Monday, March 01, 2010

More for the Misc. category

Kim bought some soy cheese to try. Our picky youngest daughter is actually willing to eat it, or at least she has eaten it two or three times now. I tried a little of it, and it wasn't bad.

 

Ways in which is resembles cheese:

- It is orange and comes in a block

- It is possible to chew it and swallow it

 

Beyond that, calling it "cheese" is really a stretch. In both taste and texture it reminded me of olives from a jar, though milder and tenderer. That's not necessarily bad, although if you're expecting something cheese-like it can be a little jarring. I think I would like it best on a burger.

 

***

 

Another question from a 4-year-old, as we drove in the van yesterday: What makes the earth stay floating in the air?

 

I found that one almost as tough as describing how a TV works. The TV one was hard because I only have a very vague understanding, and that understanding probably is even poorer now that the technology is dominated by modern flat-screen TVs and similar displays.  However, even though I don't *really* know what gravity is, I at least have a basic grasp of how it functions.  Trying to relate this to the experiences of a little girls was the hard part; I came up with three or four attempts at answering, but Kim kept buzzing me and saying, "Try again."  It just occurred to me that if I were somehow able to describe my understanding of how it all worked in terms that she was actually able to immediately grasp and understand, she would laugh at the absurdity of it and tell me I was making up stories.


 
 

2 comments:

  1. Whatever happened to the Earth balanced on top of an endless stack of turtles? You can always take the AIG approach and say "God did it." Either way, I'm proud of my nieces and the questions they ask and hope they never stop asking them.

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  2. You should relentlessly criticize Jillian for her failure to frame her questions properly.

    The leading nature of these queries leaves you no alternative but to point out their faulty epistemological underpinnings. Her premise, viz., that the Earth "floats in the air" to begin with, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of astrophysics that must be exposed for what it is: willful ignorance.

    Similarly, the "picture on the TV" most certainly does not "walk and move"; rather, silicon and gallium arsenide molecules conspire to fool our optic nerves into sending illusions of movement to our trusting brains.

    As for Cheerios: Kobolds make them. Duh.

    The undersigned respectfully requests that Jillian's questions be re-worded to comport with the basic tenets of reasoned human discourse.

    George Schuhmann,
    Attorney-at-Law

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I'm eager to hear your thoughts!