Day: September 2, 2005

Well, it’s up just in time for me to make my grocery list for this weekend… Carnival of the Recipes #55 at The Glittering Eye

Not that we’ll necessarily be pigging out this weekend on Korean-style short ribs of beef (at least not if I need to have kimchee with it :-), although without the kimchee side suggested at the Carnival entry, the recipe looks delish.  And I think I’ll wait for cooler weather to fire up the oven for Christine’s  Banana Walnut Bread, although I’ll definitely enjoy cooking it on a crisp fall evening and having a slice (or two!) with a nice cuppa joe. And check out RomeoCat’s Curried Winter Squash Soup “recipe for Katrina relief”—yu-u-u-um!

Ahhh, just head on over and feast your eyes on all the goodies! Watch your  keyboard, though; drool isn’t good for it.

Sometimes it’s small things

By mid-afternoon today, I was pleasantly pooped out.  Already been a full day.  Took a break, went out on the deck and, under the scant shade reaching the deck from a stand of 60 foot sycamores, did something I’d not done in 17 years.

You see, 17 years (maybe a tad longer) ago, I laid down (actually gave away) my pipes and favorite macanudos and simply stopped using tobacco.  At all. But… a while ago I found a pipe that had missed the housecleaning. Not one of the pricey ones; just a lil bulldog. Nice feel in the hand, though.  Then, while cleaning out a stash of stuff not gone through since, well, several moves, I found about two pipesful of 17-year-old blend.  A nice aroma still, but dry.  

Today, I rehydrated the old tobacco, poured a cuppa joe and took a break on the deck having my first pipeful in 17 years.  One of my son’s dogs came and laid down at my feet.  Watched the raccoon the dogs have treed about 25 feet up one of the sycamores, smoked and drank some joe. Enjoyable. Even blew a few rings.  But when the cuppa coffee was gone, I knocked out the half a pipeful that was left and that’s it.  No desire for more, just a pleasant “remembrances” time.  

Next pleasant memory: cue up.

Sidebar: after my break, Some activity broke out in the northeast corner of the yard. Lotsa squalling. It was time to investigate the racoon thing more thoroughly. Yep. As usual. Marauders invade the Big Dog Domain and come up short. A good reason to keep The Boys’ rabies shots current. Besides the very large racoon treed up the sycamore, two dead ones and a badly injured racoon (the source of the ruckus—apparently tried to make a break for it). Disposed of the dead ones. Observed the injured one. Nope. Not gonna make it. Broken back, other severe injuries. Sent him to be with his siblings. *sigh* It’s the way of nature. Don’t mess with the big dogs if you don’t have the muscle to pull it off.

One thing for sure: we’ve not had the problem our neighbor had with snakes (he frequently found cottonmouths in his yeard) and squirrels do NOT mess with the birdfeed I put out. Territorial dogs? Very. Nice boys, though.

THE greatest danger to America:



[I was commenting over on another blog when that cartoon popped into my mind. The subject under “discussion” (more like cussin’ and dis-cussin’) was the delinking of Glenn Reynolds by some of us who find his comments/blogging less and less useful.  Some, admittedly, are outraged by his lack of wholehearted support for their views. Bah. To me, he’s simply become less and less relevant to the things I’m interested in discussing. And the brouhaha over the delinking, the “sound and fury” from both sides, is also edging toward “bored, now” territory. Besides, nearly all the discussion is irrelevant, anyway. _1_]

But on point: Now, when Pogo uttered those now famous (and often adulterated, even by me 😉 words, he was gazing upon the evidence of human greed, laziness and short-sightedness evidenced in heaps of refuse through which he and his companion had waded in their swamp home.  

And it is that same greed, laziness and short-sightedness which poses the greatest danger to our country today. Let’s consider how that statement applies to some of the issues I consider pressing.

Congress. The Federal “gummint” has its fingers too deeply into darned near every aspect of of its subjects’ lives. Congresscritters as a class (with a few individual exceptions) are the dregs of society: venal, cowardly, intellectually and morally lazy, greedy goons. Wanna argue the statement? Take it to comments.

The courts, especially federal. To judges: get your damned hands off making law! You do NOT have that authority, except by virtue of lazy, cowardly, venal legislator’s ceding of rsponsibility.

Same to bureaucrats. I don’t give one flippin’ fark what your RULES say: what does the LAW say—and if the law says you get to make the rules at your discretion, then the law’s an ass, made by other, worse, lazy, morally bankrupt asses.

Next: voters.  What in the Sam Hill do you lazy, greedy speech-impaired piscines* think you’re doing voting  such venal, cowardly, intellectually and morally lazy, greedy goons into office? Get some backbone and vote the rascals out.

Energy policy. Can anyone see the greed? The short-sightedness? The intellectual and moral laziness? What, really, is keeping every little municipality in America from having a TDP plant processing its raw sewage and other waste into usable commodities, including a light grade petroleum product one stage away from being cracked into diesel and gasoline? Heck, transitioning to a mature energy policy would be simple with enough $10-$15 per barrel oil being manufactured from waste domestically to eliminate dependence on oil from supporters of terrorism. And that’s just one of many technically and economically feasible approcahes being neglected because of lazy, short-sighted greed.

Education. Anyone who’s honest (and who has the background to be able to see and comprehend what’s going on) will admit that public education (AKA “prisons for kids”) is worse than just broken in this country. It’s an unmitigated disaster. Short-sighted, greedy dystopians (education “establishment”, government legislators and buraucrats, teachers unions, “education” administrators); lazy “manufactured idiot” parents; ever more dumbed down kids: gee, there’s nothing to see here.  Move along folks.

Pop “culture”.  Could anything be more coarse, destructive of positive values, morally and intellectually and aesthetically debillitating than MTV/top 40 so-called “artists”? And I’m not even touching television. (Yeh, there are a few bright exceptions to the “television is trash” rule, but since Jeremy Brett died, the exceptions have become more and more… exceptional. Miss ya Jeremy.)

I could rail on, but I think you get the point. The problem being our own (as an American public) laziness, greed and short-sightedness, the solution to all these ills is… us.

*”speech-impaired piscines”=dumb basses

Addendum: yeh, lotsa typos above, mostly letters left out. I plead needing to change the batteries in my wireless keyboard as at least some of the problem (changed now :-), although “buraucrats” may have been my unconscious attempting to type “burrocraps” but being stiffled by my superego (No, not “Super ego”). heh. I’m not going to fix ’em. Those of y’all (which means most of the regular readers of this blog) who can recognize the typos will be forgiving, I hope. For those of y’all who don’t see the typos, I blame your teachers, your parents and you. 🙂

Stole this off Dave Barry’s blog. It wasn’t real clear where he got it from.