 
Liberals go live. This morning marks the debut of the liberal talk radio network Air America, kickstarting with Al Franken's morning show. Their signal streams live over the web, and so far they're on the air in these markets:
New York - WLIB 1190 AMThe server was so jammed I had difficulty getting through for a while, and I guess that's a good sign. Enjoy!
The artisanal diet, part one. In the ever-excellent food weblog Sauté Wednesday, Bruce Cole writes about what he calls "the artisanal diet", one that "derives immense satisfaction from the pleasure of eating and drinking only the finest hand-produced foods available, anywhere. Yeah, ok, so it's a food snob diet. Whatever." The first article is on artisanal coffee, in which he assures you that finding artisanal coffee roasters, grinding your own beans and making your own coffee beats the living crap out of your $800 per year mediocre latte habit from your local nationwide coffee chain, "he one that burns, er, roasts their beans beyond recognition, just so they can call it a Full City Roast." Having grown up on dark French roast coffee and chicory au lait in New Orleans and preferring that, I more or less gave up on coffee when I moved to California. I'm a tea man now, for the most part, having been forcibly addicted to strong tea on my first trip to Ireland in 1988. ("Would you like a cup of tea, Chuck?" is not a request that can be refused, even if I've already had ten cups of tea that day. "Oh you will, now, just a drop. Will you not just have one cup?" It was not unlike the scenes in "The French Connection II" when they tied Popeye Doyle down and forcibly addicted him to heroin, except without the irony.) Consequently, I'm particularly fond of Irish tea (Barry's is my favourite, Gold Blend, loose if I can get it, bags if I can't), a monstrously strong blend of Kenya, Assam and other teas that will kick your arse so that you'll know it's been kicked. I love it. We've now got a proper teapot with a rigid, copper cosy and always keep a selection of loose teas from the Bamboo Tea House in Pasadena -- currently we've got a black Zimbabwean tea, a slightly vanilla-scented Mauritius blend that's really lovely, and a few flavoured ones -- coconut, ginger-peach and Indian chai (I like flavoured teas, as long as it's not iced tea and especially not Paradise Tropical Tea, feh.) For a buck you can also get a nice metal container with a rubber seal for storing your tea and keeping it fresh. The difference between brewing up a cup or pot of these teas and using a teabag of third-rate powdered Lipton's tea-leavings is like day and night. If you like tea, give artisanal tea a shot as well. It's easy -- just about any loose, full-leaf tea of good quality will fit the bill -- relatively inexpensive and very much worth the effort. I really enjoy having a nice, proper cupán tae, and I highly recommend the experience.
How E-voting threatens democracy. A long, fascinating and scary special report from Wired magazine. Kim Zetter reports:
Electronic voting is supposed to streamline the process and rid us of the hanging chad. But the technology is rife with problems, creating the specter of botched returns and deliberate election rigging. Although many election officials defend the system, e-voting still can't be trusted. Nor, apparently, can many of its more ardent boosters.Its more ardent boosters include, oddly enough, all the manufacturers of electronic voting machines, all of which contribute heavily to the Bush campaign, and one of whom has even promised to deliver his home state to Bush in the next election? (God, it reeks like an unrefrigerated fishmonger's in here ...)
[ Link to today's entries ]
Condi the patsy. Well, whaddaya know. She's testifying! (About feckin' time, too.) Thing is, there are strings attached (of course). White House counsel Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to the commission, giving them the terms under which she'd be allowed to testify (via Lyn):
Second, the Commission must agree in writing that it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice. [...] Other White House officials with information relevant to the Commission's inquiry do not come within the scope of the Commission's rationale for seeking public testimony from Dr. Rice.Which means, she takes the fall in public, and Bush/Cheney never have to face their nation. (They'll be "meeting" the Commission in private, and not under oath.) Brave, brave, brave Bush and Cheney. Gee, that sounds like that Neil Innes song from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" about brave Sir Robin ...
When danger reared its ugly headBut what's he afraid of, I wonder?
Thou shalt not criticize the President. MoveOn.org report that the Republican National Committee is pressing the Federal Election Commission to adopt new rules that would cripple and silence any group "that dares to communicate with the public in any way critical of President Bush or members of Congress." (Apparently the First Amendment is beyond these people ...) Here are MoveOn's talking points regarding this issue:
- These rules would shut down the legitimate activities of nonprofit organizations of all kinds that the FEC has no authority at all to regulate.These rule changes have been put forth for public review and comment until April 9. Make your comments to the FEC at politicalcommitteestatus@fec.gov. Let your Senators and Representatives know how you feel, too. Republicans ... go to the top of this weblog and read the fucking quote. This is further confirmation of what I've come to believe with every passing day since this administration took office -- the Republican Party does not want to govern, it wants to rule. First duty of a despotic ruler -- quell dissent.
Oh yeah ... I want me a Trunk Monkey! (Via August)
[ Link to today's entries ]
Cocktail of the day. My new issue of Saveur just arrived, the April '04 one. In it you'll find a nice little article about single barrel and high-end bourbons (with a tasting guide), plus another about the island of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles, which lends its name to the orange-flavored liqueur also known as triple sec (Cointreau being perhaps the best, and certainly the most expensive, example). Curaçao suffers in reputation a bit from many brands being cloyingly oversweet, but now the island has its own line of liqueur. "Senior & Company is the only producer making curaçao from real Curaçao-grown [bitter] orange peels, and its version of the liqueur is now available in the United States for the first time." Dale DeGroff provided the editors with a recipe suggestion for showing off this liqueur, a mid-20th Century concoction named after the grandsire of the famous racehorse Seabiscuit. Looks like it has a nice balance, and I'll give it a go soon.
Man O'WarSenior & Co.'s line of curaçaos appear to come in a rainbow of colors, including orange, red, green and two shades of the ubiquitous blue. There's also apparently a really nummy-looking chocolate curaçao as well. For more information, visit their distributor, Preiss Imports.
Quote of the day. "As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular." -- Oscar Wilde
A new era in Ireland. As of today, the Republic of Ireland institutes a ban on smoking in all public buildings and workplaces, and this includes pubs. "Smoke spies" will be sent around to check as well. Hoo-boy.
The smoking bans worked like a charm in California -- people now routinely go outside to smoke, and it's a joy to be able to go to a club or bar or concert and not be choking on smoke, and having to have my jacket cleaned. This could be one of the tricker institutions of this ban, though. Smoking is such an ingrained part of pub culture, though, that we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. Ádh mór libh. (Good luck to yis.) Some thoughts from locals, from the Irish magazine Hot Press:
* "As somebody who started smoking when he was 12, I am looking forward to the ban. Anytime I have tried to quit I have done grand until about 3 hours in a pub. I can drink at home or in mates' places if there are no smokers about, without a problem. But after a few pints the will power gets put to the test. A test which I never could pass.I must confess, my attitude is one of "it's about time," but I'll be quietly encouraging to anyone who wants to quit smoking. I know, it's hard. I might not ever truly understand just how hard it is, but I know it's hard. If you're quitting, you've got all my encouragement. Well done you, says I to meself.
Good question,
Q: Mr. Secretary, a group called the Center for American Progress has posed this question ... "If as the administration claims, the White House did make terrorism a priority, why did Vice-President Cheney wait five months to establish a terrorism task force, which then never met?"I'm looking forward to a future scenario where questions like these are asked to people like Powell and Rice by a judge, grand jury or Congressional committee which is legally empowered to say, "The witness is directed to answer the question."
You've got to be feckin' kidding me. <rant>First off, in the interest of full disclosure, I don't watch "American Idol". I have friends who do, and who are almost obsessed with it, and fair play to them -- I'm glad they enjoy it. However, on Friday I checked into the iTunes Music Store to see what was new, and I was greeted on the front page by the new album by that silly engineering student who humiliated himself on that program, William Hung -- the kid whose fifteen minutes should have ended a long time ago.
Yes, he's plucky and indefatigable, and
didn't let his humiliation on national television get him down. He's the
dictionary definition of the fifteen-minutes-of-fame thing, and good for
him. However, what in the name of all that's good gave him the idea that
anyone actually wanted to spend money to listen to him sing? He got
signed to KOCH Records (a label that I normally respect), and I suppose
they're doing it so that they can cash in on his fifteen
minutes.
He's said that he's just being himself, that
he won't change himself for anyone's sake, for the sake of his newfound
William, be an engineer. I bet you'll be
great at it. But unless you're going to be honest and say you're only in
it for the money, trying to cash in on your fifteen minutes, put a cork in
the singing and feck off back to class, will you? (Good Gawd.) About the
only actual use I can think of for such an audible assault is that
"The Annoying Music Show"
needs song fodder, and that said, I'd listen to Nimoy sing before I'd
listen to this. (I don't buy the "it's so awful it's great" argument,
either. It's just awful.)
Then again, if someone's stupid enough to
pay money for this stuff, then fair play to him -- take the money and run
while you can. Still, It offends me that this eejit was given a record
contract when there are so many struggling and far more deserving
musicians out there who can't get signed. I've had it up to here with the
fifteen-minutes thing ...</rant>
What is it? Why, it's KCSN's new transmitter!
I've been allowed to talk about it publicly
since at least two pledge drives ago, but then it was still a big,
expensive piece of vaporware. Now it's here. All the red tape has been
vanquished. All the money is in. All the licenses and permits are taken
care of. Consequently, I think I can safely say that KCSN will go live
on the west side of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Hollywood, Silverlake and
points beyond (we hope) between April 1 and April 15. (This is, of
course, not official and I do not officially speak for the station. This
is just a heads-up.)
The new transmitter will be referred to as a
"booster", and it fills in a gap in our legally mandated broadcast
footprint that's blocked by the annoying presence of the Santa Monica
Mountains and Hollywood Hills. Rather than having those things torn down,
we decided it would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to put a
new transmitter up on top of a building in West Los Angeles, in order to
fill in the shadow.
It's no ordinary transmitter, either.
We'll be one of the first public radio stations in the area to be
broadcasting in Digital High Definition radio,
as part of a special pilot program partially funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Here's a bit more about it, from our Chief Engineer Mike Worrall:
KCSN is the home of truly eclectic radio for
music lovers in Los Angeles. Our broadcast schedule consists almost
entirely of music programming, featuring classical, opera, bluegrass,
classic and alternative country, blues, R&B, roots, Americana, Latin,
folk, traditional, Louisiana and Irish, jazz, swing, film scores and
soundtracks, Broadway, cocktail and lounge, surf, New Age, alternative
rock and hip-hop, as well as shows devoted to The Beatles, The Grateful
Dead and 1960s and '70s British Invasion rock. There's something for
almost everybody.
We also feature KCSN's multiple
award-winning student-produced news program "Evening Update" plus arts,
cultural and public affairs programming weeknights from 6-7pm, and the BBC
World Service from 2-6am weekdays, 3-6am weekends.
For public radio listeners (especially those
on the Westside) ... we offer a lot of music that you just don't hear on
KCRW or KPCC anymore. Those of you who were fans of shows past on those
stations will be happy to find programmer/DJs like Ann the Raven, John
Minnicucci, Kat Griffin, Betto Arcos (formerly of KPFK), "Cowboy Nick"
Stahl (formerly of KXLU) ... oh, and lil' ol' me. (Okay, I will allow
myself to toot my own horn every now and again.)
You can already hear us worldwide via our
live audio stream in
both dialup and broadband flavors. Now ... get ready to set 88.5 on your
car stereo presets, if you're an L.A. resident. Within the next two
weeks (or so, pending successful testing).
We're coming ...
Wes has some rare, out-of-print art prints
by American impressionist and Western artist G. Harvey
for sale. A little bio:
His original paintings and bronze sculptures are in collections of major
corporations, prestigious museums, the United States Government, American
presidents, governors, foreign leaders, and captains of industry. He has
been the recipient of innumerable awards and the subject of three books.
G. Harvey grew up in the rugged hills north of San Antonio, Texas, and
graduated cum laude from North Texas State University. He began painting
full-time in 1963 and just two years later won acclaim for his first show,
The Grand National Exhibition in New York, and for winning the New
Master's Award from the American Artists' Professional League.
Since then, Harvey's art has intrigued and captivated a generation. His
skilled use of light in dramatic settings, his considerable talent and
persistent quest for perfection have placed him and his work at the
forefront of late twentieth century American art.
We now return you to your regularly
scheduled weblog.
New Orleans: The Canal Streetcar Line
Okay, I'm shamelessly huckstering again.
This time, though, it's on behalf of an old friend and might well be of
interest to residents and fans of the Crescent City.
Ed Branley, whom I virtually got to know way
back in the olden days when he ran the New Orleans Mailing List, has
a new book out about the history
of the Canal St. streetcar line. This is very cool, given that the
streetcars are a living, working symbol of the city's history, and that
new streetcar lines along historical routes are under reconstruction.
Check it out, and if you buy one tell him I sent ya.
So long, and thanks for all the glassware.
On the heels of Wednesdays article and post
about Riedel glassware vs. upstart Spiegelau, we sadly note that Claus
Josef Riedel, the glassmaker who developed Riedel's first line of stemware
tailored to different wine varietals, has died at age 79.
In 1957, Claus began experimenting with different shapes and sizes of
stemware, and discovered that the aroma and taste of a particular wine
could be altered -- and deliberately enhanced -- by the design of the
glass. A year later, he released the Sommeliers Burgundy Grand Cru stem, a
37-ounce whopper of a glass, which was jokingly referred to as the
"goldfish bowl." It is now part of the permanent collection at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York City.
That design became the first in Riedel's Sommelier collection, which hit
the market in 1973 and consisted of 10 different glass shapes, each
fashioned to enhance a particular varietal. Although initially greeted
with some skepticism, the collection has since grown to include 31 styles
and is widely used by wine connoisseurs and professionals in the wine
industry.
I think there's plenty of room on Sundays
for both worship services and watching a football game or going to
the cinema. People work hard during the week, some of them working
six-day weeks, and the weekend is important to sanity (I'd be in a rubber
bedroom without my weekends, believe me). I don't believe God intended
everyone to spend every minute of their spare time on their knees.
Nat talks about the "R" zins -- Ravenswood,
Ridge, Rosenblum, Rafanelli and Rochioli as being some of the big ones,
but don't forget another favorite: Renwood. Mmmmm.
I'm still stunned by the Edmeades 2001 Zeni
Vineyards Zinfandel we picked up a while back, at a stunning 17.1% ABV.
The guys at Chronicle Wine Cellar in Pasadena (one of our favorite wine
shops) said, "Better be sitting down when you drink this one ... It'll
knock you on your butt." Indeed. Huge, jammy cherry, berry and spice,
and a feeling that you're almost drinking a nice big ruby Port rather than
a California Zin. And of course, when we finished the bottle we fled to
find more ... and of course, there isn't any more. The whole supply seems
to be sold out. Ah well. We've still got a Ciapusci Vineyards and a Late
Harvest Zin from them in that year. Plus, we found some of their regular
Mendocino Zin still available. If you can find that Zeni Vineyards stuff,
though ... get it now. It ran us about $18 a bottle.
Mr. Foster said he had shared his cost estimates with Doug Badger, the
president's special assistant for health policy, and with James C.
Capretta, associate director of the White House Office of Management and
Budget. But he said that Thomas A. Scully, who was then administrator of
the Medicare program, directed him to withhold the information from
Congress, citing orders from the White House in one instance.
A while back a cocktailian and longtime
reader sent in a recipe that I'd never seen anywhere else, but which he
said was the preferred cocktail of Rat Packer Peter Lawford, who'd talk
Vegas bartenders through it. I love finding stuff like this, and the
drink, called the "Preview", was pretty darn good. I substituted Irish
whiskey for the gin, brought the liqueur proportion down and thought of a
perfect name. As for those other cocktails with similar ingredients ...
well, they'd be far more difficult to talk a bartender through these days
due to general lack of some of the ingredients, plus I think that anyone
who garnishes an Irish whiskey-and-liqueur-based cocktail with an olive is
a mad feckin' eejit.
This drink isn't terribly sophisticated in
flavor, but is actually quite nice and might be a way for people who find
Irish whiskey to be a bit pungent to enjoy it in a lovely drink. Let's
raise our glasses to Van the Man ...
2 ounces Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey.
Shake a few dashes of pastis into a cocktail glass, then swirl around to
coat. Pour most of it out, leaving a little puddle of it in the bottom of
the glass. Combine the whiskey and liqueur in a cocktail shaker with
cracked ice, stir for no less than 30 seconds and strain into the coated
glass. Twist the peel over the drink and garnish with the peel.
It was his worst moment at the mike. Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste ran
through a list of at least a dozen cases of foiled plots using commercial
airliners to attack key targets in the U.S. and elsewhere. Mr. Ben-Veniste
cited the "Bojinka" plot in 1995, which envisioned blowing up Western
commercial planes in Asia; that plot was foiled by the government and must
have been on the mind of C.I.A. director George Tenet, who was having
weekly lunches with Mr. Rumsfeld through 2001. In 1998, an Al
Qaeda-connected group talked about flying a commercial plane into the
World Trade Center.
"So when we had this threatened strike that something huge was going to
happen, why didn't D.O.D. alert people on the ground of a potential
jihadist hijacking? Why didn't it ever get to an actionable level?" the
commissioner asked.
Mr. Rumsfeld said he only remembered hearing threats of a private aircraft
being used. "The decision to fly a commercial aircraft was not known to
me."
Mr. Ben-Veniste came back at him: "We knew from the Millennium plot [to
blow up Los Angeles International Airport] that Al Qaeda was trying to
bomb an American airport," he said. The Clinton administration foiled that
plot and thought every day about foiling terrorism, he said. "But as we
get into 2001, it was like everyone was looking at the white truck from
the sniper attacks and not looking in the right direction. Nobody did a
thing about it."
Mr. Rumsfeld backed off with the lame excuse, "I should say I didn't
know."
He said that on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, he was "hosting a meeting
for some of the members of Congress."
"Ironically, in the course of the conversation, I stressed how important
it was for our country to be adequately prepared for the unexpected," he
said.
It is still incredible to the moms that their Secretary of Defense
continued to sit in his private dining room at the Pentagon while their
husbands were being incinerated in the towers of the World Trade Center.
They know this from an account posted on Sept. 11 on the Web site of
Christopher Cox, a Republican Congressman from Orange County who is
chairman of the House Policy Committee.
"Ironically," Mr. Cox wrote, "just moments before the Department of
Defense was hit by a suicide hijacker, Secretary Rumsfeld was describing
to me why I Congress has got to give the President the tools he needs to
move forward with a defense of America against ballistic missiles."
At that point, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the Secret
Service, the F.A.A., NORAD (our North American air-defense system),
American Airlines and United Airlines, among others, knew that at least
three planes had been violently hijacked, their transponders turned off,
and that thousands of American citizens had been annihilated in the World
Trade Center by Middle Eastern terrorists, some of whom had been under
surveillance by the F.B.I. Yet the nation's defense chief didn't think it
significant enough to interrupt his political pitch to a key Republican in
Congress to reactivate the Star Wars initiative of the Bush I years.
(Emphasis added)
"Out of the loop"? He was the
loop.
In order to find out, the pertinent PDBs
leading up to 9/11 need to be declassified (with sensitive information,
such as individual sources, etc., blacked out). However, as Thomas Blanton
points out in Slate, "Releasing the PDBs would tell us what Dubya
knew and when he knew it. That's the real reason you won't see them anytime soon."
I know nothing about Terry Holt. I don't know whether he ever served in
the military, or whether he was even old enough to have served in
Vietnam. But I thought it was a very revealing quote -- a kind of political
Freudian slip, so to speak. Because it revealed the degree to which the
Republicans no longer feel it necessary to pander to (or even show much
respect for) those who served in Vietnam.
This is a big change from back in the day -- my day, the early '80s, when
I first came to Washington. Then the war was still a fresh wound, and the
Republicans were gouging it for all it was worth. Fawning over the vets
(rhetorically at least), and attacking the left's supposed contempt for
them, proved an incredibly effective tactic for the New Right. It allowed
them to attack liberals for opposing the war without, at least initially,
defending the war itself -- which was still very unpopular.
[more]
I have a dream that we will one day live in
a nation where people will be not be judged by whom they love, but rather
by the content of their character ...
Wes adds, "Be sure to note, if you haven't
already, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel's stern observation: 'This is a
serious book written by a serious professional who's made serious charges,
and the White House must respond to these charges' [rather than merely
question his credibilty]. Much more reasonable than any of McClellan's
ridiculous statements, particularly his lame, embarrassing attempt to
connect Clarke's book to Kerry's campaign. And suddenly Condi Rice is
making appearances on all five of the major morning shows?
Methinks the lady doth protest too much." Indeed.
Incidentally, responding to the charges
should mean something more substantial than a stupid American Bandstand
pun, or quickly disprovable claims that Clarke, a thirty-year civil
servant under Republican presidents as well as Democratic ones and the
national coordinator for counter-terrorism activities, was "out of the
loop" (or, as Kos put it,
"the administration is reduced to calling in Rush Limbaugh to plead their
case. Cheney [said] our top counter-terrorism official was 'out of the
loop' on terrorism matters. And that's their defense!)" Clarke
sounds mighty credible to me, particularly in light of all these
non-denial denials.
Clarke testifies before the 9/11 Commission
tomorrow. I can hardly wait. (Billmon's right, though --
after tomorrow, the squealing from the right-wing stuck pigs is going to
be deafening. That's okay; I've got good earplugs.)
WASHINGTON, January 21, 2003 -- Bush administration officials today denied
allegations that the White House lacks a coherent policy-making process
and is dominated by a small clique of conservatives aides known as the
"Mayberry Machiavellis."
The charges, reported in the current issue of Esquire magazine, were made
by John DiIulio, Bush's former top advisor on faith-based initiatives.
However, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said DiIulio was "not in the
loop."
WASHINGTON, January 14, 2004 -- Bush administration officials today
criticized comments from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who
claimed in a recent 60 Minutes interview that President Bush and his top
aides began planning for an invasion of Iraq within days of taking
office.
O'Neill was "not in the loop," White House spokesman Scott McClellan
said.
WASHINGTON, March 22, 2004 -- White House officials reacted with anger
today to charges by President Bush's former top counter-terrorism advisor,
Richard Clarke, that the president has badly bungled the war on
terrorism.
Clarke, who blasted the Bush administration in a 60 Minutes interview
Sunday, "wasn't in the loop," Vice President Dick Cheney said in an
interview Monday with radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
WASHINGTON, May 7, 2007 -- Top aides to former President Bush reacted with
scorn to his claim that he was manipulated by top administration
officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President
Dick Cheney, into invading Iraq.
In an emotional 60 Minutes interview Sunday, Bush blamed the disastrous
war (now in its fourth year) on a small cabel of neo-conservative
officials, who played upon his ignorance of world affairs and his
obsessive desire to destroy the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Former administration officials derided Bush's claim, saying the former
president was in an alcoholic stupor through most of the period in
question, and couldn't possibly have detailed knowledge of the key
decisions that led to war. "He was out of the loop," said former Vice
President Dick Cheney, currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal
prison for his role in the Carlyle Group scandal.
President Kerry pardoned Bush for his role in the affair last year.
Bush/Cheney '04: Don't change horsemen mid-apocalypse.
Bush/Cheney '04: Malice in Blunderland!
Bush/Cheney '04: Because the truth just isn't good enough.
Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate colonialism.
Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism
Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us!
That makes this site ten years old now,
which is eons in Internet time. I'm flabbergasted that it's lasted this
long, and still going strong, due in no small part to this weblog (and to
my fairly high rankings in Google; when you're around this long, people
have had lots of time to link to you). In fact, thanks also to Google and
their AdSense program, the
site's actually making money for me now, for the first time
ever.
For all you web paleontologists:
Unfortunately I didn't save any mirrors of what the site looked like back
when its URL was the horribly unwieldy "ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/ea/eamon/welcome.html",
although there is a screenshot of the old image back in a (presumably)
out-of-print book called Food and Wine Online, by the late Chef
Gary Holleman. The oldest version that's still in the Wayback Machine is
from March 29, 1997,
which is still interesting-looking for its très
early-to-mid-1990s look.
So anyway, thanks for the ten years, y'all.
Feel free to break out into a chorus of that "Happy Anniversary" song from
"The Flintstones". Let's see what happens after another ten. (Jeez, I'll
be in my fifties then. Let's not think about that, actually ...)
It's unlikely to make it over here except as
an import, but if you want it now, you can order it directly from Christy
or ... I suspect you'll get a better price if you order it from my friend
Mike Larkin at Mulligan Records
in Galway city. Drop him a note at mulligan AT indigo DOT ie, and tell
him I sent you.
My friend Paul is picking it up for me in
Galway this week, then posting it to me this weekend when he's in New
York. I should have a full report not long after. He's also kindly
provided a song list, for ye fanatics like me:
Disc 2: January Man, Poor Old Earth, Tippin' it up, Poitín,
1945, Little Musgrave, Johnny Jump Up, Radcliffe Highway, John O'Dreams,
Cold Blow, The Raggle Taggle Gypsy, El Salvador, Jack Doyle, Joxer
(Original), Lawless.
Disc 3: Different Love Song, Changes, Ballindine, Anne Lovett,
Dalesman's Litany, Farewell to Pripchat, The Lakes of Pontchartrain,
Cricklewood, Strangeways, Wise and Holy Woman, Veronica, Cry Like a Man,
Viva La Quinte Brigada, The Auld Triangle, Brown Eyes (for Joe Sheeran),
Johnny Connors.
Disc 4: Lay with Me, This is the Day, Among the Wicklow Hills,
Aisling, Grey Lake of Loughrea, All I Remember, Someone to Love, Trip to
Carnsore, Danny Boy (Derrylondon Air), Ships in the Forest, 100 Miles from
Home, Smoke and Strong Whiskey, The Way Pierce Turner Sings, The Hamburg
Medley, Tyrone Boys.
Disc 5: Hey Paddy, On the Blanket, Southern Winds, Don't Hand Me
Over, Shoot Out The Streetlights, The Bridge of Killaloe (Scariff
Martyrs), North and South, At the G.P.O. 1980, 90 Miles to Dublin, Wicklow
Boy, Ballinamore, At the Rialto in Derry: January 1993, Armagh Women, On
The Bridge, Scapegoats, They Fouled the Ball Daddy, No Time For Love, On a
Single Day.
Let the music keep your spirits high...
Three months go by.
April 2001: Meeting without the president or cabinet. Was
with the number twos in each relevant department.
Two months go by.
June 2001: Still no cabinet level meeting. U.S. intelligence was
picking up an unprecedented level of ominous chatter. The CIA Director
warned the White House.
Three months go by, including a month-long Bush vacation from early August
until early September at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
September 4, 2001: Cabinet level meeting. Clarke proposed a plan to
bomb al Qaeda sanctuaries in Afghanistan and to kill Osama bin Laden.
September 11, 2001: World Trade Center destroyed, Pentagon attacked.
Further news, via Atrios:
The documents, from the FBI, OMB and Justice Department, confirms the
picture counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke painted last night on CBS'
60 Minutes. The documents can be found online here.
The combined might of Jesus and Mel Gibson was no match for a plague of
ravenous zombies at the weekend box office in North America.
"Dawn of the Dead," a remake of George Romero's 1978 cult horror, grabbed
the No. 1 slot in its first weekend by selling a better-than-expected
$27.3 million worth of tickets, according to studio estimates issued on
Sunday...
-- Gabriel Damast, age 13.
It is something I always wanted. I've always been around people saying,
'Oh, my parents' anniversary is this week.' It's always been the sight of
two parents, married, with rings. And knowing I'd probably never
experience it ever. The atmosphere was just springing with life, I just
couldn't hold myself in. It was oh my god oh my god oh my god. I felt so
happy I wanted to scream.
Alex Morris, age 11
It's nonetheless important to remember that none of this might have
happened if we had known then what we know now. No matter what the
president believed about the long-term threat posed by Saddam Hussein, he
would have had a much harder time selling this war of choice to the
American people if they had known that the Iraqi dictator had been reduced
to a toothless tiger by the first Persian Gulf war and by United Nations
weapons inspectors. Iraq's weapons programs had been shut down, Mr.
Hussein had no threatening weapons stockpiled, the administration was
exaggerating evidence about them, and there was, and is, no evidence that
Mr. Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
In the short run, the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of its leader have
done virtually nothing to stop terrorism...
As ever, CocktailDB
came to my rescue with an interesting idea. I like cocktails with a good
apricot brandy (I use Marie Brizard Apry), and instead of curaçao
I'll use Cointreau, as it's somewhat drier. It tasted good in my head
when I did a mental mix; tonight we'll see how it really tastes.
2 ounces rye whiskey.
Stir and strain, garnish with a stemless cherry.
Kwasniewski told a small group of European reporters, "I feel uncomfortable
[about Iraq] due to the fact that we were misled with the information on
weapons of mass destruction." The remarks come just a few days after
the House Government Reform Committee released a comprehensive database of "237 specific misleading statements"
before the war about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq.
The series was wonderful (unfortunately,
only a "condensed" version is available on Region 2 DVD, and I understand
the quality isn't good). The soundtrack album, a 2-CD set, is essential,
however. Mary Black, Dolores Keane and Emmylou Harris singing "Sonny"
together. The Everly Brothers, doing an old Irish balled called "Rose
Connolly" that made its way to Appalachia, accompanied by Liam O'Flynn on
the pipes. Ricky Skaggs, along with a bluegrass band from Spiddal, Co.
Galway. Need I go on? Get this record!
No, that's not necessary ... apparently Iraq
already has a new constitution. And good lord, what group of
America-hating traitors wrote this document? You'd think it was a bunch of Democrats or progressives,
or something, as Jack Balkin points out. Some excerpts:
The individual has the right to security, education, health care, and
social security. The Iraqi State and its governmental units, including the
federal government, the regions, governorates, municipalities, and local
administrations, within the limits of their resources and with due regard
to other vital needs, shall strive to provide prosperity and employment
opportunities to the people.
Article 15 ...
(G) Every person deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall have
the right of recourse to a court to determine the legality of his arrest
or detention without delay and to order his release if this occurred in an
illegal manner.
Article 17.
It shall not be permitted to possess, bear, buy, or sell arms except on
licensure issued in accordance with the law.
Article 23.
The enumeration of the foregoing rights must not be interpreted to mean
that they are the only rights enjoyed by the Iraqi people... They enjoy
all the rights that befit a free people possessed of their human dignity,
including the rights stipulated in international treaties and agreements,
other instruments of international law that Iraq has signed and to which
it has acceded, and others that are deemed binding upon it, and in the law
of nations. Non-Iraqis within Iraq shall enjoy all human rights not
inconsistent with their status as non-citizens.
88.5 FM, KCSN,
7:00 to 9:00pm Pacific Time (9 Central, 10 Eastern, 0300am 19 Mar GMT), as
always streaming worldwide via our web site.
Even those voters who currently support U.S. actions abroad may still
object to this move, knowing their own children or grandchildren will not
have a say about whether to fight.
(Not that it should make a difference, but this plan, among other things,
eliminates higher education as a shelter and includes women in the draft
-- also crossing into Canada has already been made very difficult.)
ACTIONS, ACTIONS, ACTIONS:
Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and all the
aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents.... And let your children know
-- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change!
Please also write to your representatives to ask them why they aren't
telling their constituents about these bills -- and write to newspapers
and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this
important story.
The DRAFT
$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS)
budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June
15, 2005. SSS must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which
has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation.
Please see website: http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html
to view the SSS Annual Performance Plan - Fiscal Year 2004.
The Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft
board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide. Though this is
an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members
of Congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard
slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on
"terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5146.htm
Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and H.R. 163 forward this year,
entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "To provide for the
common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18-26] in the
United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a
period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and
homeland security, and for other purposes."
These active bills currently sit in the Committee on Armed Services.
Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era
remember. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada
and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration," which could be used to
keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's Minister of Foreign
Affairs, John Manley, and US Homeland Security Director, Tom Ridge, the
declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things,
a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country.
Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class
lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter.
Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of
their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic
year.
For more information about the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense
Committee visit our website at: www.nlg.org.
As I was slogging along in a
molasses-drenched crawl of L.A. traffic, I noticed a pickup truck that was
parked to my right. It looked like a typical good ol' boy pickup truck,
and prominently placed in the back window was a well-weathered sticker
that said "BUSH/CHENEY 2000".
However ... plastered above that sticker was
a new sticker, placed at a dynamic, oblique angle. That sticker said,
"VOTE BUSH OUT."
Isn't that interesting?
Do me a favor, though. Don't eat
corned beef and cabbage, which is no more a real Irish dish than "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" is real
Irish music (and in case you wondering, the latter isn't real Irish
music, it's shite.) More importantly ... don't drink any green beer
today. (Drink black beer.) Asking you that reminds me of an anecdote
from my late mentor, teacher and friend Ian Conner when I was in gradual
school. It was St. Patrick's Day, and someone mentioned he was going to
go out that night and find a bar that had green beer.
"Is that what St. Patrick's Day means to
you?" said Ian in full Scots burr. "That's not what St. Patrick's Day
means to me. On St. Patrick's Day we'd start crawling the Irish pubs at
noon, being with Irish people, and sharing the bounty of their black
beer and decent whiskey until we couldn't crawl anymore." Some of us
pointed out that we were pleased that Glaswegians would celebrate an
Irish holiday so ardently, and Ian added, "Well, that's not exactly how my
grandfather would celebrate it. He'd put orange ribbons on his clothing
and march through the Catholic parts of town, shouting anti-papist
slogans!" (Well, no need for that.)
Drink some Guinness lionn dubh or
Murphy's fine Cork stout. Have a
glass of Jameson's, or John Power's
if you can find it (perhaps the best of the most well-known Irish
whiskeys). Listen to Planxty
or The Bothy Band,
Willie Clancy or
Séamus Ennis,
Danú or Kíla, Dervish
or Altan. Make a pot of
Irish lamb stew,
or find some Irish bacon and sausages
and have breakfast for dinner. Most of all, be safe and don't drive if
you've had any drink.
Here are the words; I'm sure they'll strike
a chord in you as well, if you've spent so much as a day in the County
Clare. Sing along if you know it ... if not,
buy one of the recorded versions, including the new Mozaik album.
(chorus)
My heart tonight is far away, across the rolling sea
That August in Kilrush when the rain was lashing down
(chorus)
Those nights in Sixmilebridge when the songs and music flowed
Lahinch and Ennistimon, Liscannor and Kilkee,
My heart tonight is far away, across the rolling sea
I'd first heard mention of them from Bruce,
when he was in Fiddlers 4 with Mike Doucet and Darol Anger. I was
tremendously excited at the idea of this band and the prospect of
hearing an album, plus hoping against hope that I'd be able to see them.
Well, there's a new album due out on April 6 from Compass Records called
"Live from the Powerhouse", recorded at a concert in Brisbane. My copy
arrived day before yesterday, and it's brilliant. They'll be
touring the States
starting in Carrboro on Friday, and ending up in California next month.
Unfortunately, the only places they're playing here are Folsom and Santa
Cruz, which'll involve either driving for 6 hours or flying. Hell, I'll
get a cheap Southwest flight to Sacramento and drive to Folsom; if I can
fly 6,000 miles to see Planxty, this is nothing!
Although it flatters President George W. Bush to suggest he possesses
anything so grand as an ideology, Dubya emulates the Reagan technique. But
he's advanced it one bold step further. Rather than simply ignore
information, Bush and his minions have resolved to suppress it or, better
yet, to prevent it from being created in the first place. The following
three examples illustrate Bush's unique contribution to the war against
empiricism, which continues to escalate.
[more]
KCRW RESCINDS DISMISSAL OF SANDRA TSING LOH
SANTA MONICA, March 15, 2004
KCRW and Sandra Tsing Loh have released the following joint statement:
KCRW-FM and Sandra Tsing Loh announced today that the station has
decided to reverse its decision to take Loh off the air after an
indecent word was inadvertently broadcast during one of her taped
commentaries. But Loh has turned down General Manager Ruth Seymour's
invitation to resume "The Loh Life" on KCRW.
"When I made the decision to cancel 'The Loh Life,' I was not in
possession of all the facts regarding this unfortunate incident,
specifically that it had been Sandra's practice to leave instructions
for her engineer to bleep out certain words, and that this practice had
never before gone awry," said Seymour. "I regret having jumped to
conclusions about what happened and for erroneously accusing Sandra of
an 'intentional' breach of our broadcast standards."
"I appreciate the station's willingness to acknowledge that it was wrong
to cancel my show as well as its invitation for me to return," Loh said.
"And while I do wish KCRW well, I personally don't think I could be
comfortable working there anymore."
"I will never set foot inside KCRW's studios again... It's a personal
statement of how badly I was treated. That place is toxic ground for me.
Other than that, I wish them well."
Loh said she was considering offers from other NPR stations interested in
airing her show.
-- George W. Bush, Los Angeles, March 3, 2004
If Clear Channel truly had a true zero tolerance policy on decency, Stern
points out, it wouldn't have hired foul-mouthed right-wing Republican
Michael Savage at its KPRC-AM in Houston. (Savage infamously shouted that
homosexuals should "get AIDS and die" on MSNBC.) The real reason he's
being attacked, Stern says, is that he dared criticize George W. Bush.
The Right is running scared. Their wars and economic schemes are revealed
to be as fraudulent as their fake president, whose poll numbers are
plummeting as he turns to face uncharacteristically unified Democrats.
Because they have no record worth defending and no ideas anyone will
believe, the new McCarthyites have only one line of defense left:
censoring their opponents. The question this time is, will anyone stand up
for free speech?
Across the street from the College, we
finally met up with one of Dublin's most famous characters, the venerable
Molly Malone. You know Molly -- she's the one who pushes her cart up and
down the streets, and is the subject of the classic song:
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow
We ate chocolate raspberry truffles with it,
too. Despite indulgences like this, I've yet to suffer fatal
overdose.
Good news for you and for me -- Butler's
Irish Chocolates are available via mail order but, unfortunately, only in
500g boxes of the same flavor or variety; no mixing. Ah well. So I'll
have to eat an entire half-feckin'-kilo of milk, or white, or honeycomb,
or dark chocolate. Believe me, I'll survive that.
We had a lovely shared starter of
Speck, smoked cured ham from the north of Italy, served with
sour pickles. Wes had the house specialty, Tortellini
Baccaccio; the tortellini were filled with prosciutto di Parma and
Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese and bathed in a tomato-cream sauce with Irish
baacon, peas and mushrooms. Spectacular! When Wes ordered this, the
waiter smiled with genine glee and nodded his head saying, "Ooh, are you
going to enjoy!" They also offered what's just about my favourite pasta
dish, Penne all'Amatriciana (although my absolute favorite is to
have this dish with bucatini rather than penne), so that was a no-brainer
for me. I doubted they'd have actual guanciale in this dish, so I
asked if it was that or pancetta, and he said, "Yeah, like pancetta."
What they brought was an Amatriciana made with ... smokey Irish bacon. It
worked beautifully! Again, a nice local touch that works perfectly with
an established classic from a foreign cuisine. Expect no complaints from
me on this one ... I'll eat all the Irish bacon I can get my hands
on.
No dessert, as we were headed for
cocktail-land for dessert, but the waiter wouldn't hear of it -- we were
each given an ice-cold glass of Limoncello, compliments of the
house.
Our compliments to Chefs Nadia Spennato and
Damieno Aspil, owner Anna Vorcella, our effusive bald-as-an-egg waiter
whose name escapes me, and the entire staff of Boccaccio for another grand
dinner.
We had heard that there were good cocktails
to be had at the tony Clarence Hotel,
one of the nicer hotels in Dublin city, which is now owned by the lads in
U2. We ventured to the Octagon Bar
(aptly named, as the big room and the bar are octagonal) and had a look at
their cocktail menu.
It was pretty impressive, and that night was
the very first time, in seven days in Ireland, that we heard the sound of
a cocktail being shaken, that we even saw the presence of a cocktail
shaker, in any pub or bar. (Actually, we had a cocktail last night at
Tante Zoe's, but we didn't see or hear them made.) Not that there's
anything wrong with that, as we love pints and drams, but boy, were
we jonesing for a cocktail.
They were high-priced cocktails, too; this
was unsurprising, given the typical clientele of the Clarence. However,
if the value of our currency weren't so low, thanks to the current
administration, they'd only be slightly expensive. We saw prices of
€10-€15.50, but at the current exchange rates that made a drink
run between $13 and $20. Glerp.
Our barman Seán (who'd worked as a
barman in New York as well) recommended the Clarence Cosmopolitan (made
with both Absolut Mandarin and Citron, Cointreau, fresh lime juice and a
flamed orange peel), but we picked the following one from the menu.
Unfortunately, we didn't feel we could afford more than just one drink
that night, but fortunately these were quite good.
1-1/2 ounces gin (they used Gordon's).
In a cocktail shaker with cracked ice, combine the gin,
I managed to find this tale of how this
particular film came about, and more:
"God, they've fucked it up again," said Wes.
Sigh.
(Gee, I never heard anything about the
entire fabric of Belgian society disintegrating, did you?)
-- James Webb, Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan Administration
"[The Iraq War was] an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a
deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic
terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the
American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al Qaeda. The
war against Iraq was not integral to the [global war on terrorism], but
rather a detour from it."
-- from a report by the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War
College, December 2003.
Morning weigh-in ... 178. There is now 10%
less of me than there was on January 8.
20 down, 20 more to go. I think the next
part is gonna be the hard part.
When the House of Representatives passed the controversial benefit
by five votes last November, the White House was embracing an estimate by
the Congressional Budget Office that it would cost $395 billion in the
first 10 years. But for months the administration's own analysts in the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had concluded repeatedly that
the drug benefit could cost upward of $100 billion more than that.
The $1.5 billion cut Kerry proposed represented about the same amount Sen.
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), then chairman of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, told the Senate that same day he wanted cut from the
intelligence spending bill based on unspent, secret funds that had been
accumulated by one intelligence agency "without informing the Pentagon,
CIA or Congress." The NRO, which designs, builds and operates spy
satellites, had accumulated that amount of excess funds.
I found one in CocktailDB
called "The Donegall" (which is the Belfast spelling, not the spelling of
the actual county in the Republic of Ireland). It looked very
interesting, but I needed to make some substitutions. First, it called
for an ingredient called "Aurum", which is (or was) an Italian
brandy-based orange liqueur. It also called for dry vermouth, and we were
out (oops). I made another substitution, made the drink ... and it was
lovely. It also wasn't a Donegall anymore. Wes provided the new name,
with the more conventional spelling, and recalling a lovely Connemara
sunset we watched which undoubtedly would have been as lovely from the
coast of Donegal.
1 ounce Irish whiskey.
Combine ingredients with cracked ice in a cocktail shaker.
As introduced by the folks at MoveOn.org:
The Salon story makes it even clearer than before that the Bush administration
deliberately misled us in the run-up to the war in Iraq a year ago. The
problem was not bad intelligence -- it was deliberate distortion of the
facts.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about
getting more serious about playing Irish music -- I'm unearthing my old
sets of whistles, contemplating upgrading my Irish flute to a newer and
better instrument, and even considering performing the astonishing act of
practicing frequently. (Flute's always been my primary instrument, since
I was about 12.) I'd better be careful, though ... if I were to travel
with my flute, I might end up getting branded
as a terrorist. (Sheesh. Good thing the guy wasn't an uilleann piper --
they'd have thought his set of pipes was a planet-killer weapon, or
something.)
The reversal came 36 hours after his opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry
(D-Mass.), seized on the restriction in remarks that accused Bush of
"stonewalling and resisting the investigation into what happened and why
we had the greatest security failure in the history of our country."
The new flexibility, which White House press secretary Scott McClellan
acknowledged under questioning at two briefings, came as Bush argued that
Kerry tried to undermine the intelligence services during his 19 years in
the Senate.
"Nobody is watching the clock," McClellan said.
Asked whether Bush was responding to Kerry's charges, McClellan said, "I
don't think [Kerry is] someone who lets the facts get in the way of his
campaign."
How can this president who takes month-long
vacations (and who in fact has spent at leaste 27% of his presidency on
vacation) justify spending only an hour before the commission which is
investigating the worst attack ever on American soil?
Gotta love this highly
entertaining press conference on the subject, too. Poor
McClellan.
We didn't stay there this time.
Not for lack of trying, though ... it turns
out they were full up (so much for it being easy to find accommodation in
Dublin in the dead of winter) and could only give us two of the four
nights we required. A little more digging was in order ...
Still, it was a fine enough place, conveniently
located, and the people who worked the desk couldn't have been nicer. We
were a five-minute walk from O'Connell Street (the GPO, Eason's, the Moore
Street Market, and some local monuments; e.g., The Stiletto in the Ghetto,
the Prick with the Stick and the Floozy in the Jacuzzi), and a half-hour
walk from just about everywhere in Dublin we wanted to go. There's also a
24-hour car park a block and a half away in Marlborough Street which was
never full -- good to know if you're crazy enough to try to hire a car in
Dublin. (Expect to pay a max of €21 per day to park there.) We
recommend them very highly, and would certainly consider staying there
again ... if they do something about the hot water situation. In the
meantime, if you stay there, you might want to think about staggering
shower times.
I was trying to behave myself, so I didn't
partake of the fine-looking selection of pastries and cakes (the women at
the table next to us all ordered enormous pieces of chocolate cake, but to
their credit most of them ate less than half of it, which I suppose I
could have done). We're still running about 100% with the food on this
trip -- the piping-hot, well-seasoned soup was perfect for setting out on
foot on this cold Dublin winter day, accompanied by a crispy chicken
sandwich that actually reminded me more of home at Thanksgiving than a
typical Irish meal. Bellies warmed and filled, we set out.
The tour was primarily self-guided, but
there were many friendly and enthusiastic Guinness employees ready to
help. The whole thing was actually fascinating, with a multimedia
presentation about the life of Arthur Guinness, the man who started it
all; the brewing process explained in exhausive (but not uninteresting)
detail, including everything you wanted to know about the four ingredients
-- water, yeast, barley and hops; one room featuring another multimedia
presentation of amusing pub stories and anecdotes and many examples of the
Irish people's superior use of the English language, all related over
points, of course; the history of Guinness labelling, bottling,
advertising, and lots more.
And then there was that pint. They were
right. It was perfect. Temperature, flavor, everything. While
that's not a bar I'd want to hang out in the same way I'd want to hang out
in a nice, warm, cozy pub, I have to say that it was the best pint I'd
ever had. Still, the enjoyment of a pint isn't a standalone thing; the
craic is important too.
Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Time
for dinner...
For kicks, I once walked into a
restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland, which described itself as having
"authentic Mexican cuisine." When the waiter came by after I sat down, he
asked me if I'd like some "tor-TIL-la" chips (rhyming with "Godzilla") and
"SAL-sa" (first syllable as in "Sal", short for "Salvatore"). "Uh, okay,"
I said.
He brought me a bowl of Doritos and a dish
of ketchup. I left.
It's terrific.
The existence of Tante Zoé's wasn't a
surprise to me; I'd found it on my third trip to Ireland in 1992, rather
by accident. I'd heard from a few locals that there was a new Louisiana
restuarant in Dublin, but one lad told me that "Oh, that'd be very
expensive, now ... the likes of Bono and such hang out in there." Another
confirmed that it was pricey, and the last thing I wanted was pricey and
bad Creole food.
So one day, as I was walking down Dame
Street away from Trinity College, I saw an advertising board on the
street, pointed in toward a small, cobblestone street in Temple Bar. I'll
be damned, there it is. Well, it certainly couldn't hurt to go look at
the menu. And hey, it's not expensive at all! At that time the most
expensive dish on the menu was about IR£10, and most were between
IR£6 and IR£9. Heck, even I could afford that on my
limited travel budget. I decided to stick my head in, got one whiff
of the food ... and was drawn right in. I was mightily impressed. That's
not a small feat, impressing a New Orleanian, but I loved my seafood gumbo
(despite the presence of tomatoes in it; it's authentic, but there are two
types of people -- people who like tomatoes in their gumbo and people who
don't, and I'm one of the latter).
In fact, a few years later I even sent my
infamously persnickety parents there when they visited Ireland. When it
comes to Louisiana food they're extremely difficult to please, and when
they came back and told me how much they'd enjoyed their meal, I knew that
it wasn't just me -- Tante Zoé's had something.
My starter was what the menu described as
Shrimp Rémoulade, which I have to say was really, really
good. There was just one thing ... it wasn't exactly Shrimp
Rémoulade. It was different, and a not-unpleasant surprise. The
shrimp were warm, for one -- just cooked. They were plump, juicy and very
well-seasoned, served on a bed of lettuce and served with a drizzle of the
rémoulade sauce which wasn't bad, but it lacked the Zatarain's
Creole mustard that gives a New Orleans rémoulade sauce its
unmistakeable tang. A proper rémoulade back home is cold, has a
wealth of sauce that coats the shrimp and isn't served warm. That said,
the dish was very good, and I enjoyed it very much. I'd just call it
something else ... "Shrimp Zoé", maybe? Wes had a gumbo very much
like the one I'd had on my first visit to Tante Zoé's, Dooky
Gumbo, undoubtedly named after the great Dooky Chase's of New Orleans.
It was full of turkey, ham, beef and a beautifully spicy, house-made
chaurice sausage,
rare these days even in New Orleans.
My main course was Shrimp Creole,
served with yellow rice and hush puppies, and it was really, really good.
Lots of enormous shrimp, chunks of red and green bell peppers and a very
well-seasoned, spicy red gravy. You know they're doing well when it
doesn't even occur to you to ask for Tabasco.
Wes had Lou-Lou Mae's Jambalaya, with
similar ingredients as his gumbo -- pork, ham, chicken and more of that
delectable chaurice. The portion is served in an iron skillet, brought
sizzling to the table, and in an absolutely eye-popping quantity. The
both of us could have easily split that, and it was probably enough for
three, given my new smaller-portion eating habits. Also spicy and very,
very tasty. It'd be applauded on any Louisiana table.
It was at dinner when we had the truest
Irish touch to this Creole meal ... Bread Pudding with Whiskey
Sauce, and they use the venerable local favourite Jameson's Irish
Whiskey to make the sauce. I'm not entirely sure, but I think they used
Irish-style brown bread as well. There was a huge dollop of fresh
whipped Irish cream on the side, and a highly unusual but very tasty
garnish -- a fresh gooseberry. It was very different from a New Orleans
bread pudding, but it was outstanding. I approve of local touches being
added to our cuisine when it's done this well.
The prices had gone up somewhat since 1992
(big surprise), and were a little steeper than they might have been due to
our tanking dollar. The final bill without tip came up to €67.30,
which was about $85. Forty bucks for a dinner where a had a big cocktail
and walked home stuffed to the gills and happy? Sure, why not?
My advice -- be suspicious of every
Louisiana restaurant you see outside of Louisiana, but when in Dublin, go
directly to Tante Zoé's and enjoy your dinner without reservation
(but it'd help if you made a reservation, 'cause they're busy.)
Hmm, I'll have to figure out how to say
"Laissez les bons temps rouler!" in Irish ...
2-1/4 ounces George T. Stagg 15-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.
Combine ingredients with cracked ice in a cocktail shaker.
2. Don't pick a VP by looking at the map...
3. Don't fall back on the tried-and-untrue swing voter strategy that has
led to the prolonged identity crisis of the Democratic Party...
4. Don't run away from your voting record. Don't run away, as you did in
the New York debate, from being called a liberal. Embrace it, and define
it as the foundation of the great breakthroughs in American history...
5. Remember: He who controls the language defines the political debate.
Bush Republicans' control of certain magical words, starting with
"responsibility," has been a key to their success. You need to take back
"responsibility" from the grossly irresponsible GOP...
6. Strike a new bargain with the American people. Tell them, "Let's put an
end to the tyranny of low expectations. You can expect a lot more of me,
and I will ask a lot more of you"...
Shame, shame: Bush lies about Kerry's record.
I used this quote a mere eleven months ago
with regards to the current claimant to the presidency. I refrained from
overusing it, despite numerous opportunities, but sometimes you just have
to. "The bullshit piles up so high," said Martin Sheen's character Capt.
Willard in "Apocalypse Now", referring to the war mentality in Vietnam,
"that you need wings to stay above it." I know how he feels, 'cause
there he goes
again.
Bush and his operatives are making a practice of mischaracterizing the
voting record of the presumptive Democratic nominee. Two weeks ago, the
Republican National Committee put out a "Research Brief" that flagrantly
distorted Kerry's votes on weapons systems. (Click here
for the real facts.) Bush's remarks yesterday are more dishonest still.
First, would such a reduction have "gutted" the intelligence services?
Intelligence budgets are classified, but private budget sleuths have
estimated that the 1995 budget totaled about $28 billion.
Thus, taking out $300 million would have meant a reduction of about 1
percent. This is not a gutting.
Second, and more to the point, Kerry's proposal would have not have cut a
single intelligence program.
On the same day that Kerry's bill was read on the Senate floor, two of his
colleagues -- Democrat Bob Kerrey and Republican Arlen Specter introduced
a similar measure. Their bill would have cut the budget of the National
Reconnaissance Office, the division of the U.S. intelligence community in
charge of spy satellites.
According to that day's Congressional Record,
Specter said he was offering an amendment "to address concerns about
financial practices and management" at the NRO. Specifically, "the NRO has
accumulated more than $1 billion in unspent funds without informing the
Pentagon, CIA, or Congress." He called this accumulation "one more example
of how intelligence agencies sometimes use their secret status to avoid
accountability."
The Kerrey-Specter bill proposed to cut the NRO's budget "to reflect the
availability of funds I that have accumulated in the carry-forward
accounts" from previous years. Another co-sponsor of the bill, Sen.
Richard Bryan, D-Nev., noted that these "carry-forward accounts" amounted
to "more than $1.5 billion."
This was the same $1.5 billion that John Kerry was proposing to cut --
over a five-year period -- in his bill. It had nothing to do with
intelligence, terrorism, or anything of substance. It was a motion to
rescind money that had been handed out but never spent.
In other words, it's as if Kerry had once filed for a personal tax
refund -- and Bush accused him of raiding the Treasury.
[more]
Scalia addressed the $150-a-plate dinner hosted by the Urban Family
Council two months after hearing oral arguments in a challenge to a Texas
law that made gay sex a crime. A month after the dinner, he sharply
dissented from the high court's decision overturning the Texas law.
The three-judge panel has in recent months rejected the bulk of five
requests for reimbursements totaling $5.5 million from former president
Bill Clinton and associates involved in the Whitewater independent counsel
investigation. It has granted small parts of three requests worth
$114,000, or about 2 percent of the total.
After the Iran-contra independent counsel investigation of the Ronald
Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, the court ordered government
repayment of $1.5 million to 17 Republican officials and associates. It
rejected five requests worth about $1.5 million, mostly from people who
did not qualify because they had been indicted.
the irish connection
As someone who was fired twice by
Ruth Seymour ... I feel her pain. I hope she pops on local radio again
soon. Let's see.
The sleep study showed that during my
annoyingly abortive 6-hour sleep session at the clinic, I stopped
breathing 24 times per hour (which apparently qualifies as a "mild" case,
although at the upper limit of mild), and my blood oxygen level went down
to 77% ("I don't like it," said my otolaryngologist.)
I also had a delightful new experience today:
for the first time, I had a camera stuck up my nose. There was some kind
of fiber-optic snake camera with a light at the end that greeted me in
a second exam room after the doctor used some kind of machine to blow some
incredibly potent "medicine" -- something like super-thermonuclear Afrin --
right up me nose, nearly taking the top of me head right off. Man ...
that stuff was intense. My nasal passages had never been that open, ever.
Once the smell and post-drip taste of the medicine wore off, it was kind
of cool. I could breathe cubic miles of air, it seemed, and my sense of
smell was even heightened. Unfortunately, all that served only to help
get the camera up my nose, which was a tolerable but decidedly unpleasant
procedure. It only lasted a few minutes, though, as long as he needed to
evaluate my breathing passages. Don't expect to see MPEG he took end up
circulating the P2P networks anytime soon, though. ("Hey, screw that Paris
Hilton video -- I wanna see up Chuck's nose!")
My options are severalfold: 1) The
dreaded CPAP machine, which
involves wearing a face mask while I (attempt to) sleep, connected to a
noisy machine that forces air at high pressure up my nose. Everyone I've
known or known about who had to use one of these fecking things
hated it. In confirmation, "Everybody hates it," said the doctor,
"particularly in your age group, although if you got it it would solve
your problem completely." I don't want to solve the problem this way.
This treats the symptoms, not the underlying causes, and I'd rather sleep
in an iron maiden.
2) A dental device, the one the doc recommended being a modified Herbst
mandibular advancement device. Success rate on these is 60-90%. I'll try
this first. If any of y'all have any experience with a device like this,
I'd love to hear about it, particularly any unpleasant side effects (e.g.,
TMJ pain, drooling, etc.)
3) Radio-frequency surgery for the soft tissues in the soft palace, rear
throat and far back of the tongue, in order to open the airway, which is
done under sedation (probably IV Valium, like when I had my wisdom teeth
out -- it's good stuff). I recently found out that my ENT specialist is
one of the top otolaryngologists in Los Angeles, and a pioneer in surgical
techniques for the treatment of apnea. This is good. If the device
doesn't work, this is what we do next. Success rate in my age group --
60-70%.
4) Surgical removal of my tonsils and uvula under general anaesthesia, to
open the airway. (*glerp*) This is what we try last, and one I'd hope to
avoid if at all possible. Tonsillectomy is a much bigger deal for adults
than for little kids. (Plus, do adults also get all the free ice cream
and sorbet the way? This is an important question that needs to be
answered.) And my uvula ... who knew that my problem lies in my uvula?
This reminds me of a skit from my childhood.
Babs (Gilda Radner): I know. I feel rotten, but I can't seen to put my finger on what's wrong.
Sis: I have a hunch. Has it ever dawned on you that it might be your uvula?
Babs: Why, no... I must have stupidly glossed right over my uvula!
Sis: That's too bad, Babs. That's why I lined you up with a top
uvula specialist ... (*ding*dong*) ... who makes house calls!
Doc (Chevy Chase): (enters) Hello, I'm the doctor. (examines Babs' throat.)
Babs: (*hack*cough*)
Doc: I won't beat around the bush, Babs.
Babs: Is it bad, Doc?
Doc: In a nutshell, your uvula is on the fritz ... which reminds me of a joke: Knock, knock.
Babs: Who's there?
Doc: Babs' uvula.
Babs: Babs' uvula who?
Doc: I don't know, Babs ... but I do know this. You've really let your uvula go to the dogs.
Sis: I'd like to share with you something, Sis ... 'To Babs: It'll
behoove ya, to care for your uvula! Love, Sis.
Babs: Boy, do I hear ya, Sis! For now on it'll be good clean fun -- for me, and my uvula!
Doc: Which reminds me of another joke: Knock, knock!
Don Pardo: (off-camera) Who's there?!
Doc, Babs, and Sis: Aaaah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Don Pardo: The preceeding announcement was brought to you by the National Uvula Association.
There was a jar of Tootsie Pops at the reception desks,
presumably for the kids. I took one. Dammit, if I'm going to have to get a camera
shoved up my nose, I want a sucker on the way out.
Locke's was one of the more popular brands
of Irish whiskey up through the 1920s and 1930s, but demand declined due
to high taxes and economic depression (beer was a lot cheaper than
whiskey). The loss of the American market due to Prohibition was one of
the final death blows, and the distillery finally closed in 1957. Locke's
and Kilbeggan, the two main brands of whiskey from Locke's Distillery, and
still made, although they're now made at the Cooley Distillery in Co.
Louth and shipped to the old Locke's site for maturation in
barrels.
They've done a rather nice job restoring the
distillery into the state it was throughout the 19th and early 20th
Centuries, and they self-guided tour was actually very interesting.
The whole operation must have been very impressive in its time, and although most of the equipment would have been
made of wood, with some cast metal parts and might seem primitive by
today's standards, it was and still is a perfectly efficient way to process
barley mash into whiskey. We were also impressed by the stories of how
John Locke treated his employees -- he was a good man to work for, paid
his people well and treated them as human beings and valued assets of
the company, not as slave labor as was so common in the 19th Century. In
fact, when the company fell on hard times and Locke was in danger of losing his
business, the employees all kicked in along with many of the townspeople of
Kilbeggan and bailed him out.
After a lovely lunch of smokey bacon and
cheese sandwiches with a huge bowl of perfectly crisp chips, we resumed
the journey toward Dublin. Planxty minus four hours.
It had been 11 years since I'd been to
Dublin, and even when I was there before I'd only spent a couple of days
there total. I'd forgotten what a big city it is, and hadn't taken into
consideration how much bigger it had gotten since I was there last. We
spent a lot of time farting around in Kilbeggan, and when leaving I
foolishly said to Wes, "The timing is perfect. It's about 4 now, so we
should be hitting Dublin between 5 and 5:30."
Yep, perfect. Just in time to hit rush-hour
Dublin traffic. And to put us in a traffic jam the likes of which I don't
think I've ever seen even in Los Angeles.
It was unbelievable. Un-fecking-believable.
It slowed to the consistency of chilled molasses when we were approaching
the city from the N4, but once we hit Dublin city limits, it just
stopped. Complete fecking gridlock. What might have made it worse
is that we found ourselves on a road I didn't think we should have been
on, and I didn't quite know how we ended up there. Somewhere in
Chapelizod I missed a sign, and when I had been hoping to be on the
Chapelizod Road just south of Phoenix Park, I ended up on a series of
roads (St. Laurence, Sarsfield, Con Colbert, St. John's West) that were
just jammed. I might have taken a picture for you, just to document how
bad it was, but I was too busy shrieking "FUCK!" (no, Mrs. Doyle, not
feck, the actual F-word), pounding on the steering wheel and perspiring.
It was so bad, and we were so far behind the schedule I'd hoped we'd be
on, that for a while there I thought it might actually be possible that,
after all this expense and travelling, I'd miss the show (at least the
beginning).
My expert reading of the Dublin city map
left a lot to be desired, too -- it'd been over a decade since I'd been
there, I hadn't spent that much time in the city to begin with, and I'd
forgotten how the streets tended to be one-way when you didn't expect, and
how hard-to-read the street signage was. Once we got past the traffic
and into Dublin 1, I ended up taking a half-dozen wrong turns on the way
to the apartments. We ended up stopping at a petrol station at a
frighteningly busy intersection way the hell up Drumcondra Road to ask for
directions. Apparently the gentleman inside seemed to think Wes was quite
mad, but he headed us back in the right direction, which was, of course,
back the other way ... and it was impossible to go that way from where we
were. "Can't get there from here, though!"
Somehow, we made it ... 42 North Great
Georges Street, the Mount Eccles Court Hostel and Apartments, checked into
apartment #2, looked around (okay, it was nice; not quite as nice as the
impression the photo gave, but perfectly nice enough), double-checked the
showtime (8:30 instead of 8 ... thank CHRIST!), threw our stuff inside,
left immediately, got back into the car, and drove to the venue. It
didn't take long to get there at all ... but parking the car was another
matter. Did I mention that it's a relative nightmare to have a car in
Dublin? If you're thinking about it, don't. It'll cost you more to park
it than to hire it, the disc parking system can be diabolical (buy a
parking disc-permit from a machine on the street for between €1.60
and €2 per hour, with a three-hour limit, there are evil clampers
everywhere who'll clamp your car if you're so much as a minute overtime,
there are only 9 multistorey carparks in all of Dublin, and only four of
them are open 24 hours. Jesus.
Finally, after more wrong turns and U-turns
there was the beautiful sight of the multistorey car park on Usher's Quay,
a mere 10 minute walk from the venue ...
and there we were, a whole 40 minutes early. There was a nice lady
outside who handed me our tickets. The bar had just opened. We were
there. Good Christ, do I need a pint.
I know exactly how he feels. I had
the same experience, from my seat about 25 feet away from Andy,
Dónal, Liam and Christy, above their heads and to their right. To
answer my friend Paul's
question, yes ... I cried right into my Guinness.
Twenty-four years is a long time to wait to
see a band, a band that's grown in stature not only in my head, heart and
soul, but in the annals of Irish music. As I related before, Planxty is
a band that changed my life in ways that probably no other band has (with
the possible exception of The Bothy Band). This concert was an intensely
emotional experience for me too and was absolutely, positively, without
exception a complete, ecstatic joy from its beginning to its all-too-soon
end, two hours and fifteen minutes later.
"YER DOIN' GRAND, LOVE!" cried a womon
sitting in front of me. Everyone cracked up. "Thanks, mammy!" Albert
replied with a cheery wave.
His mammy (or whoever she was) was right --
he was wonderful and gave a very engaging performance, and fortunately for
him and for those who were trembling with anticipation, his set was only
fifteen minutes long. (In different circumstances, I would have been
happy to hear him do an entire show, and I hope I get the opportunity to
do that someday.) My own anticipation didn't involve much trembling (that
I was able to notice, anyway), but it was definitely physical, in a way
that I'd never felt before. There was a fire in my stomach, not at all
unpleasant, but one that kept growing, growing, and wanting to be
extinguished by music. My head felt tight. My fingers were restless. I
took another draught from my Guinness.
The Good Ship Kangaroo. As I said before, this is the song that
changed my life -- the first Planxty song I'd ever heard. I literally
could not believe I was hearing it being performed live, and I cried like
a little girl (or a great big drama queen). Christy's voice was
incredibly powerful, as strong as I'd ever heard it; Andy and
Dónal's mandolin and bouzouki sparkled just as it did on the 1979
recording that I first heard when I was 19 years old, and when Liam's
pipies kicked in again ... the crowd cheered even louder than before.
That was the moment when, hearing the song for the first time in 1980 or
'81, when my jaw dropped. It did again.
My Heart's Tonight In Ireland, in the sweet Country Clare. That's
Merrily Kissed the Quaker. This tune, a slide, appears on
Planxty's first self-titled album from 1972, featuring Liam on the pipes
and Christy on bodhrán.
Jigs: The Clare Jig/Nora Críona. Another new set of tunes,
not from any previous Planxty album.
Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór is a fabulous tune,
supposedly the first tune composed by the famed blind travelling harper
Turlough O'Carolan in the 18th Century. As with many Carolan compositions
it's got a bit of a classical feel, but is thoroughly in the Irish
tradition. Liam shone on this, of course, and really got the audience
going. His playing is so beautiful and exciting that it makes you want to
run right out and get a set of pipes. (Should you be considering such a
thing, consider also that a full set of pipes is shockingly expensive,
that they're perhaps the world's most difficult instrument to play, that
a full set contains seven reeds and is extremely difficult to keep in
tune, and then there's the old saying, "Seven years learning, seven years
practicing, seven years playing, before you're a piper.")
As I Roved Out (Christy). This was one of many songs Christy
learned from the singing of John "Jacko" Reilly, a settled member of the
Travelling community from Co. Roscommon. Christy pointed out later on that
this particular Traveller gave many great gifts to Irish culture with the
songs that he knew, that had been preserved in his family and community
for generations, including some that had never been collected in Ireland
or Britain before (including "The Well Below the Valley" and "The Raggle
Taggle Gypsy"). We all owe Jacko a great debt.
The Death of Staker Wallace.
Reels: Lord McDonald's / The Chattering Magpie. The audience was
set aflame once more, with this set of reels originally appearin gon
1979's "After the Break", my first Planxty album.
Arthur McBride. An anti-recruiting song from Donegal in which the
singer and his cousin Arthur, whilst walking along the beach, meet a
British army recruiter. He promised gold guineas and a life of
excitement, but the two lads declined. The sergeant got testy and was
goign to force his hand, but before he could draw his sword the lads
produced their shillelaghs and clobbered the bastard over the head. This
turn of events drew great cheers from the crowd. Andy was the singer on
this one, and it's from the first album.
Only Our Rivers Run Free. This song, written by Michael MacConnell
of Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh in 1964, was on Planxty's first album and
was also in Christy's solo repertoire. In this one he sings of Ireland
before independence, during its 700 years of bondage.
The Blacksmith/Blacksmithereens. Andy on vocals on this one, an English
ballad collected in the last 19th Century and in a minor key that lent itself well
to the transition to the Balkan-flavored tune of Andy's which he called
"Blacksmithereens", which featured Liam and Dónal.
Reels: Jenny's Wedding / The Virginia / Garret Barry's Reel. Jesus, I lost track of them all ...
a huge blast of reels, one of which was on "The Well Below the Valley", another of which I thought I recognized
but couldn't place the name, and another that was entirely new to me (I got the titles later). Liam ruled on
the pipes, and Christy's bodhrán plused and pounded. Musical moments like this
are rare and transcendent, and as I listened to this set of tunes the rest of the world
was a million miles away.
The West Coast of Clare. Another song from Andy, an original composition that's
delicate, beautiful and sad. Andy seems to take great inspiration from West Clare, as
two of his best songs (both of which he performed tonight) sing of Clare, and the times
he spent there. He started writing this song just after the last gig from his first band,
Sweeney's men (also consisting of Johnny Moynihan, Joe Dolan and Terry Woods, the latter of whom would
be in The Pogues 15 years later). He left for Eastern Europe, listening to and learning
Balkan music, and finished the song while busking in Ljubljana, Slovenia (a city I love).
Just gorgeous.
The Raggle Taggle Gypsy / Tabhair Dom do Lámh.This song
And then it was over. Seventeen songs and tune-sets had gone by, and it
felt like it had lasted as long as the snap of a finger. Fortunately,
after a couple of minutes of screaming myself ragged and pounding on the
wall, back they came ...
ENCORE:
Seán Ó Duibhir a Ghleanna. Another tune we hadn't
heard from Planxty before, not appearing on any of their albums. Liam
played this gorgeous melody on the tin whistle, accompanied by
Dónal on bouzouki, and described it as "something we worked out a
little earlier", which could very well have meant earlier that day.
True Love Knows No Season. This is an American song, actually,
written by Norman Blake, and appeared on "The Woman I Loved So Well". Yet
another example of Christy's uncanny ability to take someone else's song
and make it completely his own. It's a gorgeous tune, and on the record
Christy described it as "the first cowboy song I ever heard in a Cork city
pub."
The Cliffs of Dooneen. Not what I expected. Ya'd expect them to
end on a big high note, another fiery blast of tunes, but this was not
so. We finished up with the very first song ever released under the
band name Planxty, as a single on Polydor issued right after they
signed to the label, and a huge hit in Ireland (it first appeared on
"Prosperous"). Christy gently introduced the song, and the
entire audienced gasped -- it was partly a gasp of surprise and
shock, accompanied by a peaceful, joyous sigh of pleasure and delight.
There probably isn't a word in either Irish or English to describe that
sound, and that reaction. And what a show-stopper it was, too ...
everyone sang along, myself included, most folks with their eyes closed
and their heads somewhere else, singing and swaying and smiling. This
wasn't just a band, and this wasn't just a song -- this was Ireland, this
was part of their tradition, their history, their culture. I felt very,
very lucky indeed to be a part of this intimate, cultural moment with all
these people.
Feck, yes. Every single minute of waiting,
and every single penny.
Less than 19 weeks after the tragic attacks of September 11th, President
Bush reassured America that he had "no ambition whatsoever to use [the war
on terror or 9/11] as a political issue." Today, however, "President
Bush's re-election team unveiled his first campaign advertisements [which]
in part use the events of Sept. 11, 2001...Two ads refer to the tragedy of
Sept. 11, 2001...One ad, entitled 'Tested,' shows, among other images, a
damaged building from the World Trade Center ruins behind an American
flag." The ad is already provoking outrage among 9/11 victims' families
as well as firefighters who were at the scene that day.
Of course, this is only the latest chapter in the president's efforts to
politicize 9/11 for his own personal political gain. Less than 19 weeks
after the 9/11 attacks, Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove urged
Republicans to "go to the country" on national security issues, claiming
Americans "trust the Republicans to do a better job" of "protecting America"
against another 9/11-like attack. AP soon reported that the "White House
is advising GOP candidates to focus on the War on Terror."
Then, nine months after the attacks, CNN reported that "the White House
approved of the Republican congressional campaign committee's plan to use a
photograph of President Bush taken on September 11 as part of a GOP
fundraising effort. The photograph shows Bush aboard Air Force One, talking
to Vice President Dick Cheney hours after the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon" and was given to "donors who contributed at least
$150 and attend a fund-raising dinner with Bush and the first lady next
month."
To top it off, the president took the extraordinary step of making the 2004
Republican National Convention the latest in party history in order to have
it come three days before the 9/11 anniversary. Even White House advisers
admit "they are wary of being portrayed as exploiting the trauma of Sept.
11, a perception that might be particularly difficult to rebut as Mr. Bush
shuttles between political events at Madison Square Garden and memorial
services at ground zero."
BUSH EXPLOITS PHOTO OF DEAD BODIES, DESPITE BAN
As the nation headed for war last year, President Bush "clamped down" on the
media, extending and expanding a controversial policy that banned reporters
from photographing flag-draped caskets of soldiers killed in combat. The
White House said the policy was enforced to "spare the feelings of military
families." Yet, in the very first television advertisement of his 2004
campaign, the president has blanketed the nation's airwaves with an image of
"firefighters carrying a flag-draped body" from the 9/11 wreckage at Ground
Zero.
The hypocrisy of preventing Americans from receiving a "reminder of the toll
of war" at the very same time the president exploits an image of a dead body
for his own political gain has caused an outrage among victims' families.
Chris Burke, whose brother Tom died in the attacks, said, "Using my
dead friends and my dead brother for political expediency is dead wrong.
It's wrong, it's bad taste and an insult to the 3,000 people who died on
Sept. 11."
Reuters reports,
"Ron Willett of Walnut Shade, Missouri, said he was disgusted when he saw
the ads. Willett, who lost his 29-year-old son, John Charles, said he is
now so upset, 'I would vote for Saddam Hussein before I would vote for
Bush.'"
"It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place," said
Firefighter Tommy Fee of Queens Rescue Squad 270. "The image of
firefighters at ground zero should not be used for this stuff, for
politics."
-- Vice-President Dick Cheney, March 2, 2004
Your own private wine wonk: A profile of some of the smaller,
quirkier and wonderful wine shops
in the Los Angeles area, where you're more likely to get personal advice
and service, including one of my very favorites -- Chronicle Wine Cellar
in Pasadena, right behind Pie 'n Burger.
We come to bury Caesar (in dressing): The truly original
original Caesar Salad.
We're on a Mission from God. Another fabulous writeup of Monterey
Park's Mission 261.
I don't think we can wait for our friends to come in from Ireland; we have
to go to this place NOW!
(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. McDERMOTT: Mr. Speaker, the President's presidential prayer team is
urging us to "pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally
codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to
Biblical principles."
With that in mind, I thought I would remind the body of the biblical
principles they are talking about.
Marriage shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women.
That is from Genesis 29:17-28.
Secondly, marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in
addition to his wife or wives. That is II Samuel 5:13 and II Chronicles
11:21.
A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the
wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. That is Deuteronomy 22:13.
Marriage of a believer and a nonbeliever shall be forbidden. That is
Genesis 24:3.
Finally, it says that since there is no law that can change things,
divorce is not possible, and finally, if a married man dies, his brother
has to marry his sister-in-law.
Looka! gets a new tag line every month, and
I try to make them witty, clever and/or culturally relevant. For March of
2004, since it right after I returned from my first trip to Ireland since
1992, I chose a tagline line in Irish: "Bia agus deoch, ceol agus
craic." This, of course, prompted a phone call from my friend Mary,
demanding "Okay, what's that gibberish at the top of my free
content?"
I explained to her that it was a line in
the Irish language I'd seen outside many traditional pubs, informing those
who might wish to come inside that "food and drink, music and convivial
good times" are to be had within. "Gee," said Mary, "that sounds just
like what your weblog's all about." She was right, of course ... hey,
that's not a bad idea ... and as of March 1, 2004, we've got a new,
permanent tag line. (I'll still change the ones in the title bar every
month, though.)
Tar isteach ... tá fáilte rómhat anseo.
Stanley says, "This is the special cocktail
served at Restaurant de la Louisiane, one of the famous French
restaurants of New Orleans, long the rendezvous of those who appreciate
the best in Creole cuisine. La Louisiane cocktail is as
out-of-the-ordinary as the many distinctive dishes that grace its menu."
That restaurant is, sadly, long gone, but fortunately we can still quaff
its signature drink.
3/4 ounce rye whiskey.
Mix in barglass with lumps of ice. Strain into a cocktail glass
Shellfish are also an abomination (a
word which, in the original Hebrew, actually means something more like
"ritually unclean"). Crawfish too, apparently ... pity, that.
We'd been spending time with our friends in
Loughrea, plus a fair amount of time in Galway city, leaving us only a day
to spend in Clare. It's maddening, really; Clare is full of great little
towns, nooks and crannies to explore, with great traditional music and,
especially, the wonders of the Burren. If we were short on time, we were
long on weather -- it was spectacular, brisk but not cold, bright and
sunny with only occasional interventions from ultimately hesitant
clouds. We headed south from Órán Mór (Oranmore),
heading right at the Mother Hubbard's
(Ireland's most famous truck stop chain) in Cill Cholgan (Kilcolgan), made
a brief stop for a leg-stretch outside Dungaire Castle in
Cinn Mhara (Kinvarra), then stopped for a while at the beautiful little
town of Baile Uí Bheacháin (Ballyvaughan).
(Incidentally, regarding visitors' centres
for the Burren ... they're fine if they're in villages, where there are
already services, plumbing, etc.; the one in Ballyvaughan was supposed to
be excellent. Some very foolish people, however, wanted to build
visitors' centres right smack in the middle of the Burren, a unique and
fragile environment, and right at the foot of An Mullach Mó,
Mullaghmore Mountain, the gorgeous site that's the heart of the Burren. A
group called The Burren Action Group
fought it for years, and were ultimately successful, for which we all owe
them our thanks.)
I wanted to spend the evening in Doolin
(Dúlainn), on the west coast of Clare, one of my favorite little
towns in Ireland. It sits right between the Burren and the Atlantic
Ocean, is quiet and picturesque and beautiful. It's quite tiny, too; with
only three pubs, and with Ireland's general formula of one pub per one
hundred or so people, that works out with its permanent population being
about 350 or 400 souls. Their pubs have also been famous for traditional
sessions for years, and I've enjoyed many a seisiún in that
town.
There was only one potential hitch ... we
stopped at a little place in Lisdoonvarna (Lios Dúin Bhearna),
primarily because we were despereate for a toilet. We pulled into the car
park in front of a tiny place called Sweet Dreams, advertising "cookies,
scones and cakes". It wasn't even a café, really ... just a very
nice lady's place of business. It smelled wonderful as soon as we walked
in, and I immediately wanted to purchase some of her creations. We
chatted for a while; her name was Nancy, and she had lived in the area for
many years (interrupted by a stint living in the States). We thoroughly
enjoyed our chat (and she was kind enough to let us use her toilet), but
we were dismayed by one thing -- she thought Doolin had been
ruined.
"It's nothing but big, ugly, two-storey bed
and breakfasts now," she said. "They've been sprouting up for the last 10
years, spoiling the view." She was also down on the traditional music
scene, and told me that the scene was just beginning to die when I was
there last. "Musicians came to sessions because they wanted to; now the
publicans hire them for the tourists."
Ever since I first started going to Doolin,
McGann's has always been my favorite pub in town. Smaller, more
frequented by locals and less by tourists, and for me the music has always
been better there -- fantastic sessions, and the music was still great
even when it wasn't Irish. One night several years ago I stopped in there
and they were setting up electric equipment. "Who's playing tonight?" I
asked the barman. "Chris Meehan and his Redneck Friends!" said he.
"Country and western!" Oh Jayyyyyyyysis. This was most certainly
not what I came to Ireland for. I resolved to finish my pint and
find another pub. Fortunately I was savoring it, because the band started
before I finished ... and I stayed until the pub closed several hours
later. Chris and his band were brilliant and lots of fun, and they
particularly endeared themselves to me when they launched into a set of
Cajun songs. (Nancy in Lisdoonvarna remembered that gig, too!)
McGann's was pretty sparsely populated,
mostly locals and maybe a couple of visitors -- we ordered John Power's
whiskey, a couple of pints, a huge bowl of Irish stew and a plate of fried
haddock and chips. We enjoyed unobtrusively eavesdropping on some locals'
conversations, and as we did ... I noticed one sitting to the left of the
fire. "Y'know," said I to Wes, "yer man over there next to the fire is the
spitting image of Barry Moore, a.k.a. Luka Bloom." Lo and behold ... it
was. Unfortunately I was too shy to go over and say hello, even though I
should have; he and I had met briefly a couple of times at KCRW and at
gigs in L.A., although I was sure he wouldn't remember (although I'm sure
he would have remembered my old KCRW colleague Deirdre O'Donoghue, who isn't easy
to forget). Still, we enjoyed our celebrity encounter from the
privacy-respecting distance of the next table. I wished very hard that he
was there to participate in a session, but he said he was on "a break",
staying in town and taking it easy. Fair play to ya, Barry.
Another musician sat down and took out his
guitar, fortunately -- he was a local who had that very day flown back
from Thailand, driven all the way back to Doolin from Shannon Airport and
was still rarin' to go, despite all that travelling. That was Niall
Sheedy, who co-owns a local cafeé (as I recall Garret telling us),
and is a wonderful singer. (above right; Niall on the right-hand
side of the session) His guitar fleshed out the session perfectly,
and he sang several great songs by people from John Prine to the Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band to Johnny Mulhearn. They were later joined by an
American folk fiddler named Colin, and his wife whose name I don't recall;
he played along, and she sang a Gillian Welch song as well as a lovely one
of her own.
(Incidentally, you can hear Niall's singing
and Kevin's playing on a wonderful compilation put together by the Burren
Action Group to raise funds to stop the interpretive centers from being
built next to Mullaghmore. It's called "The Sound of Stone", and may
still be available from the BAG's web site.
Email P.J. regarding availability and current price; the page is so old it's still listed in Irish pounds.
Alternately, try Mulligan's in Galway, and
tell Mike I sent you.
We stayed until after midnight -- well past
normal pub closing time (but out in the country, the pubs generally close
when they feel like it), and after an entirely grand evening. The
musicians were still at it, but were beginning to wind down, and we had a
long drive back to Loughrea. Garret laughed at us when we said we thought
we'd make it in an hour. "Try two!" he said. "Eh, if yis like I can
tell you about a great shortcut back to Loughrea that'll take you
straight through the middle of the Burren ... ah, but I'd probably end
up being responsible for your crash." We politely declined the
shortcut. He was right about the time, though. After two hours of
driving from town to town on on tiny roads (Doolin to Liscannor to Lahinch
to Ennistymon to Ennis to Gort to Loughrea) in the pitch black (being
unable to imagine the roads being much tinier), we arrived back at the
house in Loughrea at about 2:15am.
I'd be seeing Planxty in about 18 hours.
His disciples objected: "If that's the way it is, then it's better not to
marry at all" (Matthew 19:10). But Jesus would not back down. He grounded
his opposition not in law (what God said on Mt. Sinai) but in nature (what
God did when he created the human race male and female). Thus, even though
the Law of Moses permitted divorce, Jesus, arguing in a very Jewish way,
trumped Exodus with Genesis to forbid it absolutely. He quoted Genesis
2:24: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his
wife, and they become one flesh." In effect, he maintained that a man who
divorced his wife after becoming "one flesh" with her would be committing
an unnatural as well as an immoral act if he married another woman.
How disappointed, then, Jesus would be to discover that the Defense of
Marriage Act had nothing at all to do with repealing no-fault divorce or
otherwise returning the United States to the era when divorce was
culturally as well as legally stigmatized and millions of Americans voted
against Adlai Stevenson in 1948 and 1952 because -- and only becaus--
they did not want a divorced man in the White House. Jesus would be
surprised to learn that the Defense of Marriage Act had nothing whatever
to do with criminalizing divorce but was, instead, a law that criminalized
the creation of new marriages -- namely, gay marriages. The Savior, who
never spoke a word about homosexuality, would need to have a young
conservative activist explain to him that Congress regarded gay marriage
just as Jesus regarded divorce -- namely, as a crime against nature.
|
I can't say I'm against it, because I think
smoking is vile (and I wouldn't have a problem with it, if smokers simply
declined to exhale, and were able to prevent their dangling cigarettes
from trailing smoke). Yes, I know that everyone should be able to choose
their own bad habits -- I drink (although in moderation), and I eat pork
and rich food (nowadays, also in moderation), but those habits generally
remain within my bubble. I don't spit my drink at your table, so I'd
appreciate it if you didn't blow your smoke at mine.
Gerald Harvey Jones, the celebrated impressionist, better known to his
peers and patrons as G. Harvey, is a modest man whose humility belies his
unqualified success. 
Anyway, it occurred to me that after putting
a list of my radio show playlists in an FTP directory on my old Netcom
shell account starting back in October of 1993, and then reading all
about Mosaic (remember that?) and simple HTML and things like that, and
then getting tired of having to constantly write down and then later on
keep printing out my Creole food recipes and list of recommended New
Orleans restaurants, I decided that a web site was what I needed. The
exact date is obscure, but I put my first web page up sometime in
mid-January of 1994 and named it after my then-radio show ... and so was
born The Gumbo Pages (which, before long, had this neatonifty
logo designed for me by my pal Lee Williamson, followed by the
washer/dryer; and, unfortunately, a bathroom that runs out of hot water
for the shower in about 12 minutes.
| Several of my friends and loved ones (and a few kind strangers) contribute regularly to this weblog. Thanks to Wesly Moore, Mike Luquet, Andy Senasac, Michael Yasui, Steve Gardner, Michael Pemberton, Steve Kelley, Barry Kelley, Eric Labow, Tom Krueger, Greg Beron, Sean Burke, Shari Minton and Barry Enderwick. |
chuq's links | the gumbo pages
creole and cajun recipe page | search this site
chuck taggart | email chef (at) gumbopages (dot) com
|
This site ©1994-2004
by Chuck Taggart. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. |
|
This means that you may not copy my writing onto other web
pages or anywhere else without my specific written permission. (Quotes of
short passages, properly attributed, may be considered fair use.)
If you do copy my work, it's called "stealing". People who steal my stuff will be étoufféed and served to Dr. Lecter, with a nice Chianti. (I'm serious. Just don't do it. Thanks.) |
