– LA Times headline (March 5, 2020)
Ketchup in glass bottles used to be a case study in every kitchen illustrating the consequentiality of orifice diameter. With ketchup now in squeezable containers, there is no need to shake and pound the bottle.
On Super Tuesday, voters were flowing like ketchup through Los Angeles County vote centers. The “bottlenecks” were many: high turnout, problems with a new check-in system, poll workers unfamiliar with technology. Bottles within bottles.
There is a Zen riddle about imagining a goose inside a narrow-necked bottle and getting her out without breaking the glass. The answer is to recall how the imaginary goose got into the bottle in the first place.
See also “C’mon, it’s like a zipper!”; keyword search: log-jam.
Photo: Karl Stull