Garlic Soup

This is sure to annoy your neighborhood vampires. 

Roast two heads of garlic in the oven.  Use a little water and olive oil to keep it from sticking to the plate, and let it go for about 40 min. at 350.  Squeeze one head (all the cloves) from their paper, smash it up well, and add to:

4 c. beef stock – 2 T. chopped fresh thyme (or 1 T. dried) – 1 bay leaf – ¼ c. cream – salt & pepper

Bring all to a boil and thicken with 3 T. flour that have been introduced into some of the soup base – whisk it well and get out all lumps!  Allow the soup to thicken and taste.  If it tastes too puny, add more smashed roasted garlic (this is why you roast TWO heads) and more salt.  Eat with the remaining cloves spread on bread and a good beer or dry Italian white wine.

Note:  this does not work with refrigerated chopped garlic.  Roasting mellows garlic and the soup will NOT be the same.

Happy Halloween!

The Nutshell Answers

I have fed my political habit during this campaign by cruising certain standard political websites.  You know the usual suspects:  the Times (both New York and Los Angeles); the Posts (Washington and Huffington); and the Republics (New and…er, well…yeah, New).  I also spend time at Real Clear Politics, Time, the Economist, and CNN.  I particularly like CNN, partly because I swear their coverage is a nanosecond behind the event actually occurring, and partly because I have a huge crush on Anderson Cooper.

 

In my surfing, I’ve noticed there have been a few questions posed by the websites that have gone unanswered, and I’d like to give some questions my best shot.  They looked, well, lonely.  So here goes.

 

1. Phillies Fans, Why Do You Hate Yourselves So Much?  (from Slate.com) 

-Maybe it’s because they’re laughing their asses off at the ball players sliding off the pitcher’s mound.  Philadelphia is a muddy sinkhole at the moment, and the teams have all but dug the Marianas Trench in the ball park by sliding into second base in the driving rain.  I’d have thought they’d be thrilled to be in a World Series for the first time in twenty-odd years, but what do I know? 

 

1. Should You Have to Get an Ultrasound Before an Abortion?  (from Slate.com)

-Uh, no, because this sounds suspiciously like a scam to get more money out of women who are freaked out that they’re pregnant.  If you’ve tested positive for pregnancy, your waistbands are tightening around your middle, you’ve got morning sickness, the rabbit died, and the stick turned blue, the chances are good you’re really and truly pregnant.  So why waste the time and money on an ultrasound to be absolutely sure when other indicators are just as reliable?  Unless you’re mentally unhinged, that is one photo you don’t want.

 

1. Will White People Riot If McCain Loses?  (from Washingtonpost.com)

-I’m white, and I’m not planning on rioting.  Not unless champagne, slow-dancing in the dark, and Anderson Cooper are involved.

 

1. Is a Vote Like a Hamburger?  (from Newyorktimes.com) 

-Sewell Chan asks this whopper of a question.  Sewell, you’re comparing voting lines to the lines for the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, and there’s no comparison.  A vote doesn’t come with pickles, lettuce, mayonnaise and mustard on a toasted sesame seed bun.  It comes instead with clearly-delineated values, beliefs, lifestyles, and standards.  Optional toppings are integrity, hope, intelligence, courage, inspiration, and humor, depending on who you’re voting for.

 

I thought I’d covered the most pressing questions of the last week, until I realized I’d completely forgotten Sasha Obama’s most burning concern: whether or not the Jonas Brothers will play her dad’s inaugural ball.

 

Ding Dong, the Witch is…Hung

I never thought I’d stick up for Sarah Palin, but that day has finally come.  Don’t you think hanging an effigy of Sarah Palin is beyond the pail?  Someone in West Hollywood doesn’t.  This idiot, who shall remain nameless, thought it would be great fun to dangle a mannequin dressed and made up to look like Sarah Palin from a noose that descends from his chimney.  He is a professional window dresser by trade, so he has lots of experience and accessories for the display, but apparently zero taste.  Even worse, he’s cowardly hiding behind the cloak of Halloween claims – “it’s all fair, anything goes when Halloween is at hand.”  Dang.  Even Tina Fey doesn’t stab that hard.

We all know what an effigy of Barack Obama in a noose would incite among the natives.  Isn’t it just the teensiest tacky to do the same thing to the opposition?  Not to mention disrespectful?  I know I’ve trashed Sarah Palin for her politics and ignorance, but I don’t wish her ill, nor do I wish she would die. 

This isn’t a literal interpretation on my part.  Do you think the racists who lynched and hung blacks in the early 1900s wanted their victims dead?  You bet.  Do you think those in vehement opposition to Sarah Palin want her dead?  Maybe.  Those who truly hate Sarah Palin and her ilk find other Republicans often to be guilty by association based upon their political affiliation alone.  To wit: look what’s happening to John McCain right now.  He can’t gain an electoral vote to save his life because people now associate him so thoroughly with the failed principles of W.’s politics.  Sarah Palin is a Republican, so she must be a total loser, because George W. Bush is also a Republican – and he’s a dismal failure as a President. 

I would rather shoot myself in the foot than trumpet the positives of Sarah Palin.  However, hanging an effigy is the next best thing to the real crime.  Ergo, I assume this West Hollywood denizen wants Sarah Palin dead, or at least banished to Siberia so that she can finally claim for real she knows about foreign relations.  She may be controversial and obnoxious, but she doesn’t deserve to be hanged in effigy.  She is an American who is entitled to her freedoms, and not be forced to sit at the opposite end of the lunch counter in political quarantine.

My vote counts…right?

It’s started.  The voting machines are already crapping out on us.   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/20/florida-voting-machines-b_n_136342.html

From ballots not being accepted by machines in Florida to West Virginia machines flipping votes from Democrat to Republican, this election promises to be a doozy.  Lines around the block, hanging chads, machines that won’t read ballots with partially-punched out chads because they haven’t been cleaned out in over two decades from stacked-up chads of previous elections…that’s the nightmare I envision on November 4th.  Just because some states allowed a day of early voting doesn’t mean the 4th will be much better.  Some states have bulging new registered voter files, translating into

• over 400,000 new voters in Ohio and Indiana
• over 500,000 in Virginia
• over 600,000 in Los Angeles county alone
• even drive-through early voting for one day only in Orange County, CA – they considered offering milkshakes and fries for each ballot but decided against it (just kidding)

Can you imagine the numbers?  If the voting machines don’t all go kaput at once, we might surpass a 70% voting rate for the first time ever.  But let’s back up a second here, and ho’ de do’, Tyrone.  In an ideal world, voting machines don’t break down, because we don’t use them.  Well, we don’t!  At least not where I live.

When I moved to California in 1996, I had voted in Tennessee, Indiana and the District of Columbia.  Every voting opportunity presented itself with an electrical and mechanical voting booth, one with complete privacy behind the curtain that swung shut as the lever was pushed up.  When you pulled the lever, your vote was cast as the curtain swung open behind you. 

The first time I voted in Los Angeles, I was astonished to enter an A-frame, 14′-x-14′ Boy Scout den, where I was certain June Cleaver was lurking around the corner with milk and cookies on a tray.  Cubby holes intended for raincoats were our voting booths, and I was handed a paper ballot and a contraption that looked like a credit card mechanical swipe.  It had a stylus hanging off it, and I was to insert the ballot, hook it over two pegs on the end of the “swipe”, and then go about punching out chads with the stylus to mark my vote(s).  And anyone could watch over my shoulder as I punched out chads in that cramped little booth; only four inches of wood separated me from my neighbor.

What the hell??!!  Was I not in California, land of Silicon Valley and the computer chip?  I’ve voted in the same way since, except in different locations, and every time I’m handed a paper ballot, I’m still a little surprised it’s so old-fashioned – but I totally appreciate it for what it is, especially after the chad fiasco in Florida in 2000. 

We have also since been graduated to inkstamp “pens” that hang off the ballot holder, thus avoiding any confusion regarding chads, and we don’t use butterfly ballots, so no weirdness involving voter intent will mess up returns.  For all the archaic measures I deal with in Los Angeles, I’m actually glad I’m not reliant on an electric voting machine.  I know my vote will be counted, and it will be correct.  I’ll actually be sad this year that I won’t be voting in the Boy Scout den; I am to vote in Art Classroom 2 of Brand Park in Glendale, California.

So, political junkie that I am, I will head home from work early on Election Day, stop in to Brand Park, cast my vote, go home, and with my feet up and a glass of wine in hand, watch returns on CNN…and try to conjure up an ideal world where voting machines aren’t synonymous with “fraud.”  A girl can hope, right?

Obama-Oh-Eight

Hyperprevarication

I laughed until I cried over this one:   http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/okay-so-you-tell-me-where-he-was-born/   It’s not so much the blog entry as it is the responses that are a hoot.  Most of the comments are from people who appear to believe that Elvis shot JFK, that Bigfoot still roams the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, and that the Holocaust never happened.

 

It’s been a while since I’ve read bona fide political propaganda that is so sensationalistic, so paranoid, so…wrong.  I mean off-the-map, you’re-nowhere-near-The-Truth, U.S.A.- wrong.  It’s as if their “facts” have come straight from a year’s subscription to The National Enquirer and True Confessions.  The initial obsession is whether or not Obama drew his first breath in Hawaii, and if so, in which hospital.  According to the author, Obama has refused to disclose this information, whether it was to her, some reporter from some rag, or any other press entity.  Obama’s trustworthiness thus becomes questionable, and if he has actually lied about where he was born and is not a natural-born American citizen, then he is ineligible for the Presidency.  He just needs to go have lunch with Arnold and call it a day.

            I

However, they’ve taken some cues from Sarah Palin: if she doesn’t want to talk about something, she’ll change the topic and give “straight talk” to the American people.  Instead of sticking to the native-born American question, these folks have run with the topic of lies, and covered everything in the conspiracy theory section of the political library.  The gamut in these comments runs from speculation about Obama’s first gay experiences with a trusted family friend and mentor, to the Secret Service disputing accounts of someone yelling “Kill him!” (regarding Obama) at a McCain-Palin rally in Scranton, PA.  Then there’s the self-outing of the neo-Nazi on the blog (entry 48), a German-born woman who has realized her roots are indeed Hitleristic; and the fellow who insists Obama owns a home in Nevada under the name Stanley A. Dunham – and won’t cop to it.  These are the people who believe magazine covers with lead stories of “Bag Lady Pedals Winos’ Bodies to Dog Food Factory.”  I suppose most of these people could each have started their very own Whisper Campaign, in efforts to simultaneously besmirch Obama’s character and make themselves feel better by establishing the presence of scandal, whether true or not.  Either way, all of it registers pretty high on my Weird Shit-O-Meter.

 

Once I stopped laughing, I remembered these were the same people who were whipped into a frightened frenzy by Karl Rove via George W. Bush eight years ago.  The fear card is an especially easy one to play this election because of our economic fragility, our collective fear of the financial unknown, and the ensuing (and deepening) anger towards Wall Street and its minions.  And Rove knows the uneducated in particular are ripe for the manipulating.  Scary stuff.  And even scarier is this oldie-but-goodie axiom, truer now more than ever, as evidenced by Texasdarlin’s blog: while it is not true that all Conservatives are stupid, it IS true that all stoopid people are Conservative.

 

Obama-Oh-Eight

Now for something completely different…

Some people love Halloween.  It’s not my favorite holiday but it’s right on up there.  I love the season in which it falls, the spooky elements of a Halloween, the lore behind the jack-’o-lanterns, the Stephen King novels that can keep a body up well past midnight around Halloween time, the really bad movies that have sprung from the minds of really deranged Halloween worshippers…you get the idea.

Halloween is the celebration and official holiday of Whoopee Weather.  It involves a chilly snap in the air (ok, maybe not in Honolulu), light breezes, perhaps even the first suggestion of snow in some New England locales; it’s the sweater weather that puts a spring in your step and hints at the possibility of warming up – by someone else’s hand.  Yes, you read right.  It’s the Season of Friskiness.  Sugar highs from candy help, as do cocktails made from apple cider, bourbon, rum, cinnamon schnapps, and anything else you associate with fall.  I’m certain more drunk dialing events occur around Halloween than New Year’s Eve; it’s an occasion ripe for the fall booty-call, especially if it’s in front of a nice crackling fire.

The romantic aspects of it for me are closely associated with the original text of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; its Disney incarnation (which was creepier than you’d expect a Disney cartoon to be); Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow masterpiece; paintings of the Catskills and the Hudson River valley, by famous Hudson River School artists; the smell of burning leaves in the weeks leading up to Halloween (a practice now outlawed where I grew up); and the fact that I always seemed to have a violent (but reciprocated) crush on some boy.  Flirting among falling leaves and scarfing chocolate Halloween candy always seemed like a perfect combo to me.

Maybe it’s the costumes, and the excuse of Halloween to wear them, that I love.  Halloween is certainly an opportunity to release your Inner Exhibitionist and go for broke: Dr. Frank N. Furter all the way, complete with metallic green eye shadow and fishnet hose.  But for those of you who truly want to be scared, check out Lindsay Ferrier’s stunning pictorial collection of costumes intended for the elementary and pre-teen-aged girl, at http://suburbanturmoil.blogspot.com/.  They’re apparently manufactured at a Halloween costume store called Sluts-R-Us.

Here’s a challenge: tell me about the cleverest or funniest Halloween costume you’ve ever seen, either worn by you or someone else.  I’ll compile, assign some awards, and post on October 30 what you folks submit.  Feel free to write about your funniest Halloween experience as well.  You can also include lechery as long as it’s in good taste.  Please provide an email address or an alternative way to get in touch with you; there’s a prize involved.  (And it’s not day-old Halloween candy, either!)

All Hallow’s Eve and the Witching Hour draw near…it won’t be long now…

That’s what he said

This guy’s really annoying.  He’s the Dwight Schrute of the Tennessee Republican party, fully vested in his beliefs that what he’s doing is right.  He’s a state politician wannabe, and the only way he’s figured out how to get noticed (and then elected) is to purposefully make life miserable for employees of the utility companies, the state government, and Kinko’s.  http://www.nashvillescene.com/2008-09-11/news/the-great-gadfly/#Comments

Meet Drew Johnson, the self-appointed leader of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a conservative think-tank.  He is bankrolled by conservative foundations in an effort to uncover what might – might – be dastardly deeds on the part of Tennessee Democrats, or any other non-Republican entity.  Tennessee Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen didn’t laugh when he discovered over 15% of his state workers’ time was spent on fulfilling requests by Johnson and his Policy Research assistants.  Through the Freedom of Information Act, Johnson et al have requested state email exchanges and letters and state senate hearings transcripts, all in the name of “liberating.”  Liberating who?  The Tibetans?  The Iraqis?  Surely not me – I’m free enough, thanks.  I already live in California.

Al Gore hasn’t laughed, either.  Johnson was the one who takes credit for having unearthed Gore’s power bills for his home in Nashville, and then leaked them to all the right Conservative causes at precisely the right time: when Gore was being lauded for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth.  Never mind that the home was in the middle of being retrofitted with solar panels.  Gore later had the last laugh when he won both Oscars and a Nobel prize for the documentary and for his work in climate change.  And the mansion has since had geothermal heating and energy-efficient lightbulbs installed (AP, 12/13/07).

But I digress.  This twit hasn’t a life, let alone a clue about keeping one’s enemy close, a very important rule in the art of political war.  Instead, Johnson has alienated himself from just about everyone, with the possible exception of Karl Rove, in the Republican party because of his nuisance strategy.  Like Dwight Schrute, he truly thinks he is right, that his methods are acceptable, and that his brand of justice will prevail.  Johnson is happy when he finds even a scrap of innuendo against Democrats, and is ecstatic when he can forward it on to members of the press for wider coverage. 

His “red-neck mama”, as he calls her, must be very proud of him indeed.  He has wasted a colossal amount of collective time and energy in pursuit of liberty.  Interesting that they are the very things called into question concerning Gore’s home: energy and efficiency.  The only thing missing from his Republican-funded smear campaigns is the courage to get in-your-face with his determined efforts to expose any and all.  Why, he could be the Michael Moore for Republicans.

Nah.  I doubt it.  He’s elected to subscribe to Palinology 101: think small and petty.  The best he can look forward to is a Boner Award from the Nashville Scene.

Itty bitty bytes

 

From the Things That Make You Wanna Barf file:

 

A no-expenses-spared retreat for ten AIG execs who apparently met sales goals, down in Orange County, CA, AFTER the government bail-out.  Tacky, tacky.  According to Henry Paulson, it was a retreat that had been on the books for weeks.  If you knew what it would cost for only ten people, and you knew your company was in the toilet, why on earth would you have gone ahead with it?  Why is Henry Paulson even sticking up for these guys?  -Because he was one of them once. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/10/as_lawmakers_roundly_criticize.html?hpid=topnews  Guess what?  Now AIG has flimflammed the New York Federal Reserve into lending them almost $38 billion.  http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/08/news/companies/aig/index.htm?cnn=yes  Does this mean they’re partying down in Rio next?

 

Not so loud, Sarah: the latest whisper campaign.  It involves racism, hate-mongering, possible rotten fruit, and apparently a whole lot of disgruntled Joe Sixpacks in Florida.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/us/politics/08palin.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

With a possible vice-president like her, who needs enemies?

 

And, last but not least, the concession speech:  I was sure Obama would link McCain with the Keating Five in last night’s presidential debate,  if McCain got too out of hand with his attacks on Obama’s character.  So I was wrong.  But there IS one more presidential debate, where both candidates will come out swinging.  Before then, I think we can expect more attacks on Obama, like “Barack Osama”.  Ooooh, what grade are THEY in?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nashville Smash

I’m not certain I’ve looked forward more to a Presidential debate than this one.  And second debates aren’t necessarily the one that voters remember as they head into an election booth.  The reasons are numerous why I will once again be glued to my television, and one of them is that Obama has a chance to skewer McCain with his role in the Savings & Loan scandal of the late 1980′s.

If you’ve forgotten, or were too bored to pay attention back then, here’s a way to re-educate yourself on how McCain participated in the fall of the S & Ls, and how close he became to Charles Keating.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDofbll86dY&feature=user    It’s a 13-minute video released from the Obama Propaganda Vault, but it is a good reminder of McCain’s role.  Should Obama attempt a character assassination of McCain for his part in the Keating scandal, just remember that Obama was enough of a gentleman to omit the fact from this video that Cindy McCain was a business partner of Charles Keating’s for several years.  (For those who want to know what happened to Keating, he was ultimately criminally charged in September 1990 with having duped Lincoln Savings and Loan’s customers into buying worthless junk bonds; he was convicted in state court in 1992 of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy and received a 10-year prison sentence. In January 1993, a federal conviction followed, with a 12-and-a-half year sentence. He spent four-and-a-half years in prison, but convictions were eventually overturned.)

If you’re still thinking of voting for McCain, I don’t know how you could place trust in him to manage the current economic crisis after watching this video.    He has admitted to not knowing much about economics, and was formally reprimanded by Congress for having had “poor judgment” in his relationship with Charles Keating.   It’s still astonishing that there are people in the U.S. who have watched one-fourth of the market melt away, but who still think McCain will lead us out of financial woes.  He doesn’t have a proven track record of sound experience; he has a proven track record of poor judgment.  The Savings & Loan government bail-out was $34 billion and people were still left penniless; this latest Wall Street debacle is a $700 billion mess.  And folks STILL want McCain for President?

Sarah Palin today told a crowd in Naples, Florida (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602935.html?nav=hcmodule) that she was going to tell McCain to take the gloves off in tonight’s debate.  Is she kidding?  He won’t be able to land a single punch after Obama reminds the nation about McCain and Keating.  We’ll be able to watch Florida, Ohio, and Virginia turn decisively blue tomorrow.

 

Obama-Oh-Eight

Got snark?

Oh, you knew it was coming: if I didn’t mouth off before the Veep debate, I was bound to afterwards.  And boy howdy, have I got an earful for you here.  From every last Snark-’n-Smile to Biden’s unrehearsed fan-tabulous upstaging of her right at the end of the evening…it’s all part of the dissection of Sarah Palin.

She’s a snarkfest looking for a place to happen.  She’s a clique-y gal,  a sorority girl wannabe, who might or might not belong to a few social clubs.  She cozies up to one friend, lowers her voice almost to a whisper, talks to her as if she’s taking her into her utmost confidence, winks because she’s got a secret that she’s willing to share with only a select few…and then does the exact same thing to another friend.  It’s a way of zeroing in on one person, establishing a false sense of exclusive security and comaraderie, and then acting as if the person doesn’t exist once the vote, favor, or mission is achieved.  It’s small.  It’s pandering.

Palin did that every opportunity she could, insisting she was telling Americans what they’re “craving to hear”.  I’m hoping no one fell for the posturing and fake smile; it’s one of the most manipulative (and deceitful) of Palin’s tricks.  Pundits have labeled her accompanying use of local-yokel language as “folksy”, a stream of “doggones” and “ya knows” and “bless his hearts” all synchronized and spoken to accentuate the Plain Talk on Main Street persona.  Put a “barf-o-rama” in there and she might actually appeal to the Grown-Up Valley Girls in California.

Snark-’n-smile was apparent when she condescendingly said to Biden, during the section on Bush economic policies ”there you go again, pointin’ a finger to the past.”  His response was quick and spare: ”past is prologue,” an accurate truism.  If you don’t pay attention to the past, you don’t break cycles of mistakes.  But no amount of snark could ever fill Palin with originality – her responses all evening long were knowledgeable in the way that a high school senior is knowledgeable after cramming for an exam.  Maybe because a small town upbringing cultivated a small mind, Palin hasn’t gotten it yet that snark can’t replace understanding.  She is, in terms of fundamental understanding of foreign and economic affairs, still a high school student who has a very basic grasp of talking points, and who bullshits her way through a debate when she can’t speak more in-depth.

The surprise ending was perfect.  Palin closed with her patriotic Hockey Mom anthem of “I’m just like you on Main Street U.S.A.”, invoking her day-to-day demands that include a special needs child, a child who has deployed recently to Iraq, two other children at home, a marriage, and the workload of the governorship.  She even made an attempt to reach out to single mothers.  Since sentimentality is not part of Biden’s professional repertoire, it was astonishing when he thundered back “Governor Palin, single mothers don’t have the monopoly on worry for their children.  I too know what it is like to be a single parent, to have fears for a child, to not know whether a child is going to make it or not…” – and then choked back emotion.  All the snark was wiped off her face.  His spontaneous, genuine, emotional comeback couldn’t have upstaged her any better, because it was an obviously organic comment.  It came from the gut and from the heart, unlike her snark that comes from the ego.

Hey, I’m all for the sisterhood; but women like Sarah Palin give the rest of us a bad name.  She STILL hasn’t connected the dots, bless her heart.

 

 

Obama-Oh-Eight