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Pew: Children Lack Access to Basic Dental Services

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Having just made my annual dental appointment, this caught my eye (via the Pew Center on the States):

“The issue brief Two Kinds of Dental Shortages Fuel One Major Access Problem by the Pew Children’s Dental Campaign highlights the lack of access to basic dental care. Each year, an estimated 17 million children in the U.S. go without basic dental care. As a result, these kids miss more days of school and see their overall health suffer.”

Each February, during Children’s Dental Health month, kids are reminded of the importance of proper dental hygiene and regular dental check-ups. But, as Pew notes, for millions of children, seeing a dentist is almost impossible because there isn’t one nearby or the one that is nearby doesn’t accept Medicaid patients.

The Pew report says that more than 30 million Americans are underserved due to a nationwide dentist shortage. In some states — South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, for instance — the problem is particularly acute: more 20 percent of residents are unable to locate a dentist.

Read the full report here.

A Purer Pour: Coffee Snobbery for the Home Brewer

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For longstanding coffee snobs, recent articles about the “slow pour” and Japanese pour-over techniques aren’t exactly breaking news. Are we supposed to believe that New York Times food critic Frank Bruni only recently discovered how to make coffee in a Chemex, the flask-like coffee-brewing tool invented in 1941, and used by my parents in the 1960s and by me for at least a decade? Seriously?

Welcome to the post–Mr. Coffee world, NY Times guys, and thank you for sharing what some of us have known for quite a while: automatic-drip coffee machines just don’t cut it. I know, I know—everyone’s busy, no one has time, down with snobbery! But if you really love the taste of coffee in the morning (or at whatever time of day), don’t you owe it to yourself to make it the best that it can be? Why not get up a little earlier, grind some beans, and brew a delicious cup with your Chemex, your French press, your ceramic cone filter, or a device of your own invention?

If you’re seriously considering making the switch from fast to slow brew, however, consider your coffee and your water, something articles about home-coffee-brewing techniques often leave under-explored. A very decent and even expert home-brewed cup of coffee can be achieved with one of the tools above and these other components: freshly roasted beans (ideally ground to order) that come from a cool, dry storage location (try not to put beans in the freezer or make them last for much longer than two weeks); and filtered water, such as that from a Brita or refrigerator water filter.

In fact, I’m not entirely sure that a great cup of coffee can be achieved when one of the three components—slow-brewing tool, fresh coffee, filtered water—is missing. For instance, if you buy a pound of freshly roasted beans from Counter Culture (where my coffee is from, via Peregrine Espresso’s Pedaler), grind them, and brew in an automatic-drip machine, you might find the taste lacking and think twice before buying another batch of fresh beans. By the same token, stale beans that are slow-brewed with filtered water are going to fall flat and make you feel like the extra time isn’t worth it.

In any case, fresh coffee beans will always taste better, and so I would not leave out that component no matter the brewing method. And I personally think a decent grinder can be had for less than $40 and don’t think the brand matters too much, although many purists recommend certain brands, such as Burr. (If you don’t want to buy a grinder, no problem: have the coffee store grind fresh beans to the correct size—course for a press or medium-fine for a ceramic one-cupper—and try to use them within a few weeks.)

 A more important consideration is probably the ratio of coffee grinds to water; follow some general guidelines, but still try to find the balance that suits your taste. And don’t worry about purchasing a fancy kettle—boil water on the stove in any vessel and use a little restraint to accomplish the “measured pour” critical to a slowly brewed cup. Happy sipping!

Trivia Time: Watson Wins

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After finally finishing the longest magazine article EVER, The New Yorker’s take down of Scientology, I wonder if disaffected L. Ron Hubbard devotees might start a religion based on the teachings of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. After all, some of his once far-fetched ideas are actually coming to life in the IBM-built machine Watson, which recently creamed trivia savant Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! “Set a course for Hollywood, Number One, we’ve got some celebrities to convert!”

Media Notes: Tuesday Edition

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Lots of action in the media sphere lately. A few tidbits:

  • Liberal lionheart Keith Olbermann goes to Current TV. Will anyone watch (or even be able to find that channel)?
  • AOL replaces diminishing dial-up customers with Arianna Huffington. Will my idea for a “Fluffington Post” parallel site (for the stupid stuff about sleep and Bristol Palin) finally take off?
  • Keep reading, tweeting, and blogging this article about Dan Snyder. It might not make him go away, but it will make you feel good.
  • Frank Rich argues that the media fascination with Twitter and other social media as helping to cause the uprising in Egypt is fairly bogus. Also: The media is essentially blacking out access to Al Jazeera English and thus depriving American audiences of fully understanding the Middle East. (Meanwhile, the channel works to get more of a presence here.)
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