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11月15日 Dead LanguagesLatin can be dense and boring with sentences that go on forever with complications of grammar including declensions, case, and conjugations (read Caesar or Cicero.)
Latin can also be spooky and luscious (the Catholic Latin Mass, Carmina Burana, gregorian chant, and this song by Enya.)
Click on the link below for an example (if you load into Window Media Player and get the printed lyrics, please excuse the spelling errors. The lyrics were downloaded from the net:)
Song in Latin by Enya. 11月8日 Short History of War1. On 9/11/2001, 19 men hijacked airplanes and caused the death of some 2,976 people and some $650 Billion in damages. 15 of the hijackers were Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two were from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
2. In the hours following that attack air travel in the US was shut down except for a few flights authorized by the Bush White House that returned dozens of Saudi citizens, many of them Bin Laden family members, to their home country.
3. The US attacked Afghanistan, supposedly to capture/kill Bin Laden and to neutralize the taliban/Al Qaeda. In one of the most strategically moronic military moves in the history of warfare, the US chased Bin Laden from where he was into the uncontested Afghan/Pakistan border regions where he escaped. Since that time we have supported a puppet urban Afghan government fighting a civil war against medieval rural warlords while the country continues to live in armed conflict and continues to grow record Opium crops as its major source of income.
4. The US also attacked Iraq under false pretenses having nothing whatever to do with 9/11.
5. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have gone on longer than WWII.
6. Foreign terrorists caused the deaths of some 3, 000 Americans on 9/11. Two American Presidents, on the other hand, are responsible for the deaths of some 4,000 US soldiers since then in Iraq and Afghanistan, besides the tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan military and civilian deaths due to our intervention.
7. Guantanamo is still open, rendition is still taking place, torture is still ok, and the Patriot Act is still in effect. We have lost our moral high-ground and a measure of our civil liberties as well as violated the law of land warfare, the Geneva Conventions, and international law. Not one of our elected officials has been impeached or held accountable for their crimes or censured for their stupidity.
8. Another 5 years in Iraq or 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan isn't going to result in any beneficial outcome to us or them.
9. As the C&W singer said, "Ya gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."
Cost of U.S. Wars Since 2001
$926,906,942,391
Cost of War in Afghanistan
$230,543,563,508 7月14日 Poet Laureate Kay RyanKay Ryan, the present US Poet Laureate, is not your average writer. Look her up.
TurtleKay RyanWho would be a turtle who could help it?
From Flamingo Watching Copyright Kay Ryan. Don't we all "live below luck-level never imagining....." Ok, you read it. 5月17日 Claims OfficeGold Rush, Diamond Fever
Most of the huge, easy nuggets (having been picked up)
were sold one Saturday night
long ago
for a song
a few drinks of the house whiskey
or a piece of long-forgotten ass
in a lawless, frontier mining town.
The lucky ones who struck it rich are dead;
dead or growing old,
forgetful.
Those who are left
sift tons of rock and sand
for the occasional flake
for what is left over that is
precious.
You are surrounded by rock and dross, for instance,
not a golden vein of purity;
and I,
both unlucky and unskilled as a collector of precious things,
will never declare you an easy catch.
The difference is:
I chose to dig deep and long for you
without a guarantee
through piles of worthlessness
for a few small pieces
of
treasure.
3月29日 SpringGlobally: Poor Obama. He is trying his best to be a Democrat in the FDR and JFK style. Although he is talking the talk, he is not walking the walk, IMO. Gitmo is to be shut down (someday), troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq (someday), extra troops are to be deployed to Afghanistan, and the same bail-out policy that GWB started for the banks/Wall Street have been and will continue to apply.
Locally: Big hole in my driveway where a VW bus was once parked. I sold it. Other possessions being sold as we speak. What is wrong with me?
In My Head: The simpler things get, the better.
1月19日 What a bitch !!The great American worry for tomorrow? Our cell phones may not work in DC on inauguration day because too many people will show up and dial up whoever cares to tell them they're at the mall and it's crowded.
On the other hand, HBO's failure yesterday to air a prayer by Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire wasn't due to a lack of available bandwith... it was a conscious choice not to risk being politically incorrect. Goddamn you, HBO.
1月16日 Chew on ThisIt's not necessary to have a degree in rocket science or American history to comprehend that GWB (scheduled to leave office and take his pension, his secret service force, and his legacy with him within the next few days) was the most destructive president ever elected. Elected twice he was. By us and the Supreme Court, b-god. We got exactly what we collectively wanted, didn't we?
We got secrecy, fear, erosion of our constitutional rights, rendition, a failed economy, a huge deficit, record national debt, 7% unemployment, a decimated housing market, corporate welfafe bale-outs, an administration that acted unilaterally and selfishly rather than globally, and an Imperial Presidency based more on executive privilege than on legislative right.
Ok, so what? Ok, so who do we turn to?
The Democrats? The same Democratic party that refused to vote against the Iraq war, that refused to impeach the President or to hold Rove, Rumsfeld, or Gonzales accountable for their crimes, that will assume "command" within the next week, that plans to give another $350 billion to the banks and the auto industry as part of the "economic recovery" bail-out program and withdraw a couple of divisions from Iraq only to redeploy them in Afghanistan?
Excuse me if I don't share the current PC view of "Yes, We Can."
We certainly can, or rather, we could have if we had the balls to act as we should have, as Thomas Jefferson did, as Thomas Jefferson hoped we would act.
Sorry, Tom. We're not what you expected. We're not revolutionaries. We're reactionaries. 21st Century Americans want the status-quo, the easy way out. We would rather follow than to lead. We don't want to make waves. We don't want to be remembered as the generation that dumped foreign tea into the harbor. The revolution you fought is over. Most of us take what we get without question. We seem to prefer to go out with a whimper rather than with a bang....
The next few years will tell you (and history) a lot about us. Stay tuned... Maybe the future is not as bleak as I think; then again, maybe the future is our worst nightmare come true.
No answers here.
This ain't a Nostradamus Burger franchise. Nothing comes easy, does it?
12月23日 Christmas CheerA couple of random thoughts:
1. Dan Rather has a lawsuit vs. CBS. Remember him? He was discredited and fired as a result of not fully authenticating a document relating to President G. W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service record. As a result, all research and reporting efforts relating to Bush's service came to a complete halt. Nobody dared to bring that story up again. I will because I lived through that era and I know the routine... President Bush, instead of serving during the Vietnam era as I was forced to, was granted a slot in the Air National Guard. Records and common sense seem to indicate that this was a special privilege based on his status as the son of an "important" family. The public record also seem to indicate that he notified his Texas Air National Guard unit that he wouldn't be reporting for duty because he was involved in a political campaign that required his presence elsewhere. Hey, guess what... members of the National Guard or the Reserve aren't allowed by military regulations to dictate the terms of their personal service. You don't get to pick and choose the times/places/details of military service.
Dan Rather might have screwed up by not verifying his sources with multiple back-ups. Bad him. The Bush/Rove White House dodged this bullet by making Rather and CBS the fall-guys. The best defense is a ball-busting offense, right? I hope Rather makes a bundle from CBS. He can't sue the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove administration. They are immune from prosecution and impeachment for all their high crimes and misdemeanors.
2. Enough of that. Let's move on to important stuff... pork products. I just tasted the best bacon ever made. It came from a Tennessee smokehouse that produces country hams. The bacon is dry salted, cured, smoked and thick cut. I ordered it on a whim as I was ordering the last of their supply of 2008 country ham (which is also the best ham in the world.)
To sum up, Merry Christmas to Dan Rather, Charlie Brown, America, and you. 12月5日 Death of The EmpireObama was elected a few days ago. Maybe too little, too late.
Today's news: 500,000 Americans lost their jobs this past month. Corporate America has requested (and will likely get) government relief. Who will bail out those individuals, those families who lost work and suddenly can't pay their rent or afford health care or even buy groceries for the coming week? You know the answer: nobody.
Republican legacy? Mistake? A series of unfortunate incidents? Whatever...
Perhaps just another fucking brick in the wall.
11月16日 TV TriviaWhen asked by the host of the cable tv program "Dirty Jobs" why he gave up a successful professional career as a psychologist and counselor in mid-life to become the supervisor of a crew that cleans out city sewer systems using shovels and buckets, a man answered, "because I got tired of dealing with other peoples' crap." Three cheers for the unnamed guy who came up with a goddamned good answer to a difficult question.
Moral: Those who deal with shit daily should be preparared to get some on them, have the proper tools at hand, dress appropriately, and buy soap in bulk lots from Sam's club...
11月13日 und so weiterA presidential election, no sunshine for two weeks, missed opportunities, Paradise Lost, no radio contact, pissed into the wind and got wet.... oh, well, tomorrow's another day...
11月4日 The Non-revolutionThis month's Mensa Bulletin had a story about universal health care with lots of boring statistics which few bother to read anyway, because we Americans don't like socialized medicine. There was a spreadsheet of health care numbers comparing the US with 13 first-world countries which have universal health care (12 in Europe plus Japan) in several categories. The average cost of national healthcare payments for those 13 countries amounts to $2900 per person. The average cost in the US is $6100. Ranked by the World Health Organization, France came in 1st with quality of healthcare. We came in 37th in the world, behind every single one of the 13 countries with universal health care. We also came in last as far as life expectancy. France, the cheese and cream eaters, wine drinkers, and smokers of unfiltered turkish tobacco cigarettes, beat us by 12 years.
We are urged to vote for a Democrat or a Republican today, neither of which have the balls to suggest universal health care here, because we hate Socialism. Except for Social Security and tax relief for bankers, agribuisness and the oil companies - you know - corporate welfare...
Today we can buy Ford or buy Chevy. We only need two choices after all, right? Americans believed that shit until the '80's when we bailed out Chrysler and nobody in Detroit could build a good car anymore. Then we started buying from Japan and Korea and Germany because their stuff "work good, last long time."
Vote early and often. Good night and good luck. We're going to need it.
11月1日 Belated Halloween PoemA Richard Brautigan Poem:
Boo, Forever Spinning like a ghost on the bottom of a top, I'm haunted by all the space that I will live without you. 10月23日 Drowning in the Stream of ConsciousnessRandom notes and Oktoberfest highlights:
The new kitten likes kimchee noodles. She put her face into my bowl the other night and began sucking noodles like a Korean who missed lunch. She wasn't diving for meat (there wasn't any) - just rice noodles, some three month old deadly hot homemade sour kimchee, fish sauce and lemon grass. Go figure.
The 2008 election is the most important in history as well as the most irrelevant and absurd. The voters have no big choice, do they? Both candidates are more concerned with image than issues, more interested with getting elected than in getting us back to the garden. I saw all the debates. Why did it not occur to either side to mention that 10 billion dollars/month and thousands of lives was too high a price to pay for a unilateral war in Iraq? Both Obama and McCain are more committed to taking a wishy-washy stand right in the middle of their respective party platforms than they are about steering us away from the past 8 disasterous Bush years. We've lost most of our allies and most of our world support with the exceptions of Columbia (dope), Pakistan (shudder....), and Saudi Arabia (home to US military bases and the country of origin of the majority of the 9/11 hijackers.) What strange bedfellows. Obama is no liberal democrat. He's an aspiring ambitious white republican who hasn't come out of the closet. Our last liberal democrat president was shot in the head and where in hell is Russ Feingold when we need him most? McCain and Palin, on the other hand, came out just in time for Halloween. If I dress up for that holiday it will be as him (how frightening) or her (the soccer-mom MILF clown in her $150,000 wardrobe.) As far as voting in November, all I know is I will vote AGAINST McCain. How's that for a committed, enlightened, progressive voter stance? Go figure.
10月5日 It's over....summer, that is... over and done with.
Reminds me of a darkly optimistic poem by Robert Penn Warren:
"Hunt, hunt again. If you do not find it, you
You will die. But I tell you this much, it
Is not under the stone at the foot
Of the garden, nor by the wall by the fig tree.
I tell you this much to save you trouble, for I
Have looked, I know. But hurry, for
The terror is, all promises are kept.
Even happiness."
Enough said about promises and happiness.
9月14日 ..is a terrible thing to wasteToo many tomatoes? How about a tomato juice recipe that can be used to drink straight, make a bloody mary, or begin a simple red sauce for a pasta dish? This procedure is hardly worth the effort for a few dozen tomatoes, but if you have a few paper grocery bags full of them and a 10-12 gallon soup pot and the freezer space to store the finished product it is a good alternative to canning which I don't have the space, equipment, or ambition to do.
Wash and rinse all the tomatoes. Get a big, non-reactive soup pot that will hold them all. Tomatoes contain acid which corrodes cast iron and aluminum. Don't use cook pots made of either one of these metals. Exended cooking in either iron or aluminum pots gives a metallic, nasty flavor to tomato products. Use stainless steel or enamel coated cast iron or ceramic only. Cut all your tomatoes into quarters, removing any white or green spots, worm holes, stems, and jelly-like soft spots and fill the big pot with tomato chunks. No need to take off the skin or remove the seeds. We'll take care of that later. If you want the flavors of celery, carrot, or onion, cut them into large pieces and add them to the pot. I also add whole, rinsed parsley stems - the inedible stuff that you usually throw away (the more the better) and a couple of bay leaves. I don't recommend adding basil at this stage. I find that basil gets bitter and overwhelming when added early to a long, slow cook. I prefer to add it just before serving. When the pot is full to overflowing add about 2 teaspoons of salt to help draw out the juice from the veggies, cover, and put on medium heat. Stir every 10 minutes or so to prevent sticking/burning until the juices flow freely and the whole thing comes to the boil. Simmer covered for 20-40 minutes at which time the pot's contents will have reduced by to about 3/4 and all the tomatoes and veggies will have turned to a soft, mushy mass.
Grab another non-reactive pot (smaller than the one you used for the initial cooking) and use a food mill (looks like a saucepan with holes in the bottom and a crank handle - available from a flea market or a cooking supply house) or a wire basket and a spatula to strain all the hot tomato/veggie juice through. All the tomato seeds & skin, parsley stems, and carrot and celery fiber will be left behind for disposal, while only the juice and some fine puree will enter the second pot. When all the contents of the first pot have been strained into the second, simmer the resulting puree for 2-4 hours uncovered on low heat to reduce it by half. Stir occasionally to prevent it from burning or sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Cool, chill, spoon into quart zip-lock bags, and put 3-4 sealed quart bags into a gallon zip-lock (in case one of the quart bags leak). Put the gallon bags into the freezer.
If sauce is wanted later, remove a quart bag and add to whatever else you usually add... onions, garlic, sausage, a piece of pork, capers, wine, anchovies, olives, sun-dried or fresh or canned tomatoes...
I boiled down 10 gallons of tomatoes yesterday and ended up with just over 1 gallon of sauce.
Happy harvest.
9月5日 You Want Oenogarum With That Burger?Here in the land of Heinz ketchup and cheap yellow supermarket mustard we grow soybeans mainly as an animal feed. Over 2,000 years ago the Chinese discovered how to ferment soybeans into a tasty high-protein product that was the ancestor of soy sauce (the liquid component) and miso/fermented bean paste (the solid part.) Then there is tofu, a food rather than a condiment, and a wonderful source of protein made from unfermented soybeans which is a pain in the ass to make. I tried it once and will never do it again. It was great but it took all day and used every pot and pan I own. Too much about tofu. This is about condiments. Three cheers to the ancient Chinese for inventing a savory use for the bland, uninteresting soybean.
On to the Roman Empire. The Romans have received much negative press about the sorry state of their diet. I'm sure that's true to a certain extent, especially for the slaves and the poor Roman trailer trash, but they did produce and market a surprising substance called garum used as a condiment. A third century A.D. recipe says it is made by alternating layers of small fatty fish (anchovies, sardines, mackerel) with salt and other ingredients in 10 gallon containers, letting it sit in the sun for 7 days and then stirring it daily for 20 days at which time it will be mostly liquid. This is almost exactly the same technique for making fish sauce, a staple of Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam. This dark, salty, fishy sauce was used by the Romans as on meat and vegetables. Roman authors and modern archaeological evidence indicate that several types of garum were marketed by the Romans. One was made from any ocean dweller, one for the poor from entrails, heads and bones, and one made only from creatures with fins and scales living in the sea without the addition of shellfish or eels made specifically for the Jewish consumer. I remember a Latin teacher once telling me that the Romans ate rotted fish guts and liked it. Salted fermented fish is not rotten, just as sauerkraut is not rotten cabbage or pickles are rotten cucumbers. Anyway, garum added to wine which has been reduced to 3/4 to 1/2 its original volume is called oenogarum, and was a common condiment. I just found this out recently and it surprised me because I like to make an arabic dish of hamburgers mixed with garlic and parsley, browned in olive oil, and then braised in wine, lemon juice, and a few anchovies. Sounds like back-door oenogarum burgers to me.
As a historical, hysterical side-bar, the Romans took their garum to India via the spice and silk routes. Over the next few hundred years the Indians added tamarind (a tart, savory fruit) and other ingredients which the British discovered in the 19th century and took home with them. They called it Worcestershire sauce.
The next time you shake a few drops of Worcestershire into your beef stew or pork ribs, marvel at how ancient Roman "rotted fish guts" evolved over the centuries and thousands of miles to become just another condiment that we don't think twice about munching. 8月17日 3" X 5" CardI've come to the conclusion that this isn't a blog or a drive-through and that the internet isn't high-tech news at all.
It's more like the outdoor cork bulletin board at the farm store in town plastered with odd chunks of notebook paper and 3" X 5" cards. Here are some examples:
1. Wanted desperately (next few words illegible due to raindrops falling on water-soluble ink).
2, For Sale: Old baby clothes and a .22 autoloader. Call (phone number ripped off by somebody who wants either baby clothes or a rifle).
So I get a call:
Caller: "I'm calling about the 4WD ATV you have for sale."
Me: "I don't have an ATV for sale, sorry."
Caller: "I got your number from the bulletin board at the farm store downtown."
Me: "There has been some mistake, I had a card on that board but it wasn't about an ATV for sale. I've never owned an ATV and never will."
Caller: "What was your ad for?"
Me: "Not an ATV."
Caller: <CLICK>
I guess that's just the way it goes around here.
8月12日 Not So Typical AugustUsually by this time of summer here in NNY the grass is brown, the rivers and the creeks are down, and it is as hot as Hades. The past few weeks have been rainy and cool. In between raindrops and thundershowers and hail I've been trying to keep up with the lawn mowing. I've had little time to myself but I am learning to live with it. We are adaptable creatures. "Ya can't always get what you want...."
The single, most enjoyable project has been listening to the Collected Works of J.S. Bach, 155 CD's, one at a time. It will probably take years to hear them all. Very well, I will cheat Death yet again in an attempt to hear every single recording in the collection.
Other projects: To learn Word 2007 (just updated an old 2002 version) and PowerPoint. Wish me luck. Not with the Microsoft tutorials.... with the business about cheating Death and getting in a few more warm, sunny days before summer ends.
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