The USA has the highest rate of unplanned pregnancy and abortion in the developed world. Everyone can agree that this is a problem.
The solution is not abstinence-only sex education. Empirically that's hardly better than none at all. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which has for decades conducted surveys regarding sexual and reproductive health, premarital sex is nearly universal among Americans. Abstinence-only sex education does not correlate with lower rates of premarital sex. It does correlate with lower rates of contraception use, and as a result higher rates of unplanned pregnancy. These correlations hold even when adjusted for socioeconomic factors.
The solution is obvious. Comprehensive sex education must be compulsory. Children should be literate in matters of sexual health by their teens, at which point half of them will be sexually active, educated or not. The government does not have control over the body of a child but it can do its best to ensure that he or she makes educated choices.
Since it is a fact that young people will have sex, even if they've been told it's unsafe, and even if they've signed an abstinence pledge, the effort must be to ensure that contraception is available to them when they do. This is particularly the case for those who live in poverty, as becoming pregnant at a young age creates positive feedback, sabotaging educational and career options, and making it less likely that the individual will rise from poverty.
Source
Source
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Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Written English
Despite being the most widely spoken language on Earth (though Mandarin has far more native speakers), English is very poorly constructed. Sentence structure and verb conjugation aside, we can critique the very phonetic system that written English uses. Between phonetic degeneracies and pronunciations imported from other languages (eg. pizza, ballet, school), it is not at all obvious from the spelling how many words in the English language pronounced. Since the purpose of written language is to record the oral tradition this is an obvious problem.
The problem is historical, of course; English was built over the course of centuries and through the merging of cultures. Significant efforts have historically been made to standardize it and have, to various extents, been successful. But, unlike ever before in history, the majority of all written English right now is screened by computers. Emails and internet content of course never make it to print, but even books and newspapers are arranged digitally. The standard spell-check dictionary means that an imposition of phonetic changes to English would be much less technically difficult - and much less painful - than it has been in the past.
If we assume (semi-reasonably) that the ubiquity of automated typesetting would handle implementation, we can simply outline the changes that would need to be made.
Sometimes in English it's just the case that the wrong letter is used in a word. For example, there's no need to have PH or GH make a sound like an F; we have the letter F! Similarly, G is used as in GORGE or GROAN, leaving J perfectly suited for words like JILL and GEORGE. The letters S and Z see this problem as well, though perhaps due to their similar sounds and our lazy pronunciation. Z is pronounced as in OOZE, ZEST, and TOPAZ. S is as in SLEEP, SONG, and OATS. Though CHARLES is spelled with an S, it's obviously pronounced with a Z.
Silent letters are almost a non-issue. Since they aren't pronounced, nobody should even notice if they're removed; note that THROUGH is already often abbreviated THRU. This could also be done for some vowels, usually E. Removing the E from the end of a word like DONE necessitates a root change (to DUN) but in some cases the letter is just outright skipped; note that CHARLES is universally pronounced CHARLZ.
The next two issues go hand in hand. Some consonants are redundant, and some sounds don't have letters.
The letters K and S are unambiguous (ignoring for a moment the existence of digrams like SH). And between the two of them they obsolete the letter C (which is sometimes a K and sometimes an S) and the letter X (which is always pronounced KS). We also see that Q is redundant with K, perhaps having QU replaced by KW or KOO.
(English has several consonants - Y and W - which defy their definition. In the middle of a word, Y produces a sound that could just as easily be attributed to I; see for examples OYSTER and ACRYLIC. At the end of a word it's perhaps EE or IE, depending on the word, but certainly some vowel sound or diphthong. W, on the other hand, is always a short OO. Whether that's deserving of its own is a topic for discussion by someone better versed in vowel architectures than I am.)
Looking at the consonants we can see that we've freed up, at least, C, X, and Y. And we have without letters the digrams CH, SH, and TH. The obvious solution is to use the character Y to mean TH, the character X to mean CH, and the character C to mean SH.
So rather than CHARLES, we would write my name XARLZ. It has one vowel, appropriate for a word with one syllable, and each letter represents a unique consonant sound.
When we move on from consonants to vowels, the whole issue becomes much more complicated. Phonetically English has at least a dozen vowel sounds, and of course we have only five characters for them. In Spanish this is solved by the extensive use of diphthongs while in Hungarian the use of dots, accents, umlauts, and double accents is used to cheat them up to fourteen vowel characters. As a result neither language has the vowel ambiguity we see in English. It's not obvious which, if either, of these two is best but they do offer a proof of concept that vowels can be done in a consistent way.
Beyond that we reach the topic of capital letters. They serve no real purpose. Capital letters are used to begin sentences, titles, and proper nouns. However, sentences and titles are denoted using punctuation and style as well. And a proper noun is clear from context in all but the most obscure situations. When reading, the meaning of a word is clear whether not it's capitalized.
On the other hand the concept of capitalization adds a whole dimension of arbitrary rules to writing. Is "Pokemon" supposed to be capitalized? How about "god"? In what cases do you capitalize the second part of a hyphenated word in a title? Should "French fries" and "Brussels sprouts" be capitalized? Each of these questions has a correct answer (though it may depend on context or who you ask) yet none of them add any any information to the text.
The problem is historical, of course; English was built over the course of centuries and through the merging of cultures. Significant efforts have historically been made to standardize it and have, to various extents, been successful. But, unlike ever before in history, the majority of all written English right now is screened by computers. Emails and internet content of course never make it to print, but even books and newspapers are arranged digitally. The standard spell-check dictionary means that an imposition of phonetic changes to English would be much less technically difficult - and much less painful - than it has been in the past.
If we assume (semi-reasonably) that the ubiquity of automated typesetting would handle implementation, we can simply outline the changes that would need to be made.
Sometimes in English it's just the case that the wrong letter is used in a word. For example, there's no need to have PH or GH make a sound like an F; we have the letter F! Similarly, G is used as in GORGE or GROAN, leaving J perfectly suited for words like JILL and GEORGE. The letters S and Z see this problem as well, though perhaps due to their similar sounds and our lazy pronunciation. Z is pronounced as in OOZE, ZEST, and TOPAZ. S is as in SLEEP, SONG, and OATS. Though CHARLES is spelled with an S, it's obviously pronounced with a Z.
Silent letters are almost a non-issue. Since they aren't pronounced, nobody should even notice if they're removed; note that THROUGH is already often abbreviated THRU. This could also be done for some vowels, usually E. Removing the E from the end of a word like DONE necessitates a root change (to DUN) but in some cases the letter is just outright skipped; note that CHARLES is universally pronounced CHARLZ.
The next two issues go hand in hand. Some consonants are redundant, and some sounds don't have letters.
The letters K and S are unambiguous (ignoring for a moment the existence of digrams like SH). And between the two of them they obsolete the letter C (which is sometimes a K and sometimes an S) and the letter X (which is always pronounced KS). We also see that Q is redundant with K, perhaps having QU replaced by KW or KOO.
(English has several consonants - Y and W - which defy their definition. In the middle of a word, Y produces a sound that could just as easily be attributed to I; see for examples OYSTER and ACRYLIC. At the end of a word it's perhaps EE or IE, depending on the word, but certainly some vowel sound or diphthong. W, on the other hand, is always a short OO. Whether that's deserving of its own is a topic for discussion by someone better versed in vowel architectures than I am.)
Looking at the consonants we can see that we've freed up, at least, C, X, and Y. And we have without letters the digrams CH, SH, and TH. The obvious solution is to use the character Y to mean TH, the character X to mean CH, and the character C to mean SH.
So rather than CHARLES, we would write my name XARLZ. It has one vowel, appropriate for a word with one syllable, and each letter represents a unique consonant sound.
When we move on from consonants to vowels, the whole issue becomes much more complicated. Phonetically English has at least a dozen vowel sounds, and of course we have only five characters for them. In Spanish this is solved by the extensive use of diphthongs while in Hungarian the use of dots, accents, umlauts, and double accents is used to cheat them up to fourteen vowel characters. As a result neither language has the vowel ambiguity we see in English. It's not obvious which, if either, of these two is best but they do offer a proof of concept that vowels can be done in a consistent way.
Beyond that we reach the topic of capital letters. They serve no real purpose. Capital letters are used to begin sentences, titles, and proper nouns. However, sentences and titles are denoted using punctuation and style as well. And a proper noun is clear from context in all but the most obscure situations. When reading, the meaning of a word is clear whether not it's capitalized.
On the other hand the concept of capitalization adds a whole dimension of arbitrary rules to writing. Is "Pokemon" supposed to be capitalized? How about "god"? In what cases do you capitalize the second part of a hyphenated word in a title? Should "French fries" and "Brussels sprouts" be capitalized? Each of these questions has a correct answer (though it may depend on context or who you ask) yet none of them add any any information to the text.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Soup Swap
This is a bit delayed, but I'm finally getting my recipe from Soup Swap (which was almost four weeks ago!) up here. It was a swimming success and Soup Swap II will hopefully happen sometime in the next few months.
My soup was a sort of chicken and veggie concoction based on this previous recipe. I made significant changes to the vegetables used, some for better and some not.
Ingredients
1 large can (28oz) diced tomatoes
1 quart vegetable stock
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 cups cubed chicken
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups cubed pumpkin
2 cups sliced zucchini
2 cups chopped red onion
Procedure
Add all ingredients to a large pan. Boil, stirring occasionally, until all vegetables are tender. I did this on the stove and served it in a crock pot, but it's probably doable in a crock pot too.
Vegetable amounts are approximate; you can see in the picture that I was a bit heavy on the pumpkin and a bit light on onions and zucchini.
I didn't realize it as I was cooking it, but this is significantly more vegetable than I had last time, but with the same amount of spice. I would increase each of the spices by about 50%. I also wish I had, like last time, used a clearer broth. This one was pretty dark and it didn't give me the flavor I was looking for. I think I used vegetable bullion cubes before.
The pumpkin was used because I had one around. Others thought it was pretty good but I wasn't a big fan. I think a better addition would be 2/3 dry cup brown rice. Since brown rice takes a while to cook I would then probably add the rice and chicken, boil for fifteen minutes or so, then add the vegetables. If you boil the vegetables for too long they will get mushy.
Overall, this is still a fine recipe. It's even better if you have some bread to dip in it. I'm not sure how many it serves; it was sampled by eight-ish people and left significant leftovers. Probably something like 6 large servings.
I would also like to draw your attention to a few of the other soups that were featured at Soup Swap. I've just got a few pictures here; Sarah has more and is compiling the recipes to send out to everyone.
Most unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of my fridge after soup swap; Between Sarah and me we had just short of ten pounds of soup!
My soup was a sort of chicken and veggie concoction based on this previous recipe. I made significant changes to the vegetables used, some for better and some not.
Ingredients
1 large can (28oz) diced tomatoes
1 quart vegetable stock
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 cups cubed chicken
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups cubed pumpkin
2 cups sliced zucchini
2 cups chopped red onion
Procedure
Add all ingredients to a large pan. Boil, stirring occasionally, until all vegetables are tender. I did this on the stove and served it in a crock pot, but it's probably doable in a crock pot too.
Vegetable amounts are approximate; you can see in the picture that I was a bit heavy on the pumpkin and a bit light on onions and zucchini.
I didn't realize it as I was cooking it, but this is significantly more vegetable than I had last time, but with the same amount of spice. I would increase each of the spices by about 50%. I also wish I had, like last time, used a clearer broth. This one was pretty dark and it didn't give me the flavor I was looking for. I think I used vegetable bullion cubes before.
The pumpkin was used because I had one around. Others thought it was pretty good but I wasn't a big fan. I think a better addition would be 2/3 dry cup brown rice. Since brown rice takes a while to cook I would then probably add the rice and chicken, boil for fifteen minutes or so, then add the vegetables. If you boil the vegetables for too long they will get mushy.
Overall, this is still a fine recipe. It's even better if you have some bread to dip in it. I'm not sure how many it serves; it was sampled by eight-ish people and left significant leftovers. Probably something like 6 large servings.
I would also like to draw your attention to a few of the other soups that were featured at Soup Swap. I've just got a few pictures here; Sarah has more and is compiling the recipes to send out to everyone.
 Sarah made French onion soup, complete with cheesy toast. |  Taylor made a spicy chicken chili. |
 Ricky brought a hearty venison stew. |  Aaron and Katie brought wonton soup. |
 Bryn brought a festive Korean soup that you assemble on the spot. | We also had Caitlin's creamy broccoli soup and Alec's cheesy potato and onion soup |
Most unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of my fridge after soup swap; Between Sarah and me we had just short of ten pounds of soup!
Monday, October 3, 2011
French Toast
This is a very simple recipe, and fast enough that you can even make it in the morning before work. From cracking the first egg to chowing down is something like fifteen minutes.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 oz vanilla yogurt (approx) (a little smaller than an egg)
1/2 tsp cinnamon... I'm guessing at the amount here. A few shakes of the cinnamon shaker.
baguette
butter
topping
Procedure:
Slice some baguette. How many slices you need will depend on the size of your baguette. Mine was pretty small and I used about eight. I like to cut them diagonally to get that nice angle, plus it makes the slices bigger.
A crunchy baguette is fine, since it will soften up as you cook it, but if it's stale it'll be difficult to cut without breaking it. A baguette only lasts a few days before turning into a rock, so make sure you do something with it if you have one sitting around!
Mix the eggs, yogurt, and cinnamon. Butter a pan. Dip the slices of bread completely, one at a time, in the egg mixture. You will probably want to use a fork to flip them around and perhaps flop some egg on top of them. Slop the toast into the pan. It should cook for a minute, maybe less, then need to be flipped. Wait another minute and serve.
I like to eat my french toast with black cherry jam. Sarah likes maple syrup heated up in the microwave. Applesauce is also a good topping. Sometimes I even just put a slice of pepper bacon on my french toast with nothing else.
This recipe works just fine with regular bread too. Two eggs is about the right amount for four pieces of bread.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 oz vanilla yogurt (approx) (a little smaller than an egg)
1/2 tsp cinnamon... I'm guessing at the amount here. A few shakes of the cinnamon shaker.
baguette
butter
topping
Procedure:
Slice some baguette. How many slices you need will depend on the size of your baguette. Mine was pretty small and I used about eight. I like to cut them diagonally to get that nice angle, plus it makes the slices bigger.
A crunchy baguette is fine, since it will soften up as you cook it, but if it's stale it'll be difficult to cut without breaking it. A baguette only lasts a few days before turning into a rock, so make sure you do something with it if you have one sitting around!
Mix the eggs, yogurt, and cinnamon. Butter a pan. Dip the slices of bread completely, one at a time, in the egg mixture. You will probably want to use a fork to flip them around and perhaps flop some egg on top of them. Slop the toast into the pan. It should cook for a minute, maybe less, then need to be flipped. Wait another minute and serve.
I like to eat my french toast with black cherry jam. Sarah likes maple syrup heated up in the microwave. Applesauce is also a good topping. Sometimes I even just put a slice of pepper bacon on my french toast with nothing else.
This recipe works just fine with regular bread too. Two eggs is about the right amount for four pieces of bread.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Skittles Vodka
Hey all, Sorry for my long time away. I've been busy and haven't had much time for exciting recipes. However, today I've got something pretty exciting. You may have seen posts about Skittles Vodka floating around the internet in the past few months. Well, I did too. So I made some. It's great.
My first batch was with the classic Skittles. I split them up by color and did each one separately. I did end up mixing yellow and green ("lemon" and "lime"), which was pretty good. But I felt that red and orange just tasted like chemicals and the purple one like cough syrup.
I went back through with the Skittles Blenders and had a much better experience. That's what I'm going to share with you.
The first thing you need to do is choose your color (or colors). I used a mix of pink (Strawberry Lime Blast) and yellow-orange (Mango Lemonade Freeze). An entire bag of Skittles will make about one and a half liters/quarts, so all of two colors makes about twenty ounces.
The first thing you do is add the vodka to your jar of Skittles. They should start to melt just about immediately. If you look closely you'll be able to see the color sloughing off of them.
More updates soon, I hope! I have a few more waiting to go.
My first batch was with the classic Skittles. I split them up by color and did each one separately. I did end up mixing yellow and green ("lemon" and "lime"), which was pretty good. But I felt that red and orange just tasted like chemicals and the purple one like cough syrup.
I went back through with the Skittles Blenders and had a much better experience. That's what I'm going to share with you.
The first thing you need to do is choose your color (or colors). I used a mix of pink (Strawberry Lime Blast) and yellow-orange (Mango Lemonade Freeze). An entire bag of Skittles will make about one and a half liters/quarts, so all of two colors makes about twenty ounces.
The first thing you do is add the vodka to your jar of Skittles. They should start to melt just about immediately. If you look closely you'll be able to see the color sloughing off of them.
 |  |
More updates soon, I hope! I have a few more waiting to go.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Enchiladas
Welcome back to Cooking with Charles... now with Sarah!
This is a recipe based loosely on something I found here. It was surprisingly difficult to find a recipe which didn't require the use of canned cream of chicken soup.
I suspect that the exact recipe is pretty flexible here; it's basically just a bunch of stuff, rolled up in a tortilla and stuck in the oven until hot.
Ingredients:
***This was spicy. I recommend using only half this amount of cayenne in the future.
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Rub chicken with cayenne, garlic, salt, and pepper (the ones listed before butter). Drain diced tomatoes, reserving juice. Add water or broth to the juice until you have 2 cups of fluid. Put the chicken, rice, beans, and tomato juice in a baking dish. Add about half of the tomato chunks. Bake until the chicken is no longer pink and the rice is done, about 45 minutes.
Set aside the rice and beans. Shred the chicken with a pair of forks and set it aside.
Put the butter, onions, and peppers in a frying pan and stir over medium heat until the onions start to become clear. Stir in cream cheese and spices until smooth. Stir in the chicken and set aside.
Mix the can of enchilada sauce into the remaining half of the tomato chunks. Pour half of the sauce into the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Wrap the enchiladas (shown) and put them, seam side down, in the pan. They may overlap some; I ended up fitting 8 in one pan and putting the other two in a separate pan. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top. Add shredded cheese, olives, and green onions. Bake until the insides are bubbly, about 30 minutes.
At this point you may need to reheat the rice and beans (you might as well put them in the oven for the last five minutes of baking). Serve with salsa, sour cream, avocados, chips, and whatever else sounds good. Serves 6-8.
These are delicious. The only change I would make, as I said before, is reducing the amount of cayenne. I think more enchilada sauce would be appropriate as well -- the online recipe recommended a 28 ounce can, not a 10 ounce one. That would make it a lot goopier, as I suppose most enchiladas are, but I wouldn't say it's necessary.
One thing to note about this recipe is that it takes a long time. Overall the chicken spends 75 minutes in the oven so preparation time will be around two hours, perhaps a bit more.
I will be making these again.
This is a recipe based loosely on something I found here. It was surprisingly difficult to find a recipe which didn't require the use of canned cream of chicken soup.
I suspect that the exact recipe is pretty flexible here; it's basically just a bunch of stuff, rolled up in a tortilla and stuck in the oven until hot.
Ingredients:
| 1/2 pound | chicken breast |
| 1 cup | dry rice |
| 1 (10 oz) can | black beans |
| 1 (28 oz) can | diced tomatoes |
| 1 | garlic clove, crushed |
| 1 tsp*** | cayenne pepper |
| salt and pepper | |
| 6 tsp | butter |
| 1 | large onion, chopped |
| 1/2 | red bell pepper, chopped |
| 2 | jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced |
| 1 (8 oz) box | cream cheese |
| 1/2 tsp*** | cayenne pepper |
| 1 | garlic clove, crushed |
| 1/2 tsp | paprika |
| 1/2 tsp | chili powder |
| 1/2 tsp | ground cumin |
| 1 (10 oz) can | red enchilada sauce |
| 10 | small flour tortillas |
| 1 (4 oz) can | sliced black olives |
| 1/2 cup | green onions, chopped |
| shredded cheddar cheese |
***This was spicy. I recommend using only half this amount of cayenne in the future.
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Rub chicken with cayenne, garlic, salt, and pepper (the ones listed before butter). Drain diced tomatoes, reserving juice. Add water or broth to the juice until you have 2 cups of fluid. Put the chicken, rice, beans, and tomato juice in a baking dish. Add about half of the tomato chunks. Bake until the chicken is no longer pink and the rice is done, about 45 minutes.
Set aside the rice and beans. Shred the chicken with a pair of forks and set it aside.
 |  |
Put the butter, onions, and peppers in a frying pan and stir over medium heat until the onions start to become clear. Stir in cream cheese and spices until smooth. Stir in the chicken and set aside.
 | |
|---|---|
 |  |
Mix the can of enchilada sauce into the remaining half of the tomato chunks. Pour half of the sauce into the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Wrap the enchiladas (shown) and put them, seam side down, in the pan. They may overlap some; I ended up fitting 8 in one pan and putting the other two in a separate pan. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top. Add shredded cheese, olives, and green onions. Bake until the insides are bubbly, about 30 minutes.
At this point you may need to reheat the rice and beans (you might as well put them in the oven for the last five minutes of baking). Serve with salsa, sour cream, avocados, chips, and whatever else sounds good. Serves 6-8.
These are delicious. The only change I would make, as I said before, is reducing the amount of cayenne. I think more enchilada sauce would be appropriate as well -- the online recipe recommended a 28 ounce can, not a 10 ounce one. That would make it a lot goopier, as I suppose most enchiladas are, but I wouldn't say it's necessary.
One thing to note about this recipe is that it takes a long time. Overall the chicken spends 75 minutes in the oven so preparation time will be around two hours, perhaps a bit more.
I will be making these again.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Pasta Salad
Ingredients:
Procedure:
Prepare pasta as directed. Stir the broccoli in right away to get a little steam on it; it will still be crunchy but the florets will be greener. Then allow everything to cool (to avoid melting the cheese or wilting the tomatoes). Stir in everything else.
I would not use the mini pepperoni again; they are prone to sticking to the sides of the bowl. I would also recommend red or yellow bell peppers instead of green. It was very sharp. I guess some people liked them, though, so that's up to the cook.
Overall, this is a very tasty and easy recipe. Maybe it's not particularly healthy, with tons of cheese and salami and dressing, but it's not that bad. There are some fresh veggies in here. And it's huge; it'll make lunches for a week.
| 1.3 lb | Pasta (approx) (I prefer whole wheat fusilli because it holds a lot of salad dressing) |
| 1 | head broccoli florets |
| 1/3 lb | salami, cubed |
| 1/3 lb | sharp cheddar, cubed |
| 1/3 lb | sharp monterey jack, cubed |
| 12 oz | italian salad dressing |
| 10 | green olives |
| 1 | green bell pepper, chopped |
| 15 | grape tomatoes, halved |
| 1 bunch | mini pepperoni |
Procedure:
Prepare pasta as directed. Stir the broccoli in right away to get a little steam on it; it will still be crunchy but the florets will be greener. Then allow everything to cool (to avoid melting the cheese or wilting the tomatoes). Stir in everything else.
I would not use the mini pepperoni again; they are prone to sticking to the sides of the bowl. I would also recommend red or yellow bell peppers instead of green. It was very sharp. I guess some people liked them, though, so that's up to the cook.
Overall, this is a very tasty and easy recipe. Maybe it's not particularly healthy, with tons of cheese and salami and dressing, but it's not that bad. There are some fresh veggies in here. And it's huge; it'll make lunches for a week.
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