Nobody 831

Sunday, August 29, 2010
Nobody 831

Nobody Asked Me But:

Thursday morning: So where are the trombones? I said good-bye to Mr. 75 last night. If 76 is just as good to me personally, I will have no complaints. So let me begin my new year by wishing health and happiness to my family and friends.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to Starbucks for an iced Americano.<<<

Same day – later, at UCLA for pre-football dinner in Wilson Plaza: I overheard God, at the next table, confessing that he really grew restless on the 7th day, and wanting to create something special, something of breathtaking beauty, he designed the Bruin campus.<<<

The picture above is of your author enjoying ice cream in New England, which he plans to do again very soon.<<<

Like Abraham Lincoln and Dr. King, I too dream of a better America where people like Glen Beck will be seen for who they really are, liars and racists.<<<

It pains me to say this, if political stupidity could be bottled and sold, every Democratic politician would be richer than sin.

One small example - Democrats passed one of the most important pieces of legislation since 1965, the health care bill, but, instead of selling it as such, they have been running scared ever since. They are so quiet about it, that one would think it is a national security issue. (Actually it is – the good kind of national security.)<<<

FYI: By far the most dangerous American job is being a fisherman, which has 200 fatalities per 100,000. Runner-up is logging with 61.8 fatalities per 100,000.<<<

Reading or listening to the Rad Right always reminds me of former NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

My quote of the week comes from Maureen Dowd whom I have neglected lately. In a column last week, she described President Obama as “a rational man running a most irrational nation, a high-minded man in a low-minded age.”<<<

I just finished Three Stations, the new Martin Cruz Smith novel about Moscow police inspector Arkady Renko. It is an excellent book, both for its story and its insights about Moscow under capitalism. Or, as one character says about the shrinking number of Moscow millionaires since the recession, “We don’t know how to run capitalism, but, as it turns out, neither do the capitalists.”

In one telling scene an upper middle class woman berates Renko for parking his Lada in her neighborhood, because “it will ruin property values.”<<<

Two things I can’t stand in modern America:

Self-dramatizing journalists – who create the story and/or makes themselves the center of it, and

The coarsening of our society by our accepting such ads as this one in Sunday’s LA Times that proclaims in large type that the new season of Weeds grabs “Monday by the balls.”<<<

TOMATO SOUP

Tomato is no longer the ugly duckling among soups. Even Campbell, with their tomato bisque, puts out an above average version. But if you want great TS you need to get into your car or on a plane. Here are my top 4 versions listed from closest to most distant:

Boudin Bakery – This small chain of San Francisco based bread boys makes a wonderful roasted garlic tomato soup. And you do not have to go to the Bay Area to get it, because they have a restaurant next to the Barnes and Noble that is just west of South Coast Plaza.

Ballard Hotel – Ballard is a tiny village between Solvang and Los Olivos. The hotel has an excellent restaurant that serves an outstanding tomato soup with thin rounds of garlic toast floating on top.

Bistro Jeanty – This restaurant, one of my favorites, (and a favorite of local chefs too) is in Yountville, a great eating town in the center of Napa Valley. Their TS is served with a puff pastry cover and is wonderful.

Sara Beth - Sara Beth’s is a small bakery located in the old Nabisco Building in Greenwich Village (NYC) that is home to The Food Channel. She also has a café in Lord and Taylor, which is where we discovered her Fresh Tomato Soup. The name tells it all – pieces of fresh tomato, in a delicious TS flavored with garlic and many other fine seasonings. (Oh, and if you do not have time to fly to NYC, there is still a pint in our freezer, out of the three my wife had shipped for my Christmas present.)<<<

Signs of the Hypocralipse:

Right Radicals who are absolutists on the Second Amendment, think the Freedom of Religion guaranteed by the First Amendment is open to limitation.<<<

Famed football coach Bobby Bowdin, in his just-published book, says he was called to coaching by God. I am suspicious about whether it was really God, because the caller reversed the charges.<<<

Foyle's War – I have always wanted to watch this series. Thanks Hugh, for lending it to us. Chief inspector Christopher Foyle investigates murder in Southern England during the early years of WW II. He is often faced with the difficult choices and moral dilemmas that go with a nation at war. Since I love pondering both, I am becoming addicted to the series.

Here is an example: In the first show the Chief Inspector determines that a man vital to Britain's war effort has committed two murders. He does the right thing by arresting the man but later admits that he had, at least for a moment, considered letting the man go.

I am strange. (Don’t even think about agreeing.) In many things I am a moral relativist, but in this I was absolute. Neither murder had any redeeming social value. The motives were selfish. The killer was a bastard. The High command will have to find somebody else to break the German codes.

Second show, second example: The White Feather is about a fascist group in England. Towards the end, the leader gives an impassioned speech about loving his country too but not wanting them to sacrifice British lives in a wrong cause. Foyle, who has a son in the RAF, seems, for a moment, to listen and treat the argument with respect. But it doesn’t deserve even that moment’s respect, because this man is violently anti-Semitic and those who hate without good reason are evil. Thank goodness, at the end, Foyle sided with me. I knew I liked the guy.<<<

Action: LA Times columnist Chris Erskine, writing about a trip to Paris, reported being hustled by a hooker in front of Starbucks. Reaction: I wonder if the lady borrowed the old stewardess line, “Coffee, tea or me?<<<

LA Times sports columnist T. J. Simers crossed the line this past week. He was writing about ex-Dodger pitcher, Dave Stewart who is now the agent for the Dodger’s underperforming centre fielder, Matt Kemp. Simers correctly criticized Stewart for his “Kemp can do nothing wrong” stand but was off base to include this sentence: “No idea what Stewart has against L.A. because he was known in his time here to just pick someone off the street and immediately befriend them.”

Yes, when Stewart pitched for the Dodgers he was rumored to be gay, but Simers’ shot was off-the-chart mean-spirited, even for him.<<<

Action – Indianapolis: Certified nursing assistant Brenda Chaney found an elderly lady on the floor of the nursing home where she worked. But Brenda could not give aid, because of the woman’s instructions that she only be helped by a white caregiver.

Reaction: Lay, lady, lay!

Action: “We will take the civil rights movement back, because we were the people who did it in the first place.” Glen Beck

Reaction: I am shocked! I did not know that Beck was black.<<<

Here are the three questions I want to leave you with this week: Why are we here? What does life mean? Are premium gins really better than cheaper ones?