Crusade of the Crazies
Good sense is good sense, but stupidity is infinite in its variety. As soon as you think a thing could not be dumber, you discover something else more idiotic.
My vote for inanity of the week goes to the yahoos using the Fort Hood shooting to dump on the Dems. Their demented diegesis is to declare holy war on Islam and then brand Obama and his like cowards and traitors for not joining their cuckoo crusade. How’s that for a plan?
They’ve begun by massing on their talk show circuit armed with readings of Allah’s admonitions to slay all infidels but violate only their non-porcine livestock. These Koranic quotes prove, the righties say, that we must eradicate the minions of Mecca before they put us all to the scimitar and rebuild the caliphate on the mountain of our bones.
The last time such trash talk got out of hand was in 1295, when Pope Urban II called upon wander- and loot-lusting Christians to quit their castles and cots and march off to Antioch and Jerusalem to “destroy that vile race [the Seljuk Turks] from the lands of our friends.” They say the blood from the battles rose as high as a horse’s flanks, while the rapine and pillage stood unequaled until the era of Goldman Sachs.
The Crusades waxed and waned for two centuries before Saint Petering out. The outcome? Eight hundred years later, Muslims number a quarter of humanity, while in Christendom the great cathedrals see more tourists than worshipers.
What’s both fascinating and frightening is not just that our conservative cohort is happy to provoke mischief far beyond its capacity to comprehend or control (such as calling for a war with one and half billion Muslims who have nuclear weapons at their disposal in Pakistan), but that our body politic nevertheless insists on indulging these idiots.
As I’ve noted before, we live in a land where you can get as ridiculously right wing as your paranoia will permit and still be considered a solid citizen. But try to inch to the left of, say, Barney “the banker’s buddy” Frank and you will quickly be Howard Deaned into supplication.
By the bye, I hear that Lou Dobbs has quit CNN to don Peter the Hermit’s rags and lead Rush’s rabble east to glory.
Did You Know?
We’re a free country--but we imprison more people than any other country.
We’re a peaceful country--but we have fought more wars in more places than any other country.
We’re a democratic country--but we limit ourselves to the narrowest range of political options available to democracies.
We're a free enterprise country--but our economy is characterized by oligopolies.
We’re a rich country--but we're the greatest debtors in the history of the universe.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Salang, It's Been Good to Know You
Click on picture to enlargeKarman and companions. Salang Tunnel, Afghanistan, 1972.
Then the world's highest tunnel at 10,000 feet.
The Bull From Kabul
Uncle Sap just paid God only knows how many millions for a presidential election in Afghanistan. This was an exercise in stupidity equivalent to peddling veggie burgers at the cattlemen’s convention.
All sentient observers agreed that the balloting ranked with the Balloon Boy scam in utter inane fraudulence. Admitting that the election was “messy,” President Obama nevertheless congratulated his satrap, Hamid “the Haberdasher” Karzai, the evident author of the fraud, on his singular victory (singular because Abdullah ditto, the only other viable candidate, quit from the stench).
But it was not all Allah Be Praised. Pres. Obama also admonished the natty Karzai to crack down on crime and corruption. This was equivalent to telling Jeffrey Dahmer that he could still invite young men to dinner parties, but should try to prepare vegetarian dishes.
It was also a case of glass White House hypocrisy. The pelf extorted by the war and dope lords of Afghanistan (including, it is bruited, Karzai’s brother) amounts to the drip from a leaky bucket compared to the tsunami of swag cascading into the hoards of crooked U.S. contractors. For example, have you heard that our military in Afghanistan is paying $400 a gallon for gas?
As I’ve earlier blogged, I don’t get our involvement in Afghanistan. The Al Qaeda excuse is ridiculous--like fire bombing the zoo to kill a rogue elephant. The big geopolitical rationales, such as securing pipeline routes, encircling the Russ, Han and Persians, shoring up the Pakis, and generally manifesting our full spectrum dominance, are beyond the means of our debilitated forces and denuded treasury. And the claim that we want to redeem Afghan womanhood would sound more plausible were we not so lovey-dovey with the equally medieval and misogynistic Saudis.
Afghanistan is obviously a fabulous venue through which those contractors can plunder and pillage our treasury. But so would a number of more hospitable lands in temperate climes where we could more comfortably rape the cattle and run off the women.
What I do know is that Afghanistan will be the ruin of Obama. If he goes in heavy, he’ll lose heavy. If he goes in light, the generals and their congressional claque will have him for lunch.
How do I know? I was in Afghanistan for a worried week back in October 1972 (see picture above). By today’s standards, in which making up shit is given equal weight to scholarship, that makes me almost, sort of, maybe, possibly an expert.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Alternative Isn't Pretty
Peace With Persia
Iranians regularly attend mosque where they proclaim “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Their president regularly claims that the Jewish holocaust never happened and that Israel must be erased from the map as were the USSR and the Union of South Africa. On the other side, many Israelis are actually hubristic enough to believe that 70 million Iranians are eager to nuke Israel and thereby commit mass suicide and destroy their 5,000-year-old civilization for the 30 minutes of schadenfreude they might relish before retaliatory Israeli and U.S. nukes lift them to paradise.
Meanwhile, Israel regularly threatens to bomb Iran if it gets near getting the bomb. The White House regularly warns Iran with war if it keeps developing the bomb. And U.S. intelligence keeps repeating that Iran gave up its bomb program in 2003.
Ah, that we were merely talking about threats. A couple of years back, Bush got congress to vote $400 million to effect regime change in Iran. That means overthrowing their elected government by outside force, a longtime but spotty specialty of ours. The recent suicide bombings of high-ranking Revolutionary Guards officers in the disputatious Baluchistan border region of Iran by a faction that Seymour Hersch of The New Yorker and Brian Ross of ABC News have named as CIA assets seem to indicate that Obama is still spending that appropriation.
This admix of provocation and posturing has been going on for 30 years. I’d be happy to see it continue for another 30 or 50 or 100 years if it meant avoiding a big and brutal war.
Iran is governed by a nasty right-wing theocracy of the sort that Christian yahoos dream of establishing here. It treats its own people stupidly and brutally. Given all that, it’s an anarchist hippie love commune compared to our kissyface ally, the medieval hell hole of Saudi Arabia. What’s more, Iran is one of the more peaceful nations on earth. The present regime hasn’t attacked another country in its three decades in power. Indeed, Iran, nee Persia, has not attacked anyone in 250 years. For most of that time it has been on the receiving end of imperial aggression, having most recently been invaded in 1980 by Saddam’s Iraq in cahoots with Reagan’s America.
True, the Iranians sponsor various armed factions in their neck of the woods. But who doesn’t? Israeli rented satraps ran a rump state in Lebanon for 22 years. Our Pentagon contractors wallow in pig heaven from profitably arming every every macher and mullah from Haifa to the Himalayas
Iran could end this standoff tomorrow. It has only to announce that it’s giving away its oil to Exxon and Chevron, its security services to Israel, and its military to Pentagon contractors to rebuild and rearm it with zillions of dollars worth of American weapons. Media bad-mouthing of Iran would end as abruptly and totally as it did when Nixon showed up in Red China, which up until that day had been portrayed as the most evil regime in the history of the universe.
The cuter Ayatollahs would show up on Comedy Central, Leno and The View. Ahmadinejad would start dating Britney Spears. Nobody in America would henceforth give a hoot about whether Iran really had nukes. The poor devils the ayatollahs tortured and killed would be depicted as troublemakers deserving their fate.
The crisis would also end if Washington and Wall Street accepted the reality that after 30 years Iran was not about to surrender its oil to Henry Kissinger’s clients and revert to an obedient component of the empire. But though Obama talks about talking to Tehran, he, like Bush, apparently thinks he can still threaten and terrorize the Iranians as well. Not likely.
There’s a new line-up of forces in the world that can’t be stopped by Predator drones or clones of Teddy Roosevelt. The U.S. is insolvent and energy short. Iran and its proleptic partners, China, Russia and Venezuela, are rich in both real and black gold. Washington can’t even handle 14th century Afghanistan let alone an energy and economic alliance of that proportion. I hope Obama gets around to figuring out that it’s time to make peace with the Persians. Otherwise, he could easily get us into something we really hate and fear: a fair fight.
Iran has legitimate aspirations that need to be respected--
but those legitimate aspirations do not include control over
the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need.
--Henry Kissinger, Washington Post. 9/16/07
the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need.
--Henry Kissinger, Washington Post. 9/16/07
Meanwhile, Israel regularly threatens to bomb Iran if it gets near getting the bomb. The White House regularly warns Iran with war if it keeps developing the bomb. And U.S. intelligence keeps repeating that Iran gave up its bomb program in 2003.
Ah, that we were merely talking about threats. A couple of years back, Bush got congress to vote $400 million to effect regime change in Iran. That means overthrowing their elected government by outside force, a longtime but spotty specialty of ours. The recent suicide bombings of high-ranking Revolutionary Guards officers in the disputatious Baluchistan border region of Iran by a faction that Seymour Hersch of The New Yorker and Brian Ross of ABC News have named as CIA assets seem to indicate that Obama is still spending that appropriation.
This admix of provocation and posturing has been going on for 30 years. I’d be happy to see it continue for another 30 or 50 or 100 years if it meant avoiding a big and brutal war.
Iran is governed by a nasty right-wing theocracy of the sort that Christian yahoos dream of establishing here. It treats its own people stupidly and brutally. Given all that, it’s an anarchist hippie love commune compared to our kissyface ally, the medieval hell hole of Saudi Arabia. What’s more, Iran is one of the more peaceful nations on earth. The present regime hasn’t attacked another country in its three decades in power. Indeed, Iran, nee Persia, has not attacked anyone in 250 years. For most of that time it has been on the receiving end of imperial aggression, having most recently been invaded in 1980 by Saddam’s Iraq in cahoots with Reagan’s America.
True, the Iranians sponsor various armed factions in their neck of the woods. But who doesn’t? Israeli rented satraps ran a rump state in Lebanon for 22 years. Our Pentagon contractors wallow in pig heaven from profitably arming every every macher and mullah from Haifa to the Himalayas
Iran could end this standoff tomorrow. It has only to announce that it’s giving away its oil to Exxon and Chevron, its security services to Israel, and its military to Pentagon contractors to rebuild and rearm it with zillions of dollars worth of American weapons. Media bad-mouthing of Iran would end as abruptly and totally as it did when Nixon showed up in Red China, which up until that day had been portrayed as the most evil regime in the history of the universe.
The cuter Ayatollahs would show up on Comedy Central, Leno and The View. Ahmadinejad would start dating Britney Spears. Nobody in America would henceforth give a hoot about whether Iran really had nukes. The poor devils the ayatollahs tortured and killed would be depicted as troublemakers deserving their fate.
The crisis would also end if Washington and Wall Street accepted the reality that after 30 years Iran was not about to surrender its oil to Henry Kissinger’s clients and revert to an obedient component of the empire. But though Obama talks about talking to Tehran, he, like Bush, apparently thinks he can still threaten and terrorize the Iranians as well. Not likely.
There’s a new line-up of forces in the world that can’t be stopped by Predator drones or clones of Teddy Roosevelt. The U.S. is insolvent and energy short. Iran and its proleptic partners, China, Russia and Venezuela, are rich in both real and black gold. Washington can’t even handle 14th century Afghanistan let alone an energy and economic alliance of that proportion. I hope Obama gets around to figuring out that it’s time to make peace with the Persians. Otherwise, he could easily get us into something we really hate and fear: a fair fight.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Volcker Too Dem for Dems
Why Republicans Have More Fun
If you’ve noticed, Republicans allow themselves a lot more space for self-expression than do Democrats. Reps can fly as far right as their dark fantasies will carry them. So, their cohorts are dense with yahoos bent on refighting the Northern War of Aggression, rewriting the Bible to make it more business friendly, reviving slavery, removing fluoride from school books, and issuing Glocks to all newborns.
They can candidly champion Vlad the Impaler because the extreme right, for all of its wackiness, is business friendly. Indeed, their lumpen legions have traditionally provided cheerleaders and strikebreakers for our corporate sector. Thus our body politic accepts them and our media heed them no matter what nonsense they spew.
By contrast, the Democrats are intensely uptight. The uttermost sin in their ranks is any expression of leftism beyond what it takes to persuade voters that Dems are slightly more progressive than Reps. To put personalities on that policy, Pelosi is presentable but Kucinich is poison. Naderism, or anything to its port side, is the ultimate evil.
The obvious reason is that leftism, as opposed to centrism and rightism, challenges corporate rule. And by leftism, I don’t mean Lenin, Mao, Che and bloody revolution. We’ve moved so far to the right in recent decades that even the business as usual we used to practice is now seen as subversive.
Consider the case of Paul Volcker. A literal and figurative Wall Street giant at 6’8”, Volcker spent a lifetime serving the Rockefeller interests and presiding over the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Not exactly a pink resume.
President Obama named Volcker as a top adviser on the economy. The problem is that the advice that Volcker is giving the prez is considered a pinch too old-style Democratic for the Obamacrats. Volcker, like FDR, wants to cut the wild bulls of Wall Street down to size by re-restricting banks to banking and brokerages to brokering. It was under such a regime that we enjoyed 60 years of a thriving industrial economy and few financial follies.
“The banks are there to serve the public,” Mr. Volcker says, “and that is what they should concentrate on. These other activities [i.e., trading trash paper and extreme leveraging] create conflicts of interest. They create risks, and if you try to control the risks with supervision, that just creates friction and difficulties, and ultimately fails.”
For its part, the Obama administration prefers to “let the giants survive, but...regulate them extensively.” Its desultory efforts in that direction are said to be “languishing” in Congress while the monster money houses commit usury as usual and lobby against any reform at all.
When Obama named him to the newly created post of chairman of The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB), Volcker got an office in Washington. The Times says he “rarely if ever” uses it lately, preferring to remain in New York. Published reports have it that “his influence in the administration is fading.” Volcker’s days in Obamaland appear numbered. You can bank on it--at your nearest Goldman Sachs branch.
If you’ve noticed, Republicans allow themselves a lot more space for self-expression than do Democrats. Reps can fly as far right as their dark fantasies will carry them. So, their cohorts are dense with yahoos bent on refighting the Northern War of Aggression, rewriting the Bible to make it more business friendly, reviving slavery, removing fluoride from school books, and issuing Glocks to all newborns.
They can candidly champion Vlad the Impaler because the extreme right, for all of its wackiness, is business friendly. Indeed, their lumpen legions have traditionally provided cheerleaders and strikebreakers for our corporate sector. Thus our body politic accepts them and our media heed them no matter what nonsense they spew.
By contrast, the Democrats are intensely uptight. The uttermost sin in their ranks is any expression of leftism beyond what it takes to persuade voters that Dems are slightly more progressive than Reps. To put personalities on that policy, Pelosi is presentable but Kucinich is poison. Naderism, or anything to its port side, is the ultimate evil.
The obvious reason is that leftism, as opposed to centrism and rightism, challenges corporate rule. And by leftism, I don’t mean Lenin, Mao, Che and bloody revolution. We’ve moved so far to the right in recent decades that even the business as usual we used to practice is now seen as subversive.
Consider the case of Paul Volcker. A literal and figurative Wall Street giant at 6’8”, Volcker spent a lifetime serving the Rockefeller interests and presiding over the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Not exactly a pink resume.
President Obama named Volcker as a top adviser on the economy. The problem is that the advice that Volcker is giving the prez is considered a pinch too old-style Democratic for the Obamacrats. Volcker, like FDR, wants to cut the wild bulls of Wall Street down to size by re-restricting banks to banking and brokerages to brokering. It was under such a regime that we enjoyed 60 years of a thriving industrial economy and few financial follies.
“The banks are there to serve the public,” Mr. Volcker says, “and that is what they should concentrate on. These other activities [i.e., trading trash paper and extreme leveraging] create conflicts of interest. They create risks, and if you try to control the risks with supervision, that just creates friction and difficulties, and ultimately fails.”
For its part, the Obama administration prefers to “let the giants survive, but...regulate them extensively.” Its desultory efforts in that direction are said to be “languishing” in Congress while the monster money houses commit usury as usual and lobby against any reform at all.
When Obama named him to the newly created post of chairman of The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB), Volcker got an office in Washington. The Times says he “rarely if ever” uses it lately, preferring to remain in New York. Published reports have it that “his influence in the administration is fading.” Volcker’s days in Obamaland appear numbered. You can bank on it--at your nearest Goldman Sachs branch.
(All quotes taken from linked article)
Friday, October 16, 2009
In Our Future
Bubbles and Bombs
There are two lame ass apologias for Obama’s miserable record so far. One is that he’s only been in office nine months. The second, supposedly passed on to a journalist by a White House aide, is that “governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult."
The first implies that Obama has been busy cleaning up Bush’s messes and applying fresh policies whose benefits are yet to be felt. The second implies that political division is slowing his efforts. Both excuses conveniently ignore the reality that Obama had done some awful things over these last nine months. Two of them, that will effect us for decades to come, stand out. The first is that he’s signed off on the completion of Wall Street’s takeover of Washington. If you accept the notion that money rules, our government is now run by the bubble manufacturers Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citi Group and their confreres.
The federal outgo for bailouts and war spending are roughly equal to the income from taxes. That means that everything else that Uncle Sam does is financed by borrowing. That borrowing is brokered through the very same financial houses receiving bailouts. In other words, Goldman Sachs et al get money from us for free and then lend it back to us at interest--on their own terms and to the tune of trillions.
Barack Obama received more campaign money from Goldman than any candidate ever. A revealing AP story tells us that the telephone traffic between treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and the top guys at Goldman, JP Morgan Chase and Citi is all but adolescent in its frequency. Geithner is obviously checking with the people really in charge.
The other travesty is that Obama has apparently acquiesced to what conservative bloviator John McLoughlin calls “an orthodoxy of continuous war.” His Pentagon (or is it the Pentagon’s Obama?) is busy opening new military/corporate subsidiaries around the planet. These bases from the Amazon Basin to central Asia are to be garrisoned by both troops and private contractors. In the early days of our empire, it was the military that cleared the way for business, as in 1852 when Admiral Perry’s warships shelled Tokyo to encourage the Japanese to open their economy to U.S. investors. Today, the two are indistinguishable.
There’s more bad news from the Obama administration, such as its decision to reaffirm the Patriot Act and continue Bush’s attacks on civil liberties. But let’s leave it for now.
On July 19, 2008, I posted a blog called Two Scenarios. The first posited that Obama would sincerely attempt to deliver the change he promised. The second worried that he would be yet another servant of business as usual. It looks like we’ve come up snake eyes.
There are two lame ass apologias for Obama’s miserable record so far. One is that he’s only been in office nine months. The second, supposedly passed on to a journalist by a White House aide, is that “governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult."
The first implies that Obama has been busy cleaning up Bush’s messes and applying fresh policies whose benefits are yet to be felt. The second implies that political division is slowing his efforts. Both excuses conveniently ignore the reality that Obama had done some awful things over these last nine months. Two of them, that will effect us for decades to come, stand out. The first is that he’s signed off on the completion of Wall Street’s takeover of Washington. If you accept the notion that money rules, our government is now run by the bubble manufacturers Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citi Group and their confreres.
The federal outgo for bailouts and war spending are roughly equal to the income from taxes. That means that everything else that Uncle Sam does is financed by borrowing. That borrowing is brokered through the very same financial houses receiving bailouts. In other words, Goldman Sachs et al get money from us for free and then lend it back to us at interest--on their own terms and to the tune of trillions.
Barack Obama received more campaign money from Goldman than any candidate ever. A revealing AP story tells us that the telephone traffic between treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and the top guys at Goldman, JP Morgan Chase and Citi is all but adolescent in its frequency. Geithner is obviously checking with the people really in charge.
The other travesty is that Obama has apparently acquiesced to what conservative bloviator John McLoughlin calls “an orthodoxy of continuous war.” His Pentagon (or is it the Pentagon’s Obama?) is busy opening new military/corporate subsidiaries around the planet. These bases from the Amazon Basin to central Asia are to be garrisoned by both troops and private contractors. In the early days of our empire, it was the military that cleared the way for business, as in 1852 when Admiral Perry’s warships shelled Tokyo to encourage the Japanese to open their economy to U.S. investors. Today, the two are indistinguishable.
There’s more bad news from the Obama administration, such as its decision to reaffirm the Patriot Act and continue Bush’s attacks on civil liberties. But let’s leave it for now.
On July 19, 2008, I posted a blog called Two Scenarios. The first posited that Obama would sincerely attempt to deliver the change he promised. The second worried that he would be yet another servant of business as usual. It looks like we’ve come up snake eyes.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Scandal-navia
A Not So Noble Nobel
I heard this morning that Barack Obama will have to take time out from strategizing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, supervising the Pentagon’s new Africa Command, propping up a murderous military coup in Honduras, reviving the Fourth Fleet to police a peaceful (until now) Latin America, opening a new string of bases in Colombia, calling air strikes and commando raids from the Horn of Africa to the Philippines, and helping America to sell more weapons to more countries than the whole rest of the world combined, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
I guess the next thing is to give Colonel Sanders the Lifetime Vegetarian award.
I heard this morning that Barack Obama will have to take time out from strategizing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, supervising the Pentagon’s new Africa Command, propping up a murderous military coup in Honduras, reviving the Fourth Fleet to police a peaceful (until now) Latin America, opening a new string of bases in Colombia, calling air strikes and commando raids from the Horn of Africa to the Philippines, and helping America to sell more weapons to more countries than the whole rest of the world combined, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
I guess the next thing is to give Colonel Sanders the Lifetime Vegetarian award.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Kitchen Magic
The Indispensable Ingredient
I know you expect political rants from me, but sometimes weighty affairs just have to wait.* As some of you know, I’m an ardent fan of cooking shows and devour the Wednesday NY Times Dining Section as if it were a well-seasoned meatloaf. Therefore, I thought I might try my hand at gourmet glamour blogging by exploring trendy and exciting new ways to celebrate a commonplace item available in every kitchen. Who knows, this effort may grow into the next Larousse or Joy of Cooking. One can hope. So, anyway, here are some tips on using this all but magic ingredient.
To start off, it’s amazingly versatile, a complement to any meal and a must for many. Cooks everywhere, be they range royalty or tyro toast burners, can’t praise it enough. And it’s at the heart of myriad ethnic cuisines. Enough build-up. I’m talking about water, the new star of the kitchen!
You can use it not only to boil an egg, but also to clean up your pan and plate afterwards. It’s excellent for washing salads, fruits and even snap peas. Try it hot with Nesquick and enjoy a nice cup of near cocoa.
My grandmother, Matija, who was an ethnic crone, liked to cook fish in it. She would buy baccala (salt cod), and put it in a pot of water with garlic, onion, potato, olive oil and other ingredients. Then she would heat it slowly on a stove. After several hours, it was ready to eat. I recall as a youngster that it stunk up the house for days. I used to lock myself in the bathroom to get away from the smell. By the way, our bathroom had water available from several faucets. There was even a flush bowl of water that the dog used to drink from.
Many claim medicinal or even magical qualities for water. In the hills of Bosnia, not far from the alleged Catholic shrine of Medjugorje, there’s a stream that flows with what the locals call muska voda, or men’s water. It is said to instill male virility. The peasants learned this generations ago when the spaghetti they were boiling stood straight up in the pot.
One of my favorite uses for water is to freeze it into small cubes and then put them in a glass and pour whisky over them. This can be done year round, but tastes cooler on a hot summer day. On the other end of the thermometer, consider that hot water does wonders for JELL-O powder.
The French think it sinful to mix water with wine. In the Adriatic region, by contrast, there’s a summer custom of adding a bit of water, either in its liquid or solid form, to wine, creating a drink they call bevanda that a self-respecting Frenchie would quickly expectorate. Chaque pays à son guise.
However you want to use it, you’ll be happy to know that water is widely available (except in desert or drought areas) and relatively inexpensive. Many stores sell it in glass or plastic bottles. Both domestic and foreign bottled waters are popular with folks on the run, who carry them on their persons in little holsters designed for the purpose. Automobiles often have cup holders that can be used for water as well as gin and tonic.
Additionally, just about everybody has access to water right in their home, rental apartment, condo, coop or even vacation cabin. This water flows from faucets, typically located in kitchens and bathrooms. That makes it extra handy for cooking and washing. This may not be the case in poor countries.
For a wonderful assortment of recipes, I recommend “Cooking With Water” by Hy Drater, published by River Books and available at Amazon.
A word of caution: Though water is generally safe, it should be used judiciously. Too much and you’ll drown; too little and you’ll die of thirst.
Stay wet until next time, when The Karman Turn takes a gourmet gander at the longtime love-hate relationship between salt and pepper.
*Credit for that line goes to the writers of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
I know you expect political rants from me, but sometimes weighty affairs just have to wait.* As some of you know, I’m an ardent fan of cooking shows and devour the Wednesday NY Times Dining Section as if it were a well-seasoned meatloaf. Therefore, I thought I might try my hand at gourmet glamour blogging by exploring trendy and exciting new ways to celebrate a commonplace item available in every kitchen. Who knows, this effort may grow into the next Larousse or Joy of Cooking. One can hope. So, anyway, here are some tips on using this all but magic ingredient.
To start off, it’s amazingly versatile, a complement to any meal and a must for many. Cooks everywhere, be they range royalty or tyro toast burners, can’t praise it enough. And it’s at the heart of myriad ethnic cuisines. Enough build-up. I’m talking about water, the new star of the kitchen!
You can use it not only to boil an egg, but also to clean up your pan and plate afterwards. It’s excellent for washing salads, fruits and even snap peas. Try it hot with Nesquick and enjoy a nice cup of near cocoa.
My grandmother, Matija, who was an ethnic crone, liked to cook fish in it. She would buy baccala (salt cod), and put it in a pot of water with garlic, onion, potato, olive oil and other ingredients. Then she would heat it slowly on a stove. After several hours, it was ready to eat. I recall as a youngster that it stunk up the house for days. I used to lock myself in the bathroom to get away from the smell. By the way, our bathroom had water available from several faucets. There was even a flush bowl of water that the dog used to drink from.
Many claim medicinal or even magical qualities for water. In the hills of Bosnia, not far from the alleged Catholic shrine of Medjugorje, there’s a stream that flows with what the locals call muska voda, or men’s water. It is said to instill male virility. The peasants learned this generations ago when the spaghetti they were boiling stood straight up in the pot.
One of my favorite uses for water is to freeze it into small cubes and then put them in a glass and pour whisky over them. This can be done year round, but tastes cooler on a hot summer day. On the other end of the thermometer, consider that hot water does wonders for JELL-O powder.
The French think it sinful to mix water with wine. In the Adriatic region, by contrast, there’s a summer custom of adding a bit of water, either in its liquid or solid form, to wine, creating a drink they call bevanda that a self-respecting Frenchie would quickly expectorate. Chaque pays à son guise.
However you want to use it, you’ll be happy to know that water is widely available (except in desert or drought areas) and relatively inexpensive. Many stores sell it in glass or plastic bottles. Both domestic and foreign bottled waters are popular with folks on the run, who carry them on their persons in little holsters designed for the purpose. Automobiles often have cup holders that can be used for water as well as gin and tonic.
Additionally, just about everybody has access to water right in their home, rental apartment, condo, coop or even vacation cabin. This water flows from faucets, typically located in kitchens and bathrooms. That makes it extra handy for cooking and washing. This may not be the case in poor countries.
For a wonderful assortment of recipes, I recommend “Cooking With Water” by Hy Drater, published by River Books and available at Amazon.
A word of caution: Though water is generally safe, it should be used judiciously. Too much and you’ll drown; too little and you’ll die of thirst.
Stay wet until next time, when The Karman Turn takes a gourmet gander at the longtime love-hate relationship between salt and pepper.
*Credit for that line goes to the writers of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Mullahs and Morons
Even Our Wars Are Dumbed Down
Remember the Cold War? It was about the future. It was about which modern system of organizing society, capitalism or communism, would win the world. You could read a library full of books by deep thinkers arguing for one side or the other. It was a scary and repressive time, but also an intellectually stimulating one.
Our latest epic conflict with the Islamic equivalent of our holy rollers is all about the past and not nearly so edifying. The other side relies on just one book, the Koran, which one is supposed to peruse only in the original Arabic. Our side reads Tweets.
Their side is characterized by semi-literate theocrats who’ve beamed up from the seventh century to sow stupidity and slay infidels. Our side stands for a decadent empirium that calls itself the greatest when it means the greediest. For all their detestation of each other, both are compatibly reactionary. They clash mainly on eating pork rinds.
The great declaration of this conflict was My Pet Goat, read by George W. Bush as the World Trade Center and Pentagon burned. It was his equivalent of Pope Urban II’s marching orders to the soldiers of Christ back in 1095 “to let the deeds of your ancestors like Charlemagne and his son Louis move you to destroy the kingdoms of the pagans and extend the territory of the Holy Church.”
Our invasion of Iraq and investment of Iran were perfectly understandable. Their peoples resembled, at least to us, the presumed authors of the 9/11 atrocity. What's more, their pagan kingdoms were ripe for conquest and conversion. We wanted their oil and we wanted to use them as bases to dominate the region. We still do.
Afghanistan, however, I just don't get. Bombing its rubble into dust? Killing the survivors of countless massacres? Nation building by way of Predator missiles? For what? Afghanistan is not a state but a congerie of feudal clans who have mastered just enough western technology to fight off the infidelic present. Even if the Taliban harbored Al Qaeda, invading Afghanistan to get at them made as much sense as assaulting Italy to shut down the Sopranos.
After eight years of fighting off the world's most powerful military, the Taliban's elusive Mullah Omar says his side is just getting warmed up. “We would like to point out,” he offered in recent days, “that we fought against the British for 80 years from 1839 to 1919 before defeating them and gaining our independence."
Meanwhile, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, worries that we are losing the battle of ideas in Afghanistan to people who had their last fresh thought fourteen hundred years ago. What an insult to our country!
Back in the Cold War, the righties were glomming onto Burke, Kirk, Hayek and Rand, while the lefties were devouring Marx, Marcuse, Mills and Sartre. There were study circles, teach-ins, free universities, alternate schools. Everyone was an ideologue or an analyst. Brains rather than boobs were on display on campuses. Not any more.
Today our politics are populated by Palinites who don’t know an ideology from an ice cream cone. They say there are also intelligent progressives out there somewhere. If they got involved they could outsmart the cretinous righties at every turn and restore the country to membership in western civilization. One wonders why they’re not marching on Washington, crowding the yahoos out of the town hall meetings, and massively mocking the pols and the media like a million Michael Moores and Bill Mahers? Let’s go, folks!
Remember the Cold War? It was about the future. It was about which modern system of organizing society, capitalism or communism, would win the world. You could read a library full of books by deep thinkers arguing for one side or the other. It was a scary and repressive time, but also an intellectually stimulating one.
Our latest epic conflict with the Islamic equivalent of our holy rollers is all about the past and not nearly so edifying. The other side relies on just one book, the Koran, which one is supposed to peruse only in the original Arabic. Our side reads Tweets.
Their side is characterized by semi-literate theocrats who’ve beamed up from the seventh century to sow stupidity and slay infidels. Our side stands for a decadent empirium that calls itself the greatest when it means the greediest. For all their detestation of each other, both are compatibly reactionary. They clash mainly on eating pork rinds.
The great declaration of this conflict was My Pet Goat, read by George W. Bush as the World Trade Center and Pentagon burned. It was his equivalent of Pope Urban II’s marching orders to the soldiers of Christ back in 1095 “to let the deeds of your ancestors like Charlemagne and his son Louis move you to destroy the kingdoms of the pagans and extend the territory of the Holy Church.”
Our invasion of Iraq and investment of Iran were perfectly understandable. Their peoples resembled, at least to us, the presumed authors of the 9/11 atrocity. What's more, their pagan kingdoms were ripe for conquest and conversion. We wanted their oil and we wanted to use them as bases to dominate the region. We still do.
Afghanistan, however, I just don't get. Bombing its rubble into dust? Killing the survivors of countless massacres? Nation building by way of Predator missiles? For what? Afghanistan is not a state but a congerie of feudal clans who have mastered just enough western technology to fight off the infidelic present. Even if the Taliban harbored Al Qaeda, invading Afghanistan to get at them made as much sense as assaulting Italy to shut down the Sopranos.
After eight years of fighting off the world's most powerful military, the Taliban's elusive Mullah Omar says his side is just getting warmed up. “We would like to point out,” he offered in recent days, “that we fought against the British for 80 years from 1839 to 1919 before defeating them and gaining our independence."
Meanwhile, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, worries that we are losing the battle of ideas in Afghanistan to people who had their last fresh thought fourteen hundred years ago. What an insult to our country!
Back in the Cold War, the righties were glomming onto Burke, Kirk, Hayek and Rand, while the lefties were devouring Marx, Marcuse, Mills and Sartre. There were study circles, teach-ins, free universities, alternate schools. Everyone was an ideologue or an analyst. Brains rather than boobs were on display on campuses. Not any more.
Today our politics are populated by Palinites who don’t know an ideology from an ice cream cone. They say there are also intelligent progressives out there somewhere. If they got involved they could outsmart the cretinous righties at every turn and restore the country to membership in western civilization. One wonders why they’re not marching on Washington, crowding the yahoos out of the town hall meetings, and massively mocking the pols and the media like a million Michael Moores and Bill Mahers? Let’s go, folks!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
When Government Is Gone
What If It's Privatna Enterprise?
My morning blat tells me that Mikhail Prokhorov, one of the richest and tallest men in Russia, is dickering to buy the New Jersey Nets. Nintendo and one of its Japanese execs already own the Seattle Mariners, and the Chinese have a chunk of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Rich Russkies are the new Steinbrenners of British soccer.
So what does this have to do with the yahoos who’ve taken to the streets to slag Obama and big government as the mother of all their miseries?
The basic notion of American conservatism is that private does just about everything better, and certainly more profitably, than public. America won’t become a truly free and prosperous nation, intones hard right strategist Grover Norquist, until we shrink government to the size of a baby and drown it in the bath tub.
Being a proudly provincial and putatively patriotic bunch, the righties assume that when this happy day arrives, the private interests that subsume the public weal will be flying the stars and stripes over their corporate HQs and speaking English in their boardrooms. That's not necessarily so.
Like the town meeting harpy who told the tv that she didn’t want socialism “like in Russia” only 20 years after that country had turned capitalist, the American right has apparently missed globalization and the vast run-up in foreign debt that feeds this current economic mess. No doubt they’ve been in church rehearsing for the rapture.
Forbes tells me that foreign corporate investment in the U.S. jumped 88 percent between 2005 and 2007 and now totals well over $200 billion. And that’s a mere tear drop in that bath tub compared to the Treasury and corporate paper held by folks whose passports Rush Limbaugh would have trouble reading.
Wouldn’t it be fun if the right wingers got their wish so that the government disappeared and they woke up one morning to find Russian, Saudi, Chinese, Iraqi and, ugh, even French corporate honchos running the show instead of the Old Glory waving and hot dog eating politicos who now populate the Potomac?
Such a takeover is not likely soon. There’s still plenty of juice in American capitalism, even if it’s leaking out at a ferocious rate. And even if foreign economic dominance did transpire, the nominally nationalist knuckleheads of the right would quickly adjust.
We learned that a couple of decades back when Japanese automakers began opening assembly plants in Dear Old Dixie. One would have assumed that the region’s reputation for conservatism, racism and rebelliousness promised trouble for companies owned by the progeny of those who sucker punched us at Pearl Harbor and were depicted all through World War II in viciously racist propaganda.
But no. Toyota, Honda and Nissan managers praised their southern workers as among the most docile and obedient in their multinational operations. Though paid far below what UAW workers get, they’ve yet to say yes to union, let alone to strike. They’re happy with whatever papa san doles out.
Southerners know how to save their race baits and rebel yells for the weekends. Weekdays, they're pleased to perform for anyone who pays them regardless of provenance or pigmentation. Like other Americans, they supplicate in the presence of spondulicks. So I wouldn’t sweat the transformation of the Nets into the Nyets. The fans will just shout Da! instead of Rah!
My morning blat tells me that Mikhail Prokhorov, one of the richest and tallest men in Russia, is dickering to buy the New Jersey Nets. Nintendo and one of its Japanese execs already own the Seattle Mariners, and the Chinese have a chunk of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Rich Russkies are the new Steinbrenners of British soccer.
So what does this have to do with the yahoos who’ve taken to the streets to slag Obama and big government as the mother of all their miseries?
The basic notion of American conservatism is that private does just about everything better, and certainly more profitably, than public. America won’t become a truly free and prosperous nation, intones hard right strategist Grover Norquist, until we shrink government to the size of a baby and drown it in the bath tub.
Being a proudly provincial and putatively patriotic bunch, the righties assume that when this happy day arrives, the private interests that subsume the public weal will be flying the stars and stripes over their corporate HQs and speaking English in their boardrooms. That's not necessarily so.
Like the town meeting harpy who told the tv that she didn’t want socialism “like in Russia” only 20 years after that country had turned capitalist, the American right has apparently missed globalization and the vast run-up in foreign debt that feeds this current economic mess. No doubt they’ve been in church rehearsing for the rapture.
Forbes tells me that foreign corporate investment in the U.S. jumped 88 percent between 2005 and 2007 and now totals well over $200 billion. And that’s a mere tear drop in that bath tub compared to the Treasury and corporate paper held by folks whose passports Rush Limbaugh would have trouble reading.
Wouldn’t it be fun if the right wingers got their wish so that the government disappeared and they woke up one morning to find Russian, Saudi, Chinese, Iraqi and, ugh, even French corporate honchos running the show instead of the Old Glory waving and hot dog eating politicos who now populate the Potomac?
Such a takeover is not likely soon. There’s still plenty of juice in American capitalism, even if it’s leaking out at a ferocious rate. And even if foreign economic dominance did transpire, the nominally nationalist knuckleheads of the right would quickly adjust.
We learned that a couple of decades back when Japanese automakers began opening assembly plants in Dear Old Dixie. One would have assumed that the region’s reputation for conservatism, racism and rebelliousness promised trouble for companies owned by the progeny of those who sucker punched us at Pearl Harbor and were depicted all through World War II in viciously racist propaganda.
But no. Toyota, Honda and Nissan managers praised their southern workers as among the most docile and obedient in their multinational operations. Though paid far below what UAW workers get, they’ve yet to say yes to union, let alone to strike. They’re happy with whatever papa san doles out.
Southerners know how to save their race baits and rebel yells for the weekends. Weekdays, they're pleased to perform for anyone who pays them regardless of provenance or pigmentation. Like other Americans, they supplicate in the presence of spondulicks. So I wouldn’t sweat the transformation of the Nets into the Nyets. The fans will just shout Da! instead of Rah!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Hassles and Missiles
Taking the Public Private
The health care hassle is the latest and biggest example of the unthinking caps we have pulled down over our brows, reducing our reasoning resources to the range of rodents.
Even the pundits who do our political parsing for us are impressed by the depths of the shallowness to which they have mis-educated us. There are countless petty stupidities out there, but one big one stands out for its prodigious and apparently permanent power.
It is that we have agreed as a nation that, in the sacred name of free enterprise, we will not do anything for the public unless its main beneficiaries are private. Or to put it another way, we will not do anything for the public, except to hope, as Kenneth Galbraith so pungently put it, that some of the oats we feed to the horses will fall to the road for the sparrows. Thus we have transmogrified our proud eagle into a cash cow.
We now fight our wars with mercenary contractors. They don’t take orders from our military and are markedly free to rip us off, screw everything up, and make more enemies than they kill. And so we gag at the case of the fabulously freaky private U.S. embassy guards acting as if every night in Kabul was Halloween on Castro Street. Our government, in this case Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, says we have to bend over and bear it because private companies providing such services are rare, if not unique. Remember when manly Marines protected our diplomats?
Despite our faith in God, we have nevertheless turned medicine into mammon even though Jesus never demanded a co-pay for His healing. Where once our health care provided succor, it now fleeces the suckers. Attempts to transform it into a public service as in every other first world country are denounced as devilish.
All those democratic and prosperous nations also provide their citizens with free education through college on the notion that public investment in smarts is smart. Meanwhile we have turned higher ed into humongous debt, graduating armies of beholden BA’s. I don’t see us bragging to the world about the fact that the average American 25-year-old college grad is up to his or her mortarboard in loans that will take years to pay down.
In Europe you can get from anywhere to everywhere on fast, frequent and reasonable public transportation. Here we once sentimentalized big country and small towns as the soul of America. Now we’re happy to let our rurals rot in isolation, watching their main streets blow away because it’s not profitable to serve them with privately run trains, planes, trucks and buses any more.
I could go on and on with similar examples of the collapse of the commons and the rise of the corporate. We are nine-tenths of the way to a society in which public discourse will be reduced to the question, “cash or credit?” Look forward to the day not far away when your house is burning, the kids are screaming, and you’re in telephone hell trying to give your Mastercard number to “Firefighters Are Us, Inc.”
Barack Goes Un-Ballistic
Zeus only knows how many zillions of our tax tributes have already been spent on the European Space Defense, whose abortion was announced today by the Obama Administration.
If you paid attention, you’ll know that the ESD was supposed to be an array of radars and missiles placed by the Pentagon in Poland and the Czech Republic to protect against Iranian rocket raids on northern Europe, particularly Scotland, Ireland and Iceland.
Why we should pay for such idiotic schemes was never noted. Likewise ignored was why Iran, which hasn’t attacked anyone in 250 years, would want to zap those countries. Of course, those things don't have to be explained or justified in our body politic. Our defense contractors have long since indoctrinated us into the illogic that our designated enemies are bound to commit evil everywhere and under every circumstance, thus necessitating our “full spectrum” response everywhere and anytime--regardless, of course, of the cost-plus cost. It’s the same as the burglar alarm sales rep insisting that you buy one for every closet, cupboard and cranny to ensure “total security.”
To be sure, those in the know knew that the ESD was really aimed at bullying the Russkies, who saw those missiles as more of a threat to St. Petersburg than a deterrent to Persia, while at the same time greasing the Poles, cashing the Czechs, and engorging Lockheed and its like.
So, Obama has put the ESD out of its misery. Maybe he even got some concession from Moscow for his troubles. No doubt, the good folks in Donegal and Reykjavik will resume shivvering in their splendid sweaters from renewed Iran-o-phobia.
As I read the early indications, the right people are rollicking and the wrong ones are roiling at the decision. So I guess our smart president has done something smart for a change. He says he favors an alternate Euro defense against the peaceable Persians using smaller missiles. Let’s hope that's just balderdash to hush up the losers. I give him a thumbs up, finally.
The health care hassle is the latest and biggest example of the unthinking caps we have pulled down over our brows, reducing our reasoning resources to the range of rodents.
Even the pundits who do our political parsing for us are impressed by the depths of the shallowness to which they have mis-educated us. There are countless petty stupidities out there, but one big one stands out for its prodigious and apparently permanent power.
It is that we have agreed as a nation that, in the sacred name of free enterprise, we will not do anything for the public unless its main beneficiaries are private. Or to put it another way, we will not do anything for the public, except to hope, as Kenneth Galbraith so pungently put it, that some of the oats we feed to the horses will fall to the road for the sparrows. Thus we have transmogrified our proud eagle into a cash cow.
We now fight our wars with mercenary contractors. They don’t take orders from our military and are markedly free to rip us off, screw everything up, and make more enemies than they kill. And so we gag at the case of the fabulously freaky private U.S. embassy guards acting as if every night in Kabul was Halloween on Castro Street. Our government, in this case Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, says we have to bend over and bear it because private companies providing such services are rare, if not unique. Remember when manly Marines protected our diplomats?
Despite our faith in God, we have nevertheless turned medicine into mammon even though Jesus never demanded a co-pay for His healing. Where once our health care provided succor, it now fleeces the suckers. Attempts to transform it into a public service as in every other first world country are denounced as devilish.
All those democratic and prosperous nations also provide their citizens with free education through college on the notion that public investment in smarts is smart. Meanwhile we have turned higher ed into humongous debt, graduating armies of beholden BA’s. I don’t see us bragging to the world about the fact that the average American 25-year-old college grad is up to his or her mortarboard in loans that will take years to pay down.
In Europe you can get from anywhere to everywhere on fast, frequent and reasonable public transportation. Here we once sentimentalized big country and small towns as the soul of America. Now we’re happy to let our rurals rot in isolation, watching their main streets blow away because it’s not profitable to serve them with privately run trains, planes, trucks and buses any more.
I could go on and on with similar examples of the collapse of the commons and the rise of the corporate. We are nine-tenths of the way to a society in which public discourse will be reduced to the question, “cash or credit?” Look forward to the day not far away when your house is burning, the kids are screaming, and you’re in telephone hell trying to give your Mastercard number to “Firefighters Are Us, Inc.”
Barack Goes Un-Ballistic
Zeus only knows how many zillions of our tax tributes have already been spent on the European Space Defense, whose abortion was announced today by the Obama Administration.
If you paid attention, you’ll know that the ESD was supposed to be an array of radars and missiles placed by the Pentagon in Poland and the Czech Republic to protect against Iranian rocket raids on northern Europe, particularly Scotland, Ireland and Iceland.
Why we should pay for such idiotic schemes was never noted. Likewise ignored was why Iran, which hasn’t attacked anyone in 250 years, would want to zap those countries. Of course, those things don't have to be explained or justified in our body politic. Our defense contractors have long since indoctrinated us into the illogic that our designated enemies are bound to commit evil everywhere and under every circumstance, thus necessitating our “full spectrum” response everywhere and anytime--regardless, of course, of the cost-plus cost. It’s the same as the burglar alarm sales rep insisting that you buy one for every closet, cupboard and cranny to ensure “total security.”
To be sure, those in the know knew that the ESD was really aimed at bullying the Russkies, who saw those missiles as more of a threat to St. Petersburg than a deterrent to Persia, while at the same time greasing the Poles, cashing the Czechs, and engorging Lockheed and its like.
So, Obama has put the ESD out of its misery. Maybe he even got some concession from Moscow for his troubles. No doubt, the good folks in Donegal and Reykjavik will resume shivvering in their splendid sweaters from renewed Iran-o-phobia.
As I read the early indications, the right people are rollicking and the wrong ones are roiling at the decision. So I guess our smart president has done something smart for a change. He says he favors an alternate Euro defense against the peaceable Persians using smaller missiles. Let’s hope that's just balderdash to hush up the losers. I give him a thumbs up, finally.
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