First Asian Boy

What’s in skin color?

“Our original estimates were that [skin color changes] occurred perhaps at a more stately pace,” Jablonski says. But now they’re finding that a population can be one color light or dark and 100 generations later — with no intermarriage — be a very different color.

—npr

Italy bans kebabs and foreign food from cities

This is some major bullshit.

Apparently, Italy wants to ban “foreign” foods from its cities. Even though:

The San Marzano tomato, a staple ingredient of Italian pasta sauces, was a gift from Peru to the Kingdom of Naples in the 18th century. Even spaghetti, it is thought, was brought back from China by Marco Polo, and oranges and lemons came from the Arab world.

While race, culture, nationalism and immigration are certainly complex and hard to quantify and legislate. The only thing, perhaps more complex and even harder to quantify is cuisine! Italian food, as we know it today, has more imported products in it that without them it would resemble perhaps more Greek food than any other.

I mean, no tomato sauce, no pasta, no peppers?! What are you left with? Bread, cheese and olives. That’s it.

But more importantly, this is obviously an affront to immigrants in Italy and the growing European back-lash against non-European immigration. Of course, they deny this, but if you hate a culture’s food to the point of banning it, how much of a logical leap does one have to make to hate the people who produce that culture and food?

Massimo Di Grazia, the city spokesman, said that the ban was intended to improve the image of the city and to protect Tuscan products. “It targets McDonald’s as much as kebab restaurants,” he added.

There is confusion, however, over what is meant by ethnic. Mr Di Grazia said that French restaurants would be allowed. He was unsure, though, about Sicilian cuisine. It is influenced by Arab cooking.

Also, kebabs are good.