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Restaurants with No Television

R. Horton

Eating a meal without having to see or hear a television greatly enhances my enjoyment of the food. That being the case, I’ve decided to compile a list of television-free restaurants. If you happen to know of others to add to the list, let me know in the comments or through email. no tv

I will begin with these:

A Moveable Feast
9341 Katy Fwy
Houston, TX 77024

Auntie Chang’s Dumpling House
2621 S Shepherd Dr Ste 290
Houston, TX 77098

Doshi House
3419 Dowling
Houston, TX 77004

Field of Greens
2320 West Alabama
Houston, TX 77098

Jenni’s Noodle House
602 E 20th St. (other locations may also be television free, but I haven’t checked)
Houston, TX 77008

Nidda Thai Cuisine
1226 Westheimer
Houston, TX 77006

Ruggles Green in the Heights
748 E 11th St
Houston, TX 77008

I hope others will respond with television-free dining options.

Curmudgeon Rant: “We don’t have small.”

R. Horton

I went to see a movie yesterday, which is something I don’t often do, and I decided to order a coffee, which is something I do even less frequently. When I got to the counter, the menu said “Cappuccino, $4/$5.” It was refreshing to see that the sizes didn’t have silly names, really.

So, I ordered a small cappuccino, and the cashier told me (I should have predicted it) that they do not have small cappuccinos. I would have to choose either a medium or a large. Of course, I do know that the United States, as a group of people, has become addicted to diabetes-inducing portions of food and drink.  I also happen to think they shouldn’t force us to choose between oversized drinks and super-oversized drinks, but that isn’t what makes it the most annoying.

The most annoying thing for me is the fact that I truly do not believe anyone ever asked for a small without wanting the smallest size available. No one ever said, “Oh, you don’t have small? I will have a large then.” No, it is quite clear that anyone who asks for a small wants the $4 drink and not the $5 drink. Why rub our faces in the fact that we can’t actually order the size drink we want?

We are the 85 percent

R. Horton

Over the years, I have had several people in healthcare tell me that about 85 percent of patients in doctor’s waiting rooms have no medical problem that won’t take care of itself with a little time and patience, but patients have been trained to demand treatment for every ache and pain. I’m sure this made-up statistic does not appear in print or as part of any official statement, but there is a feeling that mildly sick people are a drain on a system that is already overloaded.

 It isn’t a small concern, and doctors are not entirely to blame. Patients do sometimes demand treatments that are counterproductive, which has led to the excessive overuse of antibiotics, for example. Of course, patient perception is that doctors prescribed the antibiotics, leading them to believe they are effective for mild earaches and colds. Doctors say they feel pressure from patients to “do something” about their mild condition. Patients and doctors both feel they are doing what the other is directing them to do. I would guess that about 85 percent of doctors and patients feel this way, if I were to start making up statistics.

 The result is that patients can become pushy and demanding or that doctors can become resentful of needy patients. And both conditions arise, I think, from a misunderstanding of the wishes of the other. I honestly don’t think either side wants to waste time or money on useless treatments. So, “communication is the key” to a better doctor-patient relationship, or so the shibboleth goes.

 But it is more complicated that that, of course. When I was quite a bit younger, a member of my family began having fairly vague complaints and discomfort that prompted her to see her doctor. She was overweight. She smoked. She rarely got exercise at all. The doctor told her to lose weight, stop smoking, and check back in a few months. Each time she went to the doctor, she received the same advice, even if the wording changed a little, but her symptoms became more pronounced and harder to ignore.

 Finally, the doctor ordered a biopsy, which was positive for colon cancer. She was then referred to an oncologist. On their first meeting, he said, “I wish you had come to me sooner before it had spread.” Perhaps he didn’t mean to blame her for her cancer or for her lack of treatment, but that is certainly how she heard it.  Too many of us who have experience with cancer in our families have heard, “I wish you would have come sooner,” even when the patient has been seeing a doctor regularly for months or years.

 So, patients are in a bind. If we go to the doctor at the first sign of a problem, we may be seen as hypochondriacs or as clingy whiners. If we wait till the symptoms manifest themselves more boldly, we may be blamed for neglecting our own health and causing our own deaths. Given this choice, most of us would rather be seen as frivolous. We say things like, “I’m sure it is nothing, but I watched my loved one suffer, and I won’t make the same mistake.”

 This is why healthcare providers need to show a little understanding. With the possible exception of a few individuals with some rare psychological conditions, people don’t go to the doctor for the fun of it. They trust their doctors to tell them whether their symptoms are serious enough to warrant further attention, and they aren’t looking to waste time, money, or resources. To be on the safe side, I try to tell my doctors that I only want treatments that are both necessary and effective. This takes, I hope, the burden off the doctor to “do something, anything” for me.

 

China, England, and the profusion of human emotions

R. Horton

Given his recent meteoric rise to international celebrity, I felt compelled to read something by Mo Yan. As I’m reading from translation, I don’t think I am at all qualified to comment on the literary merit of his work, but his characters capture China as I remember it. Contrary to stereotypes, his characters exhibit a massive profusion of emotions—they scream, break down crying, and are overcome with lust as their libido drives them to distraction. The characters are sometimes admonished that they really should try to keep it together as it is unbecoming to be so overwrought.

Before I went to spend a semester in China, I tried to get advice from books, people from China, and people who had worked in China. I was told that losing control of my emotions would be a terrible thing, as I would lose face. Many who talk about China stress the importance of losing face as if having a mental and emotional breakdown in the rest of the world will be met with complete acceptance or even admiration. So, I was quite surprised to arrive in Beijing and see frequent and extreme departures from the assumed equanimity of Chinese people. Perhaps the emotional nature of the people is why their society has emerged to keep emotions under strict control—or at least save it for private moments.

I had similar experiences confronting British culture. The more British people I meet, the more baffled I am by the stereotype of “British reserve.” Really, if you just look at a crowd shot at any English football game or walk through any pub after hours, you are likely to understand the phrase “spontaneous overflow of emotion” better than the stuff about having a “stiff upper lip.” People in Britain, as far as I can tell, celebrate with gusto, compete with passion, and love with intensity, despite constant reminders to stay calm. When I posed this question, my wife, who is English, postulated that the emotional nature of the English is why they needed all those signs reminding them to “keep calm.” And they did keep calm, when they needed to in order to survive, and the Chinese keep calm if necessary, but humans need full emotional lives to be fully human.

And this is what separates us from machines. Descartes postulated that machines could not ever think. If machines do think, he said, they will be able to express thoughts using language. Much later, Alan Turing developed the Turing Test of artificial intelligence, which claimed that we can test for human intelligence by seeing how well the machine can use language. If it uses language in the manner of a human, it will have human consciousness. Now, many of us walk around with electronic devices that are personal assistants that carry on conversations with us. I am not sure whether Turing would give them the stamp of human consciousness, but Siri is at least approaching conversational levels of language, with limitations, of course.

But Siri doesn’t seem to become exasperated, lovelorn, ecstatic, or depressed. Even if she appears to, we aren’t likely to believe it, at least as first. Robot designers are making impressive improvements in the facial and bodily expressions of emotions in machines.  If machines are able to convincingly display a wide range of human expression, we may not be convinced machines actually feel these things, but we may start to wonder whether our fellow humans actually feel what they are expressing. And in that state of confusion (as some of us already are), we will be truly alone.