Think Left, Eat Right

A way to eat a lot of vegetables........

2005-10-27T00:14:00.000-04:00

One way to eat as many vegetables as the latest nutrition pyramids say are good for us is to cook a lot of different vegetables together. Last night I was inspired by what was still growing in the garden: one zucchini, two small green peppers, and a chili pepper. I got out a large frying pan and covered the bottom with about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. I roughly chopped one onion and 2 cloves of garlic and cooked them until soft. I sliced the zucchini and peppers and added them to the pan. I cooked this all together for a few minutes, until the vegetables were getting soft. Then I added a box of frozen sweet corn and a good pinch of salt. I covered the pan and let it all cook for about five minutes more. During that time I added about 4 tablespoons of water to keep things from drying out. I then served this with chicken cutlets, an old family favorite.

Pasta with Broccoli

2005-10-20T22:11:00.000-04:00

Here is a super quick dinner idea---pasta with broccoli. We were introduced to
this recipe many years ago in an (southern) Italian restaurant in New Haven. We passed it on to my northern Italian mother who embraced it, despite regional differences. It’s agreat choice when all you have is a head of broccoli and the time it takes to boil waterand cook spaghetti. Fill your spaghetti-cooking pot about 2/3 with water. Cover and put over high heat. Take a large frying pan and add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Smash 2 garlic cloves with the side of your chef’s knife, chop them, and add tothe oil. Turn heat to low. Cook until garlic is soft and golden, but not brown. Prepareone head of broccoli: I cut off the bottom of the stems and peel off the tough skin. (My daughter Kate says that peeling is totally unnecessary.) Then cut the stalk and the top into small pieces, add to the garlic in the pan with about ½ teaspoon salt. Cover and cook over medium heat until the broccoli is soft. Sprinkle with a pinch of red pepper flakes and turn off the heat. When the water boils, add one teaspoon salt and the spaghetti or other pasta shape to the pot. This time, I used ½ of ziti pound for two people. Just before the pasta is done, add a ladleful or two of the water in the pot to the broccoli to make it saucy and turn on the heat. Drain the pasta, add it to the frying pan, mix with the broccoli, and add more salt or pepper flakes if you like. Finish the dish with a dribble of extra virgin olive oil.

Antipasti for Dinner

2005-10-18T22:58:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite dinners is to combine two or three “antipasti,” dishes my mother would have served to company as a first course, before plates of pasta and then meat. For a week-night dinner, we stop with course number one. The other night we had tuna and bean salad, asparagus, a peeled roasted red pepper, and a boiled potato served with a green sauce made of parsley. The tuna and bean salad is a great healthy substitute for the normal tuna salad--no mayonnaise—and it’s as easy as opening 3 cans! Open 2 cans of white or red kidney beans and drain the liquid in a strainer. I try to buy beans that have no added sugar. Put them in a serving bowl with ½ a medium onion, slice thin, sprinkle with about ½ teaspoon of salt, and toss together. Drain a can of tuna fish. I like it packed in oil, but it’s hard to find here. Add the tuna to the bowl and break it up with a fork. You can also add two tablespoons of chopped parsley, but it’s not required. Pour on enough olive oil to coat the salad well, about 3 tablespoons, and 1 or 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Add about 4 twists of black pepper from a pepper mill and mix all the ingredients together. Feel free to add more salt, pepper, oil or vinegar to please your taste.

Salad: A Very Fast Dinner

2005-10-13T19:14:00.000-04:00

Last night I had no time to shop and only fifteen minutes to get dinner ready. Having just heard a lecture on nutrition, I wanted to combine speed, good flavor, and healthy food. I decided on a large salad. I hard-boiled one egg and opened a can of tuna fish. I put the tuna in the bottom of my largest salad bowl and broke it up with a fork. Then I searched the refrigerator and retrieved a red pepper, a quarter of an onion, about 6 black Greek olives, and found 2 tomatoes on the counter (some of the last ones from the garden. If I had to buy tomatoes, I’d get the little grape tomatoes sold in a small container). I cut-up the pepper and tomatoes, sliced the onion thin, and pitted the olives. I’d also consider scallions, avocado, fennel, cucumber, and carrots as possible additions. I had a head of romaine lettuce in the fridge, so I washed, dried and tore the leaves into pieces. I like a variety of greens, so I added some basil and arugula leaves. Those pre-washed bags of salad would make this even faster. Although I buy them occasionally, I think the lettuce that you wash yourself tastes fresher and lasts longer. Finally I added the sliced egg, sprinkled on a good pinch of salt and ground some black pepper over it all. For the dressing, I poured on 1 tablespoon of vinegar and about 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and tossed everything together. Along with one shared pita bread, the salad had everything we needed for dinner.

For home-grown tomatoes only

2005-10-03T23:29:00.000-04:00

This recipe for spaghetti with uncooked tomato sauce is directed toward those lucky people who have access to home-grown tomatoes. Making it with tomatoes that you buy at the supermarket is not an option. For two people, I used four medium size tomatoes from my garden (about a pound). I peeled the skin off, cut them into small cubes and put them in my pasta bowl. I added one small clove of garlic finely chopped (actually I grated it) and about ½ cup of fresh basil leaves torn into pieces. The only other ingredients are about 1 t. salt, ½ t. red pepper flakes, and about 4 T. of extra virgin olive oil. I cooked ½ pound of spaghetti while making the sauce. (I always use Italian spaghetti, De Cecco or Barilla brands) When it was cooked, but before it was mushy, I drained it well, added it to the bowl and tossed it with the sauce. Serve it right away because it will cool off quickly!

Very healthy soup for dinner

2005-09-29T22:50:00.000-04:00

Green Posole

I was moved to make this because I have a huge tomatillo plant in my garden. I had picked about 8 tomatillos, not enough for salsa, but still crying to be used. I found this recipe in World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey, a very good book. I took some shortcuts and used chicken broth, but stayed fairly close to the recipe.

I had one can of hominy, about 15 ounces, and one can of cannellini beans. I broiled, peeled and chopped about 6 long green chiles. In my large pot, I sauteed 3 cloves of chopped garlic until soft and then added about 8 chopped tomatillos, 1 jalapeno and a bunch of chopped scallions. (I chopped them in my food processor). I cooked them for about 5 minutes and then added 1 t. of ground cumin and about 8-12 medium mushrooms, brown or white. They cooked for 2 minutes and then I added the chopped chiles, 1 T. dried oregano and ¼ cup chopped cilantro and the drained and rinsed hominy and beans. I covered it all with 1 quart of chicken broth. Of course you could use vegetable broth or water. To finish, add about 1 T. salt and bring to a boil. Cover and turn the heat to low. Cook for about an hour. I served it with chopped cilantro, diced avocado and lots of lime. It tasted great and felt very healthy.

Potatoes with Lemon

2005-09-25T19:01:00.000-04:00

Potatoes with Lemon

I recently got a very nice gift certificate for Amazon.com and have used it to buy several great new cookbooks. I’m quite excited to have some new inspiration. Last night I made potatoes using a recipe in Easy Italian. For the two of us, I used 3 Yukon gold potatoes, cutting them in half lengthwise and into wedges—about six from each half. I put them in a bowl with 2 chopped cloves of garlic. Then I cut a lemon in half lengthwise, cut each half into thirds, and each third in half. I put the lemon pieces in the bowl with the potatoes, squeezing out the juice with my hands. I added about 2 T. of fresh oregano leaves, but any herb you like would be fine. Last, I sprinkled in salt, pepper and enough olive oil to moisten all the potatoes. I put them into a baking dish and put them in a 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until they were cooked and brown, turning them with a spatula halfway through. Since we were having fish for dinner, I seasoned the piece with salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil and then placed it in the center of the potatoes for the last 10 minutes they were cooking. Of course, you could leave out the fish all together. It was the first time we ate baked lemon pieces—very good!

Chicken Fries

2005-09-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

My parents owned an Italian restaurant when I was growing up, and one of their most popular dishes wasn't Italian at all---Fried Chicken, or as it appeared on the menu---Chicken Fries. We were going to have a picnic Sunday night, and that seemed like a good thing to cook. I bought leg and breast quarters and cut them into two or three pieces each, depending on the size. Chickens are so big these days. I washed the pieces in cold water and dried them on paper towels. I think the Italian influence comes in using bread crumbs as the coating. First I dipped each piece in flour flavored with salt and pepper, then in two eggs beaten with about two T. of milk, and then in the breadcrumbs. I always use plain breadcrumbs, and not the ones with Italian seasoning. I got out my large frying pan and poured about one inch of olive oil into it ( Vegetable oil would be okay) and heated it on high heat. When the oil would sizzle, I put about half of my pieces into the pan. The pieces shouldn't touch. I cooked them on both sides until they were light brown, perhaps about 5-10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium if you think the chicken is cooking too fast. When the pieces were well-colored, I took them out and placed them on paper towels to absorb some of the oil. Then I put them on baking racks on cookie sheets. The final step is to bake the chicken in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes, depending on the size of your pieces. I cut into a couple of pieces to make sure they were cooked, because there's nothing worse than bloody chicken. I left the legs in the oven about 5 minutes longer. When I took the chicken out of the oven, the bottom sides were a little oily, so I blotted them on paper towels once more and sprinkled them with salt.

Spicy Fried Noodles

2005-09-17T08:41:00.000-04:00

Last night I was thinking stir fry, but wanted to try something new. I got out my Thai cookbook and found a recipe for Spicy Fried Noodles. I followed the basic instructions, but used ingredients that I had on hand. For 2 of us, I had 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which I sliced into strips. In a large frying pan (I don't have a wok) I sautéed 3 cloves of chopped garlic for 30 seconds and then added the chicken and cooked it over high heat until slightly brown. I kept it in the pan while I added and cooked the vegetables, but it got dry, so I would recommend removing it while you cook any vegetables you want to add. I used a bunch of asparagus cut into 2 inch pieces and sliced mushrooms. Cook and stir them until they are soft and return the chicken to the pan, along with 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice, 2 T. of fish sauce
and 2 T. of brown sugar. Mix it all together until the sugar dissolves. Meanwhile I had been cooking about 4 ounces of egg noodles (thin ones would be best--mine were wide and Italian and still good). I drained them, added them to the pan and sprinkled them with sesame oil. Next, I added 1 beaten egg to the mixture and tossed it all together over high heat. Then I added about 1/2 cup of dry roasted unsalted peanuts and one small chopped chili and tossed again. Finally I added a bunch of chopped scallions. Chopped cilantro would also be good. I brought it to the table, a complete dinner in a pan.

The recipe I used didn't include the vegetables, but did call for 2/3 cup of bean sprouts added with the chili. Also, pork, shrimp or tofu could take the place of the chicken.

Pope Murdered!

2005-04-03T13:07:00.000-04:00

Shocking reporting from the New York Times:

In an odd ritualistic murder or assasination, papal aspirant Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo struck the Pope's head with a silver hammer, ensuring his death, before going on to obliterate with that same gilded implement the papal ring, the icon of John Paul II's authority over the Roman Catholic church. This destruction of the Pope's carnate and symbolic reign was preceded by a haunting repetition of his baptismal name -- three times. Despite these eyewitness accounts, Vatican authorities maintained the cause of death was septic shock and an irreversible collapse of blood pressure.

The GOP Machine

2005-03-31T00:08:00.001-05:00

Bill Bradley ain't the first to say it, but this point bets repetition. The Republican Party has a machine. Every four to eight years, the party people switch the guy at the levers.

Big individual donors and large foundations - the Scaife family and Olin foundations, for instance - form the base of the pyramid. They finance conservative research centers like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, entities that make up the second level of the pyramid.

The ideas these organizations develop are then pushed up to the third level of the pyramid - the political level. There, strategists like Karl Rove or Ralph Reed or Ken Mehlman take these new ideas and, through polling, focus groups and careful attention to Democratic attacks, convert them into language that will appeal to the broadest electorate. That language is sometimes in the
form of an assault on Democrats and at other times in the form of advocacy for a new policy position. The development process can take years. And then there's the fourth level of the pyramid: the partisan news media. Conservative commentators and networks spread these finely honed ideas.

At the very top of the pyramid you'll find the president. Because the pyramid is stable, all you have to do is put a different top on it and it works fine.

And the Democrats? Well, we're all so eager to rebuild the wheel each and every one of us, we end up walking.

Ratfuck Iraq

2005-03-31T00:08:00.000-05:00

The mayor of the most compliant budunkadunk suburb couldn't get reelected if he or she couldn't replace the old Walmart with a Super Walmart. What makes the U.S. think it can shortchange the Iraqis out of basic services and expect enthusiasm for and cooperation with its agenda?

It's a ratfuck, and it's our fault.

Iraqi voters aren't happy.They don't care that some of the biggest political changes ever to happen in their lifetime are going on in their country. All they know is that the electricity still is off for hours every day, the water doesn't always flow out of the faucets, there are still long gas
queues at the stations, and the situation still seems pretty lawless in the streets.

Now, I love Ah-nold

2005-03-07T23:54:00.000-05:00

Fuck it, Arnold for Prez.

Taking the junk food out of the schools promotes health by helping prevent obesity, diabetes, etc. It diminishes the reach of the corporate food industry into the minds of our youngest and most impressionable. And it just seems like the right thing to do.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a longtime advocate of healthier food in schools, said Sunday that all "junk food" in vending machines on California campuses should be replaced with nutritious snacks such as fresh vegetables.
"I think we should use our vending machines in the schools — fill them with good food, with fresh vegetables, with milk and products that are really healthy for
the body," said Schwarzenegger, speaking at the annual fitness exhibition here that bears his name.
The governor's comments followed a question about what should be done to fight child obesity, which has become national preoccupation. Schwarzenegger told attendees that California was introducing legislation to ban all junk food in schools. His aides later clarified, saying
the governor is working on legislation that would substitute milk and juice for sugary soft drinks in school vending machines and introduce more fresh fruits and vegetables.

LA Times

In a time when parents work and don't have time for the tried and true rituals of family cuisine, kids are having their formative experiences with eating in school. We must play the parent. Because if we don't, the snack food industry is going to play the deceptive and sleazy uncle.

Duh

2005-02-28T01:25:00.000-05:00

FDR, at his fourth inaugural, 1945.

Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy.

Duh.

Personal accounts

2005-02-27T19:18:00.000-05:00

An interesting and appetizing byproduct of the debating on Bush's proposed assasination of Social Security could be personal accounts not carved out of Social Security.

WaPo article

Shuffle up and deal!

2005-02-21T23:35:00.000-05:00

Texas Hold 'Em poker, a contest of skill which over the long-term remunerates the most talented, should be completely legal.

The looming draft

2005-02-21T16:46:00.000-05:00

George W. Bush's military will (and already is to an extent) either be unfit to meet current demands and unable to provide a legitimate deterrent to threats or composed of soldiers compelled to join by the force of a DRAFT.

The active-duty Army is in danger of failing to meet its recruiting goals, and is beginning to suffer from manpower strains like those that have dropped the National Guard and Reserves below full strength, according to Army figures and interviews with senior officers.

Young men and women refuse to sign up to fight Bush's perpetual war.

Currently the Pentagon is working in the margins -- using such policies as "stop-loss," accelerated training, etcetera -- to wring as much capability from its current forces as possible. At some point, however, the military is going to hit a wall without a shift in current recruiting patterns or a draft.

Parking Fines and Moving Violations: "Abuser fee" or regressive municipal tax?

2005-02-21T16:06:00.000-05:00

The El Paso Times editorial page says, regarding an increase in city revenues from parking and traffic fines:

You can't ignore the dollar-sign implications. In skittish financial and budget times when city officials consider it a good day if they find a penny on the sidewalk and put it in the general fund, tickets are putting money in the city's coffers.

In 2003, the Municipal Court department collected $22.76 million in revenue. In 2004, the amount collected rose about 8 percent, to $24.72 million. About half the money goes to the city's general fund and the rest is divvied up between the state, court costs and other fees.

Just consider the ticket to be not so much a user fee, but an abuser fee. A person chooses to violate the law and, if he or she chances to be caught, a fee is exacted for abuse of the law.

But everyone makes mistakes. And (without knowing the fine structure in El Paso) putting a $100 fine on, perhaps, a single mother with a couple of children who is struggling to meet car payments and rent, buy food and clothes, and provide health care might not be in the public interest.

It's important to have a traffic and parking fine structure that provides an effective detterent to dangerous and congestion-causing driving and disorderly parking, however, municipal finances must be solvent without income from punitive fines. I don't have any statistics, but from what I see and figure, it's low income people being pulled over and ticketed. If that's true, the ticket and fine system regulating traffic is morphing into a regressive tax -- one which has deleterious effects on the welfare of the fined and the economic health of the city.

Take back the streets...

2005-02-13T18:31:00.000-05:00

Car commuters, you know you're miserable! Leave the car and the concomittant rage and auto agony at home.

Washington area residents spend far longer getting to work and find themselves in daily traffic jams three times as often as commuters elsewhere, according to new local and national polls by The Washington Post.

Half of the region's commuters spend 30 minutes or more traveling to work, or an hour each day to get to their jobs and back home. Even when compared with commuters in other major urban areas, the surveys suggest that Washington residents spend significantly more time on the road.

Take to the buses and trains, and let's form a real constituency of Washingtonians demanding good public transport.

Chipping away at corporate domination of our food chain

2005-02-13T17:46:00.000-05:00

We couldn't have just tried to moderate our consumption of natural fats in the first place... No, we just had to have a laboratory solution. The entire industry, head-first into something that wasn't tested... and now we find out this:

An artificial fat once embraced as a cheap and seemingly healthy alternative to saturated fats like butter or tropical oils, partially hydrogenated oil has been the food industry's favorite cooking medium for decades. It makes French fries crisp and sweets creamy, and keeps packaged
pastries fresh for months.

But scientists contend that trans fat, a component of the oil, is more dangerous than the fat it replaced. Studies show trans fat has the same heart-clogging properties as saturated fat, but unlike saturated fat, it reduces the good cholesterol that can clear arteries. A small but growing body of research has connected it to metabolic problems.

Think left, eat right people.

Why we hate Bush

2005-01-31T13:17:00.000-05:00

It's for his dishonesty and head-spinning, Orwellian approach to the politics of policy. I've always been able to at least stomach or accept viewpoints opposed to my own, but when the president of the US disallows an honest and reality-based debate over policy by insisting on fallacious discourses and deceptive paradigms (read lying) and stubbornly engages in the same vacuous and delusory sloganeering, more scrupulous minds and spirits than those in the administration clot up and bend themselves on opposition.

Take a look at Ron Brownstein's look into Bush's disingenuous attempts to appropriate the policy initiatives of former leaders whose ideas are actually contradictory to Bush's plans.

"It's as if General Motors were using a testimonial from Ralph Nader to sell an updated Corvair," he says.

Sausage and Polenta

2005-01-27T23:08:00.000-05:00

Here's a great winter dish. Polenta is a traditional starch in the Piedmont where my family came from. To make polenta, just buy one of those great cylinders of Quaker Yellow Corn Meal and follow the recipe on the back for corn meal mush. I used the same proportions ( 4 cups water, 1 cup corn meal, 1 t. salt) but added the dry corn meal to 4 cups cold water and whisked it until smooth. No lumps appeared. I cooked it for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently. The sausage has a lot more vegetables than meat. Add about 3 T olive oil to a large frying pan. When hot, add your sausage. For the two of us, I had 3 large links of sweet Italian sausage. (One for left-overs.) Brown the sausage on both sides. Add 1 sliced medium to large onion and 2 crushed cloves of garlic. When onion starts to soften, add about 1 cup of red wine and boil it down over high heat. After it is reduced by about half, add about 12 sliced cremini mushrooms and one chopped hot chili. Next add 2-3 cut-up red peppers and cook until they start to soften. Add about 1 t. salt. Stir while it cooks. Add about 2/3 of a 28 oz. can of peeled tomatoes after they've been chopped or processed. Cook until the vegetables are soft and a brownish-red sauce has formed. I had to cover the pan to make sure that the peppers were completely cooked. Serve the sausage and veg in separate serving dishes and pour the sausage mixture over the polenta on your plate. Again, red wine is the beverage of choice.

Taking advantage of trauma

2005-01-22T03:05:00.000-05:00

From Sri Lanka, "Mix of Quake Aid and Preaching Stirs Concern."

A dozen Americans walked into a relief camp here, showering bereft parents and traumatized children with gifts, attention and affection. They also quietly offered camp residents something else: Jesus.
The Americans, who all come from one church in Texas, have staged plays detailing the life of Jesus and had children draw pictures of him, camp residents said. They have told parents who
lost children that they should still believe in God, and held group prayers where they tried to heal a partly paralyzed man and a deaf 12year-old girl.
The attempts at proselytizing are angering local Christian leaders, who worry that they could provoke a violent backlash against Christians in Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country that is already a religious tinderbox.
Most American groups, including those affiliated with religious organizations, strictly avoid mixing aid and missionary work. But scattered reports of proselytizing in Sri Lanka; Indonesia, which is predominantly Muslim; and India, with large Hindu and Muslim populations, are arousing concerns that the good will spread by the American relief efforts may be undermined by resentment.

Say no to imperial armies and to imperial religions. The compassion relevant to your spirituality may bring you to do good deeds, to come to the aid of those in peril. But DO NOT think you can include your religiosity in a package deal.

I'm shorn

2005-01-22T02:58:00.000-05:00

Everybody, I had a professional shave earlier today, thanks to an Xmas gift certificate to a certain Washington, DC metrosexual paradise. It was entirely incredible. I've never understood the "getting pampered" thing, but now I do. I had hot lather cream, hot lather cream with oil, pure oil, and all sorts of other shit rubbed into my face, as the barber took a razor with the grain, against the grain, sideways, here, there... and with a hot towel, five in total, wrapped around my face between every rub-in and shave-off.

Literally as smooth as a baby's butt I am. I hope I don't grow back too much so I can show off my cheeks at my party tomorrow night! RUB ME.

New Onion headline: "Bush Pledges to Spread Freedom"

2005-01-21T03:45:00.000-05:00

Oh wait, hold that, that's from today's Washington Post. So, I suppose he'll be using the frosting on cake method, with a knife, sometimes sticky but easy as pie.

He also mentioned his "ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," which you can have, simply, you know, by stating it.

Then there was the plan to "break the reign of hatred and resentment" that led to 9/11 -- which Bush seems to plan to do by brutally occupying a Muslim nation, killing 100,000+ Iraqis, and warmongering in Iran and Syria.

Because, "All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors," we can expect the full expression of U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military might to be leveraged over the next four years in Haiti, Congo, Equitorial Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Palestine, and many, many other places.

By new calculations just released by the White House, because Bush said "free," "freedom" or "liberty" 49 times during the Inaugural Address, the manifestation of both freedom and liberty on Earth will increase 49-fold during the coming four years.

"We have seen our vulnerability, and we have seen its deepest source," Bush said, with thousands of spectators on hand and millions watching him speak on television.

Dobson says, Ban pro-gay SpongeBob

2005-01-21T02:36:00.000-05:00

Check out this shit! Now that flaming and suggestive Tickle Me Elmo might have "manipulated" or "brainwashed" me into becoming a homosexual... but not SpongeBob. It's getting absurd on the Right.

Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others...

On Wednesday however, Paul Batura, assistant to Mr. Dobson at Focus on the Family, said the group stood by its accusation. "We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids," he said. "It is a classic bait and switch."

LEAVE US ALONE!

"U.S. Forces Winding Down Tsunami Relief Effort"

2005-01-20T13:35:00.000-05:00

An underwhelming response, an early finish -- the US in dereliction of international duty and missing a hell of an opportunity to repair its image.

Here's to your health, drink up

2005-01-19T18:21:00.000-05:00

Time and time again, it is confirmed that moderate drinking is good for your health. Puritanism is as bad for you in body as it is in spirit. The latest evidence: alcohol is good for our brains!

Women who imbibe a little wine, beer or even spirits every day are less likely than teetotalers to see their memories and other thinking powers fade as they age, according to the largest study to assess alcohol's impact on the brain.

While the study involved only women, the findings probably hold true for men, although previous research indicates that men seem to benefit from drinking slightly more -- one to two drinks per day, researchers said.

The findings provide the latest evidence that indulging in alcohol, long vilified as part of an insalubrious lifestyle, can actually help people live longer, healthier lives. While heavy drinking clearly causes serious problems for many people, recent research has found that drinking in moderation protects the heart.

We are not where we need to be, as a country, on alcohol issues. The drinking age should be lowered and families encouraged to impart the neccessary lessons about alcohol at home.

Bagna Caoda

2005-01-19T01:24:00.000-05:00

Here's a dish that was the center of very happy dinners at my parents' house during the winter. My dad grew the signature ingredient, cardoons, in his garden. (a cross between celery and artichoke, quite bitter) He'd pull out the stalks in September and then bury them in the ground for several months, supposedly making them sweet and tender, though you could never prove that by me. One time, a group of hungry Northern Italians from NYC rented a bus to come to Connecticut for a bagna caoda party, attracted by my dad's cardoon harvest. Cardoons are hard to find at the supermarket, so that's just one reason I don't serve them with my bagna caoda. Also, I limit the number of eaters to 6 at our round kitchen table. That's because it's sort of a version of fondue. The bagna is a hot sauce that is heated in a frying pan on a hot plate in the middle of the table. Each person picks up a piece of vegetable, dips it in the sauce, and transports it to his mouth above a piece of good bread that soaks up the oil, prevents drips and ends up tasting great. Here's the recipe.

Prepare a platter of cut up raw vegetables: broccoli, red peppers, celery, fennel, Belgian endive, mushrooms, scallions, cauliflower are all possibilities.

Prepare the sauce with 3/4 c. olive oil, 3 T butter, 5 or more large cloves of garlic smahed with the side of a knife, 1 2 oz. can of anchovies, and 4 walnut halves. Melt the butter in olive oil in a small frying pan. Add garlic and cook over low heat for several minutes until softened. Do not brown. Add the anchovies. Cook slowly for a minute and stir until they are dissolved. Bring the pan to the table and keep the sauce warm on a hot plate. Watch out for burning. When every has had enough vegetables, crack an egg or 2 into the pan, stir and cook like scrambled eggs. Give each person a spoonful to eat on the bread. You must serve this with red wine!

Another reminder

2005-01-18T13:40:00.000-05:00

Ally or enemy?

U.S. goal: Imperial invasion of an oil-rich, Islamic nation.
Osama bin Laden goal: For America to invade an oil-rich, Islamic nation.
U.S. goal: Perpetual low-intensity war with ideological arch-enemy.
Osama bin Laden goal: Perpetual low-intensity war with ideological arch-enemy.
U.S. goal: Overthrow of secular socialist government in Iraq.
Osama bin Laden goal: Overthrow of secular socialist government in Iraq.

Promoting Democracy... or not

2005-01-18T13:31:00.000-05:00

We really don't give a shit.

As the sole global superpower, while we've been killing people to promote democracy in Iraq, we've presided over the dissolution of a far more important democracy in Russia.

Just a reminder.

Hit and Miss

2005-01-15T23:49:00.000-05:00

We've revisited some of the dishes we used to eat when the kids were small. The first was spaghetti and meatballs. First I made the same tomato sauce I talked about a few weeks ago (see After the Mall Meal). For the meatballs, I used one pound of ground beef, 1/2 chopped onion, 2T chopped parsley, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated parmesan, 1 t salt, ground pepper, a few gratings of nutmeg, 1 egg, and 2 slices of bread without crusts soaked in milk. I mushed this all together (It should be moist) and formed it into, Chuck complained, somewhat large balls. I baked them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until they started to brown and then put the ones we wanted to eat in the tomato sauce. Although they tasted good, they were too dry, the result of my using ground sirlion instead of ground chuck, trying to cut back on fat. The meatballs were better Friday night when we had the leftovers in grinders with lots of tomato sauce, chile flakes and sauteed red peppers and onions.

The other dish I hadn't made in a long time was pizza. The dough is very easy to make, possible for a week-night dinner, especially if you have a mixer with a dough hook or a good food processor. Measure 1 cup of warm to hot water and mix it with about 1 1/2 t. of rapid rise yeast. Add that to 3 cups flour in your bowl, along with 1 T extra virgin olive oil and 1 t. salt.
Mix or process until the dough forms a ball. Cover with a wet towel and let rise for about 45 minutes. While the dough was rising I sauteed a red onion, about 8 cremini mushrooms and later added sliced sun-dried tomatoes and about 1/4 head of radiccio, sliced. I divided the dough in half and froze one half for another time. I rolled out the remaining dough and placed it on my heavy black metal pizza pan which was sprinkled with corn meal. Then I spread the vegetables over the dough and crumbled goat cheese over the top of the pizza. Any pleasing combination of vegetables will do--just plain carmelized onions are wonderful, esp. with gorgonzola cheese. Or even tomato sauce (see above, add oregano) and mozzerella. I baked the pizza for about 10-12 minutes at 450 degrees.

If you build it, they will come

2005-01-14T14:09:00.000-05:00

All of this talk about a full-out, unmitigated Democratic assault on Bush's Social Security plan is great. We need to protect the progressive institution of retirement security, yes, but, more important in this day and age, it's essential we hang a weighty defeat around the neck of Bush right at the beginning of his second term. Ryan Lizza's article, "Hardball 101," in The New Republic provides a decent starting off point to how that might be accomplished.

The fight to kill retirement security reform is also neccessary for the long-term relavence of the Democratic Party. I've said this before: A shift from the current goverment safety net of social security to private investment accounts would constitute a paradigm shift in how American interact with government, from a model through which the state provides protection from poverty to millions of grateful citizens to a system where that assumption does not exist. The former reinforces the pertinence and power of the Democrats, while the latter leads the way toward Karl Rove's "Permanent Republican Majority."

Once we clear away the rubble of Bush's retirment security reform plan, however, we'll need actual ideas. And no one is talking about this. We can create the breach through effective opposition, but to reclaim power we'll need to be armed with a set of entirely fundamental, compelling, and resonant ideas. As we pitch our battle cry for social security, we should be drumming on some BIG IDEAS -- on environmentalism-public health-health care, electoral and campaign finance reform, etc. And we need to develop a comprehensive ideology for foreign policy.

And if we build it, they will come.

Noooo!! Not the Brazilians too

2005-01-13T13:23:00.000-05:00

Obesity in Brazil, from the New York Times.

The consumption bomb hits Brazil.

Public Policy for Public Health

2005-01-12T15:59:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to do a meaty post on obesity and public health-related issues, but starvation brought on by my unemployment has led to a paralyzing dissonance -- while my brain condemns Big Macs, my empty stomach craves whatever food I have in mind. But with mind over matter I'll proceed.

I only became interested in health care after my first prolonged and intimate experience with the system, my grandfather's sickness and death. (I still don't know why an issue that holds such emotional potence and social import is discussed in such wonkish and opaque language. We on the Left can do a lot to make this a more populist and resonant issue.) After a lot of thinking, I begin connecting health care back to public health and healthy living, started thinking about public health in relation to the sometimes poisonous environments we create and live in. Soon, I wasn't any longer able to separate these issues in my head, thinking about it all within the confines of a single paradigm. Posing health care, public health, and environmentalism as a single, intertwining issue also has the benefit of taking these heretofore individual issues and distilling them to their most important, compelling, and fundamental ideas. We can most clearly see what is the most important component of an issue such as environmentalism by examining where it connects with other issues within the broader health care-public health-environmentalism paradigm. For example, using this approach we can identify where the environmental movement has become more based in religiosity than sound and tested principal when it seeks first to satisfy a fetish for "wilderness," which has a tenuous if any relationship to public health, rather than approach the more pressing concerns of sprawl and industrialized agriculture, which soundly relate to public health. And as I've said before, by congealing these issues and "taking possession" of them, the Left could score political dividends:

This approach will also help us take back Environmentalism from the Northeastern, liberal, Sierra Club, want-to-just-put-a-glass-bowl-over-it crowd that dominates the issue, and give it a more conservationist, huntin' and fishin', land use, anti-sprawl, anti-factory farming focus. As the issue is being framed now, Environmentalism derives from an elitist fetish for wilderness, a hyper-mythologized vision of unmitigated nature. This is a potentially big issue for us, a good approach to making political headway in the northern states of the West.

There is great populist political potential here, and making environmentalism about the people too is the right thing to do. Westerners are natural allies in the environmental movement. It's stupid stupid stupid to have them as enemies instead.

So, since I've started to think about health care and about public health issues such as obesity, there's been a sudden push in the media toward talking about this stuff. A particularly great piece, "Heavy Questions" by Elizabeth Weil, appeared in last week's NY Times Magazine. The article articulates many of the issues and sad contradictions relavant to the obesity epidemic, from the modernist paradox that says the poorest are the fattest, to the lack of health care, to the "thrifty gene" in many recent immigrants from poor areas of Latin America, to poor lifestyle choices. "...If nothing changes soon," Weil writes, "if the children continue to put on ever more pounds, they will be responsible for having watched over the first generation of American children to have shorter expected life spans than their parents." Childhood obesity is now all over the news.

So what of it? Public health is an issue just begging for some public policy attention. As Thomas A. Glass says,

The history of public health makes clear that large scale policy solutions have had the most significant impact on the public's health (sanitation and seat belts are two very clear examples). The water-borne disease epidemics of the 19th century ended with what might be called now "BIG PUBLIC HEALTH", not with advice peddling or individually-based treatment strategies designed to get people to boil the water coming out of their own sinks.

It doesn't seem like waiting around for people to realize they need to eat their veggies is going to work. Public health problems demand public policy solutions. The government needs to be in the business of working toward a Healthy America. Thus, we need, with regard to public health, a program to alleviate such things as obesity, and not just for the intrinsic value of personal health, but also because in the long-term we save resources. Unhealthy people get sick in expensive ways. In the end, our investment in prevention will mean more resources for more health care for more people. I'll address more the link between public health and health care costs later, but in general this sort of perspective is misled.

Some friends of mine have suggested that it would be possible to encourage healthy living and improve public health through the private sector. The idea is basically that insurance companies should offer incentive-laden coverage with which, for example, you could lower your insurance payments by joining a gym or engaging in some other quantifiable healthy activity. Or, companies could invest in prevention, that is expand coverage for treatments and activities they think will reduce treatment costs in the long-term.

First of all, from a competitive standpoint, this is severely problematic. Because consumers don't often spend their entire lives under one insurer, companies that make these investments would be at a competetive disadvantage unless all others in the industry followed suit. Why would a for-profit company (that is legally obligated to seek the best returns for its investors) invest in a person's health if that person will likely pass the savings on to a different company that hadn't incurred those initial costs? Well... it wouldn't, it won't, it's not a solution.

Secondly, watch out for the slope consumers! It gets damn slippery when you give corporations that much control over your lifestyle choices. And when you get denied treatment for heart disease because two decades earlier you didn't swipe your gym card four times a week, you will see how. There's more to worry about, of course, than the fine print on your policy prefacing treatment to a serious illness on whether or not you really earned that reduced insurance payment. Insurance companies don't have your best interest at heart unless it coincides with the bottom line. Insurance companies aren't doctors, they don't know what's best for your health, and they shouldn't be in that business.

Hey, you know who should be in the business? That's right, there isn't a sector more ripe for government involvement. I support a Healthy America -- responsive goverment taking care of the environment in which we live, promoting public health, and providing health care to all.

"It's what I [am payed to] believe."

2005-01-10T14:19:00.000-05:00

Last month, I used conservative pundit Armstrong Williams as an example of how the Right gets its message into the press by insisting on a "false equivalency." "It's what I believe," said Armstrong, as if that unto itself gives his idea any merit.

Now, however, we find out, it may not be so much was Armstrong Williams believes but what he's paid to believe. We find that Conservatives don't enforce message discipline so much as purchase it -- with our taxpayers money. The Bush administration paid Armstrong $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind in his synicated columns and on television. Big problem is he never disclosed this in his columns, to talk show bookers, or to television audiences.

Through David Corn and The Nation, we find that Armstrong is not alone! There are other mercenaries in the punditry, singing the praises of Bush policies on the taxpayers' buck. But he won't say who. And there's more to read on the American descent into the bog of propoganda, from The Progress Report.

This practice is symptomatic of an ideological administration which can't handle the truth, or doesn't thing we can. This is life under Bush, where perception is canned, debate is a commodity to be traded by corporate communications firms, and you can't trust a damn thing the government says or does.

Frittata

2005-01-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

Chuck and I always plan a week's worth of menus, although I claim the right to alter days or ingredients as the week goes on. Having a plan makes week-night, after-work cooking so much easier. Often the shopping's already been done or I know what few ingredients I need to get. However, by Friday night we often run out of plans. This past Friday, without a plan or much energy I grabbed a bunch of asparagus at the store and headed home to make a frittata with Chuck's help. He sliced a medium potato and and onion and sauteed them in olive oil in a large pan. I snapped off the ends of the asparagus and cut them into 3 or 4 pieces and added them to the pan when the potato started to soften, along with a good pinch of salt and pepper. When the vegetables were cooked, we turned off the heat. We had covered the pan for a while to speed the process. I turned on the broiler and in a bowl, I cracked 4 eggs and beat them with a fork until blended. Then I added 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, about 1/2 t salt, and the vegetables. I heated about 2 T olive oil in a medium sized non-stick frying pan, poured in the mixture, and cooked it over medium heat. When the bottom looked cooked I removed the pan to the broiler and watched until the top was set and golden.

This is a basic frittata method. Any combination of vegetables can work with additions of cheese or ham for more flavor. It's fast, and with bread and maybe a salad or fruit makes a whole meal.

Mandela's son dies of AIDS

2005-01-07T02:27:00.000-05:00

HIV/AIDS needs to be a more public disease in Africa. Mandela says:

"That is why I have announced that my son has died of AIDS," he said. "Let us give publicity to H.I.V./AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of H.I.V./AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary."

In juxtaposition to the above quote, the last sentence of the article subtly strikes a morbid point.

"[Makgatho Mandela's] wife, Zondi, died of pneumonia in 2003 at age 46. He is survived by three sons" (my emphasis).

"Mandela, Anti-AIDS Crusader, Says Son Died of Disease," by Michael Wines, NY Times

Simple (Blue?) Cooking

2005-01-04T22:45:00.000-05:00

The holidays are over and Peter and Kate have left; it seems like the time to eat simply and try to lose the pounds we gained last month. (a la Peter's post on environmentalism. I guess I'd like to think of these as Democratic recipes.) Here are two recipes toward that end.

Spaghetti with raisins and pine nuts (adapted from Marcella Hazan's new book, Marcella Says. She especially recommends it when you get an urge for pasta at midnight).

Soak 1/2 cup raisins in hot water until they swell. Drain them and chop coarsely. Chop 1/2 cup pine nuts coarsely and then mash them with the flat side of a chef's knife. In a small frying pan, put about 1/4 cup of olive oil, extra virgin and 2 large cloves of garlic chopped fine. Cook until the garlic is golden and then add the pine nuts and then the raisins. Cook for several minutes and then turn off the heat.

Cook desired amount of pasta up to 1 pound in salted boiling water. When it's almost done, reheat the sauce, adding 2 T. of the pasta water and some salt. Drain the pasta and toss it with the sauce in a serving bowl.

Tonight I made baked vegetables and felt virtuous. I coated a lage baking pan with olive oil and added the following to the pan: small red new potatoes cut in two, 2-3 onions cut in wedges, 3 carrots cut in small pieces, 1 large red pepper cut in squares, 1 fennel bulb cut in wedges, 1 eggplant peeled and cut into wedges or cubes, and some radiccio. Of course you could add or omit any vegetable you like. I added about a 1/2 cup of water, salt and pepper and placed the pan in a preheated 450 degree oven for almost an hour. Half-way through I added some sundried tomatoes I had soaked and at the end I added pitted Greek olives and goat cheese. I stirred it a few times while cooking and tasted it for salt. You could add more water or oil to keep the vegetables cooking. It's done when the potatoes are cooked.

Stale Donkey

2005-01-04T13:15:00.000-05:00

The defensive left

Irony oh irony. It is a cliche that the Democrats are the party of social progress and the Republicans the stiff-lipped defenders of the establishment. The young and irreverent are purported to fill the ranks of the Democratic Party in its perpetual march toward change, while curmudgeonry old hacks who perceive to have a stake in the system man the barricades of the Republican Party to protect their piece of the pie.

No longer. In today's politics, masterfully directed by Karl Rove and promulgated through the Republican political machine, the Democrats have become the party of the status quo. We are faced with the thankless task of defending social institutions like retirement security from privatization, as Republicans speak grandly of a magnetically-named "ownership society." We defend access to the legal system (and a major source of Donkey campaign cash) from "tort reform." We protect mostly invisable civil liberties from an administration which seeks to curb them to combat the more visual and timely problem of terrorism. We protect, defend, froth at the mouth -- and we are righteous. But we are not compelling.

Granted, to a certain extent, this is beyond our control. The majority of the liberal agenda is accomplished. There are important areas where we are lacking, such as health care, but we long-ago won on social security, on the formation of the EPA, on worker compensation, on a whole host of other things. And it is difficult if not impossible to lay out a compelling vision which mostly consists of nuance, fine-tuning, and working out the details. Number crunching to figure out the best way to extend the solvency of social security another ten years is important but does not stir the emotions. Additionally, being completely shut out of power makes it difficult to get a footing.

However, mostly, we have ourselves to blame. Our blinding brand of "How could he ever" Bush outrage has infantilized the level of critique on the administration, and our self-assuredness of Bush's evilness has given our politics a negative and despairing feel. We offer no new ideas, no great visions.

Watch out for the cement

Just as Clinton embraced free trade in part to steal a politically potent Republican issue, GOP political strategists see policy in service of politics in addition to service of ideology. The reform of social security proposed by Bush would not only cripple the program but would also turn inside-out the relationship between millions of citizens and the welfare state, a relationship which currently exists in Democratic terrain. Republican tort reform would, as I previously mentioned, drain one of the Democrats most lucrative fundraising constituencies, trial lawyers, along with protecting corporate interests.

Karl Rove openly waxes about a "permanent Republican majority." The second term policy program thus far articulated by Bush is the recipe.

What to do

Despite what I said above, some hell-bent opposition to policies such as retirement security reform is in order. In the early years of Clinton's first term, when the Republicans were completely shut out of power, the unmitigated opposition to and ultimate killing of the health care proposal gelded Clinton and helped spurr a GOP revolution. As we make Bush choke on his social security reform, however, we must also provide a vision for progress. As Bullmoose said, "Democrats must not just oppose the rollbacks of progressive policy, but should also seize the opportunity to advance reforms." Here are some suggestions I have:

** A Healthy America -- A comprehensive vision for American health which brings together the heretofore separate issues of Environmentalism, Public Health, and Health Care. Taking care of the environment in which we live should have a greater emphasis in public health programs. Public health should put more of an emphasis on people leading healthy lives. And a healther population will reduce stress on the health care sector, which would allow us more resources to provide better health care to more people.

This approach will also help us take back Environmentalism from the Northeastern, liberal, Sierra Club, want-to-just-put-a-glass-bowl-over-it crowd that dominates the issue, and give it a more conservationist, huntin' and fishin', land use, anti-sprawl, anti-factory farming focus. As the issue is being framed now, Environmentalism derives from an elitist fetish for wilderness, a hyper-mythologized vision of unmitigated nature. This is a potentially big issue for us, a good approach to making political headway in the northern states of the West.

** Integrity of American Democracy -- Electoral and campaign finance reform as a single issue. We should be forcing Republicans to defend corrupt elections in Congress, while we postulate strong democracy at home. And any reform we achieve in campaign finance is to our political advantage.

** Protected America -- Get out of nation building, dial down the fear mongering, "smother" extremist terrorist networks abroad through diplomacy, manipulation of financial networks, and precise use of force. Get out of Iraq, get out of nation-building. Provide more money for port security and the like, and more money for first responders.

And more later.

Think Left, Drink Left

2005-01-03T01:14:00.000-05:00

While softening the edges of our cutting little world with a little drink, we might as well not fill the pockets of those who support right wing politics. And yes, you can be pragmatic and productive in your intoxication. And in all of your consumer choices. Choose The Blue

After the mall meal

2004-12-21T19:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we spent a long afternoon at the mall and came home without a plan for dinner. At times like this we have a stand-by: spaghetti with tomato sauce. In the amount of time it took water to boil and spaghetti to cook, dinner was ready. After the pot of water is on the stove, cover the bottom of a large frying pan with a thin coat of olive oil and add about 1 t. chopped garlic. Cook garlic until it starts to soften and turn gold, not brown and hard. I always use canned whole tomatoes instead of pureed, on the assumption that least processed products are better. I always used Progresso brand, but I can't find them here anymore, so I buy whatever whole tomatoes I find in a 28 oz. can. Puree the tomatoes and the juice in a food processor and then add them to the pan. Let the sauce cook over medium heat until thickened. Salt the pasta water and add the noodle of your choice. I use DeCecco brand. It's not surprising that Italian pasta is better. Add a pinch of salt and red pepper flakes to the sauce if you like. If the sauce looks dry, add several T of the pasta water at the end. Drain the pasta, add it to the sauce, and dress it with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Italians cook Asian

2004-12-21T18:48:00.000-05:00

You may remember Peter's post on Marcella Hazan's trip to Chinatown. Marcella (my cooking hero) claims that Italian and Chinese food aren't that far apart. I'm not sure that's true, but when Kate comes home we like to experiment with different Asian-inspired recipes. The other night we marinated some shrimp in lime juice, ginger, and Thai chile sauce and grilled them on a ridged pan. They were okay, but the best parts of the meal were the other dishes. We made Thai string beans. In the same large frying pan where I make spaghetti sauce, I stir-fried 1 clove chopped garlic, 1 T chopped ginger, 1 T toasted sesame seeds, and fresh red chile to taste. After about 30 seconds I added the beans, 1 T fish sauce, 1 T soy sauce, 3 T water, and 1 t. light brown sugar; then I stirred and cooked until the beans were tender. You may need to add more water and/or cover the pan to cook the beans through.

Kate made Indian-spiced rice. She cooked a cup of jasmine rice in boiling water and sauteed 2/3 cup of chopped onion in a pan until soft. She stirred in about a teaspoon of garam masala to taste (Indian spice mix) with the onion and cooked it for a minute or two. She likes spicey food so she threw in some red pepper flakes even though they weren't in the original recipe. She then added the rice and cooked it until the grains were lightly browned, for about 10 minutes.

Pregnant women, prepare to be murdered

2004-12-20T13:45:00.000-05:00

The great amount of hype generated by the Scott Peterson trial was bound to lead to something, and certainly not to justice. In this vein, enterprising Washington Post journalist Donna St. George offers a three part exploit of tabloid-esque proportions and quality -- sure to sell some newspapers and make Americans huddle in fear of yet another contrived threat. "Many New or Expectant Mothers Die Violent Deaths," declared the top headline on the Sunday Post's front page in trumpeting a new, heretofor unimagined and unquantified national paranoia.

It is an article which manipulates and capitalizes on the tragedy of human detail...

Three weeks after Peterson disappeared in Modesto, Quinnisha Thomas lost her life in Sacramento, 80 miles away. Eight months pregnant, Thomas, 18, was walking home from a grocery store when her ex-boyfriend shot her in the head execution-style because, prosecutors said, he believed fatherhood would get in the way of his music career.

...and which is "supported" by small statistical samples and by revealing seemingly big numbers.

"Homicide accounted for 50 of 247 maternal deaths in Maryland over a six-year period -- more than 20 percent. It had caused more deaths than cardiovascular disorders, embolisms or accident."
"A year-long examination by The Washington Post of death-record data in states across the country documents the killings of 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers since 1990. This is only part of the national toll, because no reliable system is in place to track such cases."

An opportunity to talk about real issues is sounded out by the drum of sensationalism. Instead of creating a discourse addressing the vulnerability and disconnectedness of young girls who become pregnant, Ms. St. George fear-mongers by talking about the invisability of this "social syndrome" and intimating that, because of our ignorance, maternal homicide is far more prevalent than she can even currently count. Rather than shift the conversation toward domestic violence, she chooses to evoke the boogie man of cultural degredation and an imagined and false historical ideal, where pregnancy was inviolate and nothing bad ever happened. Bullshit, pure bullshit.

There are real issues around pregnancy -- access to health care, nutrition, prenatal care, etc. Murder is not an important issue concerning pregnant women.

On TAPPED, after lamenting the shrewd manuevering of the Christian conservatives to achieve a measure of protection for the "unborn" in "Laci and Connor's Law," Sarah Wildman calls this series "billiant and important." Strange, because I would say this article is less about violence against women (which is a proper problem) and more about evoking the sentiment that there is a full out assault on and/or disrespect for embryonic life in our society.

In any case, trash, all of it.

Humanitarian consequences of the decline in American power

2004-12-20T01:20:00.000-05:00

"Nigeria Chosen to Host 2008 Genocides"

The Onion, as usual, brings levity and insight to an unhappy issue. Humanitarian crisis in Africa is bush leagues to the U.S. foreign policy Major Leagues of bloody imperial conquest and international economic markets. It's just not considered important.

ABUJA, NIGERIA—At a celebratory press conference Monday, President Olusegun Obasanjo announced that Nigeria's troubled but oil-rich city of Warri has been chosen to host the 2008 Genocides.

"Nigeria is excited for this chance to follow in the footsteps of Somalia, Rwanda, and Sudan," Obasanjo said. "Much work remains to be done, but all of the building blocks are in place. Nigeria has many contentious ethnic groups, a volatile economy, and a dependence on food imports. We are well on our way to making 2008 a genocidal year to remember in Nigeria!"

Now, however, whether or not we consider this an important issue is an increasingly academic question; we have vacated our power to make a difference. U.S. military over-expansion emboldens the instigators of oppression and genocide, and our own embarrassments emanating from places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have left us without a pedestal from which to articulate a moral vision for the world. Ironically, a war purportedly fought for the goal of liberation and freedom has allowed injustice and conflict in many other corners of the world to fester in inattention and metastasize. Historically, those people and regimes plotting large-scale murder and/or human rights abuse are forced to contemplate prospective reaction from the superpower U.S. -- military response, international moral authority brought to bear with sanctions and boycott. Today, sadly, these plotters must not fear the intervention of a prone and impotent U.S. military nor respect the moral authority of an alienated and reduced America.

The problem with temporary employment

2004-12-19T15:23:00.000-05:00

The growing phenomenon of temporary employment, as detailed in this article, has myriad implications for our economy and its workers. It casts hungry wage-earners as perpetual supplicants and divides workers between those with permanent positions and those without. It creates a growing pool of people without medical insurance and other coverage, which puts severe strains on municipal services such as health care (this is a tab picked up by the municaplity and ultimately the tax payers -- wouldn't it be more efficient if we just provided all with health care from the get go!). Perhaps most importantly, this exploitation of labor widens the gulf between workers and the capital they serve. The end result will be a disasterous diffusion of the relationship between capital and labor. Workers will end up completely alienated from that which they're toiling to create and thus with no notion of their own value nor any power to demand a fair wage.

This is a much more insidious oppression of workers than Marx ever realized. How can workers rise up in revolution if they don't even know where to find the capital?

Thoughts?

Weeknight Italian Dinner

2004-12-18T19:18:00.000-05:00

Cooking dinner doesn't have to take a long time, less time than deciding on a restuarant, driving there, ordering and waiting for your overly large portions of food. I made the following in about 40 minutes with a little help from Chuck, and we had enough chicken left to have for dinner tonight.
First I began with String Bean Salad: Boil 2 medium red potatoes with skins on until tender. Put water on to boil for the string beans. Snap off the ends of about one pound of beans. When water boils add salt and string beans to the pot. Cook until tender and drain. In a large salad bowl, add 1/2 medium onion sliced thin, the potatoes, cut lengthwise and sliced, and the beans. Sprinkle the hot vegetables with salt pepper, vinegar and olive oil to taste. This takes more vinegar than you might think.

While the beans are cooking, prepare boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Divide the whole breast in half and trim off the fat. Slice each half horizontally into 3 pieces. Get out 2 flat dessert plates and a soup bowl. Spread flour, salt and pepper on one plate and unflavored bread crumbs on the other. Break 1 egg into the soup bowl and beat it with about 1/8 cup milk. Dip the chicken pieces into the flour, then egg, and last the bread crumbs. Meanwhile heat olive oil in a large frying pan. When it starts to bubble, added the breaded chicken pieces. Cook over medium heat until each side is golden brown, several minutes on each side. Serve hot with lemon wedges on the side.

Tonight, I'm going to make Bagnet to serve with the left-over chicken. It's a great sauce that you can use with plain meat, sliced tomatoes in the summer, roast peppers, or in salad dressing. Cut the stems of one bunch of flat Italian parsley. Put the leaves in a food processors with 2 T capers, 4 anchovy fillets (optional), 1 small clove garlic, 1/2 t. French mustrad, about 1 t. red wine vinegar and about 1/2 c olive oil. Process until smooth. Taste and correct for salt and vinegar.

These recipes came from my parents, although when they had their restaurant, the Villa Maria, they made veal cutlets, not chicken.

OK Senate and the ground game

2004-12-17T14:08:00.000-05:00

The Oklahoman printed the spending figures for Oklahoma's 2004 races today.

In the Senate race, Brad Carson (D) spent $6 million over a year while Tom Coburn (R) used $4.58 million in eight months. Millions more (I believe another $6 mil in Carson's case) were spent by outside groups like the DSCC and the NRSC and the various PACs and 527 groups. It was of course the big mouthed evil doctor that pulled away at the polls.

A good chunk of Carson's money went to creating a "ground game" -- that is, hiring field organizers, opening offices across the state, and paying even more people to make phone calls and knock on doors. Having a field operation is good, no doubt -- good in that it can't hurt to have offices open and folks out knocking on doors. And I'm sure having an established ground game aids eventual Get Out The Vote efforts. But how cost-effective is it really?

With the average adult watching three to five hours of television per night, there is simply no better way to reach voters than through the tube. Television advertising versus field operation is the difference between inserting a precise, emotive message into the very living rooms of those you're trying to reach and bugging someone at their front door, dropping off a flier, or making the phone ring, yet again.

Of course, the thirty second spot is the responsible for the intellectual and actual corruption of our electoral system. Under the current model, however, emphasizing the field aspect seems to be a losing strategy.

The French Press is in trouble!

2004-12-16T18:51:00.000-05:00

No, no, no, not the coffee maker, moron.

LINK

Zell Miller joins Fox News

2004-12-16T11:13:00.000-05:00

Of course. LINK

Maybe Fox News will let him duel people.

The true breadth of cost

2004-12-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's not just the dead and the blown apart.

An Army study shows that about one in six soldiers in Iraq report symptoms of major depression, serious anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, a proportion that some experts believe could eventually climb to one in three, the rate ultimately found in Vietnam veterans. Because about one million American troops have served so far in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon figures, some experts predict that the number eventually requiring mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.
~~
"In the urban terrain, the enemy is everywhere, across the street, in that window, up that alley," said Paul Rieckhoff, who served as a platoon leader with the Florida Army National Guard for 10 months, going on hundreds of combat patrols around Baghdad. "It's a fishbowl. You never feel safe. You never relax."
NY Times article

And when is this going to end?

Artichokes and risotto

2004-12-15T21:38:00.000-05:00

I've always liked artichokes. They were a sign of spring, appearing in March or April. When I was a child, we used to eat them raw, dipping the white ends in oil and vinegar and gnawing them off the leaves. Later on, my mother started steaming them, which made the gnawing easier. I like to do that with garlic and parsley between the leaves. I shied away from using artichokes as an ingredient because I didn't like the chewy green leaves in the pasta or whatever dish. That was a shame because recently big, fresh-looking globe artichokes seemed to be at the supermaket more often than not. I don't know where they come from, though I know that Peter is going to tell me that I have to ask. Luckily, during my recent year as a student I learned from Molto Mario on the Food Network what to do: don't be afraid to cut off and throw out all the tough green parts. First, snap off several circles of outer leaves. With a large knife cut across the artichoke at the point where the choke begins, discarding all those leaves. (Remember how tough they are!) With a paring knife, cut out the choke. Trim the stem and the around base of the heart, removing all green parts. What remains might look something like an inverted white umbrella. Cut it in half vertically and then slice each into thin pieces. I've used these artichoke hearts in a saute of potatoes, onion and fennel and in a fritata with potatoes, onions, and mushrooms. The other night I used them in risotto, cutting them into smaller pieces and adding them to the olive oil and onions to soften and slightly brown before adding the rice, wine, then broth. I finished it off with chopped parsely and parmesan cheese.

It's rare that David Brooks has anything worthwhile to say...

2004-12-14T20:15:00.000-05:00

But I think this has a spot of accuracy to it.

Third, you have to remember that Republicans have a different relationship to ideas than Democrats. When Democrats open their mouths, they try to say something interesting. If the true thing is obvious and boring, the liberal person will go off and say something original, even if it is completely idiotic. This is how deconstructionism got started.

Republicans are less concerned with displaying their own cleverness. When they actually stumble upon an idea, they are so delighted they regurgitate it over and over again. Where
others might favor elaboration, Republicans favor repetition.

That we put a premium on "interesting" as opposed to, say, power is one of the reasons we're shut out of every branch of government. But at least we'll always have something to froth about.

And I thought the promise of the Internet was limited to revealing what lies beneath women's clothing.

2004-12-14T13:43:00.000-05:00

Apparently not.

Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, announced today that it had entered into agreements with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.
~~
Because the Google agreements are not exclusive, the pacts are almost certain to touch off a race with other major Internet search providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Like Google, they might seek the right to offer online access to library materials in return for selling advertising, while libraries would receive corporate help in digitizing their collections for their
own institutional uses.

New York Times

The Library of Congress also has its own initiative.

Access to the complete text of a work will, however, be limited to those materials whose copyrights have expired. Although Google will scan and store copyrighted materials in their entirety, only short excerpts will be available for Internet viewing.

I'd be curious to see where the legal distinction is made. In a bricks and mortar library you're able to view any text and reproduce generous portions of it regardless of intellectual property status. But in a different and coincidentally virtual library sponsored by the very same instititution your purview is limited to non-copyrighted works.

Here is yet another advance that suffers from the modernist paradox: You get more -- faster and more conveniently -- of less.

Brisket

2004-12-13T19:37:00.000-05:00

I've lived in Texas for 20 years, and today I cooked Texan, probably for the first time. Brisket is a popular party main course, and I've struggled to make it moist and flavorful the times I've cooked it. My habit of trimming almost all the fat from it may have been the start of my troubles. This time I left it all on, and trimmed it after it was cooked. I was also reminded to cook it with the fat side up so that great grease seeps into the meat. I marinated it overnight in red wine, vinegar, onions, chile and garlic sauce, and Adolph's meat tenderizer. Then I spread the onions and a little barbecue sauce on it and double wrapped it in heavy duty aluminum foil and put it in a large baking pan. I baked it for 1 hour at 325 degrees, 3 1/2 hours at 275 degrees, and 1 hour at 175 degrees. The Texan part came next. I shredded the meat by pulling it apart and heated it in a pot along with Stubb's Original BarBQ Sauce thinned out with chicken broth. It was great served with bolillios.

Iraq Casualty Photos

2004-12-13T14:20:00.000-05:00

If America is fighting a war in Iraq, Americans should be exposed to as intimate representations of the conflict as possible. Startling imagery was one of the things that began to turn the tide of public sentiment against the Vietnam War. The New England Journal of Medicine has a photo essay that should be required viewing.

A new Public Health-Environmentalism paradigm #1

2004-12-12T17:23:00.000-05:00

A great conversation over a late brunch has brought me back to this issue, which I consider one of the most important facing this country and incidentally provided the intellectual framework for Think Left, Eat Right's theme of food, politics, and ideas.

We need to start thinking about and making policy on the concept of Public Health. And any thinking and policy-making we do on the Environment we ought to do while making that connection to Public Health.

What we eat is an Environmental issue. If and where we excercise is an Environmental issue. A dirty environment is a Public Health issue. And dirty environment that has a greater mal-effect on public health is a bigger Environmental problem than one that has a lesser mal-effect.

There are a lot of things I'm going to talk about with regard to this issue -- the general constitution of the P.H.-Environmentalism paradigm, the centrality of the corporation's role as antagonist in this issue, what the government can do, what we can do.

Holiday Parties

2004-12-11T15:34:00.000-05:00

I haven't been eating at home, but I have been cooking for the parties I've been invited to. Last night I went to my first ever office Xmas party. (Public school teachers don't have office parties.) I brought a banana cheesecake from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I've tried a couple of the layer cakes from that book without much success, but the cheesecake is very easy and different than typical cheesecakes. I thought it was pretty good, although it didn't provoke any appreciative comments. Those were reserved for my colleague who contributed a half-gallon of Jim Beam! Here's the recipe I used:
Preheat oven to 350. Beat or process (I used my food processor) 16 oz Philadelphia cream cheese and 1 cup sugar until very smooth. Add 3 eggs, l at a time. Add 1 1/2 t. vanilla, 1/4 t. salt, and 2 cups sour cream. Process till smooth. Add 1 cup mashed banana mixed with 3 T. lemon juice. Process. Pour bater into an 8 inch springform pan, which was greased and bottom lined with greased parchment or waxed paper. Wrap the outside of the pan with aluminum foil. Set the pan in a larger pan which was filled with 1 inch of very hot water. Bake for 45 minutes. Turn off oven and don't open it for one hour. Remove and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. To unmold, cover a flat plate with plastic wrap. Run a thin knife around the cake and release the springform pan. Place the plastic-lined pan on top of the cake and invert. Remove the bottom of the pan and the parchment. Reinvert onto a serving plate. ( To get the cake to unstick, I loosened the plastic wrap from the dish, and then just peeled off the pastic wrap. ) I topped the cake with raspberries. The cheesecake was very creamy with a nice banana taste.

This morning I went to a potluck breakfastr with my book club. I brought a recipe I found in the NYTimes just this past Wednesday for ricotta pudding. It's by Mark Bittman. It was so easy and everyone liked it. To make it, drain 1 pound ricotta (I used whole milk) in a strainer overnight in the refrigerator. Then beat 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar and the ricotta together until light and smooth. Add 3 T. of Kaluha or other coffee liqueur. Mix it in. Place in a nice bowl or individual bowls. Sprinkle with cocoa. You may adjust the amounts of sugar and liqueur to taste.

Un-armored and in danger

2004-12-10T17:32:00.001-05:00

The National Guardsman's confrontation of Rumsfeld at the Q&A in Kuwait and today's NY Times article about the lack of armor in big trucks which ply dangerous cargo routes in Iraq have brought the equip-the-troops issue to the front and center. Certainly, Bush and company, all of whom avoided military service themselves, have failed to pay enough attention to protecting those soldiers doing their imperial bidding. By any civilian standard, the Administration shows criminal levels of negligence in submitting American soldiers to needless amounts of risk. Bush and Rummy drag their feet bulking up armor, and soldiers die. That is clear.

The more fundamental problem, however, is structural. The military Bush sent to fight in Iraq is not structured to engage its current counter-insurgency/peace-keeping/nation-building mission. What you see now is a military that is engineered to fight on fronts -- with the enemy on the other side of a straight line -- exposing it soft flanks. These are the supply companies, the Jessica Lynch's of the world, the big trucks. In the past, these soldiers that are getting killed and the trucks and humvees that are being struck by improvised explosived have operated away from the battle, on friendly-controlled supply routes.

This is the wrong military to fight this war -- and Americans are dying because Bush thought he could hammer a cube into a circular hole. This is an asymetric conflict, and we can't keep trotting out strategies and equipment that reflect conventional Cold War thinking.

"It's what I believe."

2004-12-10T17:32:00.000-05:00

Watching a debate/shouting match on the Wolf Blitzer noon hour program on CNN just a moment ago, I witnessed an exchange that encapsulated for me how it is that the Right manages to pummel its partisan perspective into the mainstream media. After a debate over the equipping of US troops inevitably had degenerated into an argument over the Iraq War's premises, conservative pundit Armstrong Williams smugly defended his assertion that there had been an Iraq-al Qaida connection by stating, "It's what I believe."

Far from disingenuous polemics, this has been a very effective media tactic for the Right. Conservative media troopers say, in the face of empirical contradiction, 'Well, I believe this,' and demand equivalency.

And they get their way -- with a toothless media, which has been thoroughly gelded by the strategic Conservative assertion of a "Liberal media."

It is the responsibility of people like Wolf Blitzer -- it's a responsiblity of the Fourth Estate -- to report substance, to communicate the facts as they can best be discerned. The media no longer understands or represents its most important traditional tenet: objectivity. Members of the media, wracked with paranoia that they'll be called biased, practice "objectivity" by merely mediating two contradicting points of view. That's the role of a Dictaphone, not a journalist.

While I'm fully aware of the futility of objectivity and eager to engage in relating debates, I am a proponent of the 'If it walks like a duck' School of Journalism.

The definition of deipnosophist

2004-12-10T14:47:00.000-05:00

A couple of people have asked me what exactly is the meaning of "diepnosophist."

As far as I understand, it describes someone adept at dinnertable conversation. It combines the Greek words for "meal" (deipnon) and of course "a person skilled at his/her craft" or "a clever or deviously clever person" (sophist).

Circa A.D. 225, the Greek writer Athanaeus wrote a set of books, titled The Deipnosophists, in which wise men would sit around the dinner table discoursing on politics, culture, and ideas and on the food in front of them.

Growing up, dinner table conversation was probably the most formative aspect to my development. I love that this concept has actually been articulated in a single word.

Bean Soup

2004-12-09T19:59:00.000-05:00

Bean soup is on our dinner menu tonight. It's a dish that reminds me of my parents and grandparents, although I'm not sure I make it the way they did. Here in El Paso, I've always used dried kidney or pinto beans, cooked separately with onion and bay leaf before adding to the soup, not the fresh shell beans my dad would grow in his garden. However, we were in Boston for a family wedding and went to the outdoor market across from Fanuel Hall where I happily bought 2 pounds of red and white shell beans to cart back to El Paso. To make the soup I diced (into small pieces) onion, celery, and carrot and sauteed them in olive oil. Then I added diced zucchini, green beans, my shelled beans and potato along with water and broth to more than cover the vegetables. Because there was no bean broth, I added about 3 spoons of canned tomato for color and also a good pinch of salt. I covered the pot and let it cook over medium heat for an hour or so until the beans were tender, making sure to add more liquid as needed. The taste of the soup wasn't that different than usual, but the beans themselves had great texture and flavor. Be sure to add more salt if needed. In the summer we usually add a spoon of pesto to our servings at the table. In winter, a dash of red wine seems like the right thing.

A Wop with a Wok

2004-12-09T00:45:00.000-05:00

Yes, the formost spoon in Italian cooking, Marcella Hazan, is trading the risotto for fried rice.

The buns seemed Italian to Mrs. Hazan, but so does a lot of Chinese food. "There are a lot of similarities, much more so than between French and Italian," she said. How so? "Well, for one thing, the French don't have pasta," she said. In Italian cooking, sauces season the pasta, which is also analogous to the Chinese approach. "And stir-frying is a little like the way we deal with sautéed vegetables." Like the Italians, she added, the Chinese do not create a hierarchy among dishes, whereas French meals coalesce around a main course. Later, she pulled out a Kleenex and folded it delicately into a tortellini, then a won ton wrapper. "See?" she said.

I like the analogy she draws between Italian and Chinese cuisine -- it's delicious intellectual work. Interestingly, my mother has also seen an Eastward drift in some of her cooking, though more toward Southeast Asian dishes. Just ask the poor produce manager at the local supermarket, who my mother harrasses for various obscure Asian roots, leaves, fruits, and veggies.

Marcella's written her last book, she says. And who can blame her? She received a $500,00 advance, the most ever for a cookbook. Here's an interesting article about what she's up to now. We can only hope she'll put some of her ideas about the synchronicity between Italian and Chinese cuisine into a final publication. It'd be a treat.

Dick Fucking Cheney

2004-12-09T00:10:00.000-05:00

So this is a blog my mother and I are putting together that's going to cover three of the four most important things on Earth: food, politics, and ideas. I'd include the fourth thing, but, like I said, this is a blog I'm doing with my mother.

For those of you that don't know, my mother is renowned for her abilities in the culinary arts, and these are abilities I'm not too modest to say -- hem -- that she passed on to her son. She's also a former high school ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, current student in a Masters in Counseling program, current UT-El Paso instructor, and, possibly, a future candidate for School Board. We'll see.

As for me, I'm currently unemployed -- after graduating from college, working at the advocacy organization Public Citizen for a year, then spending three months in Oklahoma working for Brad Carson in his bid for the US Senate.

Let's kick this off with the funniest thing I've EVER come across on the Internet. I'll keep you in the dark 'til it starts, here it is: Pure Internet Gold.

First Post

2004-12-08T17:33:00.000-05:00

Food for thought.