The Illinois driving test requires the kind of sophistication I do not possess. Look at the following question:

I had no idea there were “social doses of marijuana.” How can I be expected to evaluate the typical social doses?

I am, however, very curious about the circles in which the creators of this driving test move.

A place called “Texas Roadhouse” will open soon in our town. Like we need yet another “everything smothered in barbecue sauce” joint.

In the meanwhile, our only Indian restaurant barely has any customers. I’m very worried they will go out of business. A town can’t call itself civilized without an Indian restaurant.

Cigar shops are the last remaining refuges of traditional masculinity.

Men gather here to smoke, drink and play poker in an all-male group.

Deconstructed dishes are the dishes where the taste of a traditional dish is recreated through the use of completely different ingredients. This is a deconstructed version of the traditional Canadian breakfast.

The bagel here is substituted with a thin crepe and scrambled eggs. Creme fraiche with cucumbers stands for cream cheese. If yo close your eyes , the taste and the texture are exactly like the original dish.

We are not total country bumpkins here, you know. The only Midwestern thing about this fit-to-be-featured on Top Chef breakfast is the price: $8.

I started reading Anabel Hernandez’s book on Mexican drug cartels and can’t get through the shock of the first 5 pages. I’d much rather keep considering Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon fools who destroyed their country to make the US happy than accept that they were in the pay of the Sinaloa cartel that needed the war on drugs to get rid of competition.

Maybe this is old news to everybody but I just discovered this book. My students can’t get enough of Mexican drug wars, so I decided to read up on the subject. Now I will have to can all of my “Vicente Fox is not a smart person” lectures.