The Treaty of Tripoli December 28, 2001February 20, 2017 Dean Cardno: You write . . . ‘I can report that not only will President Clinton not resign – Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.’ Hmmm…. So, just to make sure I understand this correctly, one has not inhaled, and the other has not exhaled.’ ☞ Exactly. * This is my last column of the first year of the third millennium, inasmuch as I probably will give myself Monday off, and inasmuch as we Americans all pretty much happily go by the Christian calendar. And that leads me into today’s topic, perhaps appropriate only once every thousand years or so: Religion. I’m for it, even though I don’t believe in it; but with a couple of reservations. The first is simply to echo a friend of mine who laments that God – in Whom he does believe – ‘has been hijacked by organized religion.’ This is not to knock all organized religion. But the more organized it gets, the less allowing of dissent and individual interpretation it seems to become, until . . . well, you get my drift. Religion has been used – never by you, but by some – as an excuse for power grabbing. ‘I have caused great calamities,’ proclaimed Queen Isabella of Spain about 500 years ago. ‘I have depopulated provinces and kingdoms. But I did it for the love of Christ and his Holy Mother.’ So it was OK. Religion – faith – has been used to brainwash folks into committing mass murder, thinking they were doing good. One need not look back 500 years or even 500 days for a heart-breaking example. The Bible was used to justify slavery (‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling’ – Ephesians 6:5) . . . to justify a lesser status for women (‘Women should be silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate’ – Corinthians 14:34) . . . and to justify gay bashing (‘Blessed are the meek; but if they appear effeminate, whack ’em’ – Apocrypha 0:0). This was all called to mind by an e-mail from Mike Koltak. ‘In case anyone starts to argue about our country getting back to ‘our Christian roots,” he wrote me, ‘remind them of the Treaty of Tripoli. Click here.’ Ah, the Treaty of Tripoli. How could I resist? I clicked. It’s a pretty long article from a 1997 issue of The Early American Review, but I urge you to click also if you find time this weekend – not because it is meant (or I mean) to diminish the importance of Christianity in American life. But because it tells you things you may not have known about the religiosity of our Founding Fathers. (Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the Senate and signed by John Adams in 1797, begins: ‘As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion . . . ‘) Take Thomas Jefferson. ‘Although Jefferson did admire the morality of Jesus, Jefferson did not think him divine.’ Or John Adams, a Unitarian, who ‘flatly denied the doctrine of eternal damnation.’ Or James Madison, who wrote: ‘During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.’ Ben Franklin would not have fared well as a guest on ‘the 700 Club,’ and Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, wrote: ‘I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church.’ In fact, the article suggests that fewer than 10% of the early Americans belonged to congregations. George Washington never once wrote the word ‘Jesus’ in the thousands of his letters that survive (according to this article) and none of our founding fathers was remotely an evangelist. What they did seem to agree on was that everyone should just learn to get along together, each worshipping – or not – in his or her own way. This is not the view of some Muslims. Here is a second thing you might click sometime this weekend. It’s from Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, and it reminds us how scary fundamentalism can be. My own view is that religion works best when it stops short of complete, unquestioning faith. You find it comforting, and you sort of believe – especially when there’s engine trouble at 37,000 feet or you’ve run off a deserted road into a snow drift and are pinned inside the car. But you don’t fully, really, absolutely, literally believe. Without meaning to trivialize any of this, the analogy I would use is school spirit. Say you went to West Point and now you’re in the stands at the Army/Navy game (or maybe you’re still at West Point, in uniform down on the field). Go Army! Pulverize those Navy bastards! Truly! Nothing is more important. You are Army through and through. You love the ritual and the traditions (the smells and bells, as the Episcopalians have it). You are awed by the sacrifice and heroism of those who’ve gone before you; immensely – and rightly – proud to be a part of this tradition. It calls out the best in you, helps you find your bearings when confronted with difficulty, adds meaning to your life. But of course you don’t really mean ‘pulverize those Navy bastards.’ Someplace way in the back of your brain you do realize that it’s a football game, and that Annapolis has some pretty fair graduates and traditions of its own. No few Navy men do you count among your close friends. Wouldn’t it be nice if Osama had been training children to feel roughly the same way about, say, Islam and Judaism? This Judaism thing is particularly troubling, because every time you turn around – historically speaking – the Jews are getting creamed. The Holocaust was cataclysmically the worst, but there are lots of other examples. And if the world does not keep its head screwed on straight, bad things could happen again. Which brings me to the last of the things I read this week that I wanted to share, an e-mail from Boston’s top-rated talk-show host, David Brudnoy: In case you missed it [David writes a few friends], the honorable Daniel Bernard, France’s ambassador to the Court of St. James’s – aka Britain – let fly at a posh dinner party in London the other day his anti-Israel venom. The New York Times (December 22, page A9), referred to it as a ‘vulgar term’ but I’ve read elsewhere that it was one of the most vulgar of terms. And he said, ‘Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of these people?’ The hostess is Lady Black, whose husband owns the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, and who writes a gossip column under her maiden name, Barbara Amiel, in which she reported the event from her own dinner party and said also that anti-Semitic remarks are now fashionable in London. ‘At a private lunch last month,’ she wrote, ‘the hostess – doyenne of London’s political salon scene – made a remark to the effect that she couldn’t stand Jews and everything happening to them was their own fault. When this was greeted with shocked silence, she chided her guests on what she assumed was their hypocrisy. `Oh, come on,’ she said, ‘you all feel like that.” Ambassador Bernard acknowledges the quotation but claims it was distorted and is miffed that it was written about in the Daily Telegraph. His spokesman said ‘He does not deny the remarks. . . What he said was at a private dinner among friends and was not supposed to be put in the press the next day. . . The Ambassador has no intention whatsoever of apologizing, simply because he sees no reason to do so.’ The French press has rushed to Monsieur l’ambassador Bernard’s defense. Point here – at least my point – is that if the US ambassador to Britain were accurately quoted as calling Israel a ‘shitty little country,’ Secretary of State Powell would have him home in about five minutes and President Bush would issue a formal apology to the Israeli government and would be having high level consultations with American Jewish leaders to see what other idiots are churning the waters of anti-Semitism among the notoriously anti-Israel and anti-Semitic State Department staffers. Worse has happened to other American political appointees who said stupid things – James Watt, for instance, in the Reagan era – for much less. The French find nothing wrong with this, in part because the whole mood in Europe, in the EU, and in the press across the continent, is increasingly anti-Israel and anti-Jew. And increasingly pro- Arafat and pro-PLO (or whatever they’re calling Arafat’s little dictatorship these days). The failure of Lady Black to regard a private remark at her own dinner party as off the record was, in the view of one friend to whom I told this yesterday, a serious breach of decorum. But I think that if I were a journalist – hey, I am! – and the Canadian ambassador to the US told me at a party that he thought Mexico was “a stinking little sewer of a country,” I’d report it on my program and would think I was doing the right thing to violate the confidentiality of a cocktail party in favor of the significant news. The French ambassador felt impunity to utter this remark in a gathering of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Britain, assuming that no one would bat an eye. Fortunately, Lady Black did. If more people, among them Colonel Charles Lindbergh, just to name one, had been less concerned with cordiality and not violating a private party’s attendees’ stupid remarks, and had reported to the American press, way back in the early 30s, what German high muckety mucks were saying about their vermin population – read: Jews, Slavs, gypsies, the handicapped, homosexuals – perhaps the world would have been more aware of the way things were going. If the American press today would stop paying so much admiring attention to the semi-cozy, friendly-sounding babbling from Arafat in English and would instead publish what he says in Arabic to his shrieking masses of kill-the-Jews Palestinians – if you want translations from the Arabic into English from the Arab press and leading politicians, go to memri.org, and also log onto the almost daily dispatches from Daniel Pipes, whose web site is the most important, I think, in keeping us up to date on these things; and onto Jeff Jacoby‘s columns and Don Feder‘s columns – we might find Americans a little less prone to the kind of inanity that pervades the letters to editor columns in our newspapers. Today H.D.S. Greenway’s Boston Globe column faults Pipes for pointing out that there is an Islamist Fifth Column in America. Greenway faults Pipes, not the Fifth Column. Maybe the three oh-so-progressive Episcopal bishops in the Diocese of Massachusetts would do well to pay some attention to what is actually going on, rather than to their appallingly naive and utterly predictable belief that somehow what is going on, vis a vis the Middle East, is all soluble if only Israel would roll over and play (or rather become) dead. I could be wrong – I am often wrong, maybe usually wrong about maybe most things – but I think on this I’m right: revealing the truth about serious, consequence-laden hate remarks from people in power trumps dinner-party decorum when one has heard something that ought to chill the bones of anyone with a sense of history, including a knowledge of how casually remarks that were de rigueur in Europe in the 20s and early 30s prefigured what came later. I say all the time on the air, and to my students: Believe what powerful people say when they preach hatred and murder. Don’t assume it’s just a pose. Don’t assume that ‘Mein Kampf’ and the ‘Palestine Liberation Front Charter’ and the mindless ramblings in ‘The Call’ (the newspaper of Farrakhan’s hate group, the so-called Nation of Islam), and the publications that come out of Dr. Wm. Pierce’s organization (he wrote ‘The Turner Diaries,’ and his group is the one that distributes anti-Semitic pamphlets in local Massachusetts communities) and the homo-hating screed, ‘The Massachusetts News,’ sent free to hundreds of thousands of Bay State residents each month, and such, are or were just folderol. These people mean what they say. I think the French ambassador, who is a close friend of President Chirac, means what he says, and he is likely not the only high-ranking member of his country’s diplomatic corps who means what he says and says things like this. Anybody who thinks that the current crisis has not greatly enhanced the ability of the Jew-haters and the Israel-haters to say what’s on their mind is, I fear, deluded. Things, I am told by a close and trusted European friend, are getting very ugly. I hope you’ll give this issue a ponder. I have every expectation that ‘right will out,’ and that young terrorists will sooner rather than later become disillusioned and start advocating for democracy (or that their big sisters will slap some sense into them, rather than submitting to oppressive fundamentalism) . . . and that somehow the Palestinians will be made to see that Arafat was offered by Barak 97% of what Arafat had demanded, yet lacked the courage to make peace. But in the meantime, yes: this issue is worth a ponder. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
He’s Not Gonna Resign – Get Over It December 27, 2001February 20, 2017 John T (12/24): ‘You should read this link [to a 1998 web page dubbing President Clinton a sociopath and calling on him to resign].’ ☞ It’s not clear why this strikes John as must-reading three years later, on Christmas eve. But let’s assume the linked screed was a fair assessment (I don’t think it was, or I would have included it). If so, I think we got off pretty easy: 22 million new jobs, the lowest crime rate in decades, the lowest poverty rate in decades, the highest homeownership rate in history, a quadrupling of the stock market, the Family and Medical Leave Act, tens of thousands of kids doing national service in the newly created Americorps, peace in Ireland and relative peace in the Mid-East, the successful bail-out of Mexico, a broad expansion of free trade, the second largest expansion of our national parks in history, welfare reform, the best S.E.C. in memory with really substantive money-saving breakthroughs for investors, the boosting of millions of heretofore second-class gay and lesbian citizens, an appropriately strong stance on tobacco, a push for gun safety that was respectful of legitimate gun owners, encouragement for alternative energy research (immediately halved by the oilmen who took his place), persistent deficits turned into surpluses (now turned back into deficits with a massive tax cut for the wealthy). Yes – there was a totally inappropriate affair with an intern and some ill-considered last-minute pardons. But on balance, it could have been worse. (Incidentally, for those old enough to remember the early seasons of Saturday Night Live, I can report that not only will President Clinton not resign – Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. You heard it here first.) Hats off to those of you who think we were on the wrong track, with the wrong vision, and that now, finally, things are headed in the right direction. But I would argue that – with the very important exception of the war on terrorism, for the handling of which the Bush administration deserves high praise – we’ve actually taken a balance that was working very well and screwed it up.
Have a Donut December 26, 2001February 20, 2017 Barry Bottger: ‘You’re paying $2.59 a can?? Andy, Andy, Andy. I caught it on sale at my local Winco for $1.38. Had to stock up at that price.’ Joe Rident: ‘In your last column, you compared your more-gift-booze-than-you-bought party to nuclear fusion or a perpetual motion machine. But shouldn’t Andrew Tobias have compared it to ‘return on investment?’ You probably made a better return-on-investment on that party than you will from Borealis.’ ☞ Ah, probably so. I am steeling myself for a total loss. But it’s interesting: Two years ago, when this thing (Borealis) was valued at $15 or $20 million – less than the cost of a single commercial jet – it was flying on nothing but a wing and a prayer. Sure, it claimed to have all sorts of astonishing breakthroughs that, if true, could be worth billions. But give me a break! Indeed, the sheer number of these (unrelated) claims was one more reason to scoff. You mean you’ve invented a perpetual motion machine and you can turn base metals into gold? Give me a break! Now, two years later, the company is valued at more like $30 million – still considerably less than a single top-of-the-line private jet – but there have been two independent press releases of note: one, from Boeing, suggesting that the company’s ‘Cool Chip’ claims seem to have foundation; the other, from an old-line elevator manufacturer, suggesting that the company’s spectacularly-more-efficient electric motor may be real. Two press releases do not a bonanza make – clearly. But for my money (and to repeat, for the record: I have a ton of this absurd little stock, so I am not a disinterested party), it is a better buy today at $6 than it was two years ago at $3.50. Because two years ago, there was absolutely no reason to think it was anything but the most preposterous speculation. Today, it remains highly risky. But the Boeing news would seem to suggest it is no longer preposterous. Borealis has taken forever to inch even this far, and could take years more to inch any further. (Wasn’t TV invented in the mid-Twenties? Though real, and earth-changing, didn’t it take more than two decades before anyone made a dime of profit from it?) So Borealis stock may not go much of anywhere for a long time (unless it goes to zero, as one has to assume it will). All that said: If you have a little play money that you can truly afford to lose without hardship – and, more to the point, without getting mad at me – I think this is one speculation, with the stock back around $5 or $6 or $7 a share (after a momentary spike to $11), you should consider. The symbol is BOREF; your broker will find it traded very thinly on the “bulletin board.” (So don’t put in a “market order,” only a “limit order.”) You truly have to assume you will lose whatever you invest. But if the company did prove to have breakthrough technologies . . . and if the market ever did value the company at, say, one-quarter the value it assigns Krispy Kreme . . . the stock would be trading at $100 a share. (And in my wildest dreams, I sometimes imagine it could be worth even more than a quarter of Krispy Kreme. But then I wake up and smell the coffee. And crave one of those donuts.
We Did It! And Notes on the Perfect Meal December 24, 2001February 20, 2017 For centuries, people have been trying to produce the perpetual motion machine, or the nuclear fusion process that will produce more fuel than it consumes. Well, last night Charles and I pulled off the holiday equivalent. We had a small throng over (small because we sort of forgot to invite anyone, and only our most clairvoyant friends and family members showed up), and we received more alcohol than we served. Bottles of wine, beautifully boxed bottles of champagne, a bottle of 20-year-old Port, a bottle of bourbon – are you hearing me? This is the Holy Grail of party-giving. The party that pays for itself – and then some. So, in the first place, I wanted to share some of that good cheer and wish you a very merry Christmas. I’d also like to point out that the days are getting longer – have you noticed that? Well, they are. (Still 24 hours, but you know what I mean.) Can Spring be far behind? But what I’d really like to do is extend this notion of produces-more-than-it-consumes to your own life, by calling to your attention Campbell’s Select 18.6-ounce can of ready-to-serve CHICKEN WITH EGG NOODLES soup in the convenient pop-top can. It is, quite possibly, the perfect food. * In the first place, for those of you under the weather, it is chicken soup. Need I say more? * For those of you concerned with convenience, it is prepared thus: 1. Pop top. 2. Pour into bowl. 3. Microwave a minute or two. 4. Drink. (Or eat, but that requires a utensil.) In the summer, you could just drink it cold, skipping steps #2 and #3. (In any season, some cracked pepper and coarse salt add zest, though this will kick the sodium content up even with Utah’s largest lake.) * For those of you concerned with diet, other than the sodium, you’re talking just 200 calories and 5 grams of fat in the whole 18.6 ounce can. Only Roasted White Meat is used in this soup – and ‘50% more chicken*’ (‘*than our previous formula’ reads the explanatory footnote – leaving me, I will admit it, just a tiny bit wary, as I prefer foods that result from recipes to foods that result from formulas). Will you gain weight drinking this soup? Yes. About 18 ounces. But not for long. * For those of you concerned with economy – and here’s the beauty part – the soup cost us $2.59, but peel off the label and you are left with a handsome ribbed canister that would surely fetch $3 on eBay or at the Pottery barn if attractively photographed and imaginatively merchandised. A pencil holder! A can to drop your spare change into (or other’s spare change if you’ve been downsized). Cans to fill with dirt with votive candles pressed into the top – use them to line your walk for parties. Cans to weld together into a sculpture or a small shiny dwelling. Everyone’s so focused on the soup, they miss the hidden asset – Campbell’s doesn’t even brag on it – and it makes all the difference in the world. You paid $2.59, you got the soup, the chicken, the 50% extra chicken, and an attractive $3 multi-purpose art deco canister. It’s as if they paid you 41 cents to have lunch.
Our Country, Our Constitution, and the Bible December 21, 2001February 20, 2017 I can’t claim to be on Sandra & John O’Connor’s Christmas list – that’s Sandra as in Justice Sandra Day O’Connor – but I have friends who are, and this year’s missive, a legal-sized color-photocopied ‘Annual Report 2001,’ is simple, folksy, and to the point. ‘We were beginning to take life easy,’ runs the first headline above a photo of John taking a nap, hat over face in a recliner. ‘Then September 11th changed our world‘ – there is a photo of the two of them opening mail with surgical masks over their mouths. ‘But life goes on‘ – a photo of Justice O’Connor holding up a large fish she appears to have caught – ‘as we get back to basics – our Country, our Constitution, and the Bible.‘ The last photo has them standing at their front door, flanked by small American flags. ‘May God Bless America – and you too!‘ I don’t know whether Attorney General John Ashcroft sends out year-end greetings, but judging from his 1999 remarks at Bob Jones University – ‘We have no king but Jesus‘ – my guess is that they might be at least as pious. The cards I get tend to be secular but no less heartfelt. ‘Let us cherish the gift of family and friends this Holiday Season,’ reads one. I like that sentiment very much. ‘Peace on earth, goodwill to men.‘ For my money, that one’s the best of all. All it needs is ‘and women.’ Wishing you all the best this holiday season, however you view the world.
Poor? It’s Your Own Fault December 20, 2001February 20, 2017 ‘I’ll take the floor covering,’ writes Jack (who asks that his last name not be used). ‘You write: ‘But relatively few folks are delivering mail, trimming hedges, or clerking at Home Depot one decade, piloting their own jet the next. And relatively few doctors’ daughters become hotel maids – at least not for more than a summer on the Cape.’ Well, if people haven’t moved up the income ladder, it’s their fault. There IS an even playing field in this country. People choose for themselves how far they go. I grew up in a lower income neighborhood in Brooklyn (my father worked in a movie theater, my mother was a store clerk). I finished high school at night, and college at night, working during the day as a stock boy at Macy’s (today’s equivalent of the Home Depot job you mention). I paid for college out of my paltry earnings. The people I worked with during the day back in the mid-sixties complained about not getting ahead, but they didn’t take advantage of the even playing field that lay before them (i.e., they never bothered to acquire skills that would enable them to get somewhere beyond where they were). Today, 35 years after graduating from college, I own a business that employs 45 mostly low skill-level people, who, like the people I left behind 35 years ago, complain, as you do, that the government is not doing enough for them, but too much for the rich. Every night as I drive home to my house in an upscale suburb in my luxury imported car, I hear people like you on the radio talk about the lack of a fair playing field. Too much being done for the rich? Not enough for the underprivileged? The song of the lazy and unenterprising, aided and abetted by social engineers. By the way, don’t print my name. I write this not to boast of my success – for there are thousands, no, tens of thousands, of my generation who started with nothing and ended up just fine, without the government doing ANYTHING for them. Let the church and other social engineers complain about poverty. In this country, people don’t-get-ahead by choice.’ ☞ Sounds good, if a little tough-minded. But a couple of points, Jack. Is it possible you did get some government help? For example, did you pay for your K-12 schooling, or did the government? And did you pay the full cost of college, or was your tuition subsidized? (At many state schools, ‘full tuition’ does not cover the full cost.) But leave that aside, and anything else I may have left out (was there a minimum wage that kept your Macy’s pay a little less paltry than it otherwise might have been?). Answer me this (as they say): Do we want people to trim hedges and change sheets in hotels and hospitals and so forth? I think we do. And if so, do we want them and their kids living decently? Or is it OK if they live as the really, really poor in some Third World countries do? If you answer ‘decently,’ then the laws of supply and demand may not be enough. The minimum wage and the earned income credit and unemployment insurance and Medicare may be the kinds of things needed to help the folks who do those jobs for us. Even then, working 60 hours a week at the minimum wage brings you just $15,000 a year, which isn’t much to raise a family. And if one of the parents has abandoned the family, the wage earner must also provide domestic services. Maybe it’s the parents’ fault – but is it the kids’ fault? Should poor people pay as much in tax as rich people? If not, where do you draw the line? What balance do you strike? I’ve been arguing that the balance we had during Clinton/Gore worked awfully well, even for the rich and powerful; and that we’ve made a huge mistake by shifting it even further in their favor. Jim Batterson: ‘I agree completely that the recent shifts and proposed shifts in tax law are foolish in the advantages that they afford the super-rich, and I strongly support a hefty estate tax and a progressive tax structure. The AMT corporate refunds are obscene. ‘But it is also fair to observe why it is that there is no revolution taking place in America over this issue. I am not quite as old as you, but I have traveled and lived in third-world countries, and do have recollections of the 1950s. Something is true in the United States that has never been true before, not here, not anywhere else in the world. Skilled tradesmen – auto mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, roofers, painters, electricians, factory workers, guys who do heating and air conditioning and construction and a thousand other jobs that require training but not a college education – jobs that 50 years ago we hoped our children would ‘do better than’ – these people all own, or can own, nice cars, pickup trucks or SUVs, bass boats, comfortable houses, entertainment centers with big-screen TV’s, VCRs, TIVO, good sound systems, cell phones, computers, internet access, summer cabins, you name it. ‘Explain to someone in China or even Japan that in the United States, carpenters and plumbers live in 1800-square-foot houses and drive SUVs, and there will be nothing but disbelief. When you look at the country as a whole, you should not see an upper class and a lower class. The dominant theme of our times is an enormous middle class with a very high standard of living.’ ☞ Well said. About the only guy who can easily afford to call a plumber these days is an electrician. OYSTERS – PART 3 Mark Harris: ‘Like you, I love Oysters, and they can be found on many of our nearby shores. In this area (and many others) bivalves become infected with Paralytic Shellfish Poisen (PSP) when the dreaded “ride tide” arrives (often June, July, or Aug). However, it’s important to know that PSP is NOT destroyed by cooking – raw or cooked, if they got it – you’ll get it. Here’s what you do: Eat a tiny (dime sized) chunk of oyster. Wait about 30 minutes. If your lips feel like you’ve gotten a shot of novacaine (i.e. they tingle), throw away the rest of the oysters. Otherwise, eat more – but remember PSP is only ONE of the several different deadly fallouts from eating oysters (actually on most of our Washington/Canadian seashores near population centers the fish and game guys have erected bivalve harvesting prohibited signs due to sewage contamination.’ ☞ Bon appetite.
Marble? Shag? Parquet? December 19, 2001January 25, 2017 Chuck Smith writes that he’s on a ‘Christian Quotation of the Day’ mailing list and found this recent quotation ‘somewhat apropos to your December 7 column’ about the rich getting richer. I would never go so far as the Bishop of Milan – wealth need not necessarily stand for human misery at all! But that last line? From more than 1600 years ago? Whoa! Feast of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397 Wealth, which leads men the wrong way so often, [should be] seen less for its own qualities than for the human misery it stands for. The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame. They are big enough to hold crowds — and also big enough to shut out the voice of the poor! … The poor man cries before your house, and you pay no attention. There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there, confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering. — St. Ambrose of Milan (339-397) Reacting to that same December 7 column, which made the point that the folks at the very top were gaining on everyone else even before the Republicans’ recent effort massively to shift things further in their favor, Joel Margolis writes: ‘It is true that there has been a shift in the income distribution, but this doesn’t mean that people at the end of the period are in the same quintile that they were in the at the beginning of the period. There is [mobility within the quintiles] and most Americans people believe in this idea. In addition, there is movement simply through the general aging process (e.g., the average income of people aged 18 is considerably less than the people who are aged 58).’ ☞ I believe in it, too! But relatively few folks are delivering mail, trimming hedges, or clerking at Home Depot one decade, piloting their own jet the next. And relatively few doctors’ daughters become hotel maids – at least not for more than a summer on the Cape. Yes, there are things that give folks at the bottom a real chance. One is our system of public education, which Senator Jim Jeffords and others believe we need to fund more aggressively (only, now that we’ve passed a $1.4 trillion tax cut, much of it aimed to help those at the top, the money for education is just not there). Another is the estate tax, which gets many folks to throw at least some of their chips back into the tax or charity pot at the end of the game, and thus leans against a permanent plutocracy (only, the new Bush tax law cuts the top estate tax rate – which might sensibly have been cut from 55% to 45%, say – all the way to zero by decade’s end). My point is not that things are rotten in America or that the wealthy should be criticized for their good fortune – or that they spend all their time confused over floor coverings. My point in these columns has been, simply, that the balance between the folks in the top 1% and the folks in, say, the bottom 95% does not need to be shifted further in favor of the top 1%. Yet that’s been a major priority of this administration: changing the rules of the game to make it easier for the top 1% to get richer even faster. Not what America – or the world – needs most right now.
Buy the Book? December 18, 2001March 25, 2012 Look what just seems to have come into a few bookstores. (Hint: of the two versions Barnes & Noble is selling, I would go with the one from 2001, not the one from 1998.) According to their website, books ordered by December 18 – today – will arrive before Christmas.
Oysters – Part II December 17, 2001February 20, 2017 Steve Gilbert: ‘What’s this compulsive ‘fork‘ behavior all about? You wash forks every time you use them? I don’t think that a REAL GUY would be so picky. I mean, if you’re already eating something that might kill you, why worry about the next guy who’s going to use the fork? I’d at least wait a few hours to see if the oysters were fatal before I’d bother washing the fork.’ ☞ Point taken. Mike Koltak: ‘For recipe #1, I would add a shot of vodka. Dip the oysters into the vodka before dipping them into the cocktail sauce, or add vodka to the sauce. It is supposed to help kill the bacteria – probably not true but it is a good excuse to have a nip and it does taste great.’ ☞ So that’s why they call it cocktail sauce. Who knew? Alan Caroe, M.D.: ‘Cholera (epidemic diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholerea bacteria) is the disease most closely associated with raw oyster consumption. Death from this infection is uncommon (less than 1 in 100) if adequate nursing and oral rehydration is provided. (Chicken soup and Gatorade, in sufficient quantities, are live-saving.) Cholera epidemics appear to arise only in warm, salty water containing untreated human feces. This is the historic reason to avoid unrefrigerated oysters in the summertime. American oysters harvested outside of the Gulf of Mexico may be safer. Hepatitis A is also associated with ingestion of raw shellfish. It may be avoided by a commercially available Hepatitis A vaccine. It may be wise for any individual with immune deficiency or pre-existing liver disease (especially Hepatitis C) to talk to their health care provider about Hepatitis A immunization before eating raw oysters. P.S.: Cooked oysters do taste good. Ten minutes in boiling water should kill the most likely pathogens.’ Jim Summers: ‘No self respecting guy would eat oysters without first putting the oyster on a saltine with a spoonful of horseradish along with the cocktail sauce. A squeeze of lemon is also critical. This has extra shock value as it allows the guy to eat it in two bites, with a swig of beer in between, while the uninitiated gag at the sight of oyster liquor dripping from the soggy cracker between bites. Judging from the size of the Hilton oysters, it would appear that this would be a two-bite delicacy. If you don’t have horseradish, then a couple of shakes of hot sauce will do. As no cooking or measuring is involved, and it is eaten with fingers, it still qualifies as a guy recipe.’ Brooks Hilliard: ‘What? You can cook oysters?’
Oysters December 14, 2001February 20, 2017 Rob Schoen: ‘You are entitled to think whatever you choose to think, though I may find it wrong-headed and duplicitous. Today’s column was the first in my recollection, however, where you essentially called your critics stupid, or at least not as capable of reasoned thought as you. That’s a slippery slope and I hope not your intent.’ ☞ I appreciate reasoned criticism. But those whose e-mails just lash out with insult rather than logic are intellectually lazy, in my view – though, you are certainly right, not necessarily stupid. I would suggest that to call someone’s thinking wrong-headed is fine (even I think I am wrong-headed from time to time, not to mention tedious, self-indulgent, or – my favorite – just plain dopey). But calling someone’s thinking duplicitous may be a slippery slope of its own. Frank McC: ‘Even if the worst about Enron turns out to be true, is it any worse than Chinese businessmen financing the Clintons and the Democratic Party?’ ☞ It might well be worse, but let’s assume they are equivalent. Is your point that no fuss should have been made about the Chinese contributions? Or is it that since a huge fuss was made about them, that’s enough fuss for now and we should fuss no more? I think both were/are subjects of legitimate inquiry. Enron is, after all, the largest bankruptcy in our history, and energy policy affects us all. Frank continues: You write: ‘I certainly hope it doesn’t require special prosecutors or any of that – I don’t think any of us wants to go through that again.’ Really? Honestly? You mean you wouldn’t love to see the Bush Presidency destroyed and Democrats benefit? ☞ I sure would NOT love to see it destroyed. And when it does something good, like appoint an openly gay ambassador to Rumania, or handle the aftermath to 9/11 so well for the most part, I try to say it. And we all should say it. And I think you will find that a lot of Democrats do – most recently, Senator Clinton on ‘Meet the Press’ this past Sunday, loud and clear. Frank: ‘Fairness, I say. Fairness.’ ☞ Yes! But fairness for the 95% of Americans who are not at the top of the pyramid, too. Thanks, Frank. You’re right about the level of partisanship. Who doesn’t yearn for more collegial, frank discourse? But until we get that, how about a nice oyster cocktail? * Let me tell you something about HILTON’S FRESH PACIFIC EXTRA SMALL WILLAPOINT OYSTERS. They’re huge. I don’t know whether Hilton is being ironic by labeling them extra small, or merely trying to frighten people from swimming in the Pacific. Oysters are one of the few ocean dwellers I ordinarily do not fear; but if these are extra small, I can only begin to imagine those that would be extra large – and I don’t want to risk being swallowed by one. (‘What’s this, Orville – a pearl?’ ‘No, it looks more like some guy’s head.’) Oysters are a dangerous food. Any school kid knows they should be eaten only when they ‘R’ in season – months with an R in them (i.e., not May, June, July and August), except that with the advent of refrigeration, they may not be much more dangerous when they Rn’t than when they R. Hilton sells them in pint containers – all raw oyster, no shell – in the refrigerated (let’s hope) section of some supermarkets’ fish departments, and warns that if you suffer from liver or stomach problems, you should eat them fully cooked. Now let’s back up. Why would anyone eat raw oysters, you ask? (And how do they have sex? But that’s a separate column.) Two reasons: First, once you get over your initial revulsion, you may well decide that the good ones taste just great. Second, oysters have long held allure as an aphrodisiac. ‘Keep away from oysters, whatever you do,’ ran a sprightly line from Bottoms Up, the acclaimed 1969 Hasty Pudding Theatrical, ‘and just for the hell of it, you can be a celibate, too – da-doo-da-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!’ And sure enough, if you click here, you will find this slogan: Forget Viagra, Eat Brady’s Oysters. With it comes an offer to buy some very pricey oysters, flown to your door, still in their big, heavy, clunky shells. The beauty of HILTON’S FRESH PACIFIC EXTRA SMALL WILLAPOINT OYSTERS (which have made it all the way from South Bend, Washington, to South Beach, Florida, though very possibly not to your supermarket) is that for $7.99 you get a pint container filled to the brim with oysters in their ‘liquor’ (as the liquid oysters live in is called). Because the extra smalls are so large, it’s probably about 10 oysters to the pint. To fill the same pint with the kind of oysters you get in some restaurants for $2 a pop it would probably require 50 of them, once you shucked and chucked the shells. (How many shells, he yells as she sells seashells, could a woodchuck shuck, if a woodchuck could shuck shells?) So look what’s happening here. You’re getting maybe $100 of oysters for $7.99, and you don’t have to put on a jacket and tie to eat them. You can eat them at home . . . like a guy. And how, exactly, does a guy do that? Well, I have two recipes to offer, neither requiring dishware; just a fork. Raw. I accept absolutely NO liability for this – if you eat raw oysters you will probably die – but here is what I do. Step 1: Open the container. Step 2: Open a jar of cocktail sauce. Step 3: Seize the above-referenced fork. Step 4: Use the fork to drop one of the oysters into the jar of cocktail sauce; mush it around a little, remove, and eat. Mmmm, mmm, good! Step 5: Repeat. Step 6: Wash fork. Call 911. Cooked. This involves a lot more work and doesn’t taste as good. But it’s still pretty awesome. Step 1: Pour the pint of oysters and their liquor into your smallest pot or pan. Step 2: OK, go crazy – toss in half a stick of butter or, if you’re cooking like a guy with high cholesterol, a big spoonful of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Lite™. Step 3: Salt and pepper are always good. Step 4: Cook on low to medium until you think that whatever is wrong with the oysters is dead. Ten minutes? You can throw in a little milk, too, ala “oyster stew,” although I have a feeling a little beer might go well with it instead, but I haven’t tried that yet. Step 5 (the most important step): Restrain yourself! This sucker is hot! But then, after an appropriate cooling off period, seize the afore-referenced fork and eat from the pot, eventually (checking first to be sure you won’t burn your lips) drinking the salty, buttery liquor that remains at the bottom. Mmm, mmm! Step 6: Clean fork and pot. For elaborate recipes I have not tried – if you’re not really a guy, in other words – click here. Have a great weekend and please come back Monday or I’ll worry that I killed you.