 
Helping to make a skinnier Cajun. The Louisiana Office of Public Health has come to a realization:
Cajun food is one of the most beloved aspects of Louisiana culture. We love it here on the Bayou, and others enjoy it across the country and around the world. Putting that great taste aside, we realize that some of the traditional Cajun ingredients are not conducive to maintaining a healthy body weight or a healthy heart.No! I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked! All kidding aside, the OPH has done a pretty bang-up job with its new website, Healthier Cajun Cooking. Our goal is to provide a basic understanding of nutrition and to provide suggestions for improving the nutritional quality of Cajun style food. In doing so, we have provided a complete nutritional analysis for each recipe quantifying Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, Sodium, Dietary Fiber, Carbohydrates, and Protein." Healthier versions of classic recipes -- just what the Weight Watching Louisianian needs. (Thanks, Paul!)
New Wilco album online. Y'know, I've known this for weeks but forgot to post it ... sorry! If you don't already know, Wilco's new album A ghost is born is available for QuickTime preview and pre-order (it's due out on June 22). Let's all send out some beams for Jeff's speedy recovery, too.
Dear Abby. From May 20, 2004 (via Patrick):
DEAR READERS: I'm still receiving letters in support of the 13-year-old girl who was ridiculed by her class for revealing that she'd one day like to be president of the United States. Read on:Indeed.
Our exit strategy. "The delusional Bush, his quagmire and November." Marc Cooper writes in this week's edition of his column "Dissonance" in the LA Weekly:
We finally got some good news from George W. Bush. We haven't had very much since he stood on an aircraft carrier a year ago and declared the war in Iraq was over. Now, we learn, the occupation, which turned out to be bloodier than the war, is also shutting down. So much for the cynics who've been predicting a quagmire. Eat, drink, listen to music, dance, see movies, be merry and be safe. That's it until next Tuesday, at least. Have a great Memorial Day holiday weekend, all you lot in the States. If you're on the road, watch out -- there are a lot of eejits out there.
The Cocktailian. In Gary Regan's fortnightly column today, The Professor argues with a customer about taking the rum out of the Mojito, as its new variations travel to Kentucky and Mexico.
Nat Decants: Finding a reason to go to Arizona. Well, other than the Grand Canyon, that is. I must confess that I really hadn't given Arizona much thought as a vacation destination (I hate dry wedda!) Natalie Maclean took her family to the Phoenecian Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona not for "the 22,000 square foot spa, the 27-hole golf course, the 12 tennis courts or the 9 swimming pools, complete with water slide ... No, the place I really longed to be was in the resort's dark, damp basement -- keeping company with its $4 million cellar of some 50,000 bottles. Hmm, now we're talking. Their master sommelier, Greg Tresner, is one of the few in North America, and in six years has transformed a 550-bottle wine cellar into one with a 110-page list that's one of the best in the country. "It even has tasting flights of rare aged cognacs such as Remy Martin Louis XIII, Hennessey Timeless and L'Or de Martel." Ooh. Bet I can't afford that.
Tresner looks Casablanca-debonair in his tuxedo, his silver hair contrasts with merry dark eyes. He shows us his treasures: verticals of port from 1934, a bottle of 1921 Château d'Yquem, a 1947 magnum of Château Cheval Blanc (worth $30,000) and the crown jewel: a 1795 madeira, covered with a respectable amount of dust.Bet I really can't afford that. The restaurant doesn't seem to shabby, either:
Aside from a spectacular wine list, the restaurant has also garnered fame for its fine French cuisine: it's just one of eighteen restaurants in North America to receive the coveted five-star rating from the Mobil Travel Guide. The man behind this success is Brad Thompson, who spent five years as chef at Daniel Boulud's celebrated New York City restaurant, Daniel.Oh my. Sounds perfect. But what would I do the rest of the day, when I'm not eating and drinking?
Super size this. Oh dear ... there'll be no offending the sugar, fat and weight-gain conglomerates, will there?
MTV apparently wants to keep the peace between its pimple-popping viewers and the fast-food advertisers who want to sell 'em on their greasy goodness.'Cause it's all about the money, of course. We saw "Super Size Me" last weekend. It was very entertaining and made its point, and I don't think McDonald's food has ever looked so unappetizing (particularly as a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Super-Size Fries and 48-ounce Coke were being barfed out the car window as Morgan's stomach rebelled at the assault).
Not fit to print.
James C. Moore analyzes the utter failure of the New York Times
with regards to its role in spreading government disinformation on Iraq.
(Salon link, so just watch the commercial.)
It's thoroughly damning, and the most
astonishing quote of all comes from the one Paul Waldman describes
as "Ahmed Chalabi's personal stenographer", reporter Judith Miller, who
wrote the majority of the "flawed" stories:
The story had an enormous impact, one amplified when Rice, Secretary of
State Colin Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney all did appearances on
the Sunday morning talk shows, citing the first-rate journalism of the
liberal New York Times. No single story did more to advance the political
cause of the neoconservatives driving the Bush administration to invade
Iraq.
But Miller's story was wrong.
The failures of Miller and the Times' reporting on Iraq are far greater
sins than those of the paper's disgraced Jayson Blair. While the
newspaper's management cast Blair into outer darkness after his
deceptions, Miller and other reporters who contributed to sending America
into a war have been shielded from full scrutiny. The Times plays an
unequaled role in the national discourse, and when it publishes a
front-page piece about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds, that story very
quickly runs away from home to live on its own. The day after Miller's
tubes narrative showed up, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News went on national TV
to proclaim, "They were the kind of tubes that could only be used in a
centrifuge to make nuclear fuel." Norah O'Donnell had already told the
network's viewers the day before of the "alarming disclosure," and the New
York Times wire service distributed Miller's report to dozens of papers
across the landscape. Invariably, they gave it prominence. Sadly, the sons
and daughters of America were sent marching off to war wearing the boots
of a well-told and widely disseminated lie.
The introspection and analysis of America's rush to war with Iraq have
turned into a race among the ruins. Few people doubt any longer that the
agencies of the U.S. government did not properly perform. No institution,
however, either public or private, has violated the trust of its vast
constituency as profoundly as the New York Times.
Peristyle sold! Arguably the finest restaurant in New Orleans, Peristyle now no longer belongs to Chef Anne Kearney Sand and her husband. Tom Wolfe, chef/owner of Wolfe's of New Orleans, is the new owner, and he's already in the kitchen. The restaurant's layout, decor and staff should remain the same, but, of course, the fabulous menu will change.
Both Sand and Kearney Sand said the reasons behind their decision to sell are complicated and personal. A primary factor has to do with the 36-year-old chef's need for rest following a brain hemorrhage she suffered nearly two years ago.I wish Chef Wolfe the very best of luck with his new endeavour, and I'm looking forward to trying his dishes (I still haven't managed to make it to Wolfe's, but I've heard good things about it). That said, I'm really disappointed that I'll no longer have the chance to sample Anne's fabulous, fabulous cooking. It really didn't get any better than Peristyle. I'll just sigh, and think again about our last meal at Peristyle, which I'll recap here:
Appetizers:Thanks for everything, Anne.
The joys of summer. Among many others, said joys would include the increased bounty of our farmers' markets. Russ Parsons of the Los Angeles Times Food Section gives us a few tips on what to do with all that fabulous produce, including:
Lately, in addition to sugar snaps, I've been hunting out English peas. When I find some that are really fresh -- sweet and not starchy -- I cook them in a way I learned from a friend, cookbook writer Sylvia Thompson.I love going to the farmers' market. I'm hoping our bi-weekly delivery from Organic Express doesn't make us lazy.
I love you like stink on a durian. Um, okay ... that's not liable to become a widespread term of endearment. I do love durian, though ... just not its stink. Apparently now the big, spiky, watermelon-sized fruit is cheaper than ever, and more readily available. It's got a pale, custardy flesh that tastes wonderful, but it really does smell like a cocktail made of puke, three-week-old unwashed socks, rotten cheese and ammonia. Once at a gathering of friends we obtained some fresh durian for our dessert. As soon as we opened the container, everyone groaned and fled the apartment, with six of us crowded on a small balcony, to escape the smell. Boy, it was good, though.
Today's doublespeak headlines. From the administration direct to you, via the "Irony?-What-irony?" department:
Los Angeles Times: Overly credulous, my ass. Too little, too goddamn late -- the New York Times "reassesses" its pre-war coverage of Iraq (and all the bullshit Judith Miller spread via their pages) that helped whoop up the cry for war, now that it's all been shown to be false. Perhaps Miller (as well as several other reporters and editors) needs to follow Howell Raines and Jayson Blair. Perhaps we also need a new "newspaper of record." Here's analysis from Jack Shafer of Slate. (Thanks to Wes for the links and header.)
What the f...? A former military police officer serving at Guantanamo Bay was ordered to wear an orange jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative prisoner in a training exercise in January 2003. Apparently the other soldiers thought he was an actual uncooperative prisoner, and almost beat him to death. Just a few bad apples, though.
President Gore. (Via Atrios) Wow indeed. Why the feck couldn't he sound this presidential in 2000?
George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.UPDATE -- You can watch video of the entire speech via C-SPAN. Damn, Al's on fire.
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To the land of saints and scholars. George W. Bush is going to Ireland, one month from today. He'll be meeting with the Taoiseach in the latter's capacity as current President of the European Union. Doubtless Bertie will welcome him, but let's just hope he doesn't have his head up Bush's arse to the shoulders the way his colleague across the Irish Sea does. Informal polls show that about 2/3 of the Irish citizenry oppose this visit (I'll try to dig up something more scientific), and the Dáil (Irish parliament) don't seem to happy about it either. This reminds me of another contentious visit by an American president almost exactly twenty years ago. In his book One Voice: My Life in Song and in a spoken piece on The Box Set, 1964-2004 Christy Moore described it thusly (links mine) ...
There was a terrible frenzy when that man came here. There was a terrible frenzy when Ronnie Reagan came. Himself and his wife and his entourage epitomised everything that is unpalatable about America. They came here and pushed everyone aside -- walked upon our ways and trampled upon our culture, purely for photo opportunities. All the gobshites and charlatans had a field day on this occasion of gross crassness and bad taste.Clinton was welcomed when he visited Ireland, and Kennedy ... well, potential crassness and bad taste aside, the man was worshipped in comparison to the Reagan visit. It was a running joke (with a basis in fact) that you could go into any number of Irish households and you'd see three portraits on the wall -- the Sacred Heart o' Jaysis, the Pope and JFK. I doubt that this month's visit will have even a microfraction of that feeling; in fact, I daresay that the current American president will likely be even less welcome by many of the citizenry there than the one who came twenty years ago was. I first saw Christy Moore perform at a mindspinningly wonderful gig at the Robert Frost Auditorium in Culver City, California, on the eighth of April, 1987 (jeezus, has it been 17 years already?). Just himself and a guitar, too; Christy is one of those rare performers (as is his brother Barry Moore/Luka Bloom) who can command and captivate an audience with nothing more than one voice, one guitar and a warehouse full of great songs. That night he played one particular song that was never released on an album until recently on The Box Set, though it was a successful single in Ireland in 1984. That night it was also an instant singalong with the whole audience participiating enthusiastically. Although I had forgotten a few lyrics from the verses until I reread them in Christy's first book of songs, for the most part I remembered that song in its entirety, and sang it a few times myself over the years. (You were probably fortunate enough not to have heard that.) Shrub's visit will also be purely for photo opportunities -- as the Irish-based Stop Bush Campaign website says, "Bush hopes to use his Irish visit as a backdrop for his re-election campaign. He wants pictures of smiling Irish politicians greeting him as a 'statesman.'" (Statesman, my arse.) In the absence of a particular song to mark this visit to that tiny, beautiful island, I think it's time to sing the old one again. Here's a snippet of the chorus and verse, so you'll get the melody. Everybody sing along ...
Hey! Ronnie ReaganI wonder if Christy (or someone) will write a new song for next month's visit.
When Bush Comes to Shove. If you're in Ireland or going to be anywhere near there on June 19, you might want to pick up some tickets for a major event at The Point Depot in Dublin, organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement:
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Contact info@irishantiwar.org or ring 087 61 87 680 (011) 353 87 61 87 680 from abroad AN ANTI-WAR GIG
TOP IRISH MUSICIANS TO PERFORM IN MAJOR CONCERT Saturday 19th June -- The Point Depot, Dublin. (Doors Open 5.30pm) It makes me think ... this is but a fraction of how negatively we're seen in the rest of the world. The United States' relationship with Ireland has for the most part been warm, and wasn't this bad even during the Reagan era, and that of Bush I (at the time I found myself having to defend myself in pub "discussions" by saying, quite firmly, "I didn't vote for the bastard!"). I'm glad, at least, that the posters and rallies and campaigns say "Stop Bush", not "Stop America". It's not our war, it's his war; the things he and his ilk are doing are not in my name, and I'm glad they get that. Go mbeidh síocháin linn.
Before the deluge. The Irish Examiner reports that advance preparations for the Shrub visit by An Garda Síochána are entering the territory of the "Draconian" (free registration required):
It emerged yesterday that gardaí are conducting a massive sweep of residents around Shannon town.Trying to intimidate people from protesting? Well, that'd be par for the course for ShrubCo.
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Planxty's Live 2004 CD and DVD now pre-ordering! It'll be released on Friday. You can pre-order both the CD and the region-free DVD from Christy's site, or otherwise from your favourite music outlets in Ireland. I'll have to ring Mike at Mulligan's in Galway to see if he'll have the DVD, but at this point I'll do whatever it takes to get that stuff to me as quickly as humanly possible. This is the release of 2004, as far as I'm concerned!
Hmm ... So how does a dinosaur weblog author who stubbornly refuses to go through the trouble of shifting to a cumbersome, off-site hosted and/or expensive weblogging software system add an RSS/XML feed to a weblog he codes by hand?
"Are you trying to freak me out?!" That's what my sister said when I picked up the phone the other day. It seems she had been going through their mail, and started flipping through my brother-in-law's newly-arrived copy of Esquire, the issue with Carmen Electra on the cover (who the hell is Carmen Electra?), June 2004. She started reading a letter to the editor, laughed and thought, "Jeez, this sounds just like Chuck." Then she got to the signature ... and it was Chuck. Moops. It seems that they published my little letter. Several weeks ago our friend Steve sent out an email to a bunch of mutual friends regarding some article Esquire had published about "cities that rock", a list of cities ranked by how good their night life and music scenes are. New Orleans came in eighth. Topping the list was ... Fresno. (*jaw drops*) So, in a fit of semi-mock outrage, I dispatched this missive via their website's email form, which was printed thusly:
Rock This TownOkay, I'm waiting for the hate mail to stream in from outraged Fresnovians. Calm down, you lot -- it was only mock outrage (mostly). I'm sure that Fresno is perfectly lovely. I'll have to go back there and see what the place is like these days. One day. Before I die. If I run out of other places to go. (Maybe.) Oh, and if Dave Wondrich happens to notice this one ... Dave, you know that I would never for a million years think that you would actually serve a cocktail of poisonous methanol to one or more of your colleagues. (Unless they really deserved it.)
Quote of the day. Today's Los Angeles Times features a story entitled "Iraq Setbacks Change Mood in Washington", which begins, "President Bush is hearing increasingly bleak warnings that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is heading for failure -- from Republican and Democratic members of Congress, current and former officials and even some military officers still on active duty. But so far, at least, the White House says it hasn't heard anything that makes it want to change course." Wes sent in what's become both our favorite quote from the article:
We need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts, a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy, by force if necessary.I'm finding myself agreeing with a conservative Republican? Surely the world is coming to an end!
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A lying liar no longer. No, I'm not talking about a member of BushCo (that'd be way too far of a stretch). I'm talking about meself, actually. As of today, the weight listed on my driver's license is no longer the egregious lie it's been for the last 18 years. We're at goal weight minus 8 pounds. Just for grins and giggles, I might just go for 10.
I (heart) Eric Idle. Well, of course, I (heart) John and Graham and Michael and Terry and Terry, too. But today my affection goes out to Eric. Why? Because, of course, he's given us a new song ... "The FCC Song" (3.1 MB MP3 download). Everybody sing! (P.S. -- As Eric mentions, if you play this on the radio it'll cost you a quarter of a million dollars. At least.)
Quote of the day. (Thanks, GreggO!)
You know, back in 2000 a Republican friend of mine warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true." A new low every day. How low will we go? I shudder to think, as every day the news is worse. (Of course, this was just another fraternity prank like all the right-wing nutjobs are saying, right?)
A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.Story via Atrios, and I will echo Lyn's echo of his reminder to the nutball trolls: "I am not responsible for things not done in my name. I am responsible for things that are. Please try to understand the difference."
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Pledge drive time! I know, it's a bit of a stretch, posting this in my weblog. But hey, if it results in even one pledge, one donation, I'm battin' a thousand. KCSN is in the middle of our semi-annual pledge drive, and tonight it's time for me to pitch to raise money for the station and for my program "Down Home". If you're familiar with it, you know that I play roots and traditional music, including lots of Louisiana music, Irish music, plus bluegrass, blues, old-time and Appalachian, classic and alt.country, folk, Tex-Mex and Québecois, roots rock and gospel and klezmer and lots of other roots genres from around the world. It's the kind of stuff you'd never heard on commercial radio in a million years. You also may or may not know that it's commercial-free, and that we have to sing for our supper. You can ring us tonight at (818) 677-3636 during my program, 7:00 - 9:00pm California time, or better still ... pledge online. Amongst the CD premia we'll send you to thank you for your gift are:
Mozaik: Live from the PowerhouseContributions are, of course, tax-deductible. Call tonight! Go online! Pledge! Oh, and the good news is ... we started construction on our new transmitter one week ago today. We should be in test mode very, very soon. Look out Westside, look out Hollywood ... here we come!
Ardent Spirits' Cocktail of the Day. Gary and Mardee Regan's newsletter is out, and contains a luscious-looking cocktail recipe. The only reason we didn't try it last night is because we didn't have one key ingredient (and I'll rectify that soon). It's gettin' hot, and we need to break out the summery drinks. Gary describes it as "heaven ... [t]he flavors marry in complete harmony. This drink is perfect for summertime quaffing." Awrite!
Mischief Stonewalling on Bin Laden/Saudi flights after 9/11 The Daily Mislead reports that "with questions swirling about who authorized allowing relatives of Osama bin Laden to fly out of the country immediately after 9/11, The Hill newspaper is reporting that President Bush is 'refusing to answer repeated requests by the September 11 commission" about the matter.'
Last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that, even as all foreign and domestic flights were grounded after 9/11, the bin Ladens and other wealthy Saudis were allowed to fly out of the United States. He said that "the flights were well-known and it was coordinated within the government".How long is it going to take for Congressional Republicans to admit that this, plus everything else that's come out, will require official investigation?
Gazing into the abyss. It's been a fairly big day today, unfortunately.
A Corrupted Culture [ Link to today's entries ]
More Planxty news!! Right on the heels of yesterday's post comes this, in this morning's email from the news section of Christy's site:
Planxty's Live 2004 will be available on pre-order from Friday, May 21st.Woohooooooooo! This is fantastic news. No wonder Dónal didn't tour with Mozaik -- he must have been rather busy mixing this. I wasn't expecting it until the fall at least. And the clincher ... "as a region free DVD." Bless ya, lads.
They knew they were war criminals. It gets more and more mind-boggling every day.
The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.So, those provisions weren't there to make us safer. Those provisions were placed in action to make sure that Shrub saved his own worthless ass from prosecution as a war criminal. I really, really hope it doesn't work.
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The Christy Moore Box Set is out. Himself has been working on this for about three or four years -- not counting the spoken intro tracks and counting the hidden tracks, there are 103 songs on the box, and more than half of them are previously unreleased. Whoo. The first thing I did with it was to digitize it, edit the long tracks containing silence and hidden songs into separate songs, identify and label those tracks, correct what needed to be corrected (sloppy mastering on the part of the record company, as at least four songs were at the wrong pitch and speed) and load it into my iPod. Then I listened to the whole feckin' thing, all the way through, beginning to end. Six hours and about eighteen minutes. The recording quality of some of the live tracks is lamentable, which Christy readily admits ("Some sham taped it down the hall with a ghetto blaster under his arm and a microphone stuck up his arse ..."), but some of those performances are hair-raising and unforgettable ("... I'm very glad he took the trouble.") and a perfectly captured moment that helps define Christy's 40-year career. This is an amazing collection; with its 60+ page booklet and all this music and narration, its essential companion is Christy's book One Voice: My Life in Music. There are tracks he did that became hugely popular in concert but were never released, songs he composed almost at the spur of the moment to address injustice (some of which got him in trouble), a song from the Cork concert in 1972 where Planxty first took off (as a support act for Donovan, who had to take the stage after a near-riot broke out from an audience who'd just been driven mad with joy by Planxty, the poor bastard), early and wobbly cassette recordings of some of his first club gigs as a ballad singer in the early 1960s, plus some newly recorded material as well. There's a live version of "Smoke and Strong Whiskey" that's astonishing in its power, even though Christy describes his guitar interplay with his accompanist as "awkward" ("I've often seen pain on the faces of my collaborators"). An outtake from the first Planxty album with the four of them (even Liam) singing "Down in the Valley", a.k.a. "Down in the River to Pray", which you may know from Āthe soundtrack of "O Brother Where Art Thou?" 25 years later. Two versions, a recent solo recording and 1980s-era live one, of the brilliant song "Hey! Ronnie Reagan", written in protest of Reagan's disruptive visit to Ireland in June of 1984. I could go on for ... well, over six hours. Unfortunately, it hasn't been released in the States, but ring or email my pal Mike Larkin at Mulligan Music in Galway, and tell him I sent ya. If you're into Irish music at all, this is an essential collection. I might not leave every single track on my iPod, but I'll leave most of 'em. Good on ya, Christy.
More good news from Christy. This from the Chat area of his web site:
Donal Lunny is mixing the Planxty recordings from Vicar Street and is confident that we have an album of material. The shows were also filmed and there will be a documentary and DVD later in the year. We are also considering a small number of gigs at the same time next year. The 10 shows barely scraped the surface of the demand and we feel it would be mad to let it disappear again. I'll keep you posted here if there is anything further to report.If they did just a half-dozen gigs in the States, and one of them was west of the Mississippi, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Even if one of them wasn't west of the Mississippi.
Well bejaysis, here we are on Tuesday and civilization didn't collapse. I don't often find myself agreeing with James Lileks except when it comes to regrettable food, but here he is talking some sense:
Does gay marriage threaten heterosexual marriage? Of course! Who knows how many women woke last week to find notes on the kitchen table: "Dearest Wife, now that homosexual sodomy is legal in Texas, I have to go try it. Took the cell phone. Farewell."Sounds like good advice. That, and don't ever cook anything out of a 1950s cookbook. Matt Gunn points out something I was just thinking myself as I listened to NPR's half-hour-long coverage of the marriages yesterday, and the predictably odious reaction from the shrubbery:
Not even our regressive President could spoil the day. He put out a terse statement that began with, "the sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges." Of course, at nearly the same time as the statement was released, he contradicted himself by praising the activist Supreme Court Justices who unanimously decided Brown v. Board of Education 50 years ago. If that court had included the ideological predecessors of Rehnquist (who carried segregationist views well into his adulthood), Scalia, Thomas, and Bush, Brown wouldn't have made it.They're talking about putting the marriage issue to the voters in Massachusetts. I say no. If they had put desegregation to the voters, it would have been crushed in a landslide. Would that have been the right thing to do? "Activist judges" is horseshit. This is why we have a judiciary, folks.
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Mazel tov! Yeah, I know ... I'm not Jewish. I'm an Irish escaped ex-Catholic. I just think it's really fun to yell "Mazel tov!" when someone gets married. To every couple who are getting married in Massachusetts today, I wish you all the happiness in the world, all the happiness that you deserve. Writer John Scalzi offers some advice:
Remember to breathe.Amen. (Thanks to Patrick for posting that.)
Yeah, the tax cuts worked. The Canton, Ohio bearings manufacturing plant used by Bush last year as a backdrop to show how well his economic policies were working has been shut down, throwing 1,300 people out of work and causing a "devastating" ripple effect in Canton.
Timken is slashing a quarter of its employees in Canton, and as workers facing layoffs consider their future, the ripple effect is already beginning.Ohio needs to thank the occupier of the White House for his largesse by delivering its electoral votes to John Kerry in November.
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Feckin' favicon.ico ... I know, it's a Windows thing. But I see 'em everywhere, and Safari now recognizes them, and they're neat, and I want one, dammit. So I made one. Or at least I tried. I thought I was following the rules, but it took at least a half-dozen tries, and I'm still not sure if it's working properly. So, I'll need y'all's help. Question 1: Do you see the favicon (i.e., the little custom icon in the address bar, immediately to the left of the URL of this site)? If so, which one is it? Is it the "L!" one, or the "GP" one? Question 2: Please go to the root page of this site. Do you see the favicon? If so, is it the "GP" one? If not, do you have any idea what I'm doing wrong? (Argh.)
Hugo Nominees, 2004. I'm pleased to note that I've already read two of the five nominated novels. (Good luck, Rob Sawyer!) Here are all the nominees, with links to where a number of them can be read online (woo!).
The Cocktailian. This fornight's column tells us of a case of jet lag being soothed by an Irish stranger's talk of whiskey. They talk Powers, Redbreast, Bushmills 10 and John Jameson's, then concoct a creamy delight that despite my reticence at quaffing creamy drinks, this one looks intriguing. (The Irishman's concoction, "The Creamery", clocks in at a hefty 9 points for us WeightWatchers types -- I might just want to stick with me 3-point Manhattans and Sazeracs for the time being ...)
Recipe of the day. We got some beautiful red chard in our Organic Express delivery box last week, and in a fit of intellectual and culinary laziness I dashed off to Epicurious to look for something interesting to do with it. I came across one recipe that looked promising, substituted ingredients that I had on hand instead of what the recipe called for, tweaked it and zhuzhed it a little ... and boy was it good. I'd definitely make this again. (Note: You can get dried blueberries at Trader Joe's, if you're lucky enough to have one near you. If you can't find it, use dried red currants, as the original recipe called for. Actually this was originally a bruschetta topping, but I just serve it as a side dish.)
Red and Blue ChardDamn. Just typing that up makes me want to make another batch right now.
The question is now, of course, more valid than ever.
Cartoon of the day. "A Few Bad Apples", by Ted Rall.
"Do as we say, not as we do." Nicked from August:
"The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration's diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries."Sheesh.
Conversation ender. From Matt Gunn: "The single best argument against Rumsfeld's resignation? His likely successor may be Paul Wolfowitz." Oy.
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Poem of the day. (Thanks to Lambert at Corrente).
Turning and turning in the widening gyre What Josh said. From Talking Points Memo:
As I said earlier today, I don't think I can remember a more shameful spectacle in the United States Congress, in my living memory, than the comments today of James Inhofe, the junior senator from Oklahoma. Clearly, it is part of the RNC talking points now to shift the brunt of the media storm from the abuses themselves to the political storm they've created. But no one that I saw at least rose more naturally to the effort than this man. No one else's heart seemed so matched to the deed, with his snarls at "humanitarian do-gooders" (i.e., the Red Cross) trying to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions.[ Link to today's entries ]
I'll show you some outrage, pal. I nearly lost my composure this morning while listening to the vile rant from Republican senator James Inhofe during the Congressional hearings into the torture of Iraqi prisoners, which nearly caused me to throw my breakfast plate and my radio through the window. I'd call him a swine, but that would be insulting to the noble, beloved animal that provides my bacon.
First of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't because as I watch this outrage that everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners I have to say and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.Well, how about the little factual tidbits courtesy of the International Red Cross, such as the fact that "certain CF military intelligence officers told the ICRC that in their estimate between 70% and 90% of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake." I understand that Sen. John McCain walked out during Inhofe's remarks. Good on him. I disagree with McCain on a number of issues, but he has my respect.
Inhofe's "outraged at the outrage" and his
other remarks make Sen. Listen, Inhofe, you stupid bastard. We're supposed to be the good guys. By adopting the tactics of the bad guys (even to a lesser degree), it makes us like them. We shouldn't even be there to begin with, but now we're torturing prisoners in the same prison where Saddam tortured prisoners. It defies my ability to reason to understand why these idiots just don't get it. New citizens take an oath to protect our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. People like him fit into the latter category, I think. UPDATE -- Well, it looks like somebody was more outraged by the torture than by the outrage. (Oh, but they were only blowing off some steam, right Limbaugh?) The response was horrifying, truly sickening, and has made the situation much, much worse. As Kos said, "Violence begets violence. This is nowhere close to being over. And assholes like Inhofe merely add fuel to the fire." "Nothing made from soy flour tastes good." For those of you on the Atkins diet, best of luck to you. I've mentioned that it wasn't my own particular weight loss choice (nor my doctor's), but everyone must do what's good for them. If you are doing Atkins, however, I hope you're doing it with real, fresh food and not with all that packaged "low-carb" crapola that's now flooding the market in an attempt to cash in on the latest diet fad. Some intrepid food tasters, I daresay braver than I, took up Salon's challenge to actually try several of these processed foods, from boxed "mashed potato" mix to spaghetti sauce to snack chips and cookies. In order to get rid of the wheat flour, source of many evil, dastardly carbohydrates, almost all of the products seem to use soy flour and soy isolate protein as a substitute. How these products actually taste is rather predictable, given the title of this post ... but the individual comments on the items are great. (It's Salon Premium, so you might have to sit through a commercial to read it. It's worth it.)
It's sort of like what you would imagine plaster would taste like. Salted plaster ... with a vitamin-like aftertaste.Eat. Real. Food. No matter what diet you're on.
Headline of the day. From this week's list of news links on DVD File (which is only in the link name, not in the article, and will probably be gone by next week) ...
Weekend Box OfficeIf only.
Did y'all know (I didn't) that those two
have made nearly forty direct-to-video movies? And while those
movies may seem to be marketed to teenage girls, they seem to actually be
marketed toward the weird guys at the used DVD stores, who get all twitchy
at the mention of their names ... oy. Now they've got their very own
movie in the theatres, which by most accounts is awfully awful
(surprise). I guess the otherwise brilliant Eugene Levy must be building
an addition on to the back of his house, or something ...
A Pentagon briefing paper supplied to Congress after publication of the
Woodward book states that by July 2002, "in the course of preparing for a
contingency in Iraq, U.S. Central Command [Centcom] developed rough
estimates of $750 million in preparatory tasks."
"To the best of our knowledge, the administration failed to follow the law
when it came to keeping the people's representatives fully informed on how
they were spending these dollars," [spokesman for ranking Democrat on
the Senate Appropriations Committe Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) Thomas] Gavin
said.
I wonder if the Republicans in congress are ever going to get sick of
being Bush's bitches?
The arrogance of moral certainty.
Excellent essay
in TIME magazine by Joe Klein:
... [D]emocracy doesn't easily lend itself to evangelism; it requires more
than faith. It requires a solid, educated middle class and a
sophisticated understanding of law, transparency and minority rights. It
certainly can't be imposed by outsiders, not in a fractious region where
outsiders are considered infidels. This is not rocket science. It is
conventional wisdom among democracy and human-rights activists-and yet
the Administration allowed itself to be blinded by righteousness. Why?
Because moral pomposity is almost always a camouflage for baser fears and
desires. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives share a primal
belief in the use of military power to intimidate enemies. If the U.S.
didn't strike back "big time," it would be perceived as weak. (Crushing
the peripheral Taliban and staying focused on rooting out al-Qaeda cells
wasn't "big" enough.) The President may have had some personal
motives-doing to Saddam Hussein what his father didn't; filling out Karl
Rove's prescription of a strong leader; making the world safe for his
friends in the energy industry. The neoconservatives had ulterior motives
too: almost all were fervent believers in the state of Israel and, as a
prominent Turkish official told me last week, "they didn't want Saddam's
rockets falling on Tel Aviv."
Abu Ghraib made a mockery of American idealism. It made all the baser
motives -- oil, dad, Israel -- more believable. And it represents all the
mora complexities this President has chosen to ignore -- all the perverse
consequences of an occupation.
The Winston-Salem-based doughnut maker said Friday that it is cutting its
profit projection for this year by 10 percent because of lower demand for
its high-calorie treats -- which the company attributes in part to the
low-carb diet phenomenon.
The announcement drove its stock price down 23 percent in early trading.
But the educated upper middle class will have NOTHING to do with
donuts.
Mmm... When did "doughnuts" become "donuts"?
I think we have the Dunkin' company to thank for that. Still, it's not
hard to argue that the target customer can't spell the true appellation.
Actually, it's rare that you even SEE the true name anymore.
While some may approve (Eddie Izzard: "But
you spell 'through' T-H-R-U, and I'm with you on that! We spell it
'thruff!'"), I do not.
D-O-U-G-H-N-U-T-S. Dammit.
I'm educated upper middle-class, and I love
'em. (Unfortuately, I'm not really allowed to have them, but that's
entirely beside the point.)
Mmmmmmm, doughnuts ...
This election will thus no longer merely determine the Presidency. This
election is now much larger than the office. The United States' place in
the family of nations is now on the ballot. This election will determine
whether the United States will ever again have any standing or moral
authority in the rest of the world. The United States cannot
simultaneously stand against depraved sexual torture and the wanton abuse
of human rights, while electing the commander in chief upon whose watch
these events occurred. The seven hundred thousand or so viewers of Fox
News may be able to rationalize such cognitive dissonance; the six billion
people who make up the remainder of the world will not.
Their major worry is that the United States is prevailing militarily but
failing to win the support of the Iraqi people. That view is far from
universal, but it is spreading and being voiced publicly for the first
time.
"I lost my brother in Vietnam," added Hughes, a veteran Army strategist
who is involved in formulating Iraq policy. "I promised myself, when I
came on active duty, that I would do everything in my power to prevent
that [sort of strategic loss] from happening again. Here I am, 30 years
later, thinking we will win every fight and lose the war, because we don't
understand the war we're in."
Some officers say the place to begin restructuring U.S. policy is by
ousting Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, whom they see as responsible
for a series of strategic and tactical blunders over the past year.
Several of those interviewed said a profound anger is building within the
Army at Rumsfeld and those around him.
A senior general at the Pentagon said he believes the United States is
already on the road to defeat. "It is doubtful we can go on much longer
like this," he said. "The American people may not stand for it -- and they
should not."
He may have done good things in his
political career in the past, but the entirety of that was marked
(tainted, really) by his obsessive efforts at anti-gay legislation, and his
seeming determination to make millions of Californians (and by extensions,
millions more Americans, including his own son) into second-class
citizens. There are a lot of people whose lives he attacked who today
have one fewer enemy.
I'm sorry he had to suffer from a terrible
disease, but to borrow something a very wise friend once told me, "it's
okay to be glad he's dead."
(On the other hand, part of me thinks it's
not funny at all, because it's just too damned realistic.)
-- Abraham Lincoln, 1864
UPDATE -- Grrrr ... it's a forgery.
Here's the new toy
that's been keeping me busy for the last two or three days. It's
bee-yoo-tee-ful. It also screams -- 1.5 GhZ G4 processor with Velocity
Engine, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics accelerator with 128MB of video
memory, 80GB drive, 1GB memory.
It'll also nicely facilitate my on-air
digital music efforts. I should now be able to do radio almost entirely
from iTunes, building my playlist both in advance and on the fly (the
latter of which was extremely difficult to do with my iPod), outputting
digital audio via USB into a Griffin Technology PowerWave
and analog output from that directly into the patch bay above the master
control board at KCSN. The setup gets
its maiden voyage tonight. Tune in and hear me hope not to screw
up!
Scolded?
The headline of the Los Angeles Times
today said that Donald Rumsfeld had been "scolded" by the president for
allowing him to be blindsided by reports of the torture and murder of
Iraqi prisoners. Scolded.
My question is, why wasn't he fired? Why is
no one being held accountable for their misdeeds in this adminstration?
Rumsfeld should have been fired a long time ago, and would have if we had
a president who thinks, but the latest developments should be the final straw.
Get rid of him. Today.
"In the monthly one-page letters I am allowed to send him through the Red
Cross I cannot mention any of this news. I can only talk about family
issues," says his wife, Helma, as she sits in the couple's home less than
half a mile from US headquarters in Baghdad.
Barely three days after the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by US
troops in central Baghdad Dr Saadi approached the Americans and became the
first senior Iraqi to hand himself in. It was the last time his wife saw
him.
He was sure he would soon be released, Mrs Saadi says. He was a scientist
who had never been part of Saddam's terror apparatus, or even a member of
the Ba'ath party.
At $174 billion, the Iraq conflict would be approaching the
inflation-adjusted, $199 billion cost of World War I, a level it will
almost certainly pass next year.
There are a huge array of cultural celebrations
taking place all over Europe today, "from the west coast of Ireland to the
eastern border of Poland, and from Valletta in the south to the northernmost
tip of Finland." There are a whole list on the EU site, but I found a
really nifty-looking listing in Irish Music magazine about what's
going on all over Ireland today (who in fact currently hold the EU
Presidency, with Dublin holding some huge Enlargement Day ceremonies).
"Day of Welcomes" festivities are being organized by ten Irish cities and
towns for today's celebration -- "the local communities, arts officers and
organizations and Chambers of Commerce have been working closely with the
embassies of the Accession States to produce a day of celebration that
will be a highlight of Ireland's EU presidency." Some of these sound like
they could be a lot of fun. (Donegal fiddlers and Polish bagpipers, maybe?)
Today would be a good day to have a teleportation device.
Cork / Slovakia "Cooking up Culture"
Drogheda / Latvia "Fair Days on Fair Street"
Galway / Estonia "A Time to Sing"
Kilkenny / Lithuania "Crafting the Future"
Killarney / Czech Republic "Europe in Colour"
Letterkenny / Poland "European Melodies"
Limerick / Slovenia "Visualising Europe"
Sligo / Hungary "Living Literature"
Waterford / Malta "Waterford Goes Malta"
Waterford Spraoi is one of Ireland's leading street theatre companies who,
along with other events throughout the year, hosts the country's largest
street theatre festival.
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