September 03, 2004
Bill Clinton to have bypass surgery

Bill Clinton is scheduled to have quadruple bypass surgery tomorrow in New York:

The severity of his coronary problem was discovered after an angiogram this morning at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y., a source said. His coronary results were not favorable and he was found to have multiple lesions, the source added.

In a statement from Clinton's office, spokeswoman Tammy Sun said Clinton is being admitted today to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for bypass surgery.

"The former president went to Northern Westchester Hospital [Thursday] afternoon after experiencing mild chest pain and shortness of breath," the statement said. "Initial testing was normal and he spent the night at home in nearby Chappaqua, N.Y. After undergoing additional testing this morning at Westchester Medical Center, doctors advised he should undergo bypass surgery."

While this type of surgery is fairly routine these days, it's still dangerous. Include him in your prayers, that the operation is successful and he recovers fully.

Yes, I know, but he's not evil incarnate and as much trouble as he's been I'd still prefer he die a natural death in old age. I'd prefer everyone die that way, except for the few who've given up their right to that through true evil - the Ted Bundys and Saddam Husseins of this world. Ponder this for a while, then do the right thing.

Posted by susanna at 01:05 PM | Comments (2) | Trackback (0)
Listen to yourself, lady!

Here's a woman who threw an anti-Bush party in Jersey City last night to join Al Franken in his Great American Shout Out:

"It's a fun, peaceful way to express what we're feeling," said Tosatto, 41. "That's just the perfect thing to say. It's like, get out of here."

It's like, so substantive! Here's her problem with Bush:

Tosatto's main gripe against the president: "In my opinion, he lied to us about why they sent the troops to Iraq." Tosatto is director of accounting and human resources for a trucking company.

Hmm. I think Neal Boortz mentioned that on his site today:

And what of this nonsense that we were "misled" on Iraq? Didn't we just learn that two government reports have now exonerated President Bush on intelligence used as the basis to invade Iraq. There was no misleading. You can only mislead someone if you know to be untrue what you are telling them.

Perhaps Tosatto should take her own advice:

"Some people don't look at the big picture," Tosatto said. "They believe the sound bites without really looking into it. I wish people would think for themselves on this."

Yes, I wish she would. Unfortunately, it appears that too many people put approximately as much thought into their anti-Bush beliefs as this guest at Tosatto's:

"If we have four more years of this, it's just going to be awful," said one guest, Erin Houlihan, 23, a graphic designer who lives in Downtown Jersey City.

And there you have it. It would be "just...awful" for Bush to win another four years.

I realize that these people were at the mercy of a journalist who may not have presented them in the rhetorical brilliance they normally exhibit. And it's mean to pick on people who can't defend themselves. But it just sounds like so much I've heard from the left, all sound bites, no thought, yet a self-perception of deep consideration. It gets old, after a while.

Posted by susanna at 08:56 AM | Comments (1) | Trackback (0)
September 02, 2004
This is how bad it is in my house

Today I took a kitchen-sized (13-gal) garbage bag full of crochet/knitting yarn to the local library, where the ladies make little booties and caps and afghans for babies at the local hospitals. Tonight I sacked up another bag the same size of still more yarn. And I am keeping enough to fill up a third bag and then some, because I'll probably cycle through crocheting again this winter and make a few sets myself.

Did I mention the 18 drawers of fabric and sewing notions that I have, and that's not everything?

We won't even discuss the absolutely stunning raw-silk-like goldy-orange fabric I bought last weekend to make a balloon valance as part of my shower/tub ensemble. Or the satiny and jacquard fabrics for the duvet in my bedroom...

No. No, we'll not discuss that right now. Move along. Nothing to see here.

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Posted by susanna at 11:04 PM | Comments (1) | Trackback (0)
Tidbits

I spoke with a young woman today who is intelligent and curious but not very interested in politics. She said she's never voted, and probably won't this year. She said she didn't have a preference of candidate, but wondered if GW had taken us into Iraq because Saddam tried to have his father killed. I said, there's no way that GW sent thousands of young men and women into battle, knowing hundreds would die, just for that kind of revenge. We discussed how the media spin things, and then I asked what she'd heard about oil and Iraq. The usual, it turned out. I asked if she'd ever heard of the UN Oil for Food program. She hadn't, certainly not in the context of a scandal. And she watches the news a lot with her political junkie husband, so it's not that she's oblivious to news.

Now isn't that interesting.

I spoke with another young woman today who was telling me about a younger relative who recently had a child with her boyfriend. I asked if they were going to get married. She said, no, because he doesn't make enough to support both a wife and baby yet, and if they marry the new mother won't get the federal assistance she's getting now.

Not, you understand, that the welfare system engages in social engineering, or undermines morality and the family.

Just tidbits from conversations, and insight into how the things we talk about on the blogosphere play out on the ground.

Posted by susanna at 09:28 PM | Comments (1) | Trackback (0)
Dowdy Dipchick

I've not been able to read Maureen Dowd's columns for a while now, because they just seem like a snarky little columnist gloating in college alternative weekly. No substance, but the fluff is acidic. It eats the flesh off the bones of reason.

But now I think I will be able to cheerfully read her, because I have a frame that puts her where she belongs. Thank you, Catherine Seipp, for making even this acid drip bearable, even (perish the thought) amusing. Thank you for cluing me in that Dowd should be read as parody, not with any hope for substance.

Go read Seipp. Then go read Dowd today. See what I mean?

Posted by susanna at 08:06 AM | Comments (3) | Trackback (1)
September 01, 2004
Deliberate? Not?

I watched the beginning of Cheney's speech at the Republican Convention on Fox News. I noticed that there were quite a few face shots of blacks in the audience, enough that I began to wonder if it was deliberate. So I switched over and watched the last 10 minutes or so of the speech on NBC News. Not a single crowd shot showed a closeup of a minority, and in only two did I see a non-white person detectable in the background.

So... was Fox overemphasizing the minority participation in the convention? Or was NBC underemphasizing it? I'll have to watch half and half tomorrow night too to see if the trend continues. There's reason for conservatives to emphasize it - they want to lure more minorities out of their traditional Democrat berth into what they say is a better ideological fit. And for many minorities, I'd say that's true. The liberals, on the other hand, have good cause to keep the face of the Republican party completely white, to encourage minorities to think they'd be alone, isolated, essentially unwelcome.

Because I'm not there, I can't say which station - Fox or NBC - was more accurate in their depiction. NBC would be accurate if there are so few minorities that the law of averages would dictate only rare sightings of minorities if crowd shots are essentially random. Fox would be accurate if the percentage of minorities was higher. I know there was only one minority delegate from Alabama, and he was a last minute addition to up the minority quotient (according to the local news). However, I read there were close to two dozen black delegates from Texas. Wooing the minorities is a big Republican drive right now. As minorities, especially blacks, increasingly go mainstream in every area of life, traditional solidarity is showing cracks. It would be interesting to see if the networks are consciously aiding or impeding that effort.

Posted by susanna at 10:34 PM | Comments (3) | Trackback (0)
August 31, 2004
Way to go, Alabama!

It appears the Alabama delegation is not intimidated by the protestors in NYC:

"I can't believe how nice everybody is," said Bill Armistead, a legislator from Shelby County and Republican delegate. As if to prove his point, Armistead approached protesters outside the hotel who were chanting slogans against President Bush and the GOP in general.

Armistead asked where they were from, and they asked what he did for a living.

I'm a businessman," Armistead said. One responded, "Oh, so it's all about the money and not the people."

Their chit-chat ended soon after...

State Sen. Gerald Allen, also a delegate from Tuscaloosa, was less impressed.

"It would have been wonderful to see 250,000 protesters showing their support for our country and our president in this time of war," Allen said. "For them to get ugly and disrespectful, I have no regard for them."

Shelby County Commissioner and delegate Earl Cunningham also welcomed the protests but declared them relatively mild.

"After two tours in Vietnam, I've seen far worse than that. This Bronze Star winner can hold his own," Cunningham said.

Delegate Bobbie Lou Leigh, an alternate from Colbert County, was entertained by protesters.

"We just turned our backs on them and took our pictures," she said. "They all need to get a life."

Not a hand-wringer in the bunch. I love Alabama.

Posted by susanna at 03:50 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)
It's not about which side, but which butter?

My brother has three pear trees in his yard; earlier I posted a photo of pears all but dripping from it. This weekend he and his wife Traci made a lovely pear butter from fruit from the trees, so I naturally was inspired to do so myself. Operating on my life's guiding principle - There's nothing that can't be made harder if you put your mind to it - I decided I too would make pear butter, but I would make a double recipe so I could give some as gifts.

If I could embed one of the IM chat smiley icons here, I would. And not the smiling one, either - the one with exposed, gritted teeth where you can almost hear the "grrrrrrrrrrrrrr".

Pear tree small.jpg


I don't know what kind of pear tree he has, but even when the pears are ripe they're hard as basalt. I wouldn't feel out of place showing up with an apron full at a reinactment of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". But the pear butter they made was quite delicious, so I dutifully trotted out to their trees after church on Sunday and filled a plastic bag with 40+ rocks pears. They sat in the back seat of my car for 24 hours as I did other things, but even baking in the Alabama heat didn't soften them any. I finally got around to peeling them about 7 or 8 last night, and it. took. forever. By 9 or so I had a huge pot, a gift from a COTB reader, three quarters full sitting on my stove. In went the water, on went the heat. I thought to ask my brother online how long it took his to cook down to soft applesauce-y consistency. "A long time," he said.

Try "three hours".

I stirred periodically, washing dishes and installing dozens of books in my new bookshelves in the interim. It simmered with little pops of scented air until I came to stir, then it would begin boiling volcanically around my spoon. Hot pear butter popped everywhere, including on my hand, until I resorted to hiding behind a skillet splatter screen and using a hot mitt on my stirring hand. Finally about midnight I took a potato masher to them to see if that would speed things along. It seemed to help, and while it was a bit lumpy, everything was at least softened and susceptible to mashing. In went 8 cups of sugar, a teaspoon of nutmeg, an undetermined amount of cinnamon but probably twice that, and 2/3 cup of orange juice. Mmmmm. It smelled like the spiced tea I make during the holidays.

I continued to stir.

And stir.

And. stir.

I'm not one to follow a recipe that says "stir constantly" if I can't see a reason to, and I didn't here. So it was back and forth again, doing other things, as the time crept to 1 a.m... then 1:30... The recipe said to cook it "until thick enough to roundup on a spoon". What does that mean? I thought a "roundup" was what you do with cows before you sell them. I stirred some more, vaguely thinking I'd stop when the consistency appeared like apple butter. I never reached a point where I thought, "this is perfect". I reached a point where I thought, "One more stir and it's going to get poured on the rampaging tomato plants outside." That was when I turned off the heat.

But I wasn't done. Oh, no. This was canning, something I'd helped my mother with many years ago but had never done myself. I hadn't even watched my brother do it. I discussed it with my mom that afternoon, who said since I didn't have a rack for my pots to keep the jars off the bottom of the pan, to put folded dishtowels in before the jars. I said, "Put dishtowels in to boil?" Then I realized, um, Susanna? Boiling clothes used to be how they did laundry. Hello!

I had washed my new half-pint jars, lids and rings earlier, and they waited in neat regimented rows on top of the washer and dryer. Very carefully I filled each with dark brown pear butter, screwing on the lid with the ring and nestling it on the folded dishtowel in the pot. I filled the pot with water, as per instructions, to 1/2 inch over the top of the jars, and set it on the burner on high. I did the second pot - it took two to hold everything - and went back to mucking in my junk room (aka guest bedroom when it's cleaned) with periodic visits to make sure nothing exploded. It only had to boil 10 minutes, but I have a short attention span. I couldn't stand and watch that long. The pear butter had one last fun moment for me: The first time I came back to the kitchen, one of the pots was boiling rapidly and gouting sprays of water from around one side of the dishtowel. The floor, stove, and countertop were soaked with hot water. Hahaha! Just what you want at (checking clock) 2:30 a.m.! A quick shifting around of things took care of that.

Finally at 3 a.m. I had three neat rows of jars on the washing machine again, this time full of lovely pear butter. And it really does taste excellent. I went to bed exhausted, mindful that today I have a job interview at 11, lunch with a friend at 1, and a class to teach at 6:30. Why didn't I start the pear butter earlier? But at least this morning when I came into the kitchen to see my beautiful pear butter, every jar had sealed.

Maybe it was all good after all.

Pear butter resized 8-31-04.jpg

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Posted by susanna at 09:41 AM | Comments (8) | Trackback (0)
August 30, 2004
Mexico City - the place to do murder

When Patrick Belton linked this article from WaPo on Oxblog, he linked it with this phrase: "worst...job...in the...world". I'd say diving in human wastewater would be in the top 10 for most of us. It certainly has a very high "yuck" factor. But what caught my eye (unsurprisingly) was this graph:

Barrios, a happy-go-lucky father of three, said none of it bothers him -- not the smell, not the dangerous spinning pump blades, not even the two cadavers. He never found out who they were, because they were carried off in the flowing waters. The police were not called. The divers, who periodically encounter bodies because sewers are popular spots for dumping murder victims, only call police when they bring a body to the surface.

Emphasis mine. If I spoke Spanish and had the money, I'd be down there on the next plane researching that part of the story. They don't even bring the bodies to the surface usually! How many do they find? I'd say decomposition in that bacteria-rich environment is quite accelerated. It's also interesting to me because in one of Kathy Reich's books (and I can't remember which one), her protagonist, a forensic anthropologist, is called in to make identification when a cadaver is found in the sluge of a sewer being cleaned with heavy equipment. At the time I thought, how bizarre to put a body there. Now I realize it was equal to a killer in the US dumping a body beside of the road somewhere - just business as usual.

How people treat the dead says a lot about their general attitude toward the living. I'm intrigued by this glimpse into the collective psyche of Mexico.

Posted by susanna at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)
I wish they wouldn't

The NYT is naturally spinning like a top in their coverage of the Republican convention, but I'm afraid the party execs are making their job quite easy:

Republican leaders said yesterday that they would repeatedly remind the nation of the Sept. 11 attacks as their convention opens in New York City today, beginning a week in which the party seeks to pivot to the center and seize on street demonstrations to portray Democrats as extremist.

It's not a news analysis piece by name, but it is in practice with a distinctly negative tone. However, while my reasons are different, I do have to agree that a huge emphasis on 9/11 is not the best choice. For the Dems to say that the Republicans are unusually heavy in their focus on 9/11 is rank hypocrisy - the whole point of John Kerry's war hero theme is to indicate that he can lead our country through the world that followed 9/11. And it's no greater opportunism to invoke the 9/11 victims than it is to invoke the American military dead from the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the complaints is that many of the 9/11 victims would not be for Bush themselves, yet he's essentially using their deaths for his gain. Yes, a lot of the 9/11 victims in New York City were probably liberal - they lived in New York. Some were likely quite conservative. I would say you'd have a similar split with the American military casualties, except with opposite political affiliations: more conservative than liberal. Why is it more risible to "use" the 9/11 victims than to "use" the American military war dead? I think, in fact, that the Dems inflict more harm - at least the Republicans don't say the 9/11 victims were mindless idiot lower class robots lured to their death with lies.

But, in my judgment, it's no compliment to say that the Republican convention planners are no worse and possibly better than the Dem convention planners. Exploitation is exploitation. It diminishes the harm to use it as a slogan. I wish the Republicans would talk about the future, about terrorism, that they would educate the nation on what it's like to fight for our freedom, and speak about strength, not victimization. They need to talk about why it's right to love this nation, and want to see it prosper free from outside attacks. It seems to me that the Dems are tearing down their own house as rapidly as they can get their hands on each brick in the wall. When the Republicans engage in exploitation themselves, they in essence are building back the house of resistance as quickly as the Dems pull it down. Why not build a house on the rock of reason instead?

It's amazing to see the demonstrations, and realize that the people demonstrating think they're going to sway voters toward their positions. Anyone susceptible to that is already on their side; the rest of the nation gets nauseated and just a little alarmed when they see it. They think, Is this what a Kerry administration would look like? The more I see it, the more I realize the truth of the insights in this article that I posted on before.

Someone needs to ask the Republican powerful this question: Why try to shoot someone who's committing suicide? You may wind up shooting yourself by accident.

Posted by susanna at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)
August 28, 2004
What media bias - Part 1,748,201

The Scrapbook at The Weekly Standard has a great takedown of presidential "historian" (fictorian?) Douglas Brinkley. But the best is saved for last, in this little nugget at the end:

"Frigging" Reuters

Last Thursday a U.S. district court judge in New York ruled unconstitutional last year's Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, notwithstanding his finding that the surgical procedure at issue is "gruesome, brutal, barbaric, and uncivilized." The Supreme Court, Judge Richard Casey explained, had left him little latitude to decide otherwise.

Whereupon Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, sent out an email press release highlighting the importance of this fall's presidential election to the future of the Supreme Court and the practice of abortion both.

Whereupon a man named Todd Eastham, who plainly lacks the necessary temperament to serve as North American news editor for the Reuters wire service--but holds that job anyway--emailed Johnson right back, as follows:

"What's your plan for parenting & educating all the unwanted children you people want to bring into the world? Who will pay for policing our streets & maintaining the prisons needed to contain them when you, their parents & the system fail them? Oh, sorry. All that money has been earmarked to pay off the Bush deficit. Give me a frigging break, will you?"

THE SCRAPBOOK recommends that Mr. Eastham quit his current job and become a presidential historian.

Beautiful.

Posted by susanna at 10:52 PM | Comments (2) | Trackback (0)