Day: March 12, 2005

April 15 approaches

For years, excepting only last year—in a private show of support for proper use of tax monies in legitimate Constitutional efforts to promote national security—I have grown a beard and shaved it on April 15, as a mark of my own self-proclaimed “National Day of Mourning.” The reason is obvious: there is so much wrong about the intent, structure, function and purpose[s] of Federal income taxes and the IRS, that April 15 has become a symbol, in my mind at least, of most of what is wrong about our once-federal (but now almost imperial) system of government.

And so I mourn for a Constitution—and system of government—that was designed by our Founders to protect liberty but which is now mostly honored in name only.

Of course—and here I wander into what the current state of revisionist history and polular memes would consider historical heresy—April 15 also ironically marks the death of the first American president to frog-march a federal income tax through Congress. Abraham Lincoln so severely trampled the letter and spirit of the Constitution during his reign that he really ought to be “honored” as the first American emperor…

*sigh*

Kill the Constitution to save the republic… A “republic” become less, as a result of his actions, in the model the Founders and framers envisioned than like it. What a concept.

*profound sigh*

And yet, that’s not the worst of it. The arcane tax laws and extra-legal regulations administered by the IRS are so convoluted and confusing (even to so-called tax professionals) that they make criminals of us all, regardless of our desire to be law-abiding and completely up-front with the IRS. I know I wrack my brains every year to make sure I answer each and every “interview” question in my tax software as accurately and completely as possible, and yet, I always have a nagging doubt that I got it right.

And that’s exactly the dividing line between the citizens of the Republic that once was and the empire America is becoming: No longer can we as soi dissant citizens understand or comply with the plethora of laws (not just tax laws, mind you) spewing from that cesspool in D.C.

Does that sound a bit harsh? How about this sentence from The Declaration of Independence referring to one of George’s abuses:

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Sounds like our congresscritters and their minions in the civil service have been going to school on boy George’s methods of governamce, doesn’t it? (And maybe even done George one or two “better” with such as the Thousands Standing Around bunch of morons.)

Just take a moment and read the Declaration, would you? Don’t linger too long over the stirring and poetic intro, read and re-read the “long train of abuses” and see just how many are eerily similar to the behavior of the feds today.

OK. I’ve finished doing my taxes again this year. I hope (almost against hope) that I dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s and that I understood the different payments and deductions correctly and noted them in the correct places on the forms.

But the point is, even if I were audited, and even if I were to have a tax “professional” along with me, how could I know I had done right? I can’t. And protestations of tax professionals and auditors notwithstanding, they don’t know, either, because the tax code is too huge, too arcane and too absolutely and inexcusably obscurantist for anyone to know.

Read this. last August, Neal Boortz summed up a tax plan then being floated by Dennis Hastert (among others) that would, in my estimation, solve most of the woes, inequities and downright illegitimacies of the current federal tax code: a national sales tax instead of a national income tax.

Read the article. If it makes sense to you, contact Hastert, your own congresscritters (representative and senators) and the White House. If it makes sense to you, blog it. “Email log” it, too. Write letters. Phone congresscritters, White House, old media.

Someone, somewhere, sometime needs to put a stake in the heart of the Irredeemably Raunchy Scum and hang the corpse at the crossroads of America to warn off other such monsters.

I’d like to sleep well at night KNOWING I’d paid my fair share of taxes for proper federal (and state and local) governance, but the current system leaves me with that neverending, nagging question: Did i get it all right?

(Oh, and Intuit certainly messed with my mind this year, something I’ll hold them accountable for… )

Another “not-quite-a-recipe” for the lazy cook’s repertoire.

Apple Pockets

I like a nice “turnover” but I’m fonder of those made with bread dough than with pie crust dough. Here’s my version of a bread dough apple turnover that’s… not turned over.

Egg Bread crust:

Dry ingredients:
4 cups of white or mixed wheat and white flour
half teaspoon salt
tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Wet ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup warm water (115 degrees F ought to do)
couple of tablespoons oil

Mix dry ingredients in a non-metallic bowl. Add water/oil and mix. Add eggs. Mix well with hands. Knead lightly until it holds together well, cover and set aside in a warm place for about 30-40 minutes. Knead again until elastic & set aside, covered, in warm place while you mix the filling. See lazy cook’s note at bottom.

Filling:

Note: you can mix up a buncha this stuff, cos if you have too much, you can just refirgerate it and use it for other things–top hot cerals, on/in pancakes, etc.

Apples-some moderately sharp ones (well, I certainly don’t know how many you’ll want to use, just grab four or five medium apples, ok?) Core and slice them. Leave the peels if you want; I do. Avoid “delicious” varieties like the plague. Winesaps, Johnathons, even some Fujis would do.
Raisins
Nuts-(NOT peanuts, real nuts) I like walnuts, pecans or cashews.
Cinnamon. Do NOT use pre-ground cinnamon powder. Get some cinnamon sticks and make your own in your coffee grinder you’ve reserved for spices. (Don’t have one? Don’t whine to me. Get one.) To taste, of course. (You’ll be surprised how much richer freshly-ground cinnamon is. You’ll use less than you otherwise might. And it’s cheaper than old pre-ground stuff in the long run.)
Nutmeg–same as for cinnamon: get some nutmegs and grind your own fresh powder. About 1/8 as much nutmeg as cinnamon.
Ginger-I use crystalized ginger as perhaps the best compromise. A couple of small “rocks” for every four or five apples.
Cloves-four or five cloves per four or five apples. More to taste. 🙂 Whole cloves, ground freshly, of course.
Sugar-one-half to three-quarters cup for every four or five apples.
Butter or oil-maybe a quarter cup or less.

Prep? Easy. Pre-heat the oven to about 350 F now. Core and slice the apples as mentioned above; prepare the other ingredients as mentioned; put it all in a bowl and mix it up til all the apple slices are well-covered in the goodies. Pop it, covered loosely, in the microwave on high for about four minutes, then re-mix the “apple goody” stuff.

Knead the dough again for a bit, then roll out onto a floured surface. Now, divide the dough into four parts, if you want VERY LARGE pockets, more if you want smaller. [Forgot this next step earlier: don’t you forget it!] Spread butter or margarine on the rolled-out dough pieces. Put filling on rolled out dough, fold over and pinch shut. Place on well-oiled baking sheet. You can give the tops of the dough an egg wash at this time, if you want.

Pop ’em in the oven and give ’em about 25 minutes (oven temps vary, size of pockets makes a difference. Check back often after about 20 minutes).

Lazy cook’s note: When you’re feeling really, really, realy lazy, you can cut your prep involvement as I… um, have been known to do:

1.) Mix the bread dough in a bread maker on the “pizza dough” setting.
2.) Make one HUGE pocket and cut slices off that to serve. This does take a lil longer to bake, but who cares? Oven time isn’t work.

Oh, and do feel free to substitute. I can recall as though it were only yesterday (Oh! It WAS yesterday!) running out of sugar and substituting… cinnamon sugar I’d made up for use on some quick cinnamon toast. So there was a lil extra cinnamon in the mix. So? (Yum. Mom used to make cinnamon toast by buttering bread slices, sprinkling with cinnamon and sugar and placing the slices under the broiler. The untoasted side of her cinnamon bread was always an interesting contrast in texture. I just do something similar in our toaster oven.) No rasins? Try dates or… prunes! No nuts? Go buy some. Low on flour? I do NOT recommend substituting garbanzo bean flour. Don’t go there.

NOTE: I did say you could divide the dough and make more, smaller ones didn’t I? Some email indicates that wasn’t real clear. If you want to make “normal” sized apple pockets (like you may be used to seeing turnovers), you can make a good dozen out of these ingredients. But why? 🙂

BTW, as I ought to have noted when I originally posted this, you can use the egg bread dough very effectively with leftover Whatever Stew as filling, for a hearty main dish. Indeed, Apple Pockets originally grew out of finding an alternate use for some leftover dough after making some meat “pasties” out of… some very beefy leftover Whatever Stew.