Category: Q & A

In terms of the words themselves: it's not so much that they are "made up", as that they are not very descriptive in and of themselves… And thus, one person's idea of 'good' can be another's idea of 'bad'. Think "cost savings vs. environmental impact" for one example.

In terms of "good and bad incarnate": Yes, both good and bad exist as universal forces, constantly battling each other by various proxies, and maintaining the ultimate balance across all space time. After all, if only one or the other existed, there would be no way to make sure which it was without its opposite… Similarly, if neither good nor bad existed, then life would be much more unified, and by extension, rather dull.

Do good and bad actually exist or are they made up?

I see restaurants doing this now. It makes the water disgusting. Why??

Deano says: Believe it or not, there are people who disagree with you on the taste.
(Me? I love it! Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/qui…)

Shocking, I know.

But, similarly to how various types of soda flavors have their supporters and detractors, the various "flavor infusing" garnishes taste good to some, and terrible to others.

Cucumber water is especially interesting, because of the phrase "as cool as a cucumber"… This phrase isn't just an idiom, but a scientific fact: due to the structure and composition of the external skin of a cuke, along with its high internal water content, the inside of a cucumber remains quite cool even during the summer months (the natural harvest of cucumbers typically runs May to July)… This led to not only the idiomatic phrase, but also the inclusion of cucumbers in all manner of summertime dishes, to help achieve that "flavor association" with cool/cold when it is most needed by us easily-psychologically-tricked humans. 😉

Because of the high internal water content, sliced cukes will readily pass on their flavor into a normal water vessel quite rapidly. This flavor, in turn, tastes "cool" to those with a taste for it, and in our increasingly-HFCS[*]-addicted society, having a flavorful alternative to Mountain Dew and Starbucks 4-pump Venti Green Iced Tea – especially one so cheap and easily made – can be a great way to convince people to drink more water.

Drink more water, be less hungry, less tired, have better skin… There are a bunch of good outcomes for adding natural flavoring (especially zero-calorie flavoring) to water… If you don't appreciate cucumber water by itself, you might try a cucumber mint or cucumber lemon combination… For added effect, try drinking it while taking a sauna/steam/jacuzzi. Best when a contrasting rivulet of hot salty sweat runs down over your lips right before taking a sip. Yuuuuuuum!

And if all that doesn't work, well, then cucumber water isn't for you. So what? Not the end of the world… Just use lemon, lime, mint, or good ol' plain water, to the tune of around a gallon a day, and reap the benefits of the laziest form of fitness there is: proper hydration.

What's the deal with putting cucumber slices in water?

There is nothing particularly American about the love of bacon. Bacon is loved the world over by those who are allowed to, or choose to eat pork products.

That said, why do people love bacon? It's the salt, the fat, a savory ingredient for the plate that compliments all manner of "sweets" – pairings from french toast to grilled scallops cover a wider range than most other pork cuts.

Because bacon tends to be cut relatively thin (compared to, say, a pork chop), cooking and serving the "right amount" to balance the rest of a plate tends to be pretty easy. It can be served stand-alone, layered, diced or crushed into bits, as a wrapping, etc.

While Americans may indeed over-indulge when offered an unlimited supply, it really doesn't take much to imbue a dish with that magical smoked/fried flavor.

In short, bacon is largely loved for its versatility and taste. If American cuisine makes a more prominent use of bacon than others around the world, it is likely for similar reasons – in my experience, American cuisine itself is of a lot more flexible and experimental nature compared with all the other cuisines we ruthlessly "borrow" from.

Why do Americans love bacon?

As any supposed pet owner will tell you: we are the animal's pet, and thus perhaps one of the few species that does not keep pets as a result. Unless you count human children. Which I totally do.

Are humans the only creatures to have pets?

This isn't going to be a popular answer, but:

Why not stop refuting it? The slippery slope exists for a reason – to bring rights, opportunities, and a chance at a fair life to an ever-widening group of people.

In the case of marriage, it's clear that there is a religious and political entanglement issue. One of the BEST ways to resolve this would be to provide clarity and simplicity in the LAW, that allows for easy understanding by all, rather than a lot of exceptions and addenda tacked on to a clearly flawed starting point.

To that end, I would propose two distinct de-couplings, long overdue:

• religious marriage from the law, completely. No, you can't have Gay Marriage if Allah doesn't want Gay Marriage. Go fight with your Mullah about that, please. Civil unions for all under the law, without any regulation of or restriction to the laws of marriage within a given religion. There simply is no need for the two to agree/be consistent with each other. At least, not if we tidy up a few outstanding next-of-kin/power of attorney laws to reflect this equality/neutrality, rather than going after the "easy fix" of adding additional supported classes using the existing wording.
• legal responsibilities and powers from sexual intercourse. Seriously, we could solve any potential future marriage and the law issue by boiling it down to this: non-genetically-linked succession rights. What does putting a wee-wee into a hoo-hoo versus a no-no have to do with it? It's downright childish, I tell you… Which reminds me…

We already have much better laws on the books to handle this: it's called adoption. Why not simply let any adult adopt any other adult, or even multiple other adults? In fact, why not allow an option to allow for both "mutual and asyncronous adoption", in which such rights could be conferred one-way? This would cover gay marriage, polyamorous marriage, all kinds of heretofore unrecognizable pair-bond dynamics in longeterm BDSM and even vanilla extra-marital affairs! Go, unexploited tax base, go!

Simply put, it's not the "slippery slope" that is the problem, it's that people on every side of the problem are looking at "tunnel vision" solutions, that either "preserve sanctity" or "confirm validity" of a single interest group, which only serves to further highlight/dissociate/exclude such groups from the whole – for every good achieved using this method, it seems bound to create new enemies. If we can make such arguments about "why people are bigots who shouldn't be listened to", rather than about "how group X is actually kinda normal, kinda", I'd argue that it would be a hell of a lot easier to stamp out such bigotry in a less divisive manner.

How can supporters of gay marriage refute "slippery slope" arguments?