Chesterfield County and Its Tri-Cultural Cuisine
I am a huge fan of food. I love to cook and I love to eat out. When I go out to eat I prefer to do something different each time. Unfortunately for me (and quite possibly a large number of Chesterfield Co. residents) the types of cuisine available close to me are extremely limited. It boils down to Asian (be it Chinese or Japanese steak house), mexican or tex-mex, and Italian (represented largely by low budget pizzarias). Not a lot of variety there. Especially when you consider that places just a little ways away from home (Richmond, Short Pump) are host to a veritable cornucopia of cuisines.
Is there something about the chesterfield area that deters restaurateurs from opening ethnically diverse eateries? I’d love to know if there were. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any legitimate reason why we don’t have, say, a Thai restaurant or maybe Indian, French, or German. The bottom line is that someone needs to bring in some diversity. Alas, I am not a cook (at least not of restaraunt quality) otherwise I would take it upon myself. Consider this my official plea for a change of pace in the Chesterfield restaurant community.
Literacy: A Passing Trend?
In my quest to find a female companion I have come across a startling trend among young women (and possibly young men, I have not yet taken the time to investigate the male side of the phenomenon). As I peruse the pages of Myspace and Facebook I have been alarmed to find that many young ladies are not reading. Sure, a few of them list People, US and a few other publications that one would find on the rack at a grocery check out. At first I didn’t think anything of this and I would contact these women and try and stir up a conversation. What I found filled me with disgust.
We’ve known for a while now that our (American) culture has a tendency to bring one’s IQ down more than a few notches (if you let it). Pop culture plays down the need for practical knowledge and shuns those who are literate and well spoken in favor of those who are glamorous, physically attractive or something equally superficial. As I talked to these girls from the Internet social networks it became clear that an enlightened conversation about the virtues and shortcomings of 20th century literature, American history or modern scientific advancements was out of the question. These girls could divulge a plethora of useless information but they could not name a single author when questioned about their latest read that was NOT a magazine.
As someone who is dredging the dating pool, I find this particularly disheartening. I have no intention of conversing with any variety of morons, cretins or intellectual sub-humans- which tend to be the brood of pop culture. Is it really going to be difficult to find an attractive young woman out there who can carry on an intellectual conversation? Or has our society deprogramed them all to be shiftless drifters relying solely on their looks to make it through life?
My biggest problem is that I can’t understand how anyone can be satisfied with being an intellectual inferior to anyone else if they were capable of making themselves otherwise. This certainly lends some credence to the old adage, “Ignorance is bliss”. I have tried to discern whether or not there is any particular factor which deters these ladies from reading and thus bettering themselves and expanding their world view. Most often the responses range from, “I don’t have time” to “[books] are too long and boring”, but they generally make some reference to time or the lack thereof. This makes me pause and reflect on what they could possibly be doing with the rest of their life that prevents them from reading. Of course, being ever the inquisitive fellow, I ask. “So what do you do in your free time?” I’ll ask, expecting something just short of volunteering at the SPCA or local soup kitchen. At the very least, surely they participate in some sport or something that keeps them busy. Alas, the response is most often, “oh, I like to drink, go to parties, go tanning. “ Oh brother.
So now we see that not only is our society running headlong into the abyss of stupidity while clinging to their rum and cokes, but additionally they are baking themselves in artificial sunlight rather than going outdoors and having some sort of interactive experience that might broaden their horizons. I’m willing to bet that if these girls stayed home 1 night a week and read a real book for 3-4 hours their IQ’s would jump significantly. If not their IQ’s then certainly my level of tolerance for them. All the ones who failed to show improvement ought to be thrown beneath the wheels of a moving bus.
To those few women out there who read and do so on a fairly regular basis, congratulations. You are a credit not only to your gender but to the human race. To those even fewer women who not only read, but are reasonably athletic and attractive…call me. Please.
