In the interest of expanding your horizons on many different fronts, I have decided, after long hours of deep thought, not to restrain this column by assigning a theme to it. What's a theme anyway? Just a rough guideline, more limiting that helpful. More constricting than enlightening. Much harder to write. Strike that last line. I will not be burdened by a theme and neither should you. No need to thank me, it's the least I can do. Dear Professor, Red M&M's are back after years of being off the market. Why were they taken off and why are they back? For the last 25 years or so science has taken extraordinary steps to ruin people's lives by identifying danger- ous substances that are in items we come in daily contact with. Bacon, eggs, milk and the air we breathe have all been found to contain certain elements which can be harmful. During one of these searches/witch hunts a food dye known as Red Dye No. 2 was identified as containing a carcinogen. As usual with humans, you all went nuts. Any food that was pink, maroon, crimson or any shade that even reminded someone of red was labeled a killer. As a response to the general panic, the Mars Company, makers of M&M's candies, pulled the red M&M's despite the fact they did not contain the allegedly dangerous Red Dye No. 2. Since then, red M&M's have made annual appearances in special "holiday" packaging, but have been absent from the regular package. Until now. Why are they back now? One would hope that people have gotten smart enough to realize that the food companies of the world are not out to kill them. Or maybe we've just been without red M&M's long enough. Dear Professor, I heard that English is soon to become the official language of the world. Is this true? I hope so, I failed Spanish in high school. Well, mi amigo, it looks like the numbers will protect you from being labeled a secular illiterate. While there is no official world language as of yet, there are a couple that are leading the linguistic pack. Here's how they stack up: the most widespread first language is Mandarin Chinese used by 726 million people, the majority of which live in China. 397 million people speak English every day and an additional 400 million boast of using English as a second language pushing the total number of speakers over 797 million. Placing a distant third is Russian with 274 million, Hindi is next with 254 million and Spanish checks in with 251 million. Why is English so popular? Several reasons: for many years England was the number one world power spreading its customs and language around the globe, today the United States is a very influential country on many fronts including language and, lastly, English, while extremely complex, is a very versatile and flexible communi- cation tool. So, if you don't go back and complete your Spanish studies only 251 million people will think you're illiterate. And don't forget to practice your English or you'll wind up like the millions of people who claim to speak English, but use (or should I say abuse) the language only well enough to get by. From all the prehistoric paintings preserved on cave walls we can safely assume that most early humans lived in caves. Right? If I ever get picked up on a murder charge I don't want you to defend me, okay? Are there caves every place there are people? Are there caves on the vast plains of Africa where some of the oldest remnants of man have been found? No. True, some early humans did dwell in caves, but not all. Not even most. Even back then there were more people than places to put them. Therefore the majority of people lived out in the open where they were forced to utilize their superior brainpower to construct some shelter. (Yes, Virginia, the origins of tract housing.) So, you ask, why does all the existing evidence suggest everyone lived in caves? Because paintings protected inside caves last longer than paintings on open rock faces. Think about that the next time you see some graffiti under a bridge. Dear Prof., I'm all for progress. I'm all for security. But now, in the interest of security, my mind is crowded with numbers. I need my automatic teller machine code, brief- case lock combination, building code ID, security clearance number. I can't remember them all! Professor, oh Professor, is there any help in sight? Hang in there, my friend, help is on the way. But don't get a swelled head; it's not coming just for your sake. The problem isn't your memory, it's security. They need more. You see, your little code numbers, which you've dutifully memorized, aren't secure enough. If someone wanted to get money from your checking account all they'd need is your ATM card and your number. That's it. Coming to the rescue is biometric security. Straight from a low budget spy movie, these systems examine what you are instead of what numbers you know. Among these nifty machines are boxes that examine your fingerprint, hand geometry, voice pattern or the vessels on the back of your eyeball. Not only will these systems make your things more secure and your memory less cluttered, they'll make fewer mistakes. Fingerprint readers reject one user in a thousand and only let in one bad guy in a million. Retina readers register only one mistake in a million in both categories. The hand geometry readers measure finger length, palm size and skin translu- cency and produce 25 errors out of a thousand. That's not bad considering the whole system can be yours for the low, low price of $8,800. And wouldn't your neighbors be impressed if you were the first on your block with a biometrically secured garage door opener? Dear Professor, anyone who knows anything about cooking will tell you that France is the center of the culinary universe. So why is it that England, only a few miles away, has the worst food ever created by man? There's an old anecdote about two Frenchmen who are touring the English countryside. One says to the other, "This is some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen." The other replies, "Thank God they can't cook it." Yes, you're right, English food is terrible, but most people don't know that. Not many have eaten it and lived to tell. Now, I don't know how it is where you live, but here I can eat at a French restaurant, or I can go Mexican, or Japanese, Thai, Viet- namese, Chinese (Hunan or Szechuan), Italian, German, Hungarian, Indian, Greek, Czech and for dessert I can swing by a Swiss chocolatier. You'll note the conspicuous absence of restaurants featuring tan meat covered with a heavy gray sauce; otherwise known as English food. Why on earth would anyone want to eat bread pudding and kidney pie? Real live Britishers claim to like these things. So how did they get stuck eating this stuff? It seems that the food most nations call their own is derived from things that are indigenous to their land. America is known as the home of the hamburger. They are made of beef, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and bread - all things plentiful in this country. Well, in England it doesn't work out so nicely. They have a lot of people living there and all there is to eat is fish, sheep and potatoes. I won't go into detail concerning what these raw materials wind up as. Suffice to say you'd rather not know. Despite all this, we have the English to thank for what we've come to know as classical French cuisine. It seems that many of France's greatest chefs perfected their crafts while in England. For example, Chef Escoffier, the father of classical French cookery, perfected many of his classic dishes while employed at London's Savoy Hotel. Additionally, the English popularized French wines by importing them in large quantities. (God only knows what English wine tastes like. And do you serve red or white with kidney pie?) What I'm saying is that if the English didn't have such awful food, we wouldn't have the delights of French food and drink. Now if they could just do something about the service. Now wasn't that nice? We don't need a theme. Just the ol' Professor and his readers just broadening out onto the horizon. Riding off into the informational sunset. Going where no column has gone before. Is this thing long enough now?
