for comparison's sake

Compare my naan to this machine-made naan that I picked up in Itaewon:

See what I mean about the oval shape? Naan don't have to be oval, as I explained in my previous post, but this is how most such flatbreads look. Here, below, is the backside, with the "stripes" that give away the fact that I didn't bake this bread:

Once reheated, the store-bought naan had almost the same consistency (and lack of bubbling) as my own naan. See why I like naan as a substitute Greek pita?

Speaking of Greek stuff: I had to test out my gyro meat tonight, so I cut twelve strips of the meat and fried the strips on my griddle. I crumbled some feta tonight, and I also made tzatziki (perfect on the first try—no tweaking this time), so I cobbled together a quickie gyro. Result: delicious. The gyros will be even more so on Friday once we add the olives, tomatoes, lettuce, and (gack) onions for those who like onions.

Anyway, there's the store-bought naan versus my naan.

Note to self: cut thicker strips of meat so they can be a bit moister after frying.

yet another who had to #WalkAway

And from Evergreen State College, no less:

moving out of my comfort zone

My friend Charles gave me a recipe for naan. I followed it as well as I could, so if you assess my work with your professional baker's eyes and see problems, assume the fault is completely mine. What follows are mostly pictures of bread-making—my first-ever attempt at making real bread and not merely baking something from a kit. There are, however, some non-bread-related pictures in this photo essay, so please bear with me.

I began by making the dough. The original recipe was for four flatbreads; I had to multiply the ingredients by 2.5 to create ten pieces of naan. The amount of dough didn't seem to be all that much, even after the multiplication. Below is the dough after it came together:

Next up, we see the dough proofing. Or as they say in England, proving.

First distraction from the bread: fresh-made chimichurri. It was too tangy at first; the 3:2 oil/vinegar ratio (seen in several recipes) struck me as way too potent, so I added a tiny bit of sugar plus a lot more oil, making for a roughly 2:1 oil/vinegar ratio. I think this change was a vast improvement. The sauce also included fresh garlic, chili flakes, some salt and pepper, and of course the basil, cilantro, and parsley that give the sauce its soul. I'll be taste-testing the sauce Wednesday afternoon to see whether it goes with beef. If yes, then no problem. If not, then the sauce will need tweaking. I think it ought to be fine.

Chimi me, baby:

A closeup of the larger chimi container:

I'm bizarrely proud of my smoky baked beans with thick-cut bacon and hot dogs:

And here's my cole slaw. I seem to be moving away from the mayo-based version:

Freezer pic below. Barely visible under all that frost (right side) are the "patties" or "steaks" of gyro meat, now frozen solid. I've decided that I'll slice the meat while it's frozen (just as I did when making andouille for gumbo), then pan-fry it directly, thus skipping the baking step. A lot of fat will render from the pan-frying, and that will serve to keep the meat moist when I store it for transport. Also visible, below, are some frozen, pre-cooked chicken breasts (far left) and a package of Mexican chorizo (center, the red sausages) that Costco is currently selling. Couldn't say no to chorizo, which my buddy Tom got me hooked on years ago. Voilà:

Back to bread-making. Keep in mind I'm making naan flatbreads. Below, I've divided about 770 grams of proofed dough into 77-ish-gram dough balls. Each ball will be rolled out into a tortilla-like flatbread. As you see—and it's not often that a man can say this—I've got ten balls.

Note: the dough didn't really rise, despite the presence of yeast. I assume this is because I'm not currently heating my apartment, so it's cool at my place. Next time, I'll encourage rising by placing the proofing bowl in a larger bowl of lukewarm water.

Charles's instructions didn't say whether to roll the balls out on a floured surface, so I assumed that flouring would be necessary, especially given how sticky the dough was. So I floured my rolling pin, floured the surface of my Costco foldable table, with its worrisomely rough and dough-snagging surface, and patted a tiny bit more flour onto each dough ball as I rolled it. Below is the very first flatbread I've ever made in my life:

It's a bit of an abortion, really, as were the other nine. I didn't roll the balls out into consistent shapes—partly because of lack of experience, and partly because, well, I didn't want to. I was experimenting, you see. Most professionally made naan comes out looking fairly oval—but an uneven oval, like an egg, with a fat end and a slightly "sharper" end. My flatbreads ended up ranging from circular tortillas to the sort of long naan they sell at Everest, the Indo-Nepali resto in downtown Seoul.

Here's a stack of rolled-out naan:

And a closer look:

I decided to cook on my griddle, the one I had bought while I was in the States last August. That pan has seen a hell of a lot of use since I brought it back to Seoul. I still chafe when I ponder why it's so difficult to find exactly that sort of pan here. Korea is the goddamn land of cheol-pan, so you'd think they'd sell a cheol-pan shaped like my griddle. But no. Ah, well... a rant for another time. Below, some slight bubbling:

I think I was a bit too timid with the heat. I did eventually crank the heat up so as to cook the flatbreads more aggressively, but the one below came out with only a slight suntan, and if you look carefully, you can see it's puffing up like a pita:

Thus do I begin placing the cooked naan into a tray:

Some major bubblage:

The freaky, long, Everest-style naan:

The stack grows:

Finally, below, a shot of one sacrificial flatbread to test for edibility/palatability. This bread is dressed up in French butter and has been lightly dusted with garlic powder. While this isn't the best naan I've ever had, there was a sense of accomplishment at having finally made some bread, and the bread did turn out to be edible. The fact that the naan never rose may have worked in my favor since I'm planning to use this bread for gyros, and the Greek pita normally associated with gyros is flat, a bit thick, and rather pliable—all qualities of my batch of bread. Per Charles's advice, I've stuck the naan in my freezer to store it since, apparently, refrigeration is the quick way to ruin bread. (Charles mentioned this, and when he did, I suddenly remembered watching a Martha Stewart video that said the same thing.)

So I bagged up and froze nine little flatbreads. I'll thaw them Thursday night, and will maybe finish them off Friday with some garlic butter. Getting the timing right while preparing what are, essentially, two completely different and separate meals has been somewhat stressful, but I think it's all going to work out. I wonder how real caterers deal with the differing prep times and prep methods and storage demands of the foods they deliver. (Maybe that's why so many caterers specialize in easy things like cold sandwiches.)

two via Bill Keezer

I don't think 2020's going to be quite this much of a landslide as the pic below suggests, but I understand the sentiment and don't think the Dems have come up with a viable candidate yet. Doubling down on the craziness isn't helping. If I were a mainstream, middle-of-the-road liberal, I'd be wondering (just as NeverTrump Republicans are) where the fuck my party went:

Related: "How Media FRAMES The Narrative To Make Trump Seem WORSE":


Keep in mind that Tim Pool is not a Trump supporter. He is, however, a rational leftist. The more I listen to him, the more I respect him. In fact, I'm discovering that I like this whole subculture of leftists critical of the left. They're the ones who represent sanity to me.

tonight's challenge

Tonight, and at long last, I try my hand at making bread—flatbread, in this case. My buddy Charles gave me a recipe for naan last March; I had said I'd make the naan by summer of 2018, but a year went by, from March to March, and I did absolutely nada. Well, karma catches up to us all, and I can no longer procrastinate. So tonight, naan it is.

#TongueFlick, #FlickingTongue, #SplitTongue, #TonguesForEyes

gyro-meat prep, first stage

With gyro meat, the prep stages are:

1. Blend together meat, spices, and seasonings to make a meat paste.
2. Shape into loaves. Freeze until you're ready for the next step.
3. Bake, and/or
4. Slice and finish in a frying pan. Store meat in its own juices for transport.

I've done stages 1 and 2. No pics of stage 2, unless you really want to see frozen meat in the freezer. I won't initiate the final stages until, oh, Thursday night. Meanwhile, here are a few pics of stage 1.

Below: spices and seasoning to be incorporated into a 50-50 mix of ground beef and ground lamb. We've got paprika, cayenne, salt, pepper, cumin, sugar, basil, and oregano. Forgot the turmeric, but since turmeric is a somewhat late addition to my usual spice blend, its absence isn't tragic. The ground meat I used was fairly lean, so to amp up the fat content, I also included olive oil. A lot of this oil will cook out during baking.

Below, you see a new addition to my family of gadgets: a food processor that I bought last night. It's some no-name Korean brand ("HiBrand"), and it sucks: the motor began to smell of burned circuitry only a few minutes into the blending process. Stank up my entire apartment for a good hour. It also failed to churn the meat well enough to blend the top layer, and the machine's top doesn't have a hole into which one can introduce a spoon, etc., to poke and prod whatever's being blended. I have a feeling I'll be chucking this loser in favor of a good old Cuisinart sometime soon. If I can find a Cuisinart in Korea.

Lastly, a pic of two batches of meat in the initial stages of being mixed together. The first batch, which looks brown because of all the spices and seasonings, got the full brunt of all my magic powders (plus the fresh onions that I pureed before adding meat on top of them). The second batch—which looks red—was simply meat, and after I had mixed it as much as possible without making the food processor's motor start belching smoke (an actual concern as the burned-circuitry smell intensified), I threw everything into my giant metal bowl and began combining the meat batches with wood spoons. When that proved inadequate, I washed my hands and switched to manual mixing.

The idea, with gyros, is to produce a paste that will harden into a solid block of fairly homogeneous meat. Once everything is frozen, you can either bake the blocks and then slice them, or slice them while frozen and then pan-fry the slices, thereby simulating how gyro meat comes off the rotisserie.

I formed the mixed meat into loaves, wrapped the loaves in plastic wrap, then stuck them in the freezer. The loaves look like giant burger patties, but once they've been frozen, they'll slice into plausibly shaped strips of gyro meat. I've already done a test cook of some of the meat to make sure everything is properly spiced and seasoned. This time around, the meat is much spicier than what I've done previously, but it still tastes fine. I have high hopes. Hell, I might even slice the meat now, then re-bag it in giant Ziplocs so that, when the time comes to pan-fry, I can simply bring out the bags and get right to it. One less thing to worry about.

the left eats its own; it's righties who defend Chelsea Clinton

More from the ever-remarkable Tim Pool:

sex vs. gender redux

A rapper (temporarily) identifies as a woman and goes on to easily break a women's weightlifting record in order to prove a point regarding the "absurdity" of the trans movement's insistence that trans women are ultimately no different from cis-women.

Enjoy the wackiness:

I've already written a couple posts laying out my own position on the whole "trans" thing. To recap: I'm fine with gender fluidity, gender spectra, etc. because I take gender to refer to a social construct, i.e., something that comes from the mind. Because it comes from the mind, gender is infinitely polymorphic, and as linguistically annoying as that's going to become for those of us who like our sex-binary pronouns, we're all going to have to learn to deal with this new social reality. That said, chromosomally speaking, sex is binary—period. A trans woman is basically a chromosomal male, and when you put a trans woman into the MMA octagon with a cis-woman, you're going to see what it's like when a man beats up a woman. Do you think that's fine? If so, then our discussion is over. Go in peace. If, however, you're horrified by the notion of a man's using his closed fist to repeatedly strike a woman until her bones break (as I blogged about), then you'll agree that the trans issue still needs to be fleshed out.

Chromosomal men and chromosomal women are different. In most ways, men are physically superior. True: there are individual exceptions. If you were to put my doughy, untrained ass in the octagon with Gina Carano, there's no doubt she'd beat the snot out of me. But put Carano in the ring with a male fighter who has equivalent MMA training, and she's toast. She won't suddenly show off any superhero magic: she'll be lucky to walk out of the arena on her own two feet. So, yes: rapper Zuby is making a legitimate point in the above video—one that should be heeded for the sake of women and women's sports.

another #WalkAway story

She's easy on the eyes and a bit more articulate... not only did she start off as a liberal, but she's also from a Buddhist family! Now, it could be that the Buddhism she internalized was the typically folkloric kind, full of magic and spirits and deities—all the stuff that Western converts to Buddhism swear doesn't exist in their belief and praxis. (Don't listen to people who tell you "There are no gods in Buddhism." That's bullshit, and it's bullshit because they're talking about their own Western-style, stripped-down-to-a-bare-bones-philosophy version of Buddhism. Buddhism, taken as a whole, is plenty theistic.) Whatever the case, she sees her "conversion" away from the left as a kind of awakening. Her words aren't particularly substantive, but they do give the viewer some insight into the intellectual and psychological dimensions of conversion-away.

She outs herself as "Asian," but I'm guessing she's half-Korean, mainly because of the thoroughly Korean way she divides Christendom into "Catholics" and "Christians," a hilarious division that I haven't heard elsewhere. (Feel free to fill my ignorance in.)

toilets as a test of extroversion

I can't understand the dude who, when faced with three toilet cubicles in the men's room, one of which is occupied, chooses to sit in the cubicle next to mine. I always choose a far-edge cubicle, thus giving the next man the choice of sitting either next to me or two cubicles away, which would be my preference. Most dudes choose the other far cubicle, thus putting some space between us (as is only proper), but every now and then, some needy, clingy asshole decides he'd rather sit right next to me. What's up with that? Does he crave companionship? Is he some kind of twisted extrovert who can't stand to be away from people when he has to shit? What drives a man—a man!— to sit next to me in his time of need? By the same token, what drives a man to choose the middle cubicle when no one else is around, thus guaranteeing someone will sit next to him? Does he want someone to sit next to him? Pervert.

NB: to be clear, this post is half in jest. I used to be the type of person whose asshole would pucker shut if someone else came into the men's room. These days, I don't give a fuck. And I'm already on record regarding unisex/"omnisex" restrooms: I honestly don't care who might be next to me while I'm dumping.

Tim Pool on guns and gun control

Tim Pool stands pretty much where I do on the matter of gun control, and he points out a rural-versus-urban difference in thinking that only one politician I know of has been perceptive enough to mention himself: Rudy Giuliani (pre-Trump-loopiness phase of his career). Listen to Tim here:

#WalkAway

Meet Alan Lai. The guy stumbles a lot in articulating his reasons for walking away from today's left, but he's worth a listen:

clicking "no" to word verification

I'm supposed to be exempt from word verification ("click on all the images containing bicycles") as the admin of my own blog, but I have to go through that nonsense, anyway, as long as I keep it activated. Since I'm now as annoyed by that feature as many of my commenters are, I'm turning off word verification but keeping comment moderation on. This means I'll see a huge increase in spam comments, but they'll never see the light of day because I can delete them all before I publish legitimate comments.

Sorry to all and sundry for the inconvenience of word verification. If, however, the spam proves to be a torrent, then I might have to turn that function back on. Just FYI.

Tim Pool talks (tangentially) about Christchurch

Tim Pool is a left-liberal journalist who has a few channels on YouTube, as well as a presence in several other forms of online media. He recently experienced a boost in his celebrity status when he appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, sitting next to Rogan and across the table from Jack Dorsey (Twitter's CEO) and Dorsey's right-hand lady Vijaya Gadde ("VIH-jyuh gaddy"), a lawyer who is deeply involved in determining who gets banned from Twitter and why. Pool and Gadde ended up doing most of the talking, with Rogan interjecting now and again, and with Dorsey saying little to nothing. At first blush, Pool might sound like a rightie, but he is a self-identifying leftist (he talks about his leftism on Dave Rubin's show, The Rubin Report, filmed only one day after the Rogan podcast) who happens to be critical of where the American left has been going—what he calls "the insane left." Pool speaks in a rapid, clipped, somewhat high-voiced nerdy tone that's very reminiscent of how mighty-mite chatterbox Ben Shapiro talks a mile a minute. I've seen only a few of Pool's videos at this point, but I've found the man to be tough but generally fair in his assessment of global goings-on, and I've subscribed to two of his YouTube channels. Pool produces videos more prolifically (and somewhat more professionally) than does my regular guru, Styxhexenhammer666. Here he is below, talking—at least tangentially—about the Christchurch massacre and about media censorship in general:

By the way, they're saying that the "armed" congregant at the mosque didn't fire the weapon he managed to acquire during the massacre: he brandished it, and then maybe threw it at one of the attackers, causing the attacker to hop into a car and flee. The death toll has also clicked up from 49 to 50.

oh, I almost forgot

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to ya'!

no promises

There might be photos of cooking tonight. After finishing up my second round of shopping, I'm probably going to be prepping the gyro meat (beef + lamb) tonight. I might also try my hand at a naan recipe sent to me last year by Charles (I've come to use naan instead of the puny local pitas when making gyros). I confess that I bought naan yesterday—just as a Plan B in the event that I fail at making the homemade naan. Charles's recipe yields four flatbreads; I'm multiplying that by 2.5 to get ten. Tomorrow or Tuesday night, I'll likely do the baked beans; those ought to keep just fine until Friday. On Wednesday, I'll buy the fresh herbs needed for chimichurri; on Thursday—the night before the Friday luncheon/goodbye party—I'll brine the brisket, make the chimichurri, and do the oven-roasted potatoes.* Friday morning, I'll get up early, bake the brisket, slice and toast up the ciabatta, and prep the vegetables to top the gyros (lettuce, tomatoes, onions, olives).

With the work spread out over the week, there ought to be less pressure to git 'er done, so to speak. I might end up shifting some of the to-dos around as necessary.

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*In Greece, gyros often come with french fries on top. I know that fries will end up soggy in transit if I cook them, throw them into an airtight box, then trundle over to the office. Oven-roasted potatoes, by contrast, come out of the oven super-crunchy, so they can survive a taxi ride without becoming overly soggy.

what madness is this?

Something freaky is happening on my blog's right-hand sidebar. Here, look at a blown-up image of my Followers' list:

Did these people delete their thumbnails? Is this part of some sinister un-following campaign? And if so, why not simply unfollow instead of deleting a thumbnail image while retaining a Follower's link to their profiles? No entiendo nada.

heh

Joe Biden has his own website... whether he wants one or not.

Styx on the topic:

James Gunn is back on for GOG3!

The Ides of March can't be bad for everyone, apparently: the Hollywood Reporter, as of March 15, is claiming that embattled director James Gunn is back at the helm of his pet project, "Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume III." Personally, I'm glad. He should never have been crucified for tweets he'd made ten years ago.

The GOG3 project went into limbo when Gunn was fired by Disney. A few talented directors' names were tossed around as people mulled over possible replacements, including the name of Taika Waititi, who did an excellent job with "Thor: Ragnarok." But it wouldn't have been right for anyone else to take over a project that Gunn himself has been so passionate about. Gunn is a comic-book fanatic who has a genuine love for the Guardians; he put together a mint cast and has, thus far, given us two very good movies that are among the crown jewels of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). Assuming the Hollywood Reporter is correct, I'm glad he's back on board, and I'm sure his cast—all of whom love him—is glad as well.

A juicy tidbit from the article:

In the weeks after firing Gunn, there was speculation around town about who could replace the filmmaker, with agents lining up clients but by mid-fall, any perceived search seemed to have petered out, with many thinking that the project was on the back burner. What almost no one knew was that Marvel and Disney had never undertaken a search and had gone back to Gunn and made a deal ... in secret, according to insiders.

After the firing, Gunn moved on to Warner Bros. and DC to write and direct The Suicide Squad, which has Idris Elba set to star and an Aug. 6, 2021 release date. Gunn plans on doing both films, with The Suicide Squad coming first, according to sources.

After the news broke, Gunn — who has been silent on Twitter since his firing — tweeted a statement.

"I am tremendously grateful to every person out there who has supported me over the past few months," Gunn wrote on Twitter Friday. "I am always learning and will continue to work at being the best human being I can be. I deeply appreciate Disney's decision and I am excited to continue making films that investigate the ties of love that bind us all. I have been, and continue to be incredibly humbled by your love and support. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Love to you all."

Christchurch attack update

Well, this is interesting: an armed congregant* in the Linwood mosque fired back at attackers, scaring them away. No more than ten people were shot there; elsewhere, another 39 were gunned down. (Of the ten people shot at Linwood, seven died.)

Also interesting, according to the above-linked source:

The manifesto left by the terrorist — whose name I don’t think deserves mentioning** — is a mishmash of ideas. He calls himself an “Eco-fascist,” one who combines environmentalism, racism and authoritarianism into one repulsive package. In his mind the world is dying from over-population, but over-population of the “wrong” kind. He hates capitalism, free markets, and free trade but he loves the Communist Chinese government and fascism. He takes the racist rhetoric of Donald Trump and mixes it with Marxist rhetoric about the poor workers of the world.

In his fevered imagination alleged “over population” is directly tied to “mass immigration” and “sub-replacement fertility” among whites. The culprits who deserve the blame, he says, are the “corporate entities” who “invited” immigrants to “replace the White people.” It’s Paul Ehrlich meets Adolph Hitler, Bernie Sanders in cahoots with Benito Mussolini.

He says global warming and immigration:

…Are the same issue, the environment is being destroyed by over population, we Europeans are one of the groups that are not over populating the world. The invaders are the ones over populating the world. Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.

He calls for a form of “Green Nationalism” which will save the planet by stopping “the continued destruction of the natural environment itself through mass immigration and uncontrolled urbanization, whilst offering no true solution to either issue.”

Along with that, here's some news from the Daily Mail, in listicle form:

• Australian-born Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, has faced a Christchurch court charged with a count of murder
• Daniel John Burrough, 18, is also charged with 'exciting hostility or ill-will' in relation to the mosque attacks
• Tarrant, Burrough, as well as a man and a woman were arrested on Friday after the violence
• The third man has been released and is not thought linked, while the woman remains in custody
• Tarrant allegedly live streamed himself on Facebook as he opened fire on the Al Noor Mosque at 1.30pm AEDT
• During a brief appearance in Christchurch District Court he smiled faintly and offered a white power gesture
• New Zealand authorities have confirmed that at least 49 people have been killed, with dozens more missing
• Alleged terrorist posted an online manifesto filled with Neo-Nazi ideology and hatred for Muslim people
• Tarrant 'worked as a personal trainer before travelling the world to North Korea and Pakistan as well as Europe'

This article, meanwhile, points out that Tarrant, an Australian-born personal trainer who lived for a time in Dunedin, NZ, took time off to travel the world after his father's death. He visited North Korea and Pakistan, and he had high praise for Pakistan and the Pakistani people: "...an incredible place with the most earnest, kind-hearted and hospitable people in the world."

Sounds to me like one very confused individual who thought he was Thanos, dispensing population-diminishing mercy through mass murder. He's being billed as a "white supremacist," but he wanted to take a few years to go see the (largely non-white) world. He supposedly made a "white power" gesture in court (an upside-down "OK" sign, in this case), but he's also apparently some sort of environmentalist who is concerned about the impact of overpopulation on the global ecosystem. Yes; all this makes a lot of sense.

As far as I know, Tarrant's GoPro video of the shooting was instantly suppressed, but since it was supposedly streaming live on Facebook during his part of the 17-minute event, I imagine someone must have caught it and will soon be releasing it through one of those murder-porn sites like Ogrish.com or LiveLeak. Will I watch it? Maybe. Hell, I watched Budd Dwyer's suicide on LiveLeak. That, by the way, was a scarring experience. Not recommended.

The Guardian has a rough, first-impression breakdown of the "nationalities" of the shooting victims. The list "includes people from countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia." Styx had claimed, in his video on the topic, that half the victims were white. I'm not seeing substantiation of that claim, so I remain skeptical. As I wrote in an email to a Kiwi buddy of mine, "Interesting if true."

Here's Styx on Christchurch:

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*It could be that the congregant was armed because he had wrested away a firearm from an attacker, then used the weapon against the terrorists.

**Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28.

late-in-the-day forage

Boy, I must be really tired. For whatever reason—maybe it's the diabetes—I slept until mid-afternoon today. Now that I'm up, I'm kicking myself for sleeping so long and so late (I can hear my mother's voice in my head saying, as she used to say about my long naps, Aigu, sleeping your life away!), and I'm about to head out and do some crucial shopping for the food prep I need to do this coming week.

I made a chart to help me think through my food prep. You can see it here. Today, I'll head out to Itaewon for ground lamb and other things, then possibly to the local Costco (hot dogs, ground beef, real butter) and the local Seolseong Mokjang meat market (ciabatta—yes, the meat market sells bread among other, non-meaty things) if there's time. There are items on my to-buy list that shouldn't be bought until later in the week because there's a freshness issue, e.g., fresh vegetables for use in the gyros, fresh herbs for use in chimichurri, etc.

So that's today. I've been hitting my building's staircase fairly routinely for the past two weeks, so I'll do the stairs tonight, then go shop, begin prep, and take a long walk tomorrow... without waking up too late in the day again, I hope. Thus will pass another weekend.

and in more positive news... BBQ brisket!

I brought to the office a preview of the brisket I'll be prepping for Friday, March 22. The first two pics are of my simple brisket slider; the final pic is of the brisket inside the ceramic, microwavable pot in which I reheated the meat once I reached the office.

The beef was tender and delicious, even after cooling all night in the fridge and reheating the following day in a microwave. The prep procedure wasn't all that hard, either:

1. Brine brisket overnight in a simple 2:1 sugar/salt mix (you read that right: more sugar than salt). I'm pretty sure the brining is what saved this slab from drying out.

2. Create dry rub. If you want the recipe, let me know. I used a modified version of a simple, no-nonsense recipe I found online.

3. Remove brisket from brine the next day. Pat dry. Apply dry rub to all sides.

4. Place brisket in a deep baking tray, preferably on a rack that raises the meat off the bottom of the tray. I had some metal, grid-shaped hot pads that were sturdy and perfect for the job. I'm glad I don't have to buy extra fancy equipment.

5. Bake brisket 45 minutes, uncovered, at 350°F (177°C) for 50 minutes.

6. After 50 minutes, lower the temp to 250°F (121°C). Add beef or chicken broth (I used chicken) and bake another 100 minutes. This low-and-slow phase is essential. Add more broth if everything evaporates and the fond starts smoking(!). Don't ask me how I know about that.

7. Add a tiny bit more broth, and now paint the brisket with barbecue sauce. Uncover and cook a final 50 minutes if needed. (Do check the meat's doneness around stage 6.) You won't end up with the type of brisket you see the pros make—the kind with the perfect outer bark and inner pink smoke ring. But your meat will be amazingly tender, amazingly delicious, and perfect for sandwiching up, which was the primary goal of performing this experiment.

Everyone today loved the brisket, which sold out fast. No one questioned the texture or the moisture. People went back for seconds, and even thirds (although they shouldn't have, given how little brisket there was! one late-arriving coworker got miffed at not getting enough brisket). I think I'll chalk this up as a victory.

But I did learn some lessons, too. Next time, I think I might actually throttle back the cooking time a bit so as to have a somewhat firmer brisket: this one flaked apart under the knife a tad too much for my taste, despite some very gentle pressure when cutting. Another two changes that I'll make for Friday the 22nd are (1) I won't bake the brisket until that very morning so as to avoid refrigeration/drying, and (2) I won't slice the brisket until I'm at the office so as to preserve juiciness as long as possible (as well as to give the meat time to rest).

That said, the brisket was pretty damn good, I have to say.

Christchurch can't catch a break

Christchurch, New Zealand, scene of a massive earthquake back in 2011 (I blogged about it), is now the scene of an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant shooting spree that took place—probably deliberately—during prayer time.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — Multiple people were killed in mass shootings at two mosques full of people attending Friday prayers, as New Zealand police warned people to stay indoors as they tried to determine if more than one gunman was involved.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described it as “one of New Zealand’s darkest days” and said the events in the city of Christchurch represented “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence.”

One person was taken into custody but it was unclear if there were other people involved, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said. He said anybody who was thinking of going to a mosque anywhere in New Zealand on Friday should stay put.

Authorities have not said who they have in custody. But a man who claimed responsibility for the shootings left a 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto in which he explained who he was and his reasoning for his actions. He said he considered it a terrorist attack.

Ardern at her news conference alluded to anti-immigrant sentiment as the possible motive, saying that while many people affected by the shootings may be migrants or refugees “they have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us. The person who has [perpetrated] this violence against us is not.”

My understanding is that the above article can be updated: the attacks were perpetrated by three men and a woman. I think most or all of the attackers have been arrested. I joked that, had this happened in the States, the attackers would probably have been shot full of holes. A coworker says he read that one attacker shouted something like "Subscribe to PewDiePie!"—a reference to the world's biggest YouTuber with nearly 90 million subscribers. PewDiePie, a Swede who is primarily a gamer, has been in trouble before for purportedly flirting with the alt-right crowd and spouting trollish opinions designed to make the PC left extremely uncomfortable. While I doubt that PewDiePie (rhymes with "cutie pie"; the guy's real name is Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg) actually wishes death to Muslims, he hasn't exactly helped his own case in the bigotry department: it wasn't that long ago that he got in trouble for cheerfully shouting "You nigger!" at a fellow video gamer.

Anyway, I expect the death toll (currently 27) to rise over the next 36 hours, and I guess that New Zealand will now have to have its own internal conversation about guns. The country will probably conclude that stricter gun laws will be necessary, which utterly misses the point: the guns used in this massacre were doubtless shipped into the country illegally. More laws aren't the answer. I'd say the closest thing to a solution would be to get better about enforcing the laws you already have on the books.

More later, maybe. My condolences to En-Zed as a whole.

UPDATE: a pic of one shooter's face here. The shooters live-streamed their own massacre, using at least one GoPro camera. This same article puts the death toll closer to 30. It also says the 74-page manifesto was actually 94 pages. During this initial period of chaos, it's going to take a while for people to get their story straight.

UPDATE 2: also from the above-linked article:

What we know so far:
- Two gunmen opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, at 1.40pm local time on Friday
- Unconfirmed body count could be up to 30, including children - according to local reports.
- One of the gunmen live-streamed the deadly attack on Facebook using a GoPro in footage too distressing to show
- It was posted on a Facebook page belonging to Brenton Tarrant
- It is understood the killer is an Australian-Brit who published a chilling 94-page manifesto before the rampage
- Cops have arrested three men and a woman - with one found wearing a suicide vest
- The Bangladesh cricket team were at one of the mosques and escaped the shooting
- Cops defused improvised explosives found on nearby booby-trapped cars
- Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called it "one of New Zealand's darkest days"
- New Zealand cops have warned "let's not presume the danger has gone"

check out Jeff's pop quiz

See here for Jeff's pop quiz. I took a stab at it but failed. Revoke my nerd card.

proud of my Ajumma

If you've followed the blog, you know that I've slapped up paintings from my #3 Ajumma before. She seems to have become even more productive since the death of her husband, my #3 Ajeossi, this past January. I think this may be one of her best efforts yet, especially given the subtle interplay of colors:

I regret that our family didn't make more of an effort to keep the many, many paintings done by my great uncle Trav (short for "Travers"), a professional artist of some small renown in the North Jersey/NYC region way, way back in the day. Uncle Trav's work, when viewed as objectively as possible, wouldn't have fetched the highest prices at Sotheby's. As I got older and began to analyze art with a keener eye, I saw that Uncle Trav would make mistakes in terms of shading and perspective. He was still a pro, but if we were talking Olympic figure skating, he would have been skilled enough to be an Olympian, but perhaps not skilled enough to be a medalist. With regard to shading and perspective, he could have learned a thing or two from Ajumma, whose work is way more meticulous than I ever would have thought could come from someone of her brusque and impatient character. I think I still have a lot to learn when it comes to reading people.

Ajumma's painting is also fascinating in terms of the smoky background. I've seen this technique before, especially with many still-life pieces (trivia: "still life" is called nature morte—dead nature—in French), but also with certain portraits—and it always adds a bit of motion to the Gestalt. Maybe that's the point: the quietly roiling background of the still life is the actual "life" in question, while the unmoving fruits in the foreground represent the "still"ness. If so, then maybe there's a bit of irony: at a guess, most people would say that "life" is represented by the fruits, given their wholesome savoriness, and despite the fact that the fruits are actually, well, dead. (Hence nature morte in French.)

I've told Ajumma that I'd like to buy some of her paintings, either for my apartment or for our office. She replied that she's doing several paintings right now, so she'd like me to wait, and then she'll simply give me some paintings. I told her I'd like to pay for the work; she replied with a curt "Don't worry about it."

Ajumma's eldest son is a professional singer. My brother Sean is a professional cellist. Uncle Trav was an artist; his sister Gertrude was a professional singer. The artistic Force is strong in my family, I think—both the American and the Korean branches of it (even though Ajumma is a relative through marriage, not through blood: it's her husband who was my mother's cousin, and he had no artistic inclinations whatsoever). I may possess some of that juju as well, although I've never really trained hard in any specific pursuit—not cartooning, not painting, not acting. The only thing I do consistently is write, and while I think I've improved quite a bit since I started this blog in 2003, I know I have a long way to go. As for my other potential artistic pursuits: you can't become a Jedi unless you visit Yoda on Dagobah. Consistent, your efforts must be. Form habits, you must. Essential, practice is.

enough dang chili for ya'?

A shot from a couple days ago:

This is merely the chili I'd heated up in the microwave for lunch on Monday. There was more than twice that amount still in the large plastic container that I'd brought to work. After that day, though, I'd fed people enough chili that I was down to only a single serving, which I've reserved for myself. This remaining chili will either be used for chili dogs or be incorporated into some sort of burritos.

geeking out with "compliant mechanisms"

It's a simple, smack-your-forehead design: why not lessen the number of parts in a mechanism by using bendable ("compliant") components? You've seen examples of this already in your everyday life. One particularly good example might be a small plastic box in which you could carry your lunch or store random items. In one case, the box opens and closes thanks to traditional hinges, which consist of several parts. In another case, though, your box's hinges are single pieces of plastic, not hole-and-rod constructions. Watch the following video and marvel at the many possible applications of compliant mechanisms.

all roads lead to a smoking crater

And now, the Scandinavian experiment is being shown for what it is.

Finland: Government Collapses Over Universal Health Care Costs[;] #Bernie2020 Hardest Hit

“Similar problems are bedeviling Sweden and Denmark, two other countries frequently held up as models to follow on health care”

Finland has long been touted by American socialists as the socialist Nirvana, where everything is free and everyone is happy, happy, happy. Sadly, fiscal reality hit Finland’s government as it collapsed Friday due to the rising costs of its universal health care.

The warning signs were on the wall last spring when Finland, as Leslie noted, ended its experiment with “universal basic income.”

Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has been hanging his socialist mantle on the “success” of Finland’s socialist structure, may be the hardest hit.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

The government of Finland collapsed Friday due to the rising cost of universal health care and the prime minister’s failure to enact reforms to the system. Prime Minister Juha Sipila and the rest of the cabinet resigned after the governing coalition failed to pass reforms in parliament to the country’s regional government and health services, the Wall Street Journal reports. Finland faces an aging population, with around 26 percent of its citizens expected to be over 65 by the year 2030, an increase of 5 percent from today.

It’s not just Finland experiencing such problems with its socialist policies. Other Nordic countries, also touted by American socialists and communists as the model America should follow, are suffering similar economic burdens directly related to their socialist policies.

The Washington Free Beacon continues:

Reuters reports that soaring treatment costs and longer life spans have particularly affected Nordic countries.

“Nordic countries, where comprehensive welfare is the cornerstone of the social model, have been among the most affected,” according to Reuters. “But reform has been controversial and, in Finland, plans to cut costs and boost efficiency have stalled for years.”

Similar problems are bedeviling Sweden and Denmark, two other countries frequently held up as models to follow on health care. Finland’s crisis in particular comes as calls for universal health care have grown louder among Democrats in the United States.

Just a few days before Finland’s government collapsed over its inability to foot the bill for its expansive socialist experiment, Sanders took to Twitter in an attempt to shame America.

Indeed, Finland has long been a Bernie go-to for the glories of socialism. Last year, he enthusiastically gushed over Finland being the “happiest place in the world” because of all its “free” stuff.


With the collapse of Finland’s government over its inability to financially support its massive socialist agenda, Bernie will undoubtedly do the same thing he always does when socialism (or communism) fails: ignore, obfuscate, and deflect.

After all, for all his big, shiny promises of “free” everything for everyone, he still refuses to address how this largess will be paid for.

This is the same Bernie Sanders who, just a few years ago, back when Hugo Chavez was alive, touted Venezuela as a prime example of socialism in action. He doesn't say much about Venezuela anymore, you'll notice. And you'd trust this man to be president?

This isn't to say that Donald Trump's economy is all unicorns and rainbows. Certain important indicators have turned way, way upward under Trump, but the US faces its own looming fiscal crisis in the form of social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other huge federal programs, as mentioned in a previous post. The US already has its own redistributionist system in place, and it's eating the country alive. I haven't dug around enough to see what's being done about the US's big-picture debt, but I sense that it's a crisis that's going largely unaddressed. (Tell me I'm wrong in the comments.)

Meanwhile, command-economy policies would ruin the nation far faster if the US went all-in with them. And maybe I should change my tune regarding recent remarks I've made about Scandinavian countries. Up to now, I've said that their viability has to do with their being primarily market-capitalist economies, but what we're seeing here, with the collapse of Finland's government, is that command-economy policies are an aggressive cancer eating away at all aspects of national life. I was wrong to claim that pockets of socialism might work within a capitalist paradigm. Finland seems to be showing us that even a little federal redistributionism can be dangerous to a nation as a whole.

ADDENDUM: in fairness, here's a link to an article that says the right's association of Bernie Sanders with Venezuela-style socialism is bogus. According to the article, Sanders has never explicitly advocated a Venezuela-style system, but has instead long praised the various Scandinavian systems as examples he would prefer the US to follow. This, of course, circles back to the fact that the Scandinavian systems are largely market-capitalist and not whatever Sanders thinks they are, but that's not what's at issue here. The issue here is whether it's false to associate Sanders with Venezuela. So the next step is to look up what Sanders has actually said about chavismo-style socialism. The article linked to in this paragraph contains a quote that many on the right would find damning, and which many attribute to Sanders without confirming he said it:

These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who’s the banana republic now?

Turns out the quote actually came from the editor of a newspaper called the Valley News, not from Sanders himself. Slam dunk, right? Sanders is off the hook?

Except there's this:

The editorial in which the quote appeared can be found on Bernie Sanders's own website. If that's not an endorsement of someone else's sentiments, I don't know what is. Obviously, this still doesn't count as an explicit endorsement of chavismo, but it sure as hell looks like an implicit endorsement. Otherwise, why slap that on the website?

This does mean, though, that a lot of rightie "news" sources have been misattributing that quote to Bernie Sanders. I doubt we'll ever see any corrections and retractions. That said, I'd qualify Sanders as, at the very least, sympathetic to the Venezuelan project. He's also linked with places like Ecuador and Argentina, both of which have faltering economies—faltering for the same reason, i.e., socialism.

US college-admissions corruption

We've all long suspected that the rich and the privileged have a special advantage when it comes to getting their own kids into good universities. AP News gives us a glimpse of how deep the rabbit hole goes, and in a federal sting that has ensnared the powerful, including people like celebrated actress Felicity Huffman ("Transamerica"), a significant vein of corruption has now been exposed, and the explosion promises to damage the reputations of many good schools, from Yale to my alma mater, Georgetown.

BOSTON (AP) — Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged Tuesday in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation’s most elite schools.

Federal authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department, with the parents accused of paying an estimated $25 million in bribes.

“These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in announcing the results of an investigation code-named Operation Varsity Blues.

The scandal is certain to inflame longstanding complaints that children of the wealthy and well-connected have the inside track in college admissions — sometimes through big, timely donations from their parents — and that privilege begets privilege.

At least nine athletic coaches and 33 parents, many of them prominent in law, finance or business, were among those charged. Dozens, including Huffman, were arrested by midday.

The coaches worked at such schools as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. A former Yale soccer coach pleaded guilty and helped build the case against others.

Punishment could mean up to twenty years in prison.

the un-PC humor of Andrew Schultz

The guy's not bad.

ridiculous news headlines

Here's a list of 25 inadvertently funny newspaper headlines. Some examples:

1. Rangers Get Whiff of Colon
3. Student Excited Dad Got Head Job
4. Statistics Show Teen Pregnancy Drops Off Significantly After Age 25
6. Lady Jacks Off to Hot Start in Conference
7. Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police
12. Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks
23. Tiger Woods Plays with Own Balls, Nike Says

lots from Bill Keezer

I received a veritable torrent of memes and toons via Bill Keezer; here are some below:

once more, with feeling:why top-down economics doesn't work

You want that $15 minimum wage? Here ya' go:

The Guardian reported Wednesday that employees at Whole Foods, which Amazon purchased back in 2017, have experienced a dramatic drop in schedule shifts since the raised wages were introduced.

Along with the new $15 minimum wage for the entry-level positions, some higher-level Whole Foods employees have also enjoyed a $1 to $2 increase in hourly wages, the outlet notes. It all sounds good — until employees' schedules are taken into account. Since the wage increase in November, Whole Foods employees say they've experienced "widespread cuts that have reduced schedule shifts across many stores, often negating wage gains for employees," The Guardian reports.

The employees, speaking on condition of anonymity "for fear of retaliation," revealed to the outlet that they've seen an average of about a 30% reduction in hours per week for part-timers and about a 10% reduction for full-timers.

An Illinois-based worker told The Guardian, "My hours went from 30 to 20 a week," after the $15 minimum wage hike.

The employee "explained that once the $15 minimum wage was enacted, part-time employee hours at their store were cut from an average of 30 to 21 hours a week, and full-time employees saw average hours reduced from 37.5 hours to 34.5 hours," The Guardian reports. "The worker provided schedules from 1 November to the end of January 2019, showing hours for workers in their department significantly decreased as the department’s percentage of the entire store labor budget stayed relatively the same."

Only people with no understanding of economics would possibly think that controlling an economy from the top is a viable option. Think of it from the employer's perspective: if wages and insurance costs go up (e.g., minimum-wage hike + Obamacare, with its increased premiums), it's harder to take care of one's employees and continue to make enough of a profit for the company to stay afloat. Something has to go, and that something is usually employees on the roster. This pro-wage-hike mentality, if applied country-wide, is what starts one down the dark road to empty store shelves, zero toilet paper, and cannibalism. Sounds ridiculous when it's phrased that way, but this is how it starts, and the end result is always the same. Cf. California, with its high taxes, over-regulation, and desire to appear "woke" in terms of company and fiscal policy. The state might as well slough into the sea, at this rate.

I've been seeing this riddle a lot recently:

Q: What did socialists use before candles?
A: Electricity.

sago pudding!

A South African coworker, once he saw and sniffed my tapioca pudding (which I reheated in the office with the aid of some extra milk, thus making for a creamy, less scary texture), said it looked and smelled just like sago pudding—a dessert that he, too, remembered from his childhood. At first, I thought sago might be a South African synonym for tapioca, but when I looked sago up, it turns out to come from a different set of plants. However, the relevant plant matter is converted into almost exactly the same sort of starch pearls that make up tapioca, hence the close similarity in looks and in behavior when cooked.

See more about sago pudding here. And for a bit of humor, here's a passage from Wikipedia's entry on tapioca pudding:

British schoolchildren have traditionally nicknamed the dish frog spawn, due to its appearance. The Guardian described it as "Britain's most hated school pudding", with names such as fish eyes, frogspawn and eyeball pudding. It is however making a comeback in the 21st century in Michelin-starred restaurants and less exalted places.

"yeah—no..."

Is it my imagination, or is "yeah, no..." the new trending phrase? I find it somewhat annoying given that it scrambles the logical truth-value of "yes" and "no" respectively, turning one's expressed thoughts into an ambivalent mush. Ozzy Man over at Ozzy Man Reviews on YouTube says "yeah, nah..." as part of his shtick, so I can at least understand where he's coming from. But "yeah, no..." seems to be everywhere these days. Here's a quote from that consummate public intellectual, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

“And it’s this whole tragedy of the commons type of thinking where it’s like because these one, this one specific group of people, that you are already kind of subconsciously primed to resent, you give them a different reason that’s not explicit racism but still rooted in a racist caricature,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “It gives people a logical reason, a ‘logical’ reason to say, ‘oh yeah, no, toss out the whole social safety net.'”

See the "yeah, no..."?

My problem—my mistake—is that I'm trying to parse out the literal, logical value of the new phrase. That's impossible. It's just a verbal and mental fart, really; the idea is just to go with the flow of the conversation, and "yeah, no..." is little more than a placeholder, a boob-jiggle, a zigzag as far as I can tell: a lengthy substitute for "uh" or "um" or "duhhh."

I guess I'll have to quietly endure this latest bit of linguistic stupidity and hope it disappears down the memory hole with other hated expressions like, "I know, right?"

ADDENDUM: something like this expression has been kicking around for years. While on the train to London from Folkstone, back when I was studying in Europe during the '89-'90 academic year, I found myself surrounded by a group of chatty teenaged French girls. Their ringleader had this one line that she loved repeating: Bon, 'fin, oui, 'fin, non. That, too, became annoying after the fifth or sixth time, but that was her catchphrase, and she wasn't about to let go of it—no, sir. I don't think the purpose of the phrase was actually to show confusion or ambivalence; more likely, it was a humorous attempt at demonstrating mental nimbleness, like the adroitness of someone crossing a stream by deftly hopping along a zigzag of stones. See? I can accept what you just said, then instantly chew it over and reject it! That's how mentally nimble I am! The end result, though, still sounds like confusion or ambivalence to me. But as with Ozzy Man's "yeah, nah," I don't think you're supposed to dwell on the utterance: you're just supposed to let it run in one ear and out the other like the drivel it is.

a Boomer's mea culpa

One Baby Boomer writes an open-letter apology to the younger generations. I don't agree with everything in the letter, but it's worth reading and discussing all the same.

Here are some excerpts:

The previous generation, the Greatest Generation, saved the world by sending Orwell’s rough men into the crucible of war in the interest of peace. My generation, the Baby Boomers, was to live the life purchased for us by the boys of Normandy, the Ardennes, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and other killing fields. White marble crosses and Stars of David in these places testify to the enormous price of that purchase. And live we did. What a party we threw ourselves. So, as I reflect on the goodness of the job my generation has done, I apologize. I apologize for it all.

I apologize that we Boomers bankrupted this great nation. We made all manner of promises to ourselves while leaving you the bill. Herbert Hoover once quipped that “blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.” He was only partially right; it’s far worse than that. I’m not talking about $22 trillion in treasury debt or even the exponential rate at which it’s growing. I’m talking unfunded liabilities.

Were one to add today’s treasury debt to the unfunded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid promises we’ve made to ourselves on your behalf — valued somewhere in the $120 to $200 trillion range depending on assumptions about discount rates, life expectancies, etc. — the total would exceed the market value of the United States of America. (I think that prior to pulling the most powerful lever in the world, every U.S. citizen should be made to write $120,000,000,000,000 in a box on his or her voter registration form.)

[...]

I apologize for Democrats who simply refuse to staunch the fiscal bleeding, and for Republicans who, er, simply refuse to staunch the fiscal bleeding. I apologize for Donald Trump, who took the White House, in part by campaigning as a fiscal scold, and immediately proceeded to explode the country’s deficit. His largesse followed eight years of generally declining profligacy under President Obama who, in an inter-generational game of kick-the-can, still managed to double, that’s right double, the accumulated national debt during his tenure. In fact, I apologize for almost all of the tanned, bleached, toupeed and plugged worthies we’ve sent to Washington to run your life.

[...]

As Margaret Thatcher once reminded us, democracy is a fragile thing. At its shaky foundation is the requirement of an informed electorate. Well...that didn’t work. Only one-in-four adults in the U.S. can name the three branches of government; one in three can’t name a single branch. Not one. Zero! Zilch! And it doesn’t appear that it’s going to get better any time soon. Only seven of the nation’s top 25 liberal-arts colleges require history majors to take an American history course. You can blame the students, but it’s the generation at the helm, the Baby Boomers, who gave in to their squeals for relativism and feel-good instruction.

[...]

I apologize that we allowed you to think that the world outside of academe will be filled with therapy puppies, safe spaces and crying rooms. I apologize for black graduations, Hispanic graduations, lavender graduations and all of the other graduation-types that celebrate something other than academic achievement. During our lifetimes we’ve witnessed where tribalism leads (think Yugoslavia), and it never leads anywhere you’d want to live.

[...]

I don’t know which is more distressing. Both are personally tragic, economically wasteful, and manifest the worst angels of our nature. While some cite true and truly horrific historical wrongs needing correction, the majority of my minority students seem to view preferences and set-asides — not as compensation for past crimes, but as a post-modernist slur. My experience tells me that incalculable harm is being done intra-psychically and otherwise. I grieve for my black students, as bright and capable as any group I’ve ever taught, who feel themselves discriminated not against, but in favor of, because others feel they can’t otherwise compete.

So let’s review the bidding. My generation has spent its inheritance, beggared its kids, spiked the nation’s education infrastructure, and is at risk of substituting one type of racism for another in the interest of ending racism. On one side of the political ledger we’ve gifted the country Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Chris Christie and Rick Perry (today’s secretary of energy, for those of you without a scorecard). On the other, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid (he’s retired but he still deserves honorable mention), Blago (same although in prison) and Maxine Waters. And things are no better in the Old World.

blasts from the past

From recent months, but now de retour:

From my childhood:

The tapioca pudding isn't perfect (the pearls needed to soak a bit longer, but they're still quite soft), but it's pretty close, in taste, to the pudding I ate at my best friend's grandmother's house when I was a kid.

Shoe0nHead cracks me up

This chick is a nut. Like John Pepple, she's a liberal who's critical of fellow liberals. Enjoy the following vid, in which Shoe takes on a Hillary Clinton children's book:

The above vid isn't even 50 seconds long. Don't ignore this one the way you usually ignore my other embedded vids, with your selective attention and confirmation bias.

(You do realize I'm just yanking your chain and being a dick, right?)

from 14 to 13

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, the east coast of the United States has gone from a wintry 14-hour difference with Seoul to a 13-hour difference. I do the zone-conversion math quickly by flipping AM to PM or vice versa, and subtracting an hour from local time. For example, as I type this, it's 5:25 p.m. in Seoul. Flip PM to AM, subtract 1 from 5, and it's 4:25 a.m. along the US east coast, which includes my hometown of Alexandria, Virginia. Come fall, we'll be back to a 14-hour difference, with the US east coast always being behind Seoul.

I hear that people are thinking of abandoning Daylight Savings Time in the US, just as they're contemplating making the same move in Europe. Good, I say! Fourteen years in Korea, where no time change occurs, have* taught me you don't need the ol' switcheroo. With everything—including farming—so technologized these days, there's no longer any dependence on the sun to determine our work schedule, and thus no reason to "save" daylight hours.

---

*Is it have or has after the expression "Fourteen years"? I vote have because, in this context, the fourteen years are countable: you feel every single year. This isn't always the case: chunks of time are often treated as grammatically singular, so you need to practice a bit of discretion when determining whether your chunk of time should be a single, uncountable unit or a group of countable units. Rule of thumb:
     • Fourteen years is a long time. (uncountable: a single, objective chunk of time)
     • Fourteen years have passed since I last saw you. (countable: 14 individual, felt years)

The French do something like this, distinguishing between chunks of brute time and intervals of felt (or experienced) time. You can see this distinction in French vocabulary: jour/journée, matin/matinée, an/année, for example. The first word in each pair, the masculine word, denotes brute time; the second, feminine word in each pair denotes experienced time:

     La tâche a duré trois jours. The task lasted three days. (brute, objective time)
     T'as passé une bonne journée? You had a good day? (experienced, subjective time)

So both French and English have their own ways of distinguishing between time as objectively seen (brute time) and time as subjectively experienced (felt time). In English, the distinction is made through grammar. In French, it's made through vocabulary.

And I still vote have.

QUIZ: He labored for three days, which (wasn't/weren't) a long time, but (that was/those were) nevertheless the hardest three days of his life.

this video is fucking awesome

Please sit through this.

fight-choreography analysis

Skallagrim has an interesting vid analyzing the fight choreography of what he considers one of the most impressively realistic sword fights ever put on the silver screen: the fight from 1974's "The Deluge." I came away disagreeing, a bit, with Skall's analysis: where Skall saw naturalism, I saw instances where the moves were obviously choreographed, much in the manner of some of Yuen Wo Ping's repetitive choreography in some of his wuxia films. Still, I'd agree it was a well-done fight.

don't save the polar bears

Another gem from We the Internet:

Jon Miller on climate hysteria and other things

I don't doubt that we human beings are hard at work ruining the environment in various ways. Where I think there's room for rational discussion, however, is when we get to the question of the degree to which, and the rapidity with which, we are ruining things. How much global warming is anthropogenic? Are the polar ice caps growing or shrinking (2014 [note the note!], 2015, 2018 [but with a "catch"]*)? Jon Miller's video, below, begins by mocking the doomsaying climate alarmists who, to my mind, represent the lunatic fringe of the larger discussion, if "discussion" is indeed the right word. He then brings on to the show an expert in religion to discuss the religious—even cultic—nature of both socialist rhetoric and climate-alarmist rhetoric. This makes for an interesting exchange, and I had a moment of satisfaction in seeing a professor of religion consulted, for once, to talk about geopolitical matters.

Years ago, Michael Crichton gave a speech about how environmentalism is a religion. I agree with him that it is, and the problem with using religious language in the service of your cause is that such language sacralizes everything, making it impossible to engage in rational debate because to question the cause's tenets is to commit heresy.

---

*Essentially, the three references to which I linked indicate that the picture is complicated. Antarctic increases in winter ice seem to be offset by significant decreases in Arctic ice. The net effect, from my civilian point of view, has been no significant sea-level rise for years, despite the warnings, which began years ago, to the effect that several (Pacific?) island nations were in danger of disappearing under the waves. For a list of supposedly endangered island nations, see here for claims made with no supporting arguments or evidence. Scholarly scientific journal Reader's Digest gives some of these nations 80 years before they go under. Meanwhile, the alarmists themselves don't act as if there's an actual emergency. Once again, a humorous We the Internet video on that topic: