Brown Motion

As stupid people continue to populate this planet I still have not seen the below in my four decades of habitation on this rock -  People walking their cats - on a leash. For that matter - walk their turtles or snakes or gerbils - not sure of this 'healthy dog discrimination'. People advertising food with extra high fructose corn syrup - for that matter it should be sold at a premium in specialty stores. Only homeless people showing up to the Oscars ceremony and staring at the host and awards being announced with no idea what is going on - oh and by the way they are all dressed in Armani and some unpronounceable designer garment. Photographers taking 'before' and 'after' picture of all attending homeless.  Weight for weight the cloth content of their original rags vs. the thousands priced event garb would likely come out to be the same.  Taking bets on the subject in Vegas. Oscar red carpet interviewing morons forgetting to wish passing award nominees to...

I considered labeling this write up something more mundane like - Whose bag is it anyway?, or Plastic, a way of life.  But in the end the punny title won. Let me explain what this rant brings forth.  It is the whole notion of liberals gone wild.  California as blessed a state as any with its majestic mountains and stark deserts, its miles of scenic coastline and agrarian valleys is also home to the lefties.  Not the writers although we have our share but thinkers as in liberals or more accepting and broad minded folk that enact laws and legislation before the right side of our country does. For the most part this type of spurs in the human mind are beneficial to society at large but at times it goes off kilter.  Take the example of the Ban on Plastic Grocery Bags. The entire state essentially banned grocery and other retailers of everyday goods to stop carrying the ubiquitous and versatile plastic bags at the end of their checkout lines.  No more. ...

Simple?  Basic?  Easily answered? Depends. On what you ask? Well for starters what should seemingly be a way to identify you as an individual has become a freaking nightmare.   Bureaucracies have been designed just based on this innocuous of inquiries.  Do not believe it?  Ask the passport office or in case of immigrants like me the tedium of going through related paperwork, Social Security Administration and Driver Licenses issued by multiple state motor bureaus. For starters Indians do not have any idea what a middle name is.  They probably get the middle finger sooner than they figure out this conundrum called the middle name.  Whose middle?  And then there are Americans who go overboard with the freedoms bestowed unto them and assign multiple names between the given or first name and last name thereby viewing them as multiple middle names. Mathematically wrong unless they happen to ensure that there are an odd number of middle names...

No this is not a politically motivated speech.  Nor a lecture on economic outlook.  Rather my recent experience at a supposedly highbrow restaurant in San Francisco.  Part of the Michael Mina group - for someone not familiar with the name - a migrant to America who made it big cooking up meals with spices of the east and soon partnered with the business savvy of a famous tennis star to crank out a chain of high end eateries in the USA. This establishment is named RN74.  Starting with its name it tries to alienate someone trying to first figure out that they serve food.  Isn't that the main idea?  Apparently not.  In summary I found this place to be an expensive bar with some food on the side.  Literally and figuratively (as in when the check arrives). So I did some digging before visiting.  Let me back up.  For someone who has known me to have a pre-conceived wariness of anything highbrow why did I go?  It was a business dinner...