is that lumping Frankenstein or "The Handmaids Tale" in the same category as Star Wars doesn't really help us navigate the diversity of writing in this category. 

She covers the history of what we'd call Sci-Fi. From tall tales and monster stories, evolving over the decades into a diverse genre of literature.

The Accidental Superpower

 Mr. Peter Zeihan.

I'm enjoying more books on geopolitics. Zeihan looks at the Geography and Demography of countries and regions around the world. He then makes long term predictions.

Canada for example-- Ontario and Quebec are getting older. As they do so, they will stop paying as much tax as the used to. Alberta is young and has a bumper crop of resources. Much tax burden will shift to it. Alberta will be angry for decades to come. With their resources, they they feel like they should be rich. But they have limited power to sell those resources globally-- they are land locked. The U.S. has no reason to let Alta freely sell. Nor does B.C.

Zeihan is also not optimistic about the future of Russia and China. They both have demographic cliffs in the coming decades. For sometime in these countries. the births and immigration has not matched the rate that people are growing old or dyeing. Old people, without jobs, are a drain on the resources of a country. There aren't enough young people to shore up the dwindling resources. Times will get tough.

Zeihan is very optimistic about the U.S. There is no demographic cliff. There is enough shale oil to feed the countries energy demands for decades. And the underlaying geography of the country still supports a strong economy.

Natural ports-- the U.S. has more natural deep water ports than the rest of the world combined. Even If other countries (Canada? Brazil?) wanted to have an trade as large as the U.S- they wouldn't be able  because there are too many bottle necks to get goods into, or out of, those countries. 

In "Prisons of Geography" Marshall tells the story of a Chinese official who pushes back on U.S. values saying... "Why do you think your values will work in a culture that you don't understand?" I understand that statement a bit more. The land along the Yellow river is very fertile, yet there are constant floods and droughts that would regularly destroy a Western style farm. It's only through large scale collective planning that this area can grow the food that it does. Of course there is large scale, planned government here. The area would be desolate otherwise. 

Whitopia

By Rich Benjamin

Race relations are a complicated thing-- you can have racism in a land without racists.