CapitalistImperialistPig

The chile pepper (or chili pepper ) is a sacrament here in southern New Mexico. I had never sampled it before a stint in the army sent me to Arizona, but I quickly became an addict. I now favor fairly mild varieties, though when I was younger, I lived a bit more adventurously. Chiles are an American plant, spread to Asia after the voyages of Columbus - a bit of an irony, since he had set out to establish a route to get spices from India, but wound up being responsible for delivering them to India instead. New Mexico State University, right here in Las Cruces, NM, is the location of the Chile Pepper Institute, the world's center of Chile science and arbiter of all Chile questions. The Wall Street Journal reports [subscription] that a new fiery champion has been crowned in the Chile world, the bhut jolokia from the Assam region of India. It measures a mind bogling one million Scoville Units, versus about 5000 for a Jalapeno , and something like 50,000 to 100,000 for Thai and Chin...

Now I admit to being one of those who thought that Chivalry died when we sent old Dobbin to the glue factory, but Grian Ruadh ingen Aed of the SCA has a slightly different view , which I think might be summarized as "suck it up, girls, and get with the program." Shut The Hell Up. Yes, I’m talking to YOU. YOU are the reason that many male fighters (and not a few female fighters) still think that female fighters in general are whiny candyasses not worth training. ... YOU are the attention-seeker who bellyaches the loudest about being hit too hard whenever someone lays anything more substantial than a tap on you. YOU are the sinkhole of negativity who has a mile long list of gripes and complaints that you will reel off to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen but doesn’t seem interested in actually finding solutions. YOU are the flutter of false earnestness constantly asking for advice but rarely taking any that doesn’t involve stroking your fragile little ego or gar...