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I have an acquaintance that was recently a little blue about her husband being away for a while and I wanted to say something reassuring that might make her feel less sad. But since we're not intimate friends I also didn't want to be presumptuous or tell her what she almost certainly already knew. It was a pickle for me because I dread putting my foot in my mouth in front of people I respect. So, I came up with this little bit, to express an emotion rather than communicate an idea:
Sweet Bliss leaves his memory,
A promise, his absence is temporary.
Today I read in the paper that President Obama's first official act was to declare January 20th a quasi-temporary-holiday. Who declares a national holiday in honor of themselves? I can understand he wants to express his message of hope and peace, etc. But it's ridiculous that he has to enact a proclamation to announce his generic goodwill rather than simply write a letter, it's not like he's lacking an audience. I'm not old enough or experienced enough to know if all presidents behave like they're sitting on a throne, but this one certainly does.
... Or at least that's what I'll call it. Either way, the State Dept is doing something interesting over on YouTube. They're taking questions from viewers, that is the general public, and answering them in the same manner they would for journalists at a press conference. Nifty!
So, this question from a fellow Forum member caught my eye and I decided to respond with my thoughts on the matter in the hopes of eliciting more than a form letter from a government official, possibly a thought or even a conversation. I was somewhat impressed that the State Dept. openly advocates the free market system in its capacity to bring prosperity, freedom, and general goodness. So, I would like to extend a big "Suck it!" to all losers who think communism is good in theory, cause you don't have America yet.
My response posted to the comments section:
Thank you, I commend the State Dept. on their goal of effecting a more prosperous and civilized world by promoting free market systems. It does bother me however that people, including the State Dept. apparently, believe that a free economy and a just society are ensured by Democracy as such. They are not, nothing can be ensured by democracy. It is the rule of the majority, which can become anything. In a society where individual rights and the rule of law aren't upheld, the Democratic method is a collective dictator with little difference to a single dictator. If America really wishes a prosperous and free world in which to trade and grow then we must first secure an iron-clad Republic which at its core respects and defends the sovereign rights of individuals. The democratic method merely gives citizens the opportunity to make adjustments to fit changing situations. Paramount to freedom, however, is not democracy. It's law, law protecting the right of a person to live, to think, to act, and to the product thereof. In short, freedom is a fantastic goal, but Democracy is not the answer.
Amanda Carlson, Arizona
... Or as she calls it in her very diluted German, "Sugar Kuga". I call it kugen.
This is an old family recipe which is a different but, I've discovered, very similar to German coffee cake, zuckerkuchen. I think my family's recipe must have been derived from that traditional cake at some point but after two emigrations, first to Russia then America, and god knows how many generations of cooks, it's become more of a tart than a cake.
It basically consists of two thin layers of crust with a fruit filling spread thinly between, topped with sugary cookie crumbs, baked and sliced into wafer-like bars. It's a simple enough concept, except that if the crust or filling is too thick the result is distinctly pie-ish. The trick of the recipe is to roll out the crusts to something like an even sixteenth of an inch [or until you can just start to see through it] and maneuver it onto a baking sheet. My grandma has an uncanny ability to do this by hand but I've found that rolling the dough onto parchment or wax paper makes the whole process much easier. I've tried it with plastic wrap as well, but the plastic stretches when you're rolling the dough and is awkward to handle. Also a double-wide unrimmed baking sheet will prevent a headache.
As for the filling, date and pineapple are both traditional in my family [date being my favourite :-) ], and I've also had success with pumpkin. I've tried some of the more common fruit fillings like blueberry, cherry, and apple but they were too thick and produced an uninteresting flavour [much more suited to pies]. Though, whatever you like, this recipe lends itself to experimentation.
You'll want to start the filling first since they tend to take a while to boil down.
Date Filling:
In a sauce pot mix 1 pound finely chopped dates, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water and boil on medium until it reduces to a smooth consistency. Stir often and watch that the sugar doesn't burn.
Pineapple Filling:
Mix 1 can of crushed pineapple, 1 cup sugar and 1 tblsp. flour in a sauce pot and boil on medium until it thickens to a spreading consistency. Stir often, the pineapple is less likely to scald, but still needs to be stirred.
Dough:
Mix together 5 cups all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/2 tsp. baking soda in a large bowl. Cut in 1 1/2 cups [10 oz] lard until it's a flaky crumbly paste-like mixture. In a separate bowl beat together 1/2 cup whipping cream, 1/2 cup water, 3 eggs, and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Mix in the liquid ingredients with the flour-lard dough. It will be very sticky, but you don't want too much flour in the dough, so carefully mix in 1 tblsp increments of flour until it just becomes workable with your hands.
By now the filling should be nearing the correct consistency. So divide the dough into 8 parts and roll a single part out onto parchment or wax paper until it's an even 1/16th of an inch or as thin as you can make it, whichever comes first. Use the paper to transfer the rolled dough onto a baking sheet and peel it off carefully to reuse for the other 7 parts of dough. Spoon the filling from the burner onto the rolled dough and spread it thinly. Roll out another portion of dough and transfer it on top of the filling. Pinch the edges together so the filling doesn't boil out. Brush the kugen with melted butter or margarine and prick liberally with a fork. Top with a crumb mixture of crushed sugar cookies [vanilla wafers], cinnamon, sugar, and anise seed [or extract] to taste. This process works much more smoothly if you have one person rolling the dough and another assembling the kugen. Bake at 450 degrees for 5-10 minutes or until it has browned nicely. Set out to cool on a rack, then trim the edges and slice into bars.
This book is a useful introductory conceptual explanation of major principles/theories/laws in physics. It also expounds on physics' relationship to other sciences, which is very interesting. The amazing hallmark of this book is its clarity in concepts.
For example, even though I had taken AP Biology I had very little understanding of what an enzyme actually is [ie. how one substance is an "enzyme" and another is not]. All I could glean from the rather obtuse descriptions/explanations/examples of them that I was given, is that an enzyme is a large molecule which is involved someway in most organic reactions. How they were involved specifically eluded me. While not terribly important, it was still a bit of a puzzle until Feynman clarified that an enzyme is molecule which catalyzes, but doesn't react in, organic reactions by physically manipulating the reactants into reactable positions. And he does so by starting from physics and the nature of atoms.
In short, if you're starting a study in most any scientific field, this is a good and quick [only took me 2 days to read casually] place to establish a context and clarify some of the concepts you will use.
My biggest misunderstanding of physics:
If a photon and a graviton have no mass or charge [and by the way what does it mean for a particle to have no mass?] then what is the philosophical difference between either one of those "particles" carrying electromagnetic/gravitational force and nothing carrying it [ie. action at a distance]? If nothing can be detected to occur between particles interacting, then why is it necessary to say that there is something? What makes physicists think there is anything there?
I don't particularly like poetry as such. There are some poems, which have moved me, that I've held onto like Invictus or The Highwayman. But I never found reading or writing poems to be a fun leisure.
However, very rarely, a single idea will so captivate me that I need to find a way of expressing it properly. It must be an expression which is lyrical, concise, and completely encompasses the idea that fills me. So, it sings on paper like it does in my head. These bursts are never long, complicated or very well structured and I learned years ago that it's only dissatisfying to try to embellish them into something more.
Envious skies
Derive their luster
From his eyes.
The meaning of life is my two hands and my head,
Making many happy years before I'm dead.
Recently I've had some time and been cleaning out my files. I found a two year old English Comp. essay from before I made up my mind about god, but after I quit going to church. The assignment was supposed to be about a personal experience related to a hotly debated subject and I was to convince the audience that my actions/choices were correct. It was basically supposed to test our understanding of ethos as a tool of argument and I naturally chose the subject of religion and why it's bad. Anyway, after a little polish, I thought I'd share.
Jesus On The Cross
I grew up in a very Catholic family, and so, naturally I grew up to be a very Catholic person. This was reinforced by my family being so close-knit and comfortable together. We rarely go longer than three weeks without seeing one another and as much as we're together, so our meetings are permeated with religion. Every meal at grandma's house is begun with the familiar family prayer. Someone who is said to be a "friend of the family" is a friend from church. Everyone's house bares weaved Lenten palm fronds and attending mass on holidays is as common as bread rolls at the dinner table. It has always been taken for granted that we were Catholics in the same way we call ourselves German. It is an unstressed but inseparable connection. Those who don't attend mass regularly are no less Catholic for their decision than they would be German if they denounced Germany. Simply belonging to the family is enough to ensure your everlasting place in the Catholic community.
Community is an apt word for it, because I never just went to church regularly. Being a part of the church was a big portion of my life and I spent a lot of time there. I took classes, volunteered on various projects, went to parties, met friends, taught classes, attended Girl Scouts, listened to lectures on politics, and I even received a scholarship from the church. It was the hub of my life around which all my family, friends, and interests revolved. Most importantly, it was a calm intellectual place where I could think about my life and decide what I want. Peacefulness and comfort radiated from the walls and made me feel safe. I sometimes just spent afternoons lost in my thoughts there.
And so, I was fascinated with the church, its teachings, and its functions. I listened intently to the father's homilies, making it a point to take notes and ask questions. I involved myself in every aspect of the church in attempts to understand it better. I was entrusted with duties in the service of the church which normally went to much older people. I was even chosen as a delegate to the bishop's first Diocesan Synod for Phoenix, in which we were researching an overhaul of diocesan methodology in order to advise the bishop.
And so for a few years I spent my time at church casually introspective, until my Confirmation began to loom and I knew I had to get serious. You see, in the Catholic Church there are certain spiritual rites that are said to elevate one's soul. They are a very serious matter and among them are Baptism, Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, and Marriage. Now Confirmation is when a young adult, being now an adult, consciously decides to continue as a Catholic. It's a spiritual commitment, blessed by the bishop himself, and is generally preceded by a year of contemplation on the matter. So at this critical crossroads, when I was charged with deciding my spiritual fate, I asked myself the one question I had been avoiding in all my past years of happy ponderings. Do I believe in God? Tricky.
What I finally did just before my Confirmation is separate from that question two concepts: trusting in a god to guide my life and believing that God exists as an actual entity. And once I had made that simple distinction, the question was suddenly very easy. I don't believe in god, though that doesn't mean he couldn't possibly exist. The second part is irrelevant because nobody can know if god exists, and whether he does or not has minimal bearing on my life. What I really mean by claiming that I don't believe in god is that I don't have faith in him. I don't put my trust in any superior being and I can't remember a time when I ever have. When I'm scared or alone, I look to myself not god.
Since I made that decision I have considered the church not a place of worship, because I don't worship god, but a place to gather my thoughts and study theology as a philosophy of life. This is a necessary part of anyone's life, one can't think or do anything without knowing why or how. Humans need a cohesive philosophy of how life works so they can fit themselves in it. It's a compass, a moral compass, and with this realization about myself I proudly and happily went through with my Confirmation with every intention of committing to Catholicism, even if I am indifferent to god. So let it be eminently clear that when I finally did break with the church, it was over irreconcilable philosophical differences, and has never had anything to do with god.
I went to church weekly and participated in my various activities, just as I always had. In fact, I did so with much more vigor and enthusiasm than I had before. I really looked forward to church because now I not only considered what the religion was teaching, I was also deeply concerned with my own ideas and developing those. And I didn't keep my thoughts to myself, I talked with long-time parishioners and the priests, and I wrote letters to higher clergy begging advice and clarification on certain aspects of Catholicism, and sharing with them my own thoughts. Some viewed me as a bit of an eccentric, but mostly I was vibrantly aware of my own mind and I did everything I could to make religion work for me in the way I thought it should. I think a lot of people were able to appreciate that, so rather than receiving a great deal of criticism for my probing, I was encouraged to continue my "inward journey" and was looked upon by most members of the church as oddly mature for my age. So I continued to listen to the Father's preaching, while bearing in mind that Noah didn't really fight the great flood, and Jonah wasn't really swallowed by a whale, and it didn't really matter if god existed. I took what I wanted from the stories and the sermons and the rest - well, that was all very childish, like the Easter Bunny.
It was then, when I began separating the morals from the myth, that I became interested explicitly in morals for the first time. What was meant by those adventuresome stories, and how did they relate to form a standard for living. One auspicious Sunday I was seated in the cozy pews, listening to a traveling priest recite the story of Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The story bothered me a little because I couldn't immediately see the moral behind such an obvious absurdity. I thought about it while the familiar narrative was being replayed, then leaned over and whispered to mom, "killing his son on an alter is a symbol of the great devotion it takes to implement god's word [read morals] in your life, right?" She quietly assented. Well, that was fine, I had first hand experience on the kind of conscious effort it takes to consistently apply rules you've decided are good in your life; there are always times when it seems so hard to be good, and so easy to fudge a little. But one can't just acclaim morals to be good and then not follow them, that's hypocritical and ridiculously useless.
The Father surprised me when he spoke of "sacrifice" and the "betterment of others" in his homily, rather than devotion to your own morals. He called us to "perform our moral duty as Catholics," which he described as working hard to be prosperous so one could provide for our family, our community and our needy. He described personal success and prosperity as the best means to self-sacrifice, that we should work for the poor. Supposedly, a successful man is to be the mule of the failure. I was repulsed by this man's view of brotherly "compassion", that I should bear a yoke in order to feed a demand for my work, sweat and blood for the benefit of the rest of humanity. And he was so very explicit in this manner, there seem to be no way to get past what he was saying. Why, I wondered, in order to be a good Catholic, should I not expect to reap the benefits of my own work, but to work continually for others? Then, he resounded, not only should we work for others, we are also "obligated to love all of our fellow man". Such a command turns love and respect, the highest honours we can give, into stuff as common as clay for any person who might happen to demand it of you. To do so defiles any value one's love and honour could give, because you have placed the unjust on the level of just in your heart. Can you imagine, for someone to say that they love you, not because you're worth being loved, but because you exist? How much lower could you feel? That isn't love, that isn't compassion, that is the systematic destruction of love and compassion. I was very upset by this experience, and didn't know what to think of it.
During the following week, I tried not to think of it altogether. I did my school work, read books, played computer games, went out with friends, and at all cost did not think about that sermon.
The next Sunday I dismissed the whole ordeal as the rantings of an insane priest. I figured there must be a few of them around, and I was bound to run into one sooner or later.
I walked into the warmly lit lobby, greeted by acquaintances, feeling fine again. I performed by usual routine of checking the sign-up sheets, making sure all the lay ministry jobs were taken care of, and chatting with friends before I found a seat with my family. I was sitting in the middle section near the front waiting for the father to begin with the familiar welcoming prayer and as I stood up I noticed the giant statue of Jesus on the cross hanging above the alter in front of me. I had never paid much attention to it because it is such a fundamental part of the church, it's always there, so I guess I never saw it clearly. But that day I noticed Jesus was writhing in agony, his spine twisted and his head bent upward. He had blood, sweat, and tears beading down his chest and his mouth was opened in mock scream. It shocked me how violent and gruesome the figure was compared to the calm of the church, the muffled prayers, and the serene bent faces. For the first time I looked at the cross and I didn't see Jesus and His Amazing Adventures, I saw a man gasping, dying, bleeding, groaning his life out in pain. And I saw everyone around me worshiping it, bowing down to it, begging it to forgive them while they pounded in the stakes. It occurred to me that this is the model of the perfect man to them, and they call for his destruction as a means to save everyone else. We are taught in Sunday School that not only did Jesus die on the cross, it was necessary for him to do so, that to appease our sins one man, the perfect man, must be slaughtered. And this was to be my model? This was how I was to live a virtuous life, continually strive to be great, and toss my greatness as alms to save the poor of wealth and spirit.
I left the church and declared myself atheist two weeks later, I did so out of sincere moral outrage, and with the fullest awareness of saving my soul.
The reason the system works is because it's based on hundreds of years of rationalizing. It rests on the thousands of brilliant men and women that tried to make a bad thing work for them in the way they thought it should, without ever considering that they could do so much better without the weight of dogma on their shoulders and with the ability to think for themselves.
Ezra Levant was a Canadian publisher of The Western Standard who printed the Danish cartoons. Recently he was called to appear before Alberta's Human Rights Commission for an interrogation of these actions. He has kindly provided us via his website with video footage of said farce. He also has a talent for speaking directly and succinctly on the issue, and so I give you these, reasons why I'm rooting for Levant:
It's not these cartoons that create hatred, it's radical muslims who blow things up
You're a thug, your whole company's a thug
I don't grant you at all the right to sit in judgment of whether or not I'm reasonable. I'll grant that to my advertisers. I'll grant that to my readers. I'll grant that to friends and people in the social society who may marginalize me or shun me if I'm too rude, or who may like me if I'm their advocate, or who may oppose me or to debate me.
How ironic that something that calls itself the human rights commission is the one corroding those rights.
[Officer McGovern responds] You're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure.
[Levant sallies] Uh, I wish that were the fact.
