So much to choose from

I must have been in the car more today than usual, or NPR was just having a really good day, but I heard at least five stories that I thought were worth commenting on. However, I will spare my good readers (all three of you :-) and stick to just brief comments on two of the stories:

1) During a report this morning about President Bush's trip in Latin America, the snarky NPR (and yes, this time it was NPR and not KIRO that I was listening to by mistake) reporter played every quote that included the President talking about food. Based on the quotes, it sounded like he spent his whole trip saying he was hungry for dinner or lunch, having the president of the countries he was visiting describe the menu planned for the day, or discussing the quality of blueberries in Ecuador (or wherever). I found this all particularly amusing because I've read a lot about the fact that on past trips to foreign countries Bush rarely stayed long enough to actually eat - preferring his Texas steaks on the plane I'd imagine. I suppose this time he had to actually stick around so he could continue to not answer questions about Chavez, who was wandering around Latin America at the same time (way more nutty, but probably not talking about food as much)

2) On The Beat today Greg Atkinson was interviewed about the food inventions that were created in wartime that we can find in our kitchens today. He said that basically all food processing and mass production techniques were created to get food to the battlefield and that after WWII the factories were repurposed to make pre-processed food for the civilian population - and that's how we ended up with some of the tasty but chemical-pumped food that I'm embarrassed to admit exists in my pantry today. I thought this was interesting because it brings to mind the theory that all sorts of technology that we use in daily life (Teflon, velcro, etc) was invented during the 1960's as we were trying to get man to the moon (although some dispute this). It's sad but unsuprising that technologies we discovered during war are now so prevalent as well. I guess there are many different types of "needs" to drive creativity.