Cheese In The Middle East

Cheese In The Middle East

“For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing.” -the creature, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

There are many trees on many islands, but one particular tree only grows on one particular island.

The dragon's blood tree (Dracaena cinnibari) is native to the island of Socotra, the largest of four islands in the Socotra archipelago off the coast of Yemen.

The tree’s red sap was mythologized as resembling the blood of a dragon. These trees can be found on plateaus, beaches, mountains, and wherever else they feel like sprouting up from the mighty ground.

A dream of mine is to sit under a dragon's blood tree and admire Socotra's diverse flora and fauna, read a book, eat the tree's berries, contemplate, and whatever else. That seems easily-attainable, but sadly, it will probably never come true.

I have the means, motive, and opportunity to visit Socotra, so why should this not happen?

The U.S. Department of State advises against traveling to Yemen “due to terrorism, civil unrest, health risks, kidnapping, armed conflict, and landmines.” In other words, I can't relax under a tree because people might try to blow me up. I could certainly sit under the tree, but there's a decent chance I could be kidnapped and/or killed on my journey by violent radicals, pirates, or any other group of angry folks who are waiting to cause chaos.

Those trees look awesome but aren’t entirely worth the risk.

…

How did we get to this point? By ‘we’, I mean humans, the only species of the roughly 8.7 million on Earth to cause such situations.

Many have argued that violence is in our nature. Some quick research into the history of almost any country, tribe, ethnicity, or religion will show you massive amounts of bloodshed. Even our ancestral apes likely resorted to violence when the thought emerged, as pointed out by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Many animals fight with each other, but those bouts are limited to hunting for food and protecting the pack. People do horrible things to other humans out of greed, jealousy, revenge, enjoyment, or even for no reason at all.

And why would this specific state of things change? The Middle East has been a disaster since I've been aware of what it is and long before that.

…

Then I wonder, ‘Do they eat grilled cheese in the Middle East?’ I think not, because the versatility of this food would make anyone immediately stop blowing things up. ANY person can take two slices of ANY kind of bread and put ANY kind of cheese between them to get a delicious and (possibly) nutritious snack.

Melted cheese turns any food into an absolute delicacy, but with grilled cheese it’s the featured ingredient!!! Peaceful and relaxing, cheese has a proven* calming effect on any person it enters. When it's placed between bread and cooked, Nirvana is achieved. Go forth, young Arhat.

*I made this up, though it should have been proven by now

What's even better is that you don't even have to specifically grill your sandwich. Instead, you could toast it, bake it, broil it, griddle it, pan-fry it, cook it over an open fire, put it in a Panini press, or however else you want to cook it for maximum deliciosity.

Have you ever seen the film Benny And Joon? Me neither, but apparently it contains a charming scene that features Johnny Depp making grilled cheese with a clothes iron. As far as I know, Johnny Depp has never wanted to blow me up so that I couldn't sit under a dragon's blood tree, so I'll trust his method as well.

…

By adding a few simple ingredients, you can make at least 150 different amazingly deliciously wonderfully melty grilled cheese sandwiches!

If grilled cheese sounds amazing but not quite filling enough, have I got some great news for you- Grilled cheese's best friend is none other than tomato soup! Just think about dipping the corner of your scrumptious cheese-melt into a bowl of hot liquid red wholesome creamy amazingness.

(Is anyone else drooling right now? If you're not, immediately stop what you're doing and spend no less than four hours at grilledcheeseacademy.com.)

Cranking up the appeal for people who hate their bodies but love their taste buds, restaurant chain Friendly's once offered a grilled cheese burger melt, which was a good old juicy hamburger smooshed between *two* grilled cheese sandwiches.

Sadly or thankfully, this item is no longer available.

The Great Depression, by its own definition, was one of the saddest times in American history. To feel better, do you know what people ate during this era? Grilled cheese! They often called it Cheese Dream and I don't blame them for one second. Sometimes there were variations, such as adding bacon and eggs or even (gasp!) preparing it open-faced.

If some of the saddest people ever ate grilled cheese to get through their hardships, surely terrorists and counter-terrorists would benefit from its grandiosity, eating together while holding hands and singing Imagine.

Forget about hating people with beliefs different from yours and make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich according to your own specifications.

Everyone has the right to enjoy cheese.

Hopefully Middle Easterners will read this message and I'll see you in Yemen.

Postscript- This article was originally titled 'Discussing The Disgusting' and took a very serious turn toward Existentialism and the history of human-on-human violence. Wasn't reading about cheese so much better!?!?

Moose Vs. Goose

Moose vs. Goose
The Eternal Battle Of The Rhyming Animals

The current ultra-important topic is how much better moose are than geese.

Unfortunately, the words 'moose' and 'goose' rhyme in English. Thankfully, this mere coincidence is the only likeness between the creatures.

Awkward and clumsy with poor eyesight, the moose is undeniably mighty. It is far from accidental that 'moose' and 'mighty' begin with the same letter.

Another non-accident is how the G in 'mighty' is completely ignored during pronunciation. That letter is silent, as geese should always be.

Geese are not mighty but hiss, like snakes, because they’re dumb.

A snake's hiss warns me to not go closer to it lest I be struck down by natural poison, which is awesome. Being poisoned wouldn’t be awesome but the phenomenon of snake venom is breathtaking, figuratively and actually.

A goose hissing makes me simultaneously laugh and angry, inspiring the thought of grabbing a furry gosling and punting it into a lake.

The only species-confusion moose have is due to Europeans calling them elk, but if you ask a goose why, you'll probably get an answer like 'Duh, I don't know. I'm going to fly in a V pattern with my friends and crap everywhere because we’re all rude and awful.'

(Also, I have an amusing and completely unrelated story about that confusion: An ex-girlfriend made me a table coaster featuring a silhouette of a reindeer under the Aurora Borealis. She thought it was a moose, which she searched for. I made the heavy decision to tell her about the error but acknowledged that I enjoyed the result regardless. Apparently, I sacrificed her happiness to be correct. Well done.)

Anyway, for the record nobody is keeping, I am speaking specifically about Canada geese and not any other kind, such as snow geese, or 'snoogeez' as they prefer to be called.

These geese selfishly left Canada out of jealousy (because moose are amazing and everyone adores them) to invade their country’s only neighbor.

Perhaps some brave Canadian should petition their duchess (or whatever they have) to change the name of these embarrassing creatures, which are the only blemish on the delightful nation’s culture.

…

‘Oh man, my feet are so sore. I’d better put on my goose slippers.’

NOPE!

There’s no such thing and an internet search for them will come up empty.

When seeking ‘moose slippers’, however, you’ll find pictures of many warm and welcoming slippers with some sort of moose head complete with antlers, which are not only practical but absolutely adorable.

A search for ‘goose slippers’ will bring you nameless, faceless sleepy shoes that merely *contain* feathers from geese and look dreadful when juxtaposed with a wonderful pair of moose slippers.

(Also, I’m very aware that I said a search would come up empty then provided no results from said search. Errors like this happen when one has geese on the brain.)

…

The best thing about moose is how considerate they are.

When offered pluralization, the entire Cervidae family collectively said, ‘Nah, we don’t need an S or anything. Whether there is one of us or a thousand, we will be moose, deer, elk, caribou, and reindeer.’

Geese, on the other hand, totally rewrote the rules of obscenity.

DICTIONARY PEOPLE: “So, many of you would be ‘gooses’, right?”

GOOSE REPRESENTATIVE: “Not only no, but we demand that you completely change two letters in our singular title. Add a separate entry in your book for our plural form, which MUST come alphabetically first for maximum confusion.”

Mice followed this example and there has been chaos ever since, but mice are not jerks like geese. Calling a mouse by a name one letter different from a moose is simply a fun thing to do, like calling a huge guy Tiny or a fat guy Slim, but don’t call Fat Boy Slim or you’ll hear the same sentence 20 times in a row.

(What!?)

…

In the world of sports, there are several teams from northerly-latitudinal locations whose mascot is the moose. The Manitoba and Jackson Hole Moose terrorized their respective hockey associations for years. The University Of Maine decided moose are so wonderful that they named the mascot of the *entire* school after the majestic beasts.

To contrast, I found exactly ZERO teams named Geese in my search, which was brief and sloppy because I was afraid of actually finding one with that name and ruining this whole article.

Remember Tony Siragusa? If not, consider yourself lucky because he was a sports commentator who was mostly famous for being obnoxious.

What is his nickname? Goose!

(Another perfect example to help prove whatever point I am trying to make.)

Alternately, football player Daryl “Moose” Johnston is not in the NFL Hall Of Fame but was proudly inducted into the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall Of Fame. Can you name anyone called Goose who holds that honor? I sure can’t, partly because I am unable to name another person in the entity that I just found out exists.

For one more even though you might be thinking ‘OK, I get it’, there is a basketball player named Greg Monroe whose mighty nickname is Moose. This guy is so good that he’s played for six NBA teams and is now in Germany since there’s apparently a basketball version of Bundesliga.

(How’s *that* for concrete evidence?)

Someone who could have been nicknamed Moose was Benito Mussolini. Not only does the beginning of his surname sound like the grandest of animals, he was good at being a bad guy, so perhaps he deserves some kind of credit for it.

But he was a violent ally of Hitler so maybe not.

Hmm.

I hereby rescind the honorable offer to nickname him Moose.

…

I heard a story of a man who was walking in Fairbanks, Alaska, when he unwittingly strolled between a baby moose and its mother. Fearing her child was in danger, Mama Moose immediately ran at the man, trampling and killing him.

This is indeed a sad and unfortunate story for humans, but how tough is Mama Moose for using her weight and might to stomp out a threat to her kid?

And what would a goose have done in that situation? Hissed; maybe flapped its stupid wings. What potential predator would that deter? A boll weevil. Maybe.

…

Have you ever gone to a park? Yes? Good job! Then you must be aware of how annoying it is to avoid 'landmines' on the walking path.

Not only do geese crap everywhere like rude jerks but waiting for one or a series of them to cross said path is excruciating. Coming to a full stop (physically, not the British phrase for a punctuation mark) to watch these morons waddle out of the way is nothing short of the worst thing ever.

Sometimes you might get to witness a goose-battle, when one stupid goose runs at another. This shows they are perfectly able of running but instead choose to move at a snail's pace.

(Sorry, snails. I didn’t mean to insult you with the comparison to those dreadful birds. You just move slowly, ya know? Sloths do as well but they have sharp claws and I’d rather get slimed by you than sliced up by them.)

I feel like there's something else geese actively choose to not do despite it being convenient for everybody…

Oh right, geese are BIRDS with WINGS that enable them to FLY. They can move really fast if they want to, but instead real animals must bide our time and, for some reason, not run them over.

Let's change this. Run geese over. Bark at them. Kick their stupid necks. Do anything you can to make their small brains realize that they are the worst species on the planet.

To actually end this rambling, all hail the moose.