Coffee heat rising

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News You Can Believe (More or less) (Free, mostly)

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News hunger! Several readers remarked happily when I mentioned some of my favorite news sites the other day. We Netizens have a bottomless pit of news and play-nooz sites from which to build our powerfully held opinions. So many of them do we have that it’s difficult to discern which are reliable, credible sources.

But lo! I have a list — in the form of FireFox’s list of all my bookmarks of news sites. From that, it’s fairly easy to generate a page showing some of the Web’s best places to keep abreast of current happenings. As I remarked the other day, NPR, PBS, and BBC are probably the best of the bunch, in terms of objectivity and intelligence. USA Today is also an excellent source of national and international news, with less pretension to high-browitude. The Christian Science Monitor, interestingly enough, is still a fine source of objective reportage.

As we know, some excellent reporting takes place at newspapers that have an editorial slant. Below, a few from the left and from the right. And given the presence of agenda reporting, it’s important to have a strong Bullshit Detector…or three. I use them all. Frequently.

Investigative reporting is expensive for an organization to underwrite and requires special skills. As a result, we hardly ever see it in local publications, and it has become fairly rare in national media. This is not good: investigative reporting is what the Fourth Estate is all about, and it is the reason freedom of the press is key to keeping America free. Fortunately, investigative reporters live on, largely supported by nonprofits and specialized groups.

And of course, our lives would not be complete without our daily dose of business and science reporting.

National, International, and General News

NPR News

Minnesota Public Radio

San Francisco Public Radio

Los Angeles Public Radio

Boston Public Radio

Phoenix Public Radio

PBS Newshour

BBC

Christian Science Monitor

USA Today

News with an Agenda

New York Times (paywall after limited number of views)

Washington Post (paywall after limited number of views)

CNN

Fox News

Drudge Report

Bullshit Detectors

Snopes

Politifact

Suburban Myths

Investigative & In-Depth

Investigative Reporters & Editors

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Center for Media & Democracy

Reveal

The Intercept

Center for Public Integrity

Pro Publica

BuzzFeed

Mother Jones

Business

Marketwatch

Consumer Affairs

Business Week (ad-blocker blocker)

Wall Street Journal (paywall)

Forbes (adblock blocker)

The Business Journals

Science

Sci-News

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Nature

Scientific American

Medpage Today

Retraction Watch

Smithsonian Magazine (paywall after limited number of views)

Aviation Week & Space Technology

One of these days (later!), I’ll list these links in a sidebar. So, watch this space…

 

 

Good Cheap Coffee!

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All right, all right: where else, eh?

Costco.

To my astonishment, Costco carries some decent whole-bean coffees. Not great, but very much on the high side of acceptable. And the stuff is cheap beyond belief.

As you’ll recall, the really good stuff comes from “The Little Guy,”* my favorite local supplier, at $15 a pound — rather more than I care to pay on a regular basis. AJ’s, my former favorite supplier and gourmet grocery market, charges about $12 a pound, but they apparently changed suppliers a few months ago. The espresso is no longer an especially dark roast, and the quality of the bean itself is noticeably inferior to what it used to be. Whole Foods here quit selling bulk coffee. Sprouts’s bulk coffee is excruciatingly bad. Eventually I found an “organic” bulk coffee at the fancy Fry’s supermarket on the fringe of Richistan, where a pound goes for about nine bucks.

And that’s what I’ve been buying: it’s pretty good. Certainly not up to The Little Guy’s product. But more than good enough for gummint work.

The other day I was at Costco with some friends. They use one of those Keurig things, so we were in the coffee aisle looking for their preferred variety of pod. This was an exception for me, because I never go into the coffee aisle there, having been told that all the coffee at Costco is Starbucks.

I personally don’t care for Starbucks coffee. In my experience, it’s low-flavor plonk whose highest and best use is to serve as a medium into which to pour sugar, cream, and artificial flavors. Yuck! The only way to get a halfway decent cup of coffee at a Starbucks is to ask for a café Americano. That will elicit a brew that tastes approximately like a decent cup of restaurant coffee. Which ain’t sayin’ much, but it’s better than what they sell as regular “coffee.”

So anyway, we’re mucking around in the coffee aisle and I happen to notice they carry a “Kirkland” brand, which appears to be different from the bags of “Starbucks” that populate most of their shelves of whole beans. Hm. Read the label: it doesn’t say it’s produced by Starbucks…but that means nothing, since Costco tends to be secretive about its suppliers. And it’s only NINE BUCKS for a fine Costco lifetime supply! A vast, bottomless bag of dark-roast coffee beans beckons.

They also had a make labeled “San Francisco,” hard to resist with a name like that. But the Kirkland was cheaper . . . and . . . why not? It comes in a three-pound bag, enough to last me a month or so. Nine dollah isn’t enough to bankrupt me…if I hate it, I’ll just donate it to someone’s cause. Or…hell, it’s Costco: you can bring ANYTHING back. 🙂

 Grabbed that. Turns out to be surprisingly good. Not as exquisite as The Little Guy’s, but very, very good. Better than the Fry’s organic dark roast. Significantly better than AJ’s. And light-years superior to Sprouts.

A month later, having consumed most of the Kirkland bag, I decided to try the “San Francisco” label. It also is pretty good. Not as good as the Kirkland dark roast, but highly creditable. About the same as Fry’s, I’d say. Better than AJ’s, better than Sprouts, surely better than Starbucks.

You can buy this stuff at Amazon, BTW, for a lot more than it costs in the store, and the natives seem to like it: Consumer reviews there range upwards of four stars. Then we have a guy who styles himself as a coffee expert: he loves the stuff. Whether that article is a paid post, I do not know…if it is, I hope he got paid plenty for it, because he goes all out in reviewing the Kirkland varieties. On the coffees I’ve tried, though, I have to say I’d agree with him.

WhatEVER. Give me upward of a month’s worth of decent whole-bean coffee, and you’ve bought my soul…

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*Not the store’s name. The affable proprietor was dubbed “The Little Guy” by SDXB within a week of the store’s opening. It’s a tiny coffeehouse in a Walmart shopping center situated on Gangbanger’s Way — draws its clientele from local retirees and from the medical staff at the huge urban medical center across the road.

No, i do NOT know what that is

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WHY WordPress has kindly decided to reproduce November 4’s post in the sidebar, I do not know. A query is out to the Web guru. Meanwhile, stop that laughing!

Groceries: Online or In Person?

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A thing of the past?

Here’s an amusement: Whilst Amazon makes a grab for Whole Foods, cheapies down its offerings, and turns it into an order-out joint, Aldi is going in the opposite direction: Opening newer and fancier stores, spiffing up the existing properties, and targeting customers who prefer to buy their groceries in brick-and-mortar establishments.

Interesting development, isn’t it? Aldi, according to the report linked above, is betting the farm (heh!) on the proposition that most people would rather shop for groceries in person, especially where fresh products are concerned.

Though it’s a huge risk, it makes sense when viewed in some lights. Given the traditionally low profit margins in the grocery business (typically around 5 percent), dropping your margin to somewhere around 3 percent for the privilege of letting shoppers order online and have stuff delivered has a whiff of suicide about it.

Also, it’s reasonable to suspect that a large number of shoppers may prefer to buy in person, for a variety of reasons. Some may prefer brick-&-mortar shopping all the time; some may find it more convenient to pick up food on the fly some of the time — and they may prefer to do the picking up in a real supermarket with substantial offerings, not in a Circle K.

This may apply to the young and the techie as well as to us cranky old fossils. Last night, for example, my son invited me over for dinner. He kindly made us a pizza, but realized he was missing a couple of items and he didn’t have a bottle of wine. A ten-minute trip to the Fry’s Supermarket around the corner caused these items to materialize… We didn’t have to search for them online, and we didn’t have to wait hours or a day to have them delivered. Obviously, when you order online, someone has to find your items, package them, ship them, pick them up at the warehouse, drive them across the city, and deposit them at your doorstep. That isn’t going to happen in 15 or 20 minutes.

As for us old folks: we’ve been around the grocery-delivery block.

Some time ago, I decided to try ordering up a week’s worth of groceries from the local Safeway. How wonderful, I imagined, not to have to get in the car, traipse through the homicidal traffic, trudge through the store, stand in line to pay, drag the stuff out to the car, and drive back home through said homicidal traffic.

And online grocery shopping would be wonderful. If it worked.

It probably would indeed work for a certain kind of buyer. If you subsist mostly on restaurant food and, when at home, on processed, packaged food, door-to-door grocery delivery would no doubt be highly successful for you.

But if you’re into real foods, unprocessed foods, fresh foods: not so much. The problem is, grocery-store clerks haven’t a clue about selecting fresh fruits and vegetables. What I got when I made the ballyhooed delivery order was under-ripe tomatoes, over-ripe fruit, and wilted lettuce. They don’t eat that kind of stuff, and so they do not know how a fresh melon or a fresh bunch of asparagus is supposed to look.

Nor do they know how to select a decent cut of meat.

Consequently, what you get is not very good — certainly not worth the price you pay for it.

I think the growing popularity of “organic” foods suggests that a number of people — maybe a lot of people — do care about the quality of the food they consume. And possibly that a larger number than you might expect prepare food in their homes.

My son for example, can make a pizza that you simply cannot buy at any pizzeria or grocery counter. Why would he want (for example) a random bag of soggy mushrooms delivered when he’s building a really first-rate meal?

It’ll be interesting to see what develops.

Meanwhile, while we’re watching: what’s your preference in grocery-shopping: on-line or in person?

An Era Ends

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Sunday was our beloved choir director‘s grand finale, his last day before his (we expect) even more grand retirement. The choir loft was packed with present and former singers, all come to celebrate Scott’s gifts and to say goodbye.

Scott’s tenure has been pretty amazing. He combined a crew of professionally trained singers with the usual set of amateur churchgoers to create a highly polished sound and earn national and international recognition. The choir has toured the world, even singing in the Sistine Chapel. All this was going on while he conducted a group of choristers and worked on the school’s music program and established an annual Bach festival.

It will be interesting to see if the new guy can fill those shoes. A nationwide search was launched, and we (the choir) auditioned three finalists. All were very impressive. Of the three that we sang with, I thought either of two would be an admirable replacement…an opinion shared by just about everyone. To my delight, they hired the one I personally happened to favor ( 🙂 ). Now we shall see…

By the strangest of coincidences, the man who got me onto the choir, Fr. Carl Carlozzi, died on the very morning of our last service with Scott.

Carl was rector and headmaster at the time my son was attending the school. We were tangentially connected in some other odd ways — he married, for example, the very lovely ex-wife of one of my ex’s clients. After a notably successful career at All Saints, Carl followed his calling to become a volunteer chaplain for the Phoenix Fire Department.

At any rate, he was still there back when I showed SDXB the door, leaving myself in blessed peace. After awhile, though, enough blessed peace was enough: I began to realize that I needed to get a life…and it needed NOT to be an offshoot of the Great Desert University. Since “Social” is not my middle name, I really had no idea where to look to find a life. So one day I presented myself to Carl and asked, in effect, “How do you go about getting a life?”

Said he: “I know: you can join the choir!”

I thought, “Choir???”

Brooking no dissent, he picked up the phone and called Scott into his office. When presented with me, Scott said, “I’ll take what I can get.”

And that is saying something. Surely even he had no clue how ignorant of music I was (and by and large remain). Deep in the lovely Rub al’Khali, there was no such thing as music instruction. I never took music lessons. Never practiced the piano (because I didn’t even know what the keys were supposed to do). Although I basically knew what a staff and musical notes were for, I couldn’t begin to read music. Once I tried to teach myself to play the guitar, but without others to learn with, that was a forlorn hope.

But even the densest of ignoramuses could not fail to appreciate the breathtaking beauty of the music that Scott provided, week in and week out, for that congregation. Or to appreciate the amazing accomplishment involved in getting us all to sing it and make it sound pretty darned good.

Over time, thanks to Scott’s amazing patience and teaching skill, I managed to learn to follow along. Nowadays I can even sort of figure out what a piece of music might sound like by looking at the score. Placed next to a professional or near-professional singer, I can follow along fairly convincingly…given enough practice.

Did I get a life? Well, that probably was never in the cards, since I don’t make friends easily. But I did meet a lot of people whose company is pleasant, and choir does provide a twice-weekly junket out in public.

Nothing lasts forever. All things pass.

I’m sad to see two icons of a lively and creative era move on. But I look forward to the next stage: let us hope it will be just as productive…or maybe even more so.

Fun & Games with Equifax

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Amazing. A hundred and forty-three million people get all their private financial information stolen from Equifax, an organization that snoops into your business and accrues data about you without your permission — without encrypting said data. Adding to this latest entry in the Annals of the Floored and Flabbergasted, Equifax executives knew what was coming down the pike, so sold their stock in the company before the news hit the street.

So. If your personal information hasn’t already been stolen, chances are pretty good it’s gone now: 143 million is one in two Americans who may be a victim of this latest heist. What can you do?

You’re not helpless, interestingly enough: there are several strategies that will help protect against the effects of identity theft.

• Freeze your credit bureau accounts. You have to call all three credit bureaus to have each one apply a freeze. It ensures that no one — including you — can set up a new bank account, credit card, mortgage, or the like without your knowing about it.

This is probably the best move you can make. It does add some hassle to your life. Any time you want to take out a loan or open a new bank account, you have to un-freeze at least one account — usually Experian. This is made slightly less inconvenient by the fact that you can limit the period that it’s unfrozen, having it refreeze after x number of days. Which sounds good until you realize that you have no way of getting the people your dealing with off the dime: invariably, they don’t get around to asking for a credit report until after the un-frozen period ends.

• Monitor your credit card and bank account statements. You should be doing this anyway, but now that’s even more true. Check each statement promptly after it arrives for any transactions you don’t recognize, and if you suspect fraud, call the card issuer or bank immediately.

• Set up fraud monitoring on your accounts. Equifax proposes to give its victims a year of free fraud monitoring — conveniently, through its own subsidiary.

This is problematic. First, one year of monitoring ain’t much. If bad guys have your Social Security number, you don’t have a year-long problem: your problem is going to last the rest of your life. After that year, you’re going to have to pay for the privilege. And second, if you sign up for the service offered by Equifax, you have to give up your right to sue the bastards — or to be part of a class action suit.

There is some wrong-doing here: they knew about this on July 29, plenty of time for the higher-ups to unload stock. We proles didn’t learn that our personal data was on the way to the Dark Web until yesterday. So no: you do not want to forego your right to sue, and no: you do not want to agree to accept arbitration.

Paid identity fraud monitoring is probably unnecessary. You can accomplish the same thing for free or for very little by freezing your credit bureau accounts, keeping a sharp eye on your financial statements, and also checking the EOB (explanation of benefits) statements that come from your health insurer for any treatments you didn’t receive.

• For free, you can monitor your credit reports. By law, credit bureaus are required to give you one free credit report a year. Since three credit bureaus dominate the privacy-invasion landscape, you can arrange to stagger requests for reports, so that one comes in every four months, giving you a recurring view of activities reported to the credit bureaus.

The federal government has a free identity theft recovery program for people who believe they’ve been victimized. When you review the complicated, time-consuming steps required to respond to an attack on your identity, you realize exactly how serious this vast breach is. It is, in a word, a fiasco.