Bananageddon brings the Cavendish crisis home

Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017. It was the worst natural disaster to hit the island in recorded history, killing nearly 3,000 people and causing more than $90 billion in damage.

It was all over the news. Like many people, I felt badly about it and wondered about the response of our federal government.

Two months later, my insulin pump broke. I called the manufacturing company and asked how long it would be until I could get a replacement. I expected them to say a day or two.

"I don't know," the operator said. "Our pumps are manufactured in Puerto Rico, so they're all off-line."

What?

Suddenly, I cared deeply about Puerto Rico. We must save Puerto Rico! We must put as many boots on the ground to restore Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico's economy – especially the insulin-pump-manufacturing sector – must be allowed to recover! This is taking way too long!

I'm not proud of myself. It was selfish: When there was a disaster in Puerto Rico, it was sad. When it affected me, it became a crisis.

The same is true of  the strain of fungus called Tropical Race Four.

Oh, Tropical Race Four is a blight and it could affect crops in other parts of the world. That's terrible. I  hope they find a way to control it, like they always do. I hope nothing bad really happens.

It's bad news, but it's contained. It's Tropical Race Four (which I initially presumed was the fourth running of some marathon through the rain forest) and it's bad.

But then . . . Tropical Race Four has spread to China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Jordan, Mozambique, India and more. No big deal unless you like bananas.

Bananas?

Yes. Bananas.

This is a catastrophe! We must save the banana!

Tropical Race Four is causing a zombie apocalypse for Cavendish bananas –  the type of bananas that most of us have eaten all of our lives. When you read the word "banana," you picture a Cavendish, because that's all we've known.

Now it faces extinction.

Tropical Race Four was a distant agricultural problem for decades. Americans get 90 percent of our bananas from Latin America, which was free of Tropic Race Four, so it was sad but it affected other people.

Last summer, the fungus arrived in Columbia. It spreads fast and the results will be catastrophic. Bananas are crucial to the economy of Central America, but to most Americans, the bigger disaster will be an increase in price for bananas and the ultimate disappearance of "normal" bananas from our supermarkets.

We probably should have reacted sooner. When Big Banana (the banana industry) began to exclusively produce Cavendish bananas in the 1950s, we should have insisted on diversity. When Tropical Race Four hit China and the Philippines, we should have attacked it.

Instead, we waited. Like my insulin pump, we didn't react to the disaster until it directly affected us.

I didn't get a new insulin pump for a full month and I was aware of Puerto Rico's problems every day during that period. Two years have passed, the island is again struggling and my reaction is similar to what it was before my pump broke. It's sad. But it's not my focus. My pump works.

I recognize that it's selfish. But what am I supposed to do?

I'm using up my energy worrying about the Cavendish banana crisis!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Survey of men and makeup makes me uncomfortable

Live and let live, I say.

To each his own, I tell people.

Don't worry about what others think. You be you, I insist.

Then I read that a survey showed that one-third of young men would consider wearing makeup.

And I gasped.

A hypocrite? Probably. A victim of my time? Likely.

But . . .

What. The. Heck?

One-third of men would wear MAKEUP?

The study is real. Morning Consult, a market research company, conducted a study last fall of more than 2,000 men. Among those aged 18-29, 33 percent said they would consider wearing makeup. Among those aged 30-44, 30 percent said they would consider wearing makeup.

In other words, about one-third of adult men 44 and younger would consider wearing makeup.

Among the men who live at my house (me), zero percent would consider wearing makeup. At least in the way I think of makeup.

When I see "33 percent of young men would consider wearing makeup," I think of a 25-year-old wearing rouge, eyeliner and lipstick. You know, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in "Some Like it Hot." You know, Tom Hanks in "Bosom Buddies."

You know, ancient pop culture references that are probably offensive in 2020.

A couple of thoughts on my first reaction.

First of all, if that's what you want to do, more power to you. (See first paragraph of this column.)

Secondly, I have a hard time thinking one-third of men in that age group want to look like that, especially since my studies indicate that about 80 percent of them have stubbly five-o'clock-shadow beards, which would pretty much make the rouge not work.

I know – or presume – that this statistic isn't about wearing flashy makeup. When a 25-year-old who works at a startup while driving an Uber to help pay for his expensive coffee and super-modern apartment (my stereotype of who answered this survey) says he would consider wearing makeup, he's probably talking about some product that I don't know exists. Something to make his beard stand out or to hide that untimely pimple.

Or something I already use, but don't consider makeup.

Right? Because when I think about my view of what types of products young men should wear, I realize some of my choices probably stunned my dad.

Hair products (mousse, in my case)? Why not just use some Brylcreem?

Shaving and not splashing on a generous amount of Old Spice? Ridiculous. Your skin will fall off!

So recognize this: My reaction to the statistics (again: About one-third of men 44 and younger say they'd consider wearing makeup) is made out of emotion, not logic.

Live and let live.

Do what you want to do.

Be you.

If you want to wear a skin moisturizing product or something to cover up blemishes (which actually is part of what this survey asked), go ahead.

BUT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WHEN A SURVEY-TAKER ASKS IF YOU'D CONSIDER WEARING MAKEUP, SAY NO.

There.

I'm not so uncomfortable with someone wearing makeup as I am with them saying they will wear makeup, which I realize is part of the problem with a society that makes people hide who they are.

If it makes you uncomfortable that someone doesn't like young men talking about wearing makeup, you've got company: Me. And I'm the one saying it.

Humans are complex. A generation from now, no one will believe that someone felt the way I feel. People will dig up the Daily Republic archive and use this column as representative of how people born in the mid-20th century were dinosaurs.

They're right.

But we're dinosaurs who didn't admit we would wear makeup.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

My four options to rescue the Super Bowl halftime show

Super Bowl Sunday is just three weeks away, but it's not too late to make a change.

Not in the date or teams.

Not in the television network or that clever themed party you planned.

What needs a change is the halftime show. Not just for this year, but forever.

The Super Bowl halftime show is a tired act and even worse, it's a tired joke: What geriatric act will they trot out this year?

In 2020, by the way, that "geriatric act" is 50-year-old Jennifer Lopez and 43-year-old Shakira (Super Bowl Sunday is her birthday!). Neither is as old as The Who (2010 Super Bowl) or The Rolling Stones (2006), but still.

There's been an effort in recent years to make the halftime show less senior-focused–Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Maroon 5 headlined the past three Super Bowls–but then another problem arises: The performance is less than 15 minutes, so it's not really even a concert. It's a medley. Nobody is really happy with it.

It's time to make a change.

I know what you're thinking: What could the NFL possibly do at halftime to keep the audience entertained – and bring in non-football fans – beyond music?

I have four suggestions.

Jump. Fifty years ago, Evel Knievel was one of the most famous people in America, because he routinely jumped his motorcycle over 25 cars or 18 buses or 12 RVs. He did it in stadiums (or at Caesar's Palace), which suggests the same could be done at halftime–the game is played in a stadium. Would you watch the Super Bowl halftime show if you knew someone would try to jump their motorcycle (or scooter or car) over a random number of items in a way that could result in glory or catastrophe? I would.

Tightrope. If watching a motorcycle jump isn't your thing, what if someone (perhaps whatever member of the Wallenda family is still alive) walked a tightrope from one side of the stadium to the other? Seriously. Have them walk the tightrope, hundreds of feet above the field. I would 100 percent watch that.

"Wipeout." This is unlikely, since ABC doesn't broadcast Super Bowls (this year's game is on Fox), but I would definitely tune in for a reprise of the silly game show that aired on ABC until 2014. "Wipeout" featured regular people navigating crazy obstacle courses that resulted in violent crashes that were replayed in super slow motion. The target audience appeared was 8-year-old boys and me, so I'd definitely tune in for an annual "Wipeout" reprise–maybe involving players whose teams lost in the conference championship games.

Random competition. If "Wipeout" can't be brought back, how about a high-stakes carnival-game competition? Periodically, there have been competitions (throw a football at a target! Run an obstacle course! Find a hidden diamond!) during sports events, with a big payoff for the winner–often a scholarship to a college student. What if the NFL promised $5 million to the first person to kick a 40-yard field goal, with the competitors drawn from the Super Bowl audience? I'd watch.

The Super Bowl will again be the most-watched program of the year. It's not too late to change the halftime show and prevent more disappointment. Heck, if it makes it easier, I'm OK with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira being contestants in "Wipeout."

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Ancient chewing gum gives glimpse of early life, Gladys

One thing we know for sure: Gladys chewed gum.

My guess is that she chewed it aggressively, giving side-eye glances and issuing insults to the hapless man who was supposed to hunt while she was gathering. Thor always let her down and she was sassy enough to insult him about it.

True? We're not sure, but that's one possible outcome after archaeologists extracted a human genome out of 5,700-year-old chewing gum found in Denmark.

Yes. The chewing gum was 5,700 years old, which means the person chewing it was around even before Tom Brady began his NFL career.

The results of the DNA tests were published in Nature Communications and revealed a lot more about the woman (I call her Gladys) chewing it than you would expect from a single piece of gum. In fact, researchers constructed an entire human genome, the first genome to come out of something other than bones or teeth. (In the interest of transparency, I considered buying a Hyundai Genome in 1988 before settling on another model.)

The research team, led by Hannes Schroeder, a paleogeneticist at the University of Copenhagen, concluded that the woman (Gladys) had dark hair, dark skin and blue eyes. The fact that she was chewing gum also suggests (my opinion) that she was spunky, like Flo in the 1970s sitcom "Alice" (or myriad other spunky TV and movie characters who chew gum aggressively).

Researches found traces of what may have been Gladys' last meal (duck and hazelnuts) as well as discovering that she had traces of Epstein-Barr virus, which can cause malaria and probably contributed to the exasperation she must have felt when her man, who I'll call Thor, returned empty-handed after a day of hunting in my imagined scenario.

"I've been gathering all day," she presumably said, perhaps using a series of hand gestures and grunts while chomping her gum. "You and your pals were just out screwing around. Again."

"Oh yeah?" Thor would say. "We invented this." And then he held up the very first pair of scissors.

"Oh, real cutting-edge technology," Gladys presumably said, chomping the gum and looking at a prehistoric studio audience, who roared with laughter.

"Sorry for the low-brow humor," she'd add, raising her sunken eyebrows at the audience, who adored her spunk.

Of course, that's all speculation, not included in the report. But Gladys was chewing gum, so it's logical, right?

The biggest question about this discovery is this: Ancient people had chewing gum?

According to an article about the discovery by NPR, Schroeder said the gum was a black-brown substance, known as birch pitch, which "was obtained by heating birch bark." NPR quoted Schroeder as saying it wasn't clear why the ancients chewed the pitch, but it was likely to soften it up before using it as a kind of glue to stick sharp points onto weapons or tools. Schroeder said the people may have even used it for medicinal purposes, such as a pain remedy for toothaches, because it is a mild antiseptic.

The more likely reason, though, is that Gladys was a spunky, opinionated woman who didn't really care what Thor and the others thought of her. She voiced her opinions while chomping the gum. People loved her!

Isn't science amazing? Because of this discovery – and my groundless speculation – we know that ancient people were just like characters on situation comedies.

Science again shows that we haven't really changed.

Thank goodness for spunky Gladys!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.