Yesterday was devoted to cleaning up the almost-end of the apple harvest: making and freezing applesauce, making yet one more apple pie from our own apples. I’ve finally decided that an apple pie with only a top crust is just as good as (and maybe better than in some ways) an apple pie with two crusts. First, the bottom crust doesn’t get soggy if the apples are very moist; second, you don’t have to make two crusts; third, you cut the fat portion of the crust in half. Of course, I make up for that with having whipped cream with the apple one-crust pie, but whipped cream (like chocolates) is one of life’s small necessities. Or at least can be considered so if one is willing to use it in moderation.
I am still among the cooks that whip cream themselves because the stuff that comes in cans tastes funny to me. I used to think that people bought the canned stuff because they didn’t want to be committed to using an entire cup of whipping cream. But that can’t be the case because an entire can of pre-whipped cream (I know, it’s not really pre-whipped but is 'whipped' in the process of extruding it) also would have to be a commitment to the whole thing. I can only conclude that it is a trade-off: higher price and less good taste in exchange for not putting the 4 minutes into whipping it yourself. Seems like a bad bargain to me.
But, I was not meaning to talk about whipped cream. It was about the apples. There have been a lot of them, although not as abundant a year as most. My friends who press apple juice each fall usually have boxes of apples all over the cool parts of their house—brought in by friends and neighbors with excess—but the other day, I saw only a half dozen boxes at their house. So, less juice this year, maybe. Our Jonagold harvest has been the best of our 6 or 7 varieties this year: exquisite taste, juicy, crisp. I try to save them for eating, but we are now down to the last ten or so, so we will, sadly, soon have to shift to grocery store apples for eating. Within the next 6 weeks they start becoming noticeably stored apples. One of our trees has a few red delicious still considering ripening. The fall raspberry crop is also still thinking about ripening (no chance), but is settling for molding on the canes; the last red delicious will probably make it.) We’re all pretty conscientious about using up these apples. My neighbors, going away for a week or so, called us from the ferry to urge us to pick the end of the harvest from their tree while they are gone if we need apples. The apple harvest lasts for two months, at least, and it may be my favorite time of year just because it goes on and on and because apples are so shareable.
It is also time for the pecan harvest in New Mexico where my older daughter lives. She has a highly productive pecan tree and each year she ships us a couple of boxes, about twenty pounds each, of pecans in the shell. The first year she sent them, she also sent a pecan nutcracker of great ingenuity, called an ‘inertia nutcracker.’ It is sort of like a small log splitter, but only a picture will do, so you can see one here. (I am particularly fond of the fact that they advertise it as having been ‘invented by a medical doctor.’ Is that what they do in their spare time?) The inertia nutcracker, I believe, works only with pecans, but it really works. Even 80 pounds later, I still find the process entertaining. A truly fresh pecan is a wonder indeed; a fresh, toasted pecan even more splendid
When I get these boxes of pecans, I crack and use some and freeze the rest in the shell. Then, I take them out over the following year as I need them. Having twenty-thirty pounds of shelled pecans is one of life’s great riches, and when you combine it with those fresh apples? Why so much inclination to complain about life’s inadequacies? Today, I cracked the last of last year’s pecans because this year’s will soon be upon us. (At least I hope so.) I think of this as a day of thanksgiving: for the apples and the pecans. The Pilgrims landed in the wrong part of the country perhaps. Pecan pie: so much more everything than pumpkin could ever even dream of.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Dressing Up
In 1967, Canadian children first saw what became a long-lasting childrens’ TV program, beloved by people now in their late 40’s, called ‘Mr. Dressup.’ Since I was not a Canadian child, I never saw it, but I always imagined it as being a program in which the main character dressed up in costumes. In fact, he did don an apparently endless array of costumes which were housed in something called ‘the tickle trunk.’ Except for the costumes, Mr. Dressup seems to have had a lot in common with Fred Rogers of ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.’ Fred Rodgers, of course, was not into wearing any costumes other than his Mr. Rogers costume. In any case, they were both apparently quiet, gentle men who urged children to be considerate and joyful in the world. Good advice.
I was thinking about Mr. Dressup and Mr. Rogers today because I spent a lot of time thinking about Michelle Obama’s dress from Election Night in Chicago. Well, not so much thinking about the dress itself, but about why the New York Times felt the need to publish an article evaluating it, why half the readers of the web-based version of the Times felt a need to have their own views about this vital issue preserved for the public record in the ‘comments’ section of the article, and about why the other half of the readership appears to have felt a need to forward the article to their nearest and dearest email list, said article now appearing in the ‘most forwarded articles.’
I understand why everybody, or at least every woman in the country, is so quick to have an opinion as to whether they do or don’t like this dress or any dress. We are brought up, tiresomely, to be deeply concerned about our clothes’ attractiveness and, by extension, our own attractiveness as the inhabitant of said clothes. But why does there have to be all this discussion? Why do we treat it as if it were a moral question that, with sufficient serious thought and broad discussion could be finally resolved. Was the dress good? Or bad? Was the dress good for Ms. Obama? Or bad for Ms. Obama? Was she too attractive? Not attractive enough? Did she ‘exhibit a rare lapse in taste,’ as the Times charged?
Since Ms. Obama was not trying to attract me or any of the respondents to the article, why do we care what she was wearing as long as it covered her adequately in a public setting and did not seem to be drawn from Mr. Dressup’s Tickle Trunk or the local Halloween store’s costume rack? Did we like Mr. Obama’s suit? Did we like Mr. Biden’s suit? Do we have much of any idea what their suits even looked like? No, we don’t. Why is that?
This election, they tell me, is transformational. I wish it would transform the press’ and the public’s snarky little habit of offering running critiques of women’s choice of clothes, especially women who really never asked to be in the public eye, or at least not as fashionistas. It seems to me that Michelle Obama is doing enough for us by agreeing to be the First Lady. It’s an honor and all that, but I can’t imagine that this is what she was looking for as the epitome of her existence. We could offer her the favor of letting her wear whatever she wants, without having to hear our disparaging comments. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Dressup would advise thusly: ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’ That's what we used to call good manners.
I was thinking about Mr. Dressup and Mr. Rogers today because I spent a lot of time thinking about Michelle Obama’s dress from Election Night in Chicago. Well, not so much thinking about the dress itself, but about why the New York Times felt the need to publish an article evaluating it, why half the readers of the web-based version of the Times felt a need to have their own views about this vital issue preserved for the public record in the ‘comments’ section of the article, and about why the other half of the readership appears to have felt a need to forward the article to their nearest and dearest email list, said article now appearing in the ‘most forwarded articles.’
I understand why everybody, or at least every woman in the country, is so quick to have an opinion as to whether they do or don’t like this dress or any dress. We are brought up, tiresomely, to be deeply concerned about our clothes’ attractiveness and, by extension, our own attractiveness as the inhabitant of said clothes. But why does there have to be all this discussion? Why do we treat it as if it were a moral question that, with sufficient serious thought and broad discussion could be finally resolved. Was the dress good? Or bad? Was the dress good for Ms. Obama? Or bad for Ms. Obama? Was she too attractive? Not attractive enough? Did she ‘exhibit a rare lapse in taste,’ as the Times charged?
Since Ms. Obama was not trying to attract me or any of the respondents to the article, why do we care what she was wearing as long as it covered her adequately in a public setting and did not seem to be drawn from Mr. Dressup’s Tickle Trunk or the local Halloween store’s costume rack? Did we like Mr. Obama’s suit? Did we like Mr. Biden’s suit? Do we have much of any idea what their suits even looked like? No, we don’t. Why is that?
This election, they tell me, is transformational. I wish it would transform the press’ and the public’s snarky little habit of offering running critiques of women’s choice of clothes, especially women who really never asked to be in the public eye, or at least not as fashionistas. It seems to me that Michelle Obama is doing enough for us by agreeing to be the First Lady. It’s an honor and all that, but I can’t imagine that this is what she was looking for as the epitome of her existence. We could offer her the favor of letting her wear whatever she wants, without having to hear our disparaging comments. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Dressup would advise thusly: ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’ That's what we used to call good manners.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Next Time
I awakened this morning to find that Barak Obama is still President-Elect. And now, we get to see whether he and his team can handle this Leviathan of which they’ve won ‘control.’ I have my doubts, but not because of any personal inadequacies he may have, which are doubtless as legion as everyone elses’. No, it’s more a belief in human inadequacies. The whale is just too big and too complex, so good enough would be my highest hopes. And we’ll see.
Nevertheless, when I was driving about in beautiful, downtown Point Roberts today, I was impressed to see that the International Market’s main sign, one of those changing digital signs, instead of saying, ‘Pork Chops, $3.89’ and then rolling to ‘’Apple Juice, 1 gal.,$2.99,’ this morning said, ‘YES, WE CAN’ before it went to the pork chops, and then returned to the ‘YES, WE CAN .’ I surely hope we can and if the groceries stores are going to do their part, maybe we actually can, although it still is not quite clear to me what it is that we are looking to do. A lot needs doing, certainly.
I was also reading in Harper’s this morning, by chance, about Ken Silverstein’s conversation with a North Carolina Democratic political operative, Gary Pearce. Silverstein asked him about how issues affect a campaign like the one we’ve just been through. “There ain’t no issues—that’s the great myth of politics. . . Basically it’s about who you trust. Where do you think the country is heading and how do you feel about these two guys.’”
That had a real ring of truth to it. So, here’s one of the things maybe we can do. We can knock off elections like the one we’ve just been through ($2 billion according to NPR’s business program), get rid of position papers (except for the policy wonks who like to read them) and TV ads, and tighten it up to a kind of serial, reality show (much more popular with Americans than politics, anyway) in which the candidates appear on TV over a short period of time in several discreet programs designed for us to figure out if we can trust them. ELECTION 2012: WHO DO YOU TRUST? Presumably, the audience already knows how it thinks the country is doing. On these shows, the candidates will talk to people and they’ll do things. We could vary the format from election to election, but here’s some possibilities:
1. A session in which each helps aMedicare recipient understand the bills that Medicare and secondary insurers have sent to them and explains what they should do next. Specific bills will be available for discussion.
2. A session in which they negotiate differences between two angry people.
3. A session in which each provides counselling to a family in foreclosure.
4. A session in which each discusses with someone like Joe the plumber whether he’s likely ever to become a successful entrepreneur; which is to say, what it would take as compared to where he is now.
5. A session in which they describe their funniest vacation, their best vacation, their worst vacation.
6. A session in which they help us to understand what a specific losing sports team should and could do to improve its hopes of a winning season; maybe the Cubs, since baseball is the American sport.
7. A session in which they explain their tax returns to us (their returns will be available for print-out via the net before the program so we can follow along with the discussion).
8. A session in which each tries to entertain, for fifteen minutes, a small child whom they did not previously know, and then engages in conversation with a (similarly unknown) first-time voter between the ages of 18 and 20 for the rest of the program’s time.
9. A session in which each spends fifteen minutes with Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, Jon Stewart, O’Reilly and O’Hannity, or someone of that sort with the ‘that sort’s’ job to be not to interview but to try to intimidate the candidate.
10. A session in which each describes how he and his wife and his children managed to pay their college tuition. This can be a very short session, of course, for some candidates.
Now, I’m sure there are other, better ideas for these sessions (although I do think ten is a nice number). The trouble with blogging is that you don’t get to sit and think about ideas for a week or two. But the concept is what I’m after here. No way this costs two billion. The TV time is free: the public owns the airwaves; the stations only lease them. Everybody is required to wear the same outfit each time so we can keep their identities straight, so no large clothing expenditures are required. Everyone will be required to get a $400 haircut, however. Even counting the haircut, the candidates can be expected to pay for this out of their pocket change, thus freeing the public of lobbyists. And since issues don’t matter, the public won’t have to be working to figure out things that they find difficult to keep track of. And, very best of all, it will eliminate all need for PUNDITS during the election season. They can go vacation in France and vote absentee, and the rest of us will be pundit-free for ten weeks. Excellent!
Ten weeks at the most the final campaign will take and we will have to hear from them only for ten programs, which would be ten hours at the most. And we would surely be better able to figure out whether we could trust them from this, as compared to what we have just gone through which has largely made me want to trust neither of them. We can be easier on ourselves AND on the candidates. Yes, We Can. And that is change you can believe in, my friends. Or something.
Nevertheless, when I was driving about in beautiful, downtown Point Roberts today, I was impressed to see that the International Market’s main sign, one of those changing digital signs, instead of saying, ‘Pork Chops, $3.89’ and then rolling to ‘’Apple Juice, 1 gal.,$2.99,’ this morning said, ‘YES, WE CAN’ before it went to the pork chops, and then returned to the ‘YES, WE CAN .’ I surely hope we can and if the groceries stores are going to do their part, maybe we actually can, although it still is not quite clear to me what it is that we are looking to do. A lot needs doing, certainly.
I was also reading in Harper’s this morning, by chance, about Ken Silverstein’s conversation with a North Carolina Democratic political operative, Gary Pearce. Silverstein asked him about how issues affect a campaign like the one we’ve just been through. “There ain’t no issues—that’s the great myth of politics. . . Basically it’s about who you trust. Where do you think the country is heading and how do you feel about these two guys.’”
That had a real ring of truth to it. So, here’s one of the things maybe we can do. We can knock off elections like the one we’ve just been through ($2 billion according to NPR’s business program), get rid of position papers (except for the policy wonks who like to read them) and TV ads, and tighten it up to a kind of serial, reality show (much more popular with Americans than politics, anyway) in which the candidates appear on TV over a short period of time in several discreet programs designed for us to figure out if we can trust them. ELECTION 2012: WHO DO YOU TRUST? Presumably, the audience already knows how it thinks the country is doing. On these shows, the candidates will talk to people and they’ll do things. We could vary the format from election to election, but here’s some possibilities:
1. A session in which each helps aMedicare recipient understand the bills that Medicare and secondary insurers have sent to them and explains what they should do next. Specific bills will be available for discussion.
2. A session in which they negotiate differences between two angry people.
3. A session in which each provides counselling to a family in foreclosure.
4. A session in which each discusses with someone like Joe the plumber whether he’s likely ever to become a successful entrepreneur; which is to say, what it would take as compared to where he is now.
5. A session in which they describe their funniest vacation, their best vacation, their worst vacation.
6. A session in which they help us to understand what a specific losing sports team should and could do to improve its hopes of a winning season; maybe the Cubs, since baseball is the American sport.
7. A session in which they explain their tax returns to us (their returns will be available for print-out via the net before the program so we can follow along with the discussion).
8. A session in which each tries to entertain, for fifteen minutes, a small child whom they did not previously know, and then engages in conversation with a (similarly unknown) first-time voter between the ages of 18 and 20 for the rest of the program’s time.
9. A session in which each spends fifteen minutes with Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, Jon Stewart, O’Reilly and O’Hannity, or someone of that sort with the ‘that sort’s’ job to be not to interview but to try to intimidate the candidate.
10. A session in which each describes how he and his wife and his children managed to pay their college tuition. This can be a very short session, of course, for some candidates.
Now, I’m sure there are other, better ideas for these sessions (although I do think ten is a nice number). The trouble with blogging is that you don’t get to sit and think about ideas for a week or two. But the concept is what I’m after here. No way this costs two billion. The TV time is free: the public owns the airwaves; the stations only lease them. Everybody is required to wear the same outfit each time so we can keep their identities straight, so no large clothing expenditures are required. Everyone will be required to get a $400 haircut, however. Even counting the haircut, the candidates can be expected to pay for this out of their pocket change, thus freeing the public of lobbyists. And since issues don’t matter, the public won’t have to be working to figure out things that they find difficult to keep track of. And, very best of all, it will eliminate all need for PUNDITS during the election season. They can go vacation in France and vote absentee, and the rest of us will be pundit-free for ten weeks. Excellent!
Ten weeks at the most the final campaign will take and we will have to hear from them only for ten programs, which would be ten hours at the most. And we would surely be better able to figure out whether we could trust them from this, as compared to what we have just gone through which has largely made me want to trust neither of them. We can be easier on ourselves AND on the candidates. Yes, We Can. And that is change you can believe in, my friends. Or something.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election Day in Point Roberts
Cloudy today, with an expectation of rain most of the day, although there were occasional glimpses of sun. But it doesn't really matter whether it's raining or not with respect to its being election day because nobody in Point Roberts goes to the polls to vote. When we first moved to Point Roberts, you could choose to vote by mail. You didn't have to claim that you wouldn't be here on election day or anything. You just chose to vote that way. We usually did, because we often weren't here on the actual day, although I did once vote in person over at the Community Center. It wasn't a particularly memorable event: I was the only person there at the time and, because I had previously voted by mail, I had to cast a provisional ballot in order to make sure that I hadn't also voted by mail (and somehow forgotten that fact?).
But a few years back, the state of Washington decided we could just all vote by mail, and so we do. About three weeks before the election, you get a ballot and its paired return envelopes and a state-prepared ballot explanation/statement, to offer explanations of initiatives, which we always have: that quality we share with California. My view is that an initiative is almost always worth voting against. I can imagine another possibility but the initiative people have to convince me that they're the one. You do your mail balloting by pen (black or blue ink) and then you get it postmarked by election day. The last mail goes out of Pt. Roberts at 3:15 p.m., so here at 3:34 p.m., the vote is over.
We voted a couple of weeks ago, so today is, in that respect, not much of a ceremonial event. I drove down to see a friend today and passed maybe a half dozen signs for Obama. Well, four signs for Obama and two signs against McCain/Palin. The Ron Paul signs that used to adorn many telephone polls are all gone away by now and weren't replaced by Bob Barr signs. So, from Washington, which nobody thinks is a state that might go for McCain, to the rest of the country: We're done. Take it away.
But a few years back, the state of Washington decided we could just all vote by mail, and so we do. About three weeks before the election, you get a ballot and its paired return envelopes and a state-prepared ballot explanation/statement, to offer explanations of initiatives, which we always have: that quality we share with California. My view is that an initiative is almost always worth voting against. I can imagine another possibility but the initiative people have to convince me that they're the one. You do your mail balloting by pen (black or blue ink) and then you get it postmarked by election day. The last mail goes out of Pt. Roberts at 3:15 p.m., so here at 3:34 p.m., the vote is over.
We voted a couple of weeks ago, so today is, in that respect, not much of a ceremonial event. I drove down to see a friend today and passed maybe a half dozen signs for Obama. Well, four signs for Obama and two signs against McCain/Palin. The Ron Paul signs that used to adorn many telephone polls are all gone away by now and weren't replaced by Bob Barr signs. So, from Washington, which nobody thinks is a state that might go for McCain, to the rest of the country: We're done. Take it away.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Beach Life
The newspaper this months brings another host of problems to us here in Point Roberts. The newest one is the county’s shoreline management amendments. As I previously mentioned, Washington seems to give ownership on waterfront property clear down to the low tide mark. However, it makes up for it, happily, by requiring something of those who own that property. Currently, it is defining buildings/structures/houses/etc. within 150 feet of the water (not clear to me whether that’s high water mark, low water mark, or some midline) as ‘non-conforming structures.’ And, as ‘non-conforming structures, they need to have special permits if the owners wish to rebuild or add to the building/structure/etc., if the addition has a value in excess of $5,781. (Such a nice, precise number, no? You do wonder where that came from.)
Local waterfront owners are, the newspaper reports, up in arms, although it may also be local realtors who are feeling bad. Some waterfront property owners have filed a suit against the county on the grounds that the County Council is not following proper procedures in making these changes, but the unhappiness is all about property rights. You might think that if you were lucky enough to have a piece of beachfront property in Whatcom County, you’d be willing just to count your blessings. But here in the land of libertarians, people surely do feel that they have pretty much an absolute right to do whatever they want on their own property. Lots of luck when the Washington State Department of Ecology AND the county are on the other side of the court.
The unhappy lawsuit filers have declared in their suit that these new rules are excessively restrictive. I wonder if they get the same people to quantify ‘excessive’ as the County gets to quantify the allowable addition’s value? And what would that line of work be called? Excessively restrictive seems a little like overkill to me. Excessively inconvenient to the owners, doubtless. But they seem about as restrictive as they are.
Nevertheless, the litigants maintain in their suit, according to the All Point Bulletin, that this excessive restrictiveness must be stopped because, if it is allowed to go forward, their waterfront property will ‘be rendered virtually valueless .’ Is virtually valueless much more than actually valueless? That statement itself seems excessively hysterical, I’d say. Perhaps I ought to make an offer to one of the beachfront owners. I'd be willing to offer a quarter of the assessed value of one of these places. After all, if they’re ‘virtually valueless,’ a quarter of the assessed value ought to be a terrific offer which would be quickly taken up. And then I too would be lucky enough to live on the beach, even if in a ‘non-conforming structure,’ and could worry about my rights being violated.
Local waterfront owners are, the newspaper reports, up in arms, although it may also be local realtors who are feeling bad. Some waterfront property owners have filed a suit against the county on the grounds that the County Council is not following proper procedures in making these changes, but the unhappiness is all about property rights. You might think that if you were lucky enough to have a piece of beachfront property in Whatcom County, you’d be willing just to count your blessings. But here in the land of libertarians, people surely do feel that they have pretty much an absolute right to do whatever they want on their own property. Lots of luck when the Washington State Department of Ecology AND the county are on the other side of the court.
The unhappy lawsuit filers have declared in their suit that these new rules are excessively restrictive. I wonder if they get the same people to quantify ‘excessive’ as the County gets to quantify the allowable addition’s value? And what would that line of work be called? Excessively restrictive seems a little like overkill to me. Excessively inconvenient to the owners, doubtless. But they seem about as restrictive as they are.
Nevertheless, the litigants maintain in their suit, according to the All Point Bulletin, that this excessive restrictiveness must be stopped because, if it is allowed to go forward, their waterfront property will ‘be rendered virtually valueless .’ Is virtually valueless much more than actually valueless? That statement itself seems excessively hysterical, I’d say. Perhaps I ought to make an offer to one of the beachfront owners. I'd be willing to offer a quarter of the assessed value of one of these places. After all, if they’re ‘virtually valueless,’ a quarter of the assessed value ought to be a terrific offer which would be quickly taken up. And then I too would be lucky enough to live on the beach, even if in a ‘non-conforming structure,’ and could worry about my rights being violated.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Grey Sky. .
…and an empty sea. There’s almost always a ship, a sailboat, a barge, a something out in the Strait of Georgia when I walk down there, but not today. Everybody’s home thinking about the future, maybe. This summer, the number of cruise ships going by, both in Point Roberts, out of Seattle, and in Roberts Creek, out of Vancouver, has been impressive. Some of them look as if they could easily be hauling small towns around…2,000 passengers, at least. That could be an interesting community activity, I suppose.
I’ve never been on a cruise. It seems kind of self-indulgent to me, I guess, or it requires me to be more indolent than I am comfortable being. It also doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing that people like me do, despite the fact that I have many friends, who are indeed in many ways like me, and who go on cruises and have good times. But I doubt if I would. Jackie O goes on cruises, the Astors go on cruises, movie stars (say, Fred Astaire) in highly romantic movies go on cruises. The military also goes on cruises, of a sort. All things being equal, I’d rather work in the garden. Of course, by next year, maybe nobody will be going on cruises, maybe everybody will be working in their garden whether they want to or not.
I was looking at an old cook book of my mother’s the other day, one that I fancy she received as a wedding present since it dates from then. What can it have been like to have started out a new life as the Great Depression was just beginning but the direction was clear? Of course, she probably didn’t know it was the Great Depression at the time, just bad economic times. Her parents lost all their money in that great crash, but she and my father didn’t have any money, so they didn’t have anything to lose, and they both had jobs, although she quit hers shortly afterwards.
But the thing about the cookbook is this: Although, first published in 1930 (with 1931, 1933 editions), it was written in the 1920’s, when everyone was flying high, when people who never before had had money had suddenly become people with a lot of money, people who had big houses and went on cruises and gave dinner parties. About 50 pages of this relatively small book are devoted to explaining how to handle servants and how to entertain guests at meals: what the servants wear and when they change attire (butlers wear different attire before and after dinner, e.g.). A great deal of advice is provided on how many different pieces of silver are to be arranged at each plate, what kinds of foods go together for an ‘informal meal’ as opposed to a ‘formal meal.’ What to serve at a formal tea, and where to serve it. And on. In addition, there is a special section on how infants and children are to be introduced to food.
Clearly, this book is intended to bring people up to speed in some higher social class than they started out, to make them feel more confidence in their new position. Maybe going on cruises is like that, designed to make people feel better about having enough money to go on a cruise. My guess is that the cookbook’s instructions would have just made them feel more intimidated, and maybe a cruise as well, but then I’m not so interested in cruises or dinner parties. I mean, look at the Astors: did it do them any good? At least, not after the first part.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Canadian Cut-Ups
The Montreal comedy team pranksters who lured Sarah Palin into thinking she was on the receiving end of a phone call from French President Nicholas Sarkozy are operating in an honorable Canadian tradition, although when it happened in the 2000 election, it didn’t get any U.S. coverage that I ever saw. What could account for that?
In 2000, Rick Mercer (of the Canadian equivalent of Saturday Night Live) tracked down George W. Bush at a campaign event in Michigan and managed to get close enough (with a camera team) to tell him that ‘Prime Minister Poutine’ of Canada had endorsed him. Bush got an ‘oh, shucks!’ look on his face, and allowed as to how, as I recall, he was ‘very flattered.’ Of course, Prime Minister Poutine would most accurately be translated as the Prime Minister of french-fried potatoes with cheese curds and gravy, but we could scarcely expect Bush to have known that. Although we might have thought he would know that the Canadian Prime Minister was Jean Chretien and that he might even conceivably know that the probability of a Canadian Prime Minister endorsing anyone in a U.S. Presidential campaign, let alone him, had a probability of somewhat less than Absolute Zero. But there Bush was, looking dumb as a stick to the few Americans who saw the clip.
Ms. Palin did not look quite so wretched in today’s prank but one certainly is struck by her apparent view that the President of France might call her up to discuss hunting, his fondness for killing live animals, and his wife’s sexual temperature in bed. Palin responded with a comment about Sarkozy’s ‘lovely family,’ which--given that his wife divorced him about an hour after he was elected and he very quickly married a model—leaves one wondering exactly which family she had in mind. Well, she’s not part of that crowd, so it is possible that she was just sitting there thinking, ‘What kind of people call you up and talk like this?’ Her mother taught her to be polite, and she was, and the McCain campaign taught her to get her talking points out, which she did.
But, what have we wrought? A Republican V.P. candidate who declares with apparent sincerity how much she admires the President of France: none of those ‘Freedom Fries’ for Sarah, I guess. I don’t know how the right wing of the Grand Old Party will take that.
In 2000, Rick Mercer (of the Canadian equivalent of Saturday Night Live) tracked down George W. Bush at a campaign event in Michigan and managed to get close enough (with a camera team) to tell him that ‘Prime Minister Poutine’ of Canada had endorsed him. Bush got an ‘oh, shucks!’ look on his face, and allowed as to how, as I recall, he was ‘very flattered.’ Of course, Prime Minister Poutine would most accurately be translated as the Prime Minister of french-fried potatoes with cheese curds and gravy, but we could scarcely expect Bush to have known that. Although we might have thought he would know that the Canadian Prime Minister was Jean Chretien and that he might even conceivably know that the probability of a Canadian Prime Minister endorsing anyone in a U.S. Presidential campaign, let alone him, had a probability of somewhat less than Absolute Zero. But there Bush was, looking dumb as a stick to the few Americans who saw the clip.
Ms. Palin did not look quite so wretched in today’s prank but one certainly is struck by her apparent view that the President of France might call her up to discuss hunting, his fondness for killing live animals, and his wife’s sexual temperature in bed. Palin responded with a comment about Sarkozy’s ‘lovely family,’ which--given that his wife divorced him about an hour after he was elected and he very quickly married a model—leaves one wondering exactly which family she had in mind. Well, she’s not part of that crowd, so it is possible that she was just sitting there thinking, ‘What kind of people call you up and talk like this?’ Her mother taught her to be polite, and she was, and the McCain campaign taught her to get her talking points out, which she did.
But, what have we wrought? A Republican V.P. candidate who declares with apparent sincerity how much she admires the President of France: none of those ‘Freedom Fries’ for Sarah, I guess. I don’t know how the right wing of the Grand Old Party will take that.
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