Bread and Butter

Butter (web picture)

I  was rather surprised to learn about the butter crisis. I thought people have given up or reduced this fatty goodness, for dietary reasons.

Well, I was wrong. This item is as popular as ever, and greatly sought after. The public is furious about the shortage which seems to have been going on since last year.
When the shortage spreads, the consumers resort to hoarding which is not a desirable phenomenon. 


Both production and Import are regulated by the state. The two ministries: Finance and Agriculture blame each other for the butter shortage. The solution - some kind of custom free temporary import.

For the last few years, scientists claim that butter is not linked to diabetes, obesity and heart disease. They don't claim that butter is a health food, but that it is not as harmful as first thought.
Anyway, butter improves and upgrades any cooking and baking. For some people, butter is everything, all things.

Butter brings back to me good memories. During winter, my parents used to eat fresh black bread topped with butter (sometimes with a piece of herring), and followed by a cup of tea. It was the greatest delicacy for them.

"Good bread is the most fundamental of all foods and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts" (James Beard in the Soup and Bread cookbook). So  very true!

Climate Change is Back in Town

Actually, it has never left; the corona virus put it aside for a while.
The thing is, both have to be tackled with the same urgency.  They are both a threat to human survival, and both have the potential of destroying economies. 

The latest on the topic of climate change is that we're already in a crisis that was thought to take decades to happen - namely, part of the world is now on the brink of intolerable heat and humidity.

In my country, the summers are hot; the temperatures usually reach  an average of 30-35 degrees Celsius. This week they got to over 40. There's talk of 50 degrees Celsius in many parts of the world during the upcoming months. It's an anomaly when it occurs in a populated area (in the desert, it's probably common). That's scary, very scary!

In the last few years, heat waves of this sort were spotted in India, Irak, Australia, South Arabia.
Intolerable heat  might bring about , among other things, increased migration from hot places to cooler ones, and thus a change in world geography and demography.

Baghdad - Irak.

I often think about islands. There's a constant threat hanging over them - their getting 'swallowed'  by waters through the melting ice in Antarctica,  and wonder if it's too late, if there's nothing to be done to prevent this upcoming disaster.

Untitled

The USA has accused Russia of interfering  with the last american general elections. Now she's accusing China of withholding vital information regarding the corona virus.

Even if both accusations are well-founded , they put the accuser (USA) in an inferior position, that of the 'whining' victim. One asks oneself, how could that happen to the great american  nation, a nation with the most powerful secret service in the world. Not pleasant at all.

The young couple Meghan and Harry.are chased by the Press and by all  kinds of other circles, but one feels that it's actually Meghan that draws fire from all sides.  Not fair.

Harry is not just another young man who falls in love; he's a member of the royal british family. He should have married , in my opinion, a british girl, but he didn't.  He's chosen  Meghan, who's american and divorced. 
History repeats itself.:Edward (king Edward VIII)  and Wallis Simpson (an american socialite divorcee).

True, Harry is not king and won't have to abdicate the throne. He probably won't even  have to find a job to earn money like any commoner. He's still Prince, and has even retained the title of Royal Highness.

However, he should have learnt his lesson from his ancestor  - when the chances are your choice isn't fully accepted by family, or society or both - there isn't much happiness waiting  around the corner for you.

Now, Children...

'Escapism' is not my strong point. I usually tend to look at reality 'straight in the eyes'  and confront it.

The more I try to understand  the corona pandemic, the more bewildered I am. The virus is not exactly new;  the first of this type has been spotted in 1964 (according to BBC news), so how come there are so many unknowns about its activity?

First, it was presented to us as causing a sort of flu, a respiratory, lung disease; then, as an all mighty virus capable of attacking any tissue of any organ (heart, brain, kidneys, toes..). 

We've been told that there are relatively few cases of children getting the virus , and that the disease they develop is usually much milder than in adults.

Schools are about to re-open in my country starting with this week.
Well, surprise, surprise. The medical authority, in an attempt to make it a gradual affair, has come up now with  a report showing ... high  numbers of children infected by the virus.

I fear disaster  by mid-June, unless the promise of warm-hot weather killing the virus has  more than  a grain of truth in it.