It's funny going different places to read the reactions. Even the places I think of as sometimes with good articles. The commenters at The Free Press are for the most part aggressively supportive that Trump knows what he's doing and has had the most successful foreign policy successes since, well since anyone. As far as I can tell, he's had points of success blowing things up, but where has he put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
Trump taking down maduro feels like Alabama scheduling the Sisters of the Poor in football, or some other cupcake game. Maybe the Highland Cream Teacher's college?
Infected with the entangled spirits of food and, um, perplexing cross-border motives, I have cleaned out my silverware drawer. Even decluttered it a little.
Perused the menu at Fenwicks. It all looked and sounded good. And the prices were about the same as you'll find around here for such an establishment... too high!
But what are ya' gonna' do? Other than settle for a granola bar...
Question, though... a Basket Of Fries, "cut in-house", is $10.
*Ten bucks*... cripes! Do they come in a bushel basket, or what?!
I always liked fries that have bits of the potato peel on them. Don't know if they have to be made in-house or can be purchased that way from the usual purveyors.
That looked like a pretty good place to eat. It really did make me hungry browsing through that menu. My wife and I used to really enjoy "going out" to eat but seldom do these days. Many of our once favorite places have raised their prices to ridiculous levels while simultaneously steeply lowering the quality of their fare or have gone out of business altogether.
I don't object to the high prices nearly as much as I do the low quality. We're lucky enough that when it comes to dining out, we can pretty much afford to eat whatever we want whenever we want. But being able to stomach such high prices for mediocre-or-less quality food (and too often the same in service) isn't on our menu.
There was one restaurant not far from us we really liked for "fine dining" which we frequented years ago, and where I'd sometimes pay "big $" for a steak. They had a limited "table side" menu that was pretty "pricey" and consisted of a couple of steak dishes and a Ceasar salad, any of which had to be prepared for a minimum of two diners.
After we'd been going there for a while, my curiosity got the better of me one night. So, we ordered the Peppered Steak.
If anyone had told me before then that you could prepare a steak dinner *that good* with basically a saucepan and a Bunsen burner on a wobbly cart, I'd have told them they were crazy.
Ditto the Steak Diane, we came to learn eventually.
younger days, a rich sauce was very appealing - these days, not so much... however, the Steak Diane could be a possibility in those younger days, even tho an easy enough 'recipe', something worth having someone else prepare.
There's a certain intrinsic value in having a fine meal served to you in an ambience that's pleasing and then walking out the door to go home without having to lift a finger to clean up the dishes or the kitchen. 😊
We do still go a few places semi-frequently to get take-out like pizza and Chinese. Usually for supper, but occasionally lunch. Gives my wife a break from the kitchen since, God bless her, she does all the cooking.
There's a restaurant in the town about a half-hour south of us that's known for its seafood, and they have a really good fish dinner you can get for take-out. Fried but not greasy at all, with a really good crust and coleslaw that reminds me of my father's when I was a kid.
The place has been there forever and is always very crowded at the dinner hour. Always. Otherwise, we'd consider going there to dine in but haven't done so in years because it gets pretty cramped and so noisy when the dinner hour crowds show up.
But the great thing is that their food is so popular for takeout that they've long had a little separate "take-out" building on the back of the place next to the parking lot that has a pickup window and its own menu. And you can call ahead or just drive up and place your order and soon be on your way due to some consistently pretty good service. So, we opt for that when we're in the mood for fish, since that's something my wife doesn't much care to cook at home.
So popular to eat inside - You can order Family Style = all you can eat. Anyway, the line is looooonnng! But the separate take-out, not all-you-can-eat, you can order, then they have lots of picnic tables, nice scenery. It's quite a drive from us, & there are other locations, w/out the take-out bldg. However, Salt Lick has a good rep, but there are other places closer w/ good brisket which we'll get to-go.
I like going out for good Asian, Thai, Chinese, Sushi...
Wow. A dining spot that lets you BYOB! Unheard of in these parts.
Looks good. I could probably go for some of that.
I like "family style" ordering and serving, though so few places do it. None around here that I'm aware of these days, though a couple of chain places offer some "all you can eat" features on their menus.
A lifetime ago when I was a young kid, my folks took me with them to visit my mother's sister and her husband down in Jacksonville, Fl. I remember them taking us out to eat to a place called The Chicken Shack on a narrow 2-lane road in a fairly rural area somewhere out of the city. And it wasn't a lot more than just that - a "shack".
I couldn't tell you how many people it would actually seat... maybe a dozen and a half, two dozen or a couple of more tops. It was old and a bit rough, even slightly dilapidated looking as I recall.
And it had a menu that was about as simple as they come, since they only served all-you-could-eat fried chicken, family style on a platter to be passed around your table along with the usual "fixin's" of mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and / or mac and cheese, all in bowls for the same purpose. You could, however, have whatever you wanted in the way of bread. As long as it was cornbread or a dinner roll. Ditto for a beverages: iced tea, coffee, a Coke in an icy bottle with a straw or, for discerning palates, ice water, straw optional.
As to how good the food was... the size of the parking lot was inversely proportional to the size of The Chicken Shack. And it was packed. And a line of people snaked out the front door of the place into the lot, waiting to get in and get seated at a table, a couple of which were large enough that they might still have other people still sitting and eating their meals as you took up the empty chairs.
When they said family style, they meant it. And I remember my aunt telling my mom and dad that however long it took to get in, it would be worth it. And that she and my uncle could attest from their own personal experience that people regularly lined up in the rain under umbrellas to do so.
I don't think anybody makes places quite like that anymore.
the only frying I do is oven fry, on parchment paper, using olive oil spritzer & Panko crumbs. Works great w/ fish, chicken strips, sliced veggies like zucchini...
About all the frying my wife does is pan fry burgers or steak or pork chops on the stove top. But she can fix some pretty mean chicken strips in the oven.
And we've tried a number of things from the frozen fired-something aisle in the supermarket over the years. Some pretty good. Some, not so much.
I tend not to follow most links in comments, but I had to check out Mint Museum only because my first thought was "A museum for all the varieties of mint? Regular, chocolate, spearmint, peppermint, does catmint count?"
For those of you wondering what will be the topic of Eeyore's (Nick Cattogio) Monday evening column against Trump, he just sent troops into Venezuela, and captured Maduro and his wife. They've been arrested.
My guess for his headline "What this necessary"? or "Does Trump think waging war will win him a Nobel peace prize"?
KDW will find fault with it Monday morning as well. Oh well, you can't please everyone.
On X, plenty of video clips of people celebrating Maduro is gone...Or perhaps they're still celebrating Ol' Miss' victory over Georgia? My Spanish isn't so good.
On the Spanish Volunteers WhatsApp group, there are a couple of comments to the effect that this could be a good thing for the people of Venezuela, and that we should all pray.
Prayer is always good. What is not good is the justification for this action in the first place.
When we invaded Panama in 1989 we had a treaty right to do so relative to the Panaman Canal, and the justification that manual Noriega was a narco trafficker. That is not the case with Venezuela and Maduro. I have no idea what that NY indictment is about, and no clue what the legal right the US has to snatch Maduro. It's not up to the US to clean up Venezuelan governance,
Not OK. Not in this just-make-it-up-as-you-go administration at least. I wouldn't characterize justice as *working* under its management. It's languishing and will continue to atrophy as long as this crew with no respect for the actual, legitimate rule of law have their dirty hands on the levers of power at the DOJ and elsewhere.
I don't disagree, but I saw her comments as a lite-version of "battle hymn of the republic". I think she would have done better to use the original lyrics.
tbf, once as a prank I read the 4th verse of the Battle Hymn of the Republic as a call to worship among Friends (who are pacifists). None recognized it.
"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make us holy, let us die to make men free,
while God is marching on".
I did make sure not to say it in a sing song manner that would give away the tune.
For our daughter's wedding reception, with 175 people, we bought all the wine from HEB. They helped us with tastings before buying, delivered all the wine to the venue, and it was clearly less expensive than the caterer or liquor store options.
They do have Texas wines. I like the Texas Pride thing, but really I've not found a TX wine that was worth buying, except for the novelty / pride thing. There are better places for growing grapes.
I'm not a really discriminating wine consumer. I mean, I know when something is good - I have very fond memories of a Pouilly-Fume that tasted like waterfalls - but I'll drink schlock if it's cheap.
I think they probably do, but I always buy the same thing. You get a 10% discount if you buy 6 of anything, & I wait till I'm on my last box of Bota Box Nighthawk bourbon barrel aged Cabernet, & get 6. Sometimes when we need to restock for gift bottles I'll look down the aisles, but people often bring us gift bottles of 'whatever' which we re-gift (we put the name on it so we don't re-gift back to the gifter). Hubs drinks Makers Mark, which is interesting from the discussion from the other day. Sometimes Bullet Rye. His bday is in March so I'm going to try to find some Yellowstone Boubon??? Is that what all of you boubon drinkers recommend, or something else? What rye???? I know absolutely nothing about the difference between boubon/rye except he says rye is smoother & he likes both, it just depends on what he's in the mood for...
eta: we have several local wineries around where we can go for lunch/dinner. They also have places on the square near us where bottles are sold, or you can buy by the glass then take the glass outside & walk around shopping, etc. Not sure if all the shops allow it inside. There are places w/ music, one I expecially like that has guitar jamming...
Thanks. I suspected that might be the case, but I am still resistant to clicking every link with which I am presented, especially if it's a "quiz" that's supposed to tempt me. (Besides that, I have little interest in end-of-year roundups of this and that.) So at least JOMO comes in there.
It's a minor expotition, but I took Katie to the movies on NYD. She had wanted to see the "David" movie.
For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, "David" is about the Biblical David of Bethelehem, who became king upon the death of King Saul. For those of you worried about a children's movie showing David and Bathsheeba (or the apochyrphal threesome which included her sister Showersheba), the movie doesn't show any of the major David "sin events".
The best way to describe the movie is "remember when Disney made feel-good hero musicals 30+ years ago? This has an old Disney feel to it, although more with Pixar type animation. Yes, it is a musical, they sing songs, the hero is in some ways an outsider/misfit, the ending has a lion king feel to it. Target audience is probably tweens.
Unlike Disney, the "God is with us" message is direct and repeated often in this movie. It is a religious movie. There's no altar call at the end (although they do ask for donations for additional screenings).
Also unlike Disney, with the exception of King Aschish (and to a lesser degree the Amalekites), many of the bad guys are shown with some nuance. King Saul is shown as tormented, and you see it driving his decisions. Goliath doesn't want to slaughter David because he's just a child. One gets the assumption he was trained to be a killer.
I asked Katie what she thought, she really enjoyed it. I did too, holding hands with my girl during the movie. Was it great cinema? No. Was it good storytelling? Yes. Was it Veggie Tales? NO! Was it worth going? Yes.
I just re-read 1 and 2 Samuel over the last couple of months. I feel very negatively about King David. It's common for him to be referenced as a "type" (in the technical sense) of Jesus Christ. That makes me wonder if the people saying that ever read the history books.
The real type of Christ, in my opinion, is Jonathan. The reign of Christ is a self-sacrificing reign, a reign of, "See every single ruler ever? Don't be like that!" It's not the reign of a commonplace ancient warlord, no matter how much people from Jesus's lifetime to this day want it to be.
Is Joab the son of Zeruiah - one of the great sociopaths of world literature - in the movie?
Yet God never abandoned David, despite his many, many flaws. David sinned, he repented, he sinned, he repented; rinse, lather, and repeat.
Reading 2nd Samuel is difficult for me because of Absalom. I've never murdered anyone (nor arranged their murder) nor raped anyone. But I see his life as a cautionary tale for my own, should I be too prideful and selfish.
Not as any major character. There were several soldiers loyal to him in the movie, but I don't recall Joab being one of them. His name wasn't in the credits, but I might have missed it.
Jonathan and David are good friends in the movie, and Johnathan is portrayed as a very honorable man. In the movie he knows David has been anointed to be the next king, and he still loves and supports him. Both David and Jonathan remain loyal to Saul to the end.
In Geraldine Brooks’ novel The Secret Chord (2015), the relationship between David and Jonathan (Yonatan) is portrayed as an explicitly romantic and sexual relationship.
(From Gemini)
"While the biblical account in the Books of Samuel describes a deep bond where Jonathan loves David "as his own soul" and David laments that Jonathan’s love was "passing the love of women," Brooks takes this further by depicting them as lovers."
Men in that culture didn't usually have important relationships with women. Women were useful. For regular people, economically essential as well as necessary for having children. For elites, politically useful on top of that. And of course, for men to do their business, because they weren't Greeks.
Sadly, check out Jesus in wikipedia... I am familiar with Geraldine Brooks work; she reminds me of an old professional wrestling adage "controversy=cash" (meaning controversy need not be good, but it does sell well).
My expotition yesterday was driving south to Freeport, IL to go to the movie theater to see “Song Sung Blue.” I had no idea it was a movie based on the true story about a Milwaukee couple. Jim Belushi’s character was 💯 Sconnie. It was pure delight, highly recommend.
I've been a big Neil Diamond fan since 1968, have dozens of his 45s, almost as many LPs and CDs.
I've seen him in concert just once, in the late 80s, in a big indoor stadium venue in Buffalo. When we climbed up to where our tickets were supposed to be, there were no seats there! An usher told us our seats had been eliminated by the fire marshal! He ushered us to new seats -- in the front row, only a couple feet in front of the round revolving stage, which was about eye level!
Just before the show started, somebody came by and gave us "front row" grandees a lecture on how to behave. "Please keep your seats during the show. Mr. Diamond feels threatened when people are standing so close. If you're standing, he'll simply move to the other side of the stage for the rest of the show."
It was a great show.
We haven't seen the movie yet but we will, even though my wife doesn't care much for Neil's music.
I saw him in concert once. He did great shows. But you have to like his music (which I did). the crowd loved the concert. I went with a friend who loved Neil Diamond, she was esctatic at the concert, and will probably go see the movie.
Freeport is closer than Madison. It takes about 30 minutes vs 45. There’s no reason to go there other than the movie theater. It’s super nice with those comfy loungers. We have a movie theater but it’s horrendous. The owner refuses to update.
The mothership has an article critiquing Betty Friedan’s book “The Feminine Mystique” which claimed that motherhood and an intellectual life were incompatible, entitled “Wbhat Betty Friedan Got Wrong About Motherhood”.
I bet a certain mother and TSAF author has an opinion on this.. 🙂
started some mommy wars back when I was a mom --- the stay at homes vs the working ones
I actually had people say they'd be so bored staying at home. I finally said to one couple, who we spent a lot of time w/, & when we did, all they talked about was their work, nothing outside of work - the last time one of them said that to me, I responded w/ "Only boring people get bored"
I say that, too, often followed by, "Work on developing some internal resources. Otherwise, it will be incredibly easy for other people to control you."
I know that book is responsible for my brother in law’s mom abandoning him and his siblings to go become an author herself. She died penniless and quite lonely. He ultimately reconciled with her but was very much affected by her abandonment.
"The Feminine Mystique" was published in 1963. I have not read it, so I can't comment on anything specific.
On the general subject, though, I would say that, in 1963, being a mother imposed significant obstacles on a woman's achievements in many areas of life. Women could be required to have a pregnancy test as a condition of employment. They could be fired if they were pregnant. They could be pressured into abortion even when it was illegal in many states, and certainly after Roe v. Wade imposed a regime of literally no exceptions.
This did not keep a woman, even a poor woman, from having an intellectual life: there were libraries and correspondence schools. The biography of Sid Caesar I just read mentioned that his writing group took a "Great Books" correspondence course together.
On the other hand, credentialling and professional intellectual life were certainly much more difficult for women, mothers or not, than for men.
I could go on, but I wouldn't be telling the CSLF readership anything they don't know. In today's environment, where the structural obstacles of the 1960s are largely gone, the main impediment to anyone's intellectual life is simply a failure to prioritize it. Every choice you make in the use of your time and resources means there are a lot of other choices you didn't make, and then you get to the end of your life and say, "Huh, how did that happen?"
Your comments are certainly true. I more had in mind, not so muchFriedan;s book itself, but the mothership article, which portrayed Friedan as depressed at being a stay-at-home mom.. I forgot you probably are not a subscriber.
I agree that life is about tradeoffs, one cannot have it all. I think women have it much better today in terms of professional opportunities, but at what price?
For academics, do you try to become a giant in the field (making lots of money and holding prestigious titles) or do you shoot for a life balance?
I was a visiting professor for two years, the second at Purdue. Purdue has an outstanding B-School, but it is also highly demanding. As a note, the way several schools at that level warn faculty they are in danger of not being tenured is to nominate them for a teaching award. My record would not have been good enough there. I went up with 6 articles in the Financial Times top 50 journals, but only 2 of those were from the top 10; I needed at least 2 more in the top 10. My record was (barely) good enough at Kentucky, another top 10 would have sealed it.
But at Purdue, driving home Christmas eve with the family, we drove past the Krannert building; fully a 1/3rd of the office lights were still on at 6pm! That was expected. I had a colleague at Florida that prided themselves in not tenuring good faculty. One of them was criticized for going to church on Sundays "you gotta get over that God thingy in your life". UF typically paid above market wages, no pay raise for five years, then you got denied tenure. I could say more, but won't. We interviewed someone mulling over a UF offer, knowing they wouldn't be tenured. They asked if we'd be interested in five years, my chair said no, we were not anyone's fallback plan.
Katie could have become a district manager, significant pay raise and a company SUV. she never wanted that life, she never pursued it. After having children she wanted to work p/t; she works 30 hours a week (which is technically f/t).
I got pregnant when I was working, as a family therapist. As I got closer & closer to my due date, I realized if I kept working, I would resent working, resent someone else spending so much time w/ my child, etc., etc., & I did not want to have resentment in my head.
Later, when the last of my 3 was in kindergarten, I opened a business, which took me into daycare & preschool centers. Some of them were pretty horrid, imo, some of them were, at the time, considered 'the best'. The best would send home notes to the parents of what the child did "He said his first word" "He took his first step" ---- uh, I was pretty glad I was the parent who experienced that & passed that info along to the other parent. Side note, I opened that business, believing it would be part-time. I guess I put forth all I can, 'cause it certainly wasn't part-time. 5 yrs later, I closed the full-time business, & w/in 2 weeks, my youngest was grounded - I had not been seeing stuff I should have been seeing... just say'n.
I realized at the time there were parents who had no choice. However, there were, & are now, parents who DO have choices, & choose to have both parents work.
Exactly. The more people understand that, the more they can think seriously about what they value most and what they will have to surrender in exchange.
In some situations, you can change your mind or your trajectory, but in other cases, you can't. Sometimes you make a decision that you thought was the right one, and you're stuck with it, no matter how you feel about it later.
Uh....no. Her and Cady Stanton did the Seneca Falls thing which I forget the fine points of, but it was all about women's rights. Lucretia was on to women's rights 150 years ago.
I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I guessed "cream" the last time, and that was wrong.
I had broccoli and cheddar quiche, which was hot and tasty. My husband and Vlad both had club sandwiches and fries. They ate it all: Vlad ate his dad's last 5 fries, so they must have been good. Also, it was 3:00 p.m., and we were really hungry.
A bisque uses a shellfish broth, with the origins of the term bisque being vague and sometimes disputed. After the shellfish broth, you can do pretty much anything, but creamy silken broths with cream or dairy predominate.
Can you recommend a source explaining how Maduro got to be a target? Targeting drug traffickers is one thing but why does the president see him that way?
WSJ just posted this quick 'splainer. I'm sure we'll have better analysis shortly:
U.S. Drug Deaths, Including Those Linked to Cocaine, Are Falling
By Jon Kamp
The strikes in Venezuela come at a time when drug-related deaths in the U.S. are falling sharply, down from a spike that occurred during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decline began under the Biden administration and continued after President Trump took office, federal data show. The latest federal data estimate 76,516 drug deaths in the 12 months running through April last year, down nearly 25% from the prior 12-month period. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl remain the major killer.
There were an estimated 20,667 cocaine-related deaths in that 12-month period, down 27% on the previous 12 months, though still up from prepandemic levels. These deaths are frequently caused by fentanyl because the two drugs were mixed together, often intentionally by U.S.-based traffickers looking to make cocaine more addictive, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
When it comes to sources, Mexico-based cartels are the major driver behind U.S. deaths—they make bootleg fentanyl and traffic it through the U.S. border. Cartels in Mexico are also a major conduit for smuggling cocaine obtained from South America, according to the DEA.
Colombia, meanwhile, is the number-one cocaine source, linked to about 84% of seized domestic cocaine samples analyzed by the DEA in 2024, the agency said in a report. Peru and Bolivia are the next major sources, the report said.
A little less alone - yes, the WSJ scrambling to find some narrative that makes sense, but doesn't really make sense of the action in Venezuela.
An early take - it's a stupid action. They haven't watched the Netflix Narco's series closely enough. The trade goes on with new faces. There is the "Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine" thing. Let's see how that works out here. In the meantime we've opened the door on invading sovereign countries to kidnap their leaders. Little gained, and a high cost.
I believe the whole Venezuela / drug trafficking thing is nothing but the thinnest of cover for Trump's and his administration's designs on Venezuela's oil and other resources, along with being another exercise in retribution against someone (Maduro) he doesn't like because that someone doesn't like or support him, with a generous helping of "Look at what a tough and fearless leader I am" thrown in.
This foolish, incompetent miscreant, AKA our Commander in chief, would, among other things he fancies, very much like to fancy himself a *wartime* president regardless of anything and everything he says about wanting peace anywhere in the world. And I'm convinced by this and his other military actions that he'll take any and every opportunity to stroke that facet of his ego when he thinks he can get away with it.
Venezuela IRL figures little in America's drug problem. And can we just be honest for a moment here... America's *real* drug problem isn't the cartels in Mexico or Columbia or any other foreign actors sending cocaine or heroin or fentanyl or any of those poisons here. America's real drug problem is that too dam**d many Americans want to poison themselves with that crap in the first place, and there are more than enough Americans willing to work with the suppliers to keep the addicts and new customers craving more. And more, and more.
Yeah, Venezuelans both in and outside of its government are involved in trafficking drugs, but intel over time has shown it's mostly to Europe and other places. The usual - and long known - suspects in the WSJ piece are the main sources for cocaine and fentanyl here, with China being the dirty little "secret in broad daylight" on the fentanyl front that no one in this administration really wants to seriously address. Or past administrations, for that matter.
Maduro himself is no doubt deeply involved in drug trafficking from all credible reports. But if Trump were actually and genuinely concerned about *drugs* and drug traffickers... well, I've got three words for ya': Juan Orlando Hernandez, the ex-Honduran president who was tried, convicted and was serving a 45-year sentence in a U.S. prison for multiple counts of that very offense. And whom Donald Trump *pardoned* and had released from USP Hazleton in West Virgina just a month ago for no reason other than, shall I say, Hernandez was a fan and has long sung Trump's praises.
Wait. Wait... I guess that's not really fair. Prison overcrowding's an ongoing and seemingly intractable issue, and Trump most likely was just freeing up space for Maduro, not wanting to get in any court fights about jail space. He only has so many lawyers to go around, you know.
Yes, right now it's a bunch of individual articles trying to keep up with what's happening. It does state that Maduro and his wife have been indicted in NY.
Trump Rolls the Dice on Nation-Building With Vow to ‘Run’ Venezuela:
https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/trump-rolls-the-dice-on-nation-building-with-vow-to-run-venezuela-805a9e35?st=9dT1CP&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Is this enough to impeach him?
It certainly undermines America's position on Ukraine. Trump wants to be like Putin; now after taking over another country he's a step closer.
Is it enough to impeach? Of course.
Is it enough for the Senate to convict? Not today.
That's exactly what I was thinking. This is nuts. We're taking over freepin Venezuela? I mean, it has cool wildlife, but so does the U.S. already.
It's funny going different places to read the reactions. Even the places I think of as sometimes with good articles. The commenters at The Free Press are for the most part aggressively supportive that Trump knows what he's doing and has had the most successful foreign policy successes since, well since anyone. As far as I can tell, he's had points of success blowing things up, but where has he put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
Trump has captured Maduro, the headlines say?
Maduro represents the lowest form of humanity -- but are we at war with Venezuela???
We haven't been legally at war since World War II.
Depends on whether Trump is looking to win a "war prize" now.
War is peace if Trump says it is.
Let's see . . . which of the three continents are we supposed to be?
Trump taking down maduro feels like Alabama scheduling the Sisters of the Poor in football, or some other cupcake game. Maybe the Highland Cream Teacher's college?
The United States military taking down Maduro, you mean. Trump probably couldn't take down Lucretia Mott.
tbf, she's already 6' under, it's hard to take down someone that far into the ground already!
Infected with the entangled spirits of food and, um, perplexing cross-border motives, I have cleaned out my silverware drawer. Even decluttered it a little.
feels good, huh!
Yes.
Good for you.
I embiggened the glass image. The colors dancing off it onto the background are enticing. It must be quite spectacular live and in 3D!
Perused the menu at Fenwicks. It all looked and sounded good. And the prices were about the same as you'll find around here for such an establishment... too high!
But what are ya' gonna' do? Other than settle for a granola bar...
Question, though... a Basket Of Fries, "cut in-house", is $10.
*Ten bucks*... cripes! Do they come in a bushel basket, or what?!
Do they have a brain surgeon doing the cutting?
Prices like that just fry my 'taters!
I always liked fries that have bits of the potato peel on them. Don't know if they have to be made in-house or can be purchased that way from the usual purveyors.
Based on the amount of fries they included with the club sandwiches, the "basket of fries" is probably really big.
That looked like a pretty good place to eat. It really did make me hungry browsing through that menu. My wife and I used to really enjoy "going out" to eat but seldom do these days. Many of our once favorite places have raised their prices to ridiculous levels while simultaneously steeply lowering the quality of their fare or have gone out of business altogether.
I don't object to the high prices nearly as much as I do the low quality. We're lucky enough that when it comes to dining out, we can pretty much afford to eat whatever we want whenever we want. But being able to stomach such high prices for mediocre-or-less quality food (and too often the same in service) isn't on our menu.
When going out I try to order things I don't fix at home. ie: I won't pay big $ for a steak or salmon when we can do that at home for less.
There was one restaurant not far from us we really liked for "fine dining" which we frequented years ago, and where I'd sometimes pay "big $" for a steak. They had a limited "table side" menu that was pretty "pricey" and consisted of a couple of steak dishes and a Ceasar salad, any of which had to be prepared for a minimum of two diners.
After we'd been going there for a while, my curiosity got the better of me one night. So, we ordered the Peppered Steak.
If anyone had told me before then that you could prepare a steak dinner *that good* with basically a saucepan and a Bunsen burner on a wobbly cart, I'd have told them they were crazy.
Ditto the Steak Diane, we came to learn eventually.
younger days, a rich sauce was very appealing - these days, not so much... however, the Steak Diane could be a possibility in those younger days, even tho an easy enough 'recipe', something worth having someone else prepare.
There's a certain intrinsic value in having a fine meal served to you in an ambience that's pleasing and then walking out the door to go home without having to lift a finger to clean up the dishes or the kitchen. 😊
The food was good. It was expensive, though! With only two tables occupied, the service was fine ;-).
I have a hard time spending money to eat out when I know we have food at home, but it was my husband's decision.
We do still go a few places semi-frequently to get take-out like pizza and Chinese. Usually for supper, but occasionally lunch. Gives my wife a break from the kitchen since, God bless her, she does all the cooking.
There's a restaurant in the town about a half-hour south of us that's known for its seafood, and they have a really good fish dinner you can get for take-out. Fried but not greasy at all, with a really good crust and coleslaw that reminds me of my father's when I was a kid.
The place has been there forever and is always very crowded at the dinner hour. Always. Otherwise, we'd consider going there to dine in but haven't done so in years because it gets pretty cramped and so noisy when the dinner hour crowds show up.
But the great thing is that their food is so popular for takeout that they've long had a little separate "take-out" building on the back of the place next to the parking lot that has a pickup window and its own menu. And you can call ahead or just drive up and place your order and soon be on your way due to some consistently pretty good service. So, we opt for that when we're in the mood for fish, since that's something my wife doesn't much care to cook at home.
your comment about the separate take-out bldg is like the original Salt Lick BBQ in TX.
https://www.saltlickbbq.com/driftwood
So popular to eat inside - You can order Family Style = all you can eat. Anyway, the line is looooonnng! But the separate take-out, not all-you-can-eat, you can order, then they have lots of picnic tables, nice scenery. It's quite a drive from us, & there are other locations, w/out the take-out bldg. However, Salt Lick has a good rep, but there are other places closer w/ good brisket which we'll get to-go.
I like going out for good Asian, Thai, Chinese, Sushi...
Wow. A dining spot that lets you BYOB! Unheard of in these parts.
Looks good. I could probably go for some of that.
I like "family style" ordering and serving, though so few places do it. None around here that I'm aware of these days, though a couple of chain places offer some "all you can eat" features on their menus.
A lifetime ago when I was a young kid, my folks took me with them to visit my mother's sister and her husband down in Jacksonville, Fl. I remember them taking us out to eat to a place called The Chicken Shack on a narrow 2-lane road in a fairly rural area somewhere out of the city. And it wasn't a lot more than just that - a "shack".
I couldn't tell you how many people it would actually seat... maybe a dozen and a half, two dozen or a couple of more tops. It was old and a bit rough, even slightly dilapidated looking as I recall.
And it had a menu that was about as simple as they come, since they only served all-you-could-eat fried chicken, family style on a platter to be passed around your table along with the usual "fixin's" of mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and / or mac and cheese, all in bowls for the same purpose. You could, however, have whatever you wanted in the way of bread. As long as it was cornbread or a dinner roll. Ditto for a beverages: iced tea, coffee, a Coke in an icy bottle with a straw or, for discerning palates, ice water, straw optional.
As to how good the food was... the size of the parking lot was inversely proportional to the size of The Chicken Shack. And it was packed. And a line of people snaked out the front door of the place into the lot, waiting to get in and get seated at a table, a couple of which were large enough that they might still have other people still sitting and eating their meals as you took up the empty chairs.
When they said family style, they meant it. And I remember my aunt telling my mom and dad that however long it took to get in, it would be worth it. And that she and my uncle could attest from their own personal experience that people regularly lined up in the rain under umbrellas to do so.
I don't think anybody makes places quite like that anymore.
We don't fry at home, so if we're going to have fried food, we're either eating out or heating frozen fried-something in the oven.
the only frying I do is oven fry, on parchment paper, using olive oil spritzer & Panko crumbs. Works great w/ fish, chicken strips, sliced veggies like zucchini...
About all the frying my wife does is pan fry burgers or steak or pork chops on the stove top. But she can fix some pretty mean chicken strips in the oven.
And we've tried a number of things from the frozen fired-something aisle in the supermarket over the years. Some pretty good. Some, not so much.
The taters are called “Yukon GOLD” for a reason! *sniff!* 😤
I tend not to follow most links in comments, but I had to check out Mint Museum only because my first thought was "A museum for all the varieties of mint? Regular, chocolate, spearmint, peppermint, does catmint count?"
For those of you wondering what will be the topic of Eeyore's (Nick Cattogio) Monday evening column against Trump, he just sent troops into Venezuela, and captured Maduro and his wife. They've been arrested.
My guess for his headline "What this necessary"? or "Does Trump think waging war will win him a Nobel peace prize"?
KDW will find fault with it Monday morning as well. Oh well, you can't please everyone.
On X, plenty of video clips of people celebrating Maduro is gone...Or perhaps they're still celebrating Ol' Miss' victory over Georgia? My Spanish isn't so good.
On the Spanish Volunteers WhatsApp group, there are a couple of comments to the effect that this could be a good thing for the people of Venezuela, and that we should all pray.
Prayer is always good. What is not good is the justification for this action in the first place.
When we invaded Panama in 1989 we had a treaty right to do so relative to the Panaman Canal, and the justification that manual Noriega was a narco trafficker. That is not the case with Venezuela and Maduro. I have no idea what that NY indictment is about, and no clue what the legal right the US has to snatch Maduro. It's not up to the US to clean up Venezuelan governance,
Yeah, pretty much.
What really bothers me in the morning news stories is that Bondi posted something about "the full wrath of American justice."
No, dear, that's not how it works. American justice is supposed to be about the justice, leaving out the monarchical wrath. OK?
Not OK. Not in this just-make-it-up-as-you-go administration at least. I wouldn't characterize justice as *working* under its management. It's languishing and will continue to atrophy as long as this crew with no respect for the actual, legitimate rule of law have their dirty hands on the levers of power at the DOJ and elsewhere.
I don't disagree, but I saw her comments as a lite-version of "battle hymn of the republic". I think she would have done better to use the original lyrics.
Like she would even know them.
tbf, once as a prank I read the 4th verse of the Battle Hymn of the Republic as a call to worship among Friends (who are pacifists). None recognized it.
"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make us holy, let us die to make men free,
while God is marching on".
I did make sure not to say it in a sing song manner that would give away the tune.
It is a powerful hymn. I learned it when I was deep in my Civil War fascination.
That also was about the time this was popular on the playground: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school..."
At scout camp we sang a different song to the same tune.
I wear my silk pajamas in the summer when it's hot
I wear my flannel nighties in the winter when it's not
But sometimes in the springtime
And sometimes in the fall
I jump between the covers with
nothing on at all.
Glory glory halleluiah
Glory glory what's it to ya
Balmy breezes blowing through ya
with nothing on at all.
We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule ...
Oh, yeah, I remember some lines from that version.
I know the verse. Some alter the word "die" to "live," perhaps on the basis that then it applies to everyone, not just soldiers in the Civil War.
I wonder how many Americans would recognize that verse.
my expotition today has been to HEB. No new discoveries, no letdowns, found everything I needed, as I expected. Meals for the week...
pleasant 60, to get to 73, & it's a bright, bright, bright sun shiny day
Do they still sell Texas wines at HEB?
For our daughter's wedding reception, with 175 people, we bought all the wine from HEB. They helped us with tastings before buying, delivered all the wine to the venue, and it was clearly less expensive than the caterer or liquor store options.
They do have Texas wines. I like the Texas Pride thing, but really I've not found a TX wine that was worth buying, except for the novelty / pride thing. There are better places for growing grapes.
I'm not a really discriminating wine consumer. I mean, I know when something is good - I have very fond memories of a Pouilly-Fume that tasted like waterfalls - but I'll drink schlock if it's cheap.
I think they probably do, but I always buy the same thing. You get a 10% discount if you buy 6 of anything, & I wait till I'm on my last box of Bota Box Nighthawk bourbon barrel aged Cabernet, & get 6. Sometimes when we need to restock for gift bottles I'll look down the aisles, but people often bring us gift bottles of 'whatever' which we re-gift (we put the name on it so we don't re-gift back to the gifter). Hubs drinks Makers Mark, which is interesting from the discussion from the other day. Sometimes Bullet Rye. His bday is in March so I'm going to try to find some Yellowstone Boubon??? Is that what all of you boubon drinkers recommend, or something else? What rye???? I know absolutely nothing about the difference between boubon/rye except he says rye is smoother & he likes both, it just depends on what he's in the mood for...
eta: we have several local wineries around where we can go for lunch/dinner. They also have places on the square near us where bottles are sold, or you can buy by the glass then take the glass outside & walk around shopping, etc. Not sure if all the shops allow it inside. There are places w/ music, one I expecially like that has guitar jamming...
WSJ: These 20 Objects Defined Culture This Year. How Many Can You Name?
https://www.wsj.com/style/2025-year-in-culture-objects-quiz-6e51464e?st=GkjDm2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
If "JOMO" (Joy of Missing Out) is among them, then I can name one, but will not look for any others. ;)
It's not. It's about articles of consumption rather than concepts.
Thanks. I suspected that might be the case, but I am still resistant to clicking every link with which I am presented, especially if it's a "quiz" that's supposed to tempt me. (Besides that, I have little interest in end-of-year roundups of this and that.) So at least JOMO comes in there.
I'm a sucker for quizzes.
You're welcome to my share of quizzes.
My score denotes me as being as uncultured as a quart of Yoplait Go-Gurt.
14
I'm surprised with an 11/20. I skipped questions that would have been randomly guessing.
I had some Dubai Chocolate - against my will. Nothing special from a country I want nothing from.
9/20. "You might have absorbed some of this year's hot news by osmosis." Also, a few correct guesses.
I can't comment 'cause I saw that previously, so I can now say 💯, but my memory fails me, I don't recall what I knew the first time 'round.
It's a minor expotition, but I took Katie to the movies on NYD. She had wanted to see the "David" movie.
For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, "David" is about the Biblical David of Bethelehem, who became king upon the death of King Saul. For those of you worried about a children's movie showing David and Bathsheeba (or the apochyrphal threesome which included her sister Showersheba), the movie doesn't show any of the major David "sin events".
The best way to describe the movie is "remember when Disney made feel-good hero musicals 30+ years ago? This has an old Disney feel to it, although more with Pixar type animation. Yes, it is a musical, they sing songs, the hero is in some ways an outsider/misfit, the ending has a lion king feel to it. Target audience is probably tweens.
Unlike Disney, the "God is with us" message is direct and repeated often in this movie. It is a religious movie. There's no altar call at the end (although they do ask for donations for additional screenings).
Also unlike Disney, with the exception of King Aschish (and to a lesser degree the Amalekites), many of the bad guys are shown with some nuance. King Saul is shown as tormented, and you see it driving his decisions. Goliath doesn't want to slaughter David because he's just a child. One gets the assumption he was trained to be a killer.
I asked Katie what she thought, she really enjoyed it. I did too, holding hands with my girl during the movie. Was it great cinema? No. Was it good storytelling? Yes. Was it Veggie Tales? NO! Was it worth going? Yes.
I just re-read 1 and 2 Samuel over the last couple of months. I feel very negatively about King David. It's common for him to be referenced as a "type" (in the technical sense) of Jesus Christ. That makes me wonder if the people saying that ever read the history books.
The real type of Christ, in my opinion, is Jonathan. The reign of Christ is a self-sacrificing reign, a reign of, "See every single ruler ever? Don't be like that!" It's not the reign of a commonplace ancient warlord, no matter how much people from Jesus's lifetime to this day want it to be.
Is Joab the son of Zeruiah - one of the great sociopaths of world literature - in the movie?
Yet God never abandoned David, despite his many, many flaws. David sinned, he repented, he sinned, he repented; rinse, lather, and repeat.
Reading 2nd Samuel is difficult for me because of Absalom. I've never murdered anyone (nor arranged their murder) nor raped anyone. But I see his life as a cautionary tale for my own, should I be too prideful and selfish.
David's one big thing, compared to all the subsequent kings, was that he never worshipped other gods.
Not as any major character. There were several soldiers loyal to him in the movie, but I don't recall Joab being one of them. His name wasn't in the credits, but I might have missed it.
Jonathan and David are good friends in the movie, and Johnathan is portrayed as a very honorable man. In the movie he knows David has been anointed to be the next king, and he still loves and supports him. Both David and Jonathan remain loyal to Saul to the end.
In Geraldine Brooks’ novel The Secret Chord (2015), the relationship between David and Jonathan (Yonatan) is portrayed as an explicitly romantic and sexual relationship.
(From Gemini)
"While the biblical account in the Books of Samuel describes a deep bond where Jonathan loves David "as his own soul" and David laments that Jonathan’s love was "passing the love of women," Brooks takes this further by depicting them as lovers."
Geraldine... was that really necessary?
I started that book, didn't get too far. I read another of her books, about tracing a manuscript. It was ok, different.
If they were Greek, you'd expect it.
Men in that culture didn't usually have important relationships with women. Women were useful. For regular people, economically essential as well as necessary for having children. For elites, politically useful on top of that. And of course, for men to do their business, because they weren't Greeks.
Sadly, check out Jesus in wikipedia... I am familiar with Geraldine Brooks work; she reminds me of an old professional wrestling adage "controversy=cash" (meaning controversy need not be good, but it does sell well).
Geraldine - you wanna impress me? Write something similar about Mohammed.
I observed there's limited effort to "queer" the prophet Mohammed, for some reason; just Jesus.
My expotition yesterday was driving south to Freeport, IL to go to the movie theater to see “Song Sung Blue.” I had no idea it was a movie based on the true story about a Milwaukee couple. Jim Belushi’s character was 💯 Sconnie. It was pure delight, highly recommend.
I've been a big Neil Diamond fan since 1968, have dozens of his 45s, almost as many LPs and CDs.
I've seen him in concert just once, in the late 80s, in a big indoor stadium venue in Buffalo. When we climbed up to where our tickets were supposed to be, there were no seats there! An usher told us our seats had been eliminated by the fire marshal! He ushered us to new seats -- in the front row, only a couple feet in front of the round revolving stage, which was about eye level!
Just before the show started, somebody came by and gave us "front row" grandees a lecture on how to behave. "Please keep your seats during the show. Mr. Diamond feels threatened when people are standing so close. If you're standing, he'll simply move to the other side of the stage for the rest of the show."
It was a great show.
We haven't seen the movie yet but we will, even though my wife doesn't care much for Neil's music.
and now I have Neil Diamond's song in my head...
I remember rushing out and buying this particular record even before I'd heard it on the radio.
uh oh, now I have another song in my head -
Reba McEntire - Turn On The Radio
I saw him in concert once. He did great shows. But you have to like his music (which I did). the crowd loved the concert. I went with a friend who loved Neil Diamond, she was esctatic at the concert, and will probably go see the movie.
I saw also saw him in concert - great performance! And, yes, I like his music.
I just don't go to movie theaters... it'll probably hit something, sometime, I can watch at home. I'm in no hurry.
I'm glad you liked it! Is Freeport, IL, a long way?
I remember Freeport as being a sort of suburb of Rockford, where I went to college. Rockford is a short way across the border from Wisconsin.
One image always popped into my head whenever I’d drive past those interstate exits:
https://cdn-a.prisma.de/cdn/img/mp/4666/46650647_476e050ace8beaddabeb38f96b6d1725_1280re0.jpg
Just can't help yourself, can you? Anything to garner a little attention...
BTW... I can't remember... did it take an act of Congress to get The Rockford Files released?
haha, I did NOT expect that
Freeport is closer than Madison. It takes about 30 minutes vs 45. There’s no reason to go there other than the movie theater. It’s super nice with those comfy loungers. We have a movie theater but it’s horrendous. The owner refuses to update.
I didn't know Jim Belushi was still alive.
It was brother John that died. Jim is his younger and not near as funny brother.
Maybe not being funny is a blessing, longevity-wise.
Oh he’s funny, just not as funny as John was. Others may disagree.
Good morning. 19 degrees here and staying in the 20s.
The mothership has an article critiquing Betty Friedan’s book “The Feminine Mystique” which claimed that motherhood and an intellectual life were incompatible, entitled “Wbhat Betty Friedan Got Wrong About Motherhood”.
I bet a certain mother and TSAF author has an opinion on this.. 🙂
started some mommy wars back when I was a mom --- the stay at homes vs the working ones
I actually had people say they'd be so bored staying at home. I finally said to one couple, who we spent a lot of time w/, & when we did, all they talked about was their work, nothing outside of work - the last time one of them said that to me, I responded w/ "Only boring people get bored"
"Only boring people get bored."
I say that, too, often followed by, "Work on developing some internal resources. Otherwise, it will be incredibly easy for other people to control you."
yep - if people thought it was ok to say that to my face, time & time again, I finally decided it wouldn't be rude to say that to them.
I know that book is responsible for my brother in law’s mom abandoning him and his siblings to go become an author herself. She died penniless and quite lonely. He ultimately reconciled with her but was very much affected by her abandonment.
"The Feminine Mystique" was published in 1963. I have not read it, so I can't comment on anything specific.
On the general subject, though, I would say that, in 1963, being a mother imposed significant obstacles on a woman's achievements in many areas of life. Women could be required to have a pregnancy test as a condition of employment. They could be fired if they were pregnant. They could be pressured into abortion even when it was illegal in many states, and certainly after Roe v. Wade imposed a regime of literally no exceptions.
This did not keep a woman, even a poor woman, from having an intellectual life: there were libraries and correspondence schools. The biography of Sid Caesar I just read mentioned that his writing group took a "Great Books" correspondence course together.
On the other hand, credentialling and professional intellectual life were certainly much more difficult for women, mothers or not, than for men.
I could go on, but I wouldn't be telling the CSLF readership anything they don't know. In today's environment, where the structural obstacles of the 1960s are largely gone, the main impediment to anyone's intellectual life is simply a failure to prioritize it. Every choice you make in the use of your time and resources means there are a lot of other choices you didn't make, and then you get to the end of your life and say, "Huh, how did that happen?"
Sorry if I provoked you. 🙂
Your comments are certainly true. I more had in mind, not so muchFriedan;s book itself, but the mothership article, which portrayed Friedan as depressed at being a stay-at-home mom.. I forgot you probably are not a subscriber.
But I think this is not locked: https://thedispatch.com/article/motherhood-intellect-friedan-gender-children/
I agree that life is about tradeoffs, one cannot have it all. I think women have it much better today in terms of professional opportunities, but at what price?
For academics, do you try to become a giant in the field (making lots of money and holding prestigious titles) or do you shoot for a life balance?
I was a visiting professor for two years, the second at Purdue. Purdue has an outstanding B-School, but it is also highly demanding. As a note, the way several schools at that level warn faculty they are in danger of not being tenured is to nominate them for a teaching award. My record would not have been good enough there. I went up with 6 articles in the Financial Times top 50 journals, but only 2 of those were from the top 10; I needed at least 2 more in the top 10. My record was (barely) good enough at Kentucky, another top 10 would have sealed it.
But at Purdue, driving home Christmas eve with the family, we drove past the Krannert building; fully a 1/3rd of the office lights were still on at 6pm! That was expected. I had a colleague at Florida that prided themselves in not tenuring good faculty. One of them was criticized for going to church on Sundays "you gotta get over that God thingy in your life". UF typically paid above market wages, no pay raise for five years, then you got denied tenure. I could say more, but won't. We interviewed someone mulling over a UF offer, knowing they wouldn't be tenured. They asked if we'd be interested in five years, my chair said no, we were not anyone's fallback plan.
Katie could have become a district manager, significant pay raise and a company SUV. she never wanted that life, she never pursued it. After having children she wanted to work p/t; she works 30 hours a week (which is technically f/t).
It's all about the tradeoffs.
I got pregnant when I was working, as a family therapist. As I got closer & closer to my due date, I realized if I kept working, I would resent working, resent someone else spending so much time w/ my child, etc., etc., & I did not want to have resentment in my head.
Later, when the last of my 3 was in kindergarten, I opened a business, which took me into daycare & preschool centers. Some of them were pretty horrid, imo, some of them were, at the time, considered 'the best'. The best would send home notes to the parents of what the child did "He said his first word" "He took his first step" ---- uh, I was pretty glad I was the parent who experienced that & passed that info along to the other parent. Side note, I opened that business, believing it would be part-time. I guess I put forth all I can, 'cause it certainly wasn't part-time. 5 yrs later, I closed the full-time business, & w/in 2 weeks, my youngest was grounded - I had not been seeing stuff I should have been seeing... just say'n.
I realized at the time there were parents who had no choice. However, there were, & are now, parents who DO have choices, & choose to have both parents work.
"It's all about the tradeoffs."
Exactly. The more people understand that, the more they can think seriously about what they value most and what they will have to surrender in exchange.
In some situations, you can change your mind or your trajectory, but in other cases, you can't. Sometimes you make a decision that you thought was the right one, and you're stuck with it, no matter how you feel about it later.
It's Lucretia Mott's birthday anniversary today.
Of Mott's Applesauce? I don't think it's any better than generic.
Uh....no. Her and Cady Stanton did the Seneca Falls thing which I forget the fine points of, but it was all about women's rights. Lucretia was on to women's rights 150 years ago.
Applesauce...I don't have an opinion.
I was joking. I knew she was a suffragist and abolitionist.
I hope so.
I'd have been all in on the Chicken & Sausage gumbo with the biscuit...er, muffin. Although, tomato bisque sounds lovely.
Quiz...to see if anyone remembers... What is the single defining characteristic of a bisque soup?
I was gonna say that it was created in the eastern region of Espana, but that's Basque soup!
Bask in the warm glow of that little gem while it lasts. I'm pretty sure Phil is lurking around here somewhere...
Cream, which I must avoid due to that high LDL.
Nope. Shellfish broth. Cream or dairy is popular because it gives that creamy silken rich texture, but a bisque doesn't necessarily need cream.
I was going to guess it was an incomplete biscuit. ☹️
I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I guessed "cream" the last time, and that was wrong.
I had broccoli and cheddar quiche, which was hot and tasty. My husband and Vlad both had club sandwiches and fries. They ate it all: Vlad ate his dad's last 5 fries, so they must have been good. Also, it was 3:00 p.m., and we were really hungry.
Shoot! Now *I'm* really hungry.
I have been making quiche with spinach and Swiss or Jarlsburg. Broccoli and cheddar sounds really good for a change.
I also had a cinnamon-raisin muffin. For some reason, Vlad thought this was a strange muffin, instead of the most basic thing ever.
Blueberry and pumpkin spice muffins do take up a disproportionate amount of advertising space.
He likes lemon poppyseed and chocolate chip muffins.
lemon poppyseed might be my favorite
The lemon poppyseed does sound good.
A bisque uses a shellfish broth, with the origins of the term bisque being vague and sometimes disputed. After the shellfish broth, you can do pretty much anything, but creamy silken broths with cream or dairy predominate.
I had never thought about the meaning of bisque, just thought it was a fancy word for fancy soup. Thanks.
Y'all are making me hungry.
You’re mistaking it for consommé, I think.
Good of you to, um, clarify that for her.
Did you use egg whites or powdered gelatin?
Wow, didn't see that one coming.
Ah. Thank you.
Tomato soup in a shellfish broth?
I've made a superb tomato bisque. It's not "tomato soup' in a shellfish broth. It's tomato bisque...oyster crackers optional.
I don't think oyster crackers contain any oysters.
Nor is angel hair pasta made from freshly ground angels! 😡
with a grilled cheese sandwich
U.S. Captures Venezuela’s Maduro After ‘Large-Scale Strike’: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/venezuela-strikes
Not sure if that link is share-able or not. Let me know.
he's a visitor of the state, ya know
Can you recommend a source explaining how Maduro got to be a target? Targeting drug traffickers is one thing but why does the president see him that way?
WSJ just posted this quick 'splainer. I'm sure we'll have better analysis shortly:
U.S. Drug Deaths, Including Those Linked to Cocaine, Are Falling
By Jon Kamp
The strikes in Venezuela come at a time when drug-related deaths in the U.S. are falling sharply, down from a spike that occurred during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decline began under the Biden administration and continued after President Trump took office, federal data show. The latest federal data estimate 76,516 drug deaths in the 12 months running through April last year, down nearly 25% from the prior 12-month period. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl remain the major killer.
There were an estimated 20,667 cocaine-related deaths in that 12-month period, down 27% on the previous 12 months, though still up from prepandemic levels. These deaths are frequently caused by fentanyl because the two drugs were mixed together, often intentionally by U.S.-based traffickers looking to make cocaine more addictive, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
When it comes to sources, Mexico-based cartels are the major driver behind U.S. deaths—they make bootleg fentanyl and traffic it through the U.S. border. Cartels in Mexico are also a major conduit for smuggling cocaine obtained from South America, according to the DEA.
Colombia, meanwhile, is the number-one cocaine source, linked to about 84% of seized domestic cocaine samples analyzed by the DEA in 2024, the agency said in a report. Peru and Bolivia are the next major sources, the report said.
Thanks. A WSJ explainer for an action in Venezuela that doesn't mention Venezuela makes me feel a little less ignorant. Or less alone.
A little less alone - yes, the WSJ scrambling to find some narrative that makes sense, but doesn't really make sense of the action in Venezuela.
An early take - it's a stupid action. They haven't watched the Netflix Narco's series closely enough. The trade goes on with new faces. There is the "Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine" thing. Let's see how that works out here. In the meantime we've opened the door on invading sovereign countries to kidnap their leaders. Little gained, and a high cost.
I believe the whole Venezuela / drug trafficking thing is nothing but the thinnest of cover for Trump's and his administration's designs on Venezuela's oil and other resources, along with being another exercise in retribution against someone (Maduro) he doesn't like because that someone doesn't like or support him, with a generous helping of "Look at what a tough and fearless leader I am" thrown in.
This foolish, incompetent miscreant, AKA our Commander in chief, would, among other things he fancies, very much like to fancy himself a *wartime* president regardless of anything and everything he says about wanting peace anywhere in the world. And I'm convinced by this and his other military actions that he'll take any and every opportunity to stroke that facet of his ego when he thinks he can get away with it.
Venezuela IRL figures little in America's drug problem. And can we just be honest for a moment here... America's *real* drug problem isn't the cartels in Mexico or Columbia or any other foreign actors sending cocaine or heroin or fentanyl or any of those poisons here. America's real drug problem is that too dam**d many Americans want to poison themselves with that crap in the first place, and there are more than enough Americans willing to work with the suppliers to keep the addicts and new customers craving more. And more, and more.
Yeah, Venezuelans both in and outside of its government are involved in trafficking drugs, but intel over time has shown it's mostly to Europe and other places. The usual - and long known - suspects in the WSJ piece are the main sources for cocaine and fentanyl here, with China being the dirty little "secret in broad daylight" on the fentanyl front that no one in this administration really wants to seriously address. Or past administrations, for that matter.
Maduro himself is no doubt deeply involved in drug trafficking from all credible reports. But if Trump were actually and genuinely concerned about *drugs* and drug traffickers... well, I've got three words for ya': Juan Orlando Hernandez, the ex-Honduran president who was tried, convicted and was serving a 45-year sentence in a U.S. prison for multiple counts of that very offense. And whom Donald Trump *pardoned* and had released from USP Hazleton in West Virgina just a month ago for no reason other than, shall I say, Hernandez was a fan and has long sung Trump's praises.
Wait. Wait... I guess that's not really fair. Prison overcrowding's an ongoing and seemingly intractable issue, and Trump most likely was just freeing up space for Maduro, not wanting to get in any court fights about jail space. He only has so many lawyers to go around, you know.
Silly me.
One gets the impression that everyone is completely flummoxed.
I saw some headlines. I don't know what to think, so I'll just wait.
Since Big Daddy Xi publicly stated his support for Maduro, it might be interesting to see where that goes.
Without a subscription, you only get a. Few paragraphs. But it states that Trump will address the nation at 11AM.
As far as the supposed “capture” of Maduro, I’ll wait for the other shoe to drop.
It's still sketchy at the moment. I'll share a fuller "gifted" story when one becomes available.
Yes, right now it's a bunch of individual articles trying to keep up with what's happening. It does state that Maduro and his wife have been indicted in NY.
Right.
I just read that. I'm not sure what I think about it.
Same. We'll see...
https://youtu.be/B2L1-TgfKb4?si=uv7_xrKIdyhX7ABH
Exactly.
That's a great clip from a movie more people should have seen and talked about.
It ought to be required for political science classes. Just a reminder of unintended consequences.
That, and how government happens. Votes are just to give things a patina of legitimacy.
True. But better the votes of a legislative body than decisions based on the glandular caprice of an individual, don't you think?
Admittedly, I sometimes slip into the cynicism of Mencken: Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
Good morning, everyone. It's going to be cloudy and drizzly here in Boring today.
The sun peeked out yesterday and I got a glimpse of the almost full moon at sunset. We don’t see the giant orb much in these here parts in winter.
I'm hoping it will clear up here, so I can see the full moon.
Wonderful! But did you find the North Pole?
I wasn't looking for it.