By David G. Firestone

I spent the last week dealing with my ankle injury, and following the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Obviously this is a tragedy. But what I don’t understand is the idea that terrorism such as this will accomplish anything. No religion advocates killing, but yet more people have died in the name of god than any other manner over the course of history.

I don’t judge people over what they believe, rather I judge them based on who they are. I work at a grocery store and I deal with all kinds of people. I deal on a daily basis with a broad range of religions, races, and ethnic backgrounds. The majority of people I deal with are nice and it makes the job easier. Some people get mad when they have too long, but then again, so do I. Some people are just jerks. They treat us like crap, and have no respect at all for anyone except themselves.

The idea that every member of a group follows the same ideals as the most radical members of that group is preposterous. ISIS, ISIL, Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram do not represent Islam as a whole. The Jewish Defense League does not represent Judaism as a whole. The KKK does not represent Christianity or Caucasians as a whole. The Nazi party did not represent Germany as a whole in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Stop branding a large group by the horrific actions of a small fraction of their members!

Stuff that is offensive will get published sometimes. That’s the way life works. But going into the publisher of said stuff and shooting people will not help that cause. Violence breeds violence. That’s all I’m going to say.

By David G. Firestone

So here is the situation. On Saturday, I had to go the emergency room, nothing too serious. I called a family friend and she drove me. As we are driving I am obviously nervous, but I notice something that we drive by. It was an advertisement for a farmer’s market that advertises “artisan foods.” I thought about that as we drove, but more on that later.

So we get to the emergency room, and the first person we see is a young nurse, maybe 5 or 6 years younger than me greets me with a cheery greeting and an overly positive attitude. She kept this attitude up as I described my ankle situation, and I was getting irritated with her. I understand that in an emergency room the need to be positive toward patients is a requirement of the job, but there gets to be a point when enthusiasm just gets to be obnoxious. No one wants to go to the ER. No one enjoys it. We don’t want to be there, and we would rather be anywhere else than the ER. Be positive, but don’t take it too far.

In certain situations, being too positive can turn people off. This happened to me at a DMV. I go there the week before my birthday to renew my state ID. In all honesty, I would rather be at the ER than the DMV, at least the ER has a water fountain. At that time, the DMV I went to had two women at a podium to sign you in, and give you a number. They were way too enthusiastic. One of them said to me “Well it seems you have a birthday coming up.” and being who I am I thought “and I have a 1000 other things I would rather be doing than waiting at the DMV for a state ID.” Be positive and polite, but don’t go to far.

While I was waiting for x-rays to come back, I thought of the farmers market sign advertising artisan foods. There are a number of words that have been overused to the point they are losing their meaning. Independent, ironic, literally, unique and awesome fall into this list, now I think we should add artisan to the list. If we were to take the literal definition of artisan in food, it means food that is made in a traditional or non-mechanized way using high-quality ingredients.

OK, that sounds good, but when I see stuff at the grocery store like Blue Diamond Artisan Nut Thins, where the product does not come close to the definition of artisan, it takes the whole idea and kills it. Blue Diamond calls itself “the world’s largest “tree nut processing and marketing company,” the crackers in question are sold nationwide, and yet I’m somehow supposed to believe that this is made in a non-mechanized way. Not buying it at all. The people who make bread from scratch and sell it at farmers markets sell artisan food. Blue Diamond sells food. It’s that simple. Artisan is being used as a buzz word to market products to “more discriminating customers” many of them are smarter than that.

So I’m now out of commission for a week due to my ankle injury, thankfully it was just a mild injury, not something much worse. So I’m gonna spend time at home, really bummed I can’t go into work this week.