From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kim Jones
On 24 Jun 2014, at 9:13 am, "'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List"
<everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
_____
From: Kim Jones <kimjo...@ozemail.com.au>
Last week I decided to do a bit of research on the Internet because I wanted to
find out the uses of a vegetable called Kohl Rabi which has just appeared in
the shops here in Oz. Kind of a cousin of the turnip.
So I found a YouTube video on how to cook this thing. It was by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Cooking so I figured it would
be pretty good.
The video was 22 minutes long which seemed a bit excessive but just the same I
was interested. The chef was going to do fried Kohl Rabi and onions, nice and
simple.
For the first eight minutes of the video the chef instructed his audience in
how to peel and slice onions the correct way. For the next four minutes he
instructed how to heat a frypan the correct way and how to caremelise the
fucking onions in the butter and oil. He then proceeded to tell all these
anecdotes about how different styles of heating range had given him differering
results in caremelising onions throughout his career, say for about three
minutes. For the next five minutes he told us how to grow the fucking Kohl
Rabi. For the final two minutes of the clip, he quickly chopped it up and threw
it into the pan with the onions and said "all you have to do is quickly soften
it - he presto!"
22 minutes.
Okay... but why disparage the intellect of the people living across an entire
continent for the over long loquaciousness of one single online cook? :)
Chris
>>Why does the dog lick its balls? Because it can. Australians love to take the
>>piss out of Americans for a range of things, because Americans are in general
>>a bunch of burly loudmouths the world over.
Stereotyping a continent of 300 million plus people (of diverse origin and
personality) might make you feel some kind of rush perhaps… maybe a certain
smug feeling of innate superiority might even sneak up inside and massage the
ego… But isn’t doing so rather foolish?
It must be that the average American presenter takes for granted that there are
lots of stupid people in his audience so the need is to take them by the hand
and show them everything. This must be how kids are taught at school, in fact I
know it is, in general - not everywhere - how kids are taught at school in the
USA. A game of "Simon says." Just do what the teacher does and says and success
is guaranteed. There is no assumption on the part of the presenter that those
listening have an intelligence.
You style yourself an authority on how Americans educate themselves, but what
is the basis of your expertise on what broad and deep familiarity do you base
your pronouncements?
It seems like the worst mistake you can ever commit with an American is to be
cryptic or ambiguous.
You are certainly not making that mistake!
There is the danger that they may misunderstand you. If they misunderstand you,
they are liable to become offended and will then seek to litigate against you,
or if they cannot be bothered with that they may just pull out their gun and
shoot you.
Of course…. All Americans are yahoos and cowboys who shoot first ask questions
later (and racists too I suppose…. God only knows how many times I have heard
that line while residing abroad -- “you Americans are racist”)
There are of course a good many wonderful things about Americans. I cannot
imagine a world without Americans and their personal style. Clear, intelligent
and succinct presentation of information however, does not appear to be an
oft-met export commodity with them. Subtlety and ambiguity are characteristics
of creative thinking. I have often found throughout my life, in conversing
with, working with and befriending Americans, that these are the things they
hold in very high suspicion.
And you are being so admirably subtle.
Chris
Kim
We are talking here about intelligence these days. What it is, what it does,
and how you can fabricate it. What we do on this list is present information to
each other and discuss it. There is a need to know how to present information
clearly, succinctly and without losing the plot.
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