Today is Greek Easter

Orthodox Easter, to be exact. I spent the day, as usual, at my sister's house with the abundantly loud extended family and an absurd amount of food. Here's a quick tour of the day's feast:



First up, loukaniko. It's Greek sausage. And wonderful. Best cooked on the grill, then you douse it with lemon.



Next, the required Greek salad. My sister Kathy's specialty.



Then my favorite, ever since I was a kid. Pastitsio. Some people call it Greek lasagna, but it's really not. It's these large hollow noodles, mixed with a ground beef and tomato sauce, and then topped with a wonderful bechamel sauce. Then you bake it. When done right, it's to die for.



Greek potatoes. A surprisingly difficult dish to do well. The best Greek potatoes cook alongside a roast chicken, and absorb all the chicken juices, and the added lemon juice and salt and pepper and garlic and olive oil. Oh my God. Then you let them cook until they get brown and crispy on the edges. Unfortunately, it's the rare person who is able to pull off Greek potatoes the right way. The potato rarely absorbs the flavors adequately. I'm not sure why. Grandma (aka yiayia) knew how to do it.



Magiritsa. A word that strikes terror in the heart of every Greek-American kid. It's soup that tastes wonderfully of egg and lemon and lamb. But we know better. It really contains lamb heart, liver, kidney and intestines. I tasted it once. It's delicious. I'll never touch it again.



Lamb. An hour ago this little baby was spinning on a spit in the backyard. Yeah, yeah, it's cruel. It's also delicious.



Spanakopita. Another favorite. Mom and I made one plate, my sis made another. It's layers of phyllo dough and butter on the bottom and top, then in the middle a mix of spinach, eggs, feta, cottage cheese, parsley, dill, and romano cheese. I may be missing something, but that's the gist of it. Then you bake it till it's brown and crispy. Heavenly.



Galaktobouriko. A great warm custardy dessert. Not as heavy as it looks, but awfully sweet.



Mom's krema karamele. Or flan. (Those of you who speak French will recognize that the Greeks borrowed the French name, creme caremele.) Actually absurdly easy to make, but it looks complicated, and that's what counts. The hardest part is melting the sugar you'll need to glaze the bundt pan. Always a crowd pleaser.



And finally, to close the day, koulourakia and red eggs. Greeks only use red eggs at Easter (though we, thank God, used to make multi-colored eggs as kids). We take the eggs and engage in egg fights. You take one, I take one, we crack them against each other, end to end, and the person whose egg doesn't crack, then moves on to the next person. By the end, the person whose egg doesn't break gets good luck, or something. It's fun. And of course we never eat the eggs! That's Greek Easter in a nuthsell (without the 3 hour church service from midnight to 3am the night before). Read the rest of this post...

Jackie Chan: 'Chinese need to be controlled'

Uh, what? Sounds pretty loony and as if he's trying to win special favor with the communist government. Maybe he's interested in raising big money for a new film? Regardless, it sounds odd.

The 55-year-old Hong Kong actor was participating in a panel at the annual Boao Forum when he was asked to discuss censorship and restrictions on filmmakers in China. He expanded his comments to include society.

"I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not," Chan said. "I'm really confused now. If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic."

Chan added: "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

Read the rest of this post...

Great NY Post commentary on gay marriage

It's from a week ago, but not out of date by any means. Just read it last night, very good. And fascinating that it's from the conservative NY Post.

Does the Bible forbid gay relationships? Maybe. But if God didn't want there to be gay people, He shouldn't have made them. Who seriously believes that being gay is any more of a choice than being black?

Besides, not even the most fervent Christian would want to live in a Biblocracy. Covet your neighbor's wife, or even his kitchen appliances, and go to jail? If that were government policy, how many informers would it need on the payroll to monitor the neighbors' comments about saucy Serena (or her Sub-Zero?) Does God's idea of civilization look like East Berlin in 1981?

The Bible is about you and your soul, and if you think your neighbor is going to hell you can't stop him. And if you think gay relationships are immoral, surely it's the physical act that bothers you, not the signing of licenses, not the public vows of love and fidelity, not the matching tuxedos. Not the smiling faces. Yet few will make the case for police investigations of what people do between the sheets.

"Same-sex marriage," wrote Maggie Gallagher in National Review, "asks religious Americans," by which she means Christian Americans, "to surrender a core belief -- not only Leviticus (disapproval of gay sexual acts), but Genesis (the idea that God himself made man as male and female and commanded men and women to come together in a special way to image the fruitfulness of God)." But Christians are surrendering nothing. They remain free to disapprove of homosexuality just as they remain free to disapprove of their neighbor's alcoholism or adultery or bad taste in lawn ornaments. They also remain free to move to a country that enforces religious views. [emphasis added]

While I'm sure the religious right bristles when we call them the American Taliban, in a very real way they share with the Taliban and Iran - and even the Inquisition - the desire to have the state enforce religion (one religion) on the entire populace. Absolute religion corrupts absolutely.

Read the entire thing. It's brilliant. Read the rest of this post...

"Irresponsible" to shake hands and laugh with brutal dictator

Or is that predictable and fake outrage, again? What a bunch of phony-baloney frauds.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, told CNN Sunday it was "irresponsible" for President Obama to have been seen "laughing and joking" with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas on Friday.

"This is a person who is one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world," Ensign told CNN's John King on State of The Union. "He is a brutal dictator and human rights violations are very, very prevalent in Venezuela. And you have to be careful."

"When you're talking about the prestige of the United States and the presidency of the United States, you have to be careful who you're seen joking around with," he also said.

Read the rest of this post...

The last time Texas tried to secede

Since the far-right conservatives controlling the Republican party want to now talk about leaving America altogether - an intrinsically un-American and anti-American suggestion at its core - it seemed only appropriate that we re-examine the last time these people chose to leave the Union.

Let's start with Texas, since its governor is so proud of their right to secede (a right, by the way, that Texas apparently does not have - they just lie to their people and claim it's true, a lot like the far-right everywhere). Here's what Texas had to say the last time it seceded:

"unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery...the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law."

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

"That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both[ and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States."

Putting aside the fact that the last time Texas tried this trick, it didn't go so well. Their racist rhetoric back then sure sounds an awful lot like the religious right's, and the Republican party's, current arguments against granting civil rights to gay Americans. Read the rest of this post...

Conservative America-haters

Gail Collins wrote a brilliant analysis of the Teabaggers, and one of their sycophants, Texas Governor Rich Perry (not to be confused with Lindsey Graham). Her central point is this: Why do people who claim to own the rights to patriotism want so fervently to leave our country?

It's a damn good question. And it's one I've wondered for a while now. So much of what today's conservatives stands for is at least un-American, if not anti-American. Take their "activist judges" mantra. What conservatives would like you to believe is that courts have no right to judge whether legislation is constitutional, which calls into question the entire concept of checks and balances in our government. Courts also, they say, have no right to overturn the will of the majority. So that means that when 71% of Americans thought blacks should not be allowed to marry whites, the court should not have ruled against the majority of Americans, and in favor of interracial marriage in the Loving v. Virginia case. The scary part is that a lot of conservatives, at least the extreme conservatives controlling the Republican party, may even secretly agree with what I just wrote - that the court shouldn't have legalized interracial marriage. Thus, they find no contradiction at all in their opposition to "activist judges" and the fact that activist judges are behind many, if not most, of our key court cases granting civil rights to African-Americans. They don't believe in either.

Read Collins' opinion piece. It's brilliant. And scary. It exposes modern-day conservatism for the angry, intolerant, anti-American extremism it really is. Read the rest of this post...

Frank Rich on the rapid demise of the homophobes

I'm heading down the Victory Fund's brunch this morning. The speakers are Rep. Jared Polis and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Polis will get his first chance to vote on LGBT legislation in the House when the Hate Crimes bill hits the floor in the next couple weeks. Chris Quinn was just at the press conference marking the introduction of New York's same-sex marriage legislation.

Losing Proposition 8 was, no doubt, a tough blow for the gay community and our allies. But, man, we've bounced back more energized than ever. Very good things are happening for us. Not so fun on the other side.

In today's column, Frank Rich captures the demise of the anti-gay forces in the U.S. This new reality is epitomized by the ridiculous video, "Gathering Storm," which has as Frank notes, become an "Internet camp classic":

Yet easy to mock as “Gathering Storm” may be, it nonetheless bookmarks a historic turning point in the demise of America’s anti-gay movement. (If you haven't seen it, watch the clip in the context of Colbert's take on the issue.

What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead.

He deconctructs Maggie Gallagher's faux group, National Organization for Marriage, and notes the changing views of once-rabid homophobes like Dr. Laura and even Rick Warren. Maggie doesn't have many friends on her side anymore.

And, he quotes John:

CNN’s weekly press critique, “Reliable Sources,” inquired why. The gay blogger John Aravosis suggested that many Americans are more worried about their mortgages than their neighbors’ private lives. Besides, Aravosis said, there are “only so many news stories you can do showing guys in tuxes.”

John's post on that interview is here

Times they are a changin'...and changin' fast according to Nate Silver:

As the polls attest, the majority of Americans who support civil unions for gay couples has been steadily growing. Younger voters are fine with marriage. Generational changeover will seal the deal. Crunching all the numbers, the poll maven Nate Silver sees same-sex marriage achieving majority support “at some point in the 2010s.”

Here's what Nate wrote in the post to which Rich linked:

Support for gay marriage, however, is strongly generational. In a CBS news poll conducted last month, 64 percent of voters aged 18-45 supported either gay marriage or civil unions, but only 45 percent of voters aged 65 and up did. Civil unions have already achieved the support of an outright majority of Americans, and as those older voters are replaced by younger ones, the smart money is that gay marriage will reach majority status too at some point in the 2010's.

In my world, if Nate says it, it's bankable.

We still have a lot of work to do, no doubt. But, time is on our side. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Mixed bag on the Sunday talk shows today...

"This Week" hosts Rahm Emanuel to talk about Obama's accomplishments and the GOP House Leader, John Boehner, to brag about being the Party of NO and wanting Obama to fail.

"Meet the Press" has an "Exclusive!" Wow. Larry Summers will be joining the show from the Summit of the Americas. Doesn't get much more exclusive than that.

"Face the Nation" features David Axelrod. Then, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and the ever painful, and always pasty, Wayne LaPierre, from the National Rifle Association.

CNN's "State of the Union" also has an "Exclusive." Theirs is with Janet Napolitano who will also be beamed in from the "Summit of the Americas." NY Governor David Paterson will discuss gay marriage. Looks like CNN is also delving into the Minnesota Senate race. MN Senator Amy Klobuchar and Nevada Senator John Ensign, who runs the GOP Senate campaign commmittee, are scheduled.

And, the teabagging network, FOX News is continuing its effort to make Obama look bad. They're discussing whether releasing the torture memos made us less safe. The guest is Bush's CIA Director, Michael Hayden. Hmmm. Wonder how that will go...

If you can bear to watch, have at it.... Read the rest of this post...

What a contrast to our disposable society

Even in the best of times, our societies (whether in the US or Europe, probably elsewhere too) tend to discard people of a certain age. Unemployment rates for those over 50 are ridiculously high and chances of finding work become increasingly remote. For whatever reason experience peaks at a young age and then suddenly becomes a problem. Fortunately there are people like Rita Levi Montalcini who is turning 100 and embracing her experience, using it as a strength. She won a Nobel prize when she was 77 years old and still keeps going. What a great story...

"At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20," she told the party, complete with a large cake for her.

The Turin-born Levi Montalcini recounted how the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime forced her to quit university and do research in an improvised laboratory in her bedroom at home.

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments," she said. "The best comes from them."

Read the rest of this post...

OK, fine...Grateful Dead live

Joelle keeps insisting that I sounded like an arrogant SOB because I criticized the Grateful Dead. She thinks I went too far and that I should accept that others think they're wonderful. I went to YouTube and looked for the most views and since Jerry Garcia's face was in the screen shot with this (ranked #2) I'm going with this one. It's not too bad either...maybe even good. I'll cede a bit of ground on this one and yes, I may have been too harsh and a bit of an arrogant ass. Read the rest of this post...

Dutch navy rescues hostages, captures Somali pirates

Another busy day on the high seas off Somalia. CNN:

Dutch naval forces captured seven pirates and freed 20 captive fishermen after tracking the pirates to their "mother ship" in the western Gulf of Aden on Saturday, a NATO maritime spokesman said.

The Belgian government tried to communicate with the Pompei "without success" before the ship was confirmed to have been hijacked, according to an official.

"This morning we received two different channels, a silent alert, that there was a problem on the boat, which is a Belgian boat on it's way to Seychelles," Belgium Government Crisis Center spokesman Peter Martens told reporters. "We tried to have a contact with the ship but without success until now."

Clearly a lot more needs to be done but little by little progress is being made. More importantly, we're seeing multiple countries working together in the troubled region. Read the rest of this post...