Rant O’Clock

I’ve been a little on edge all weekend due to a few things: I’m still not 100%, and it really bugs me to have to move so carefully...I’ve got shit to do, people!; a story over the weekend about a measles outbreak in New York due to anti-vaxxers...I have HAD it with those idiots; another story about some tool of an Indiana lawmaker contacting the president of my alma mater, Ball State University, saying that the university’s policy of banning the teaching of creationism in science classrooms is religious persecution, and he and some of his tool buddies are thinking about filing a lawsuit against the university.

Right. Because not allowing the teaching of a religious belief in a science classroom is religious persecution. Then there were the subsequent comments from the local yokels saying that creationism should be taught, that you can’t prove evolution because no one was there, and that hoary ol’ nugget, “Evolution is just a theory.” GAHHHH! My head was about ready to explode!

However, that didn’t stop me from having fun with family and friends last night. A fun dinner at Chicory Cafe (gumbo and a muffuletta, YUM) and then “The Million Dollar Quartet” at the Morris. Great time, great show, great people. How many times are our good friends and families the last saving grace in the world? I get by with a little help from my friends. Truth.

Well, today the fourth shoe dropped. Or whatever analogy would work better. Fourth and final straw? I don’t know. Anyway, a friend on Facebook posted something about how her local library had a feminism display up, and one of the books displayed was one by Phyllis Schlafly. She said she questioned the addition of that book, and mentioned it to someone at the counter, who said they would talk to the librarian about it. I left a comment, and one of her friends responded:

Me: Good for you. That old broad [Schlafly] is a feminist like I'm an anti-vaxxer.
Her: Or a feminist. 

Well, I don’t know this friend personally, but I respect her, and I wasn’t about to get into it with one of her friends on her page. That’s not cool. What a serendipitous thing to have this blog, though! I kind of figured what she was getting at, but I wasn’t going to respond. She didn’t stop there, though, and I responded to that:

Her: A feminist doesn't dismiss a woman - *even a Schlafly* - by calling her an old broad.
Me: Well, consider me appropriately chastised. LOL

And then...and then...this response:

Her: What's funny?

[falling over laughing] Oh, boy. Where should I start?

First of all, I call myself a broad sometimes, for Pete’s sake. If “broad” is a totally pejorative term in your world, then you need to lighten up a little bit. There are plenty of worse terms I could have used, believe me. Calling her an “old broad” was me pulling my punch significantly, and just slinging a mild insult her (Schlafly’s) way. Sometimes my friends and I use the term in an affectionate and joking way, as in “a couple of broads like us.” Years back, I referred to myself as a “divorced broad.” I don’t think anyone would ever accuse me of hating myself or of hating other women.

Secondly, I don’t call people I respect names or sling even slight insults their way. I do not respect Phyllis Schlafly in any way, shape, or form, and as a public figure, she is open to criticism. Simply being a woman does not entitle someone to respect from every woman, anymore than every man deserves respect from other men. Gender is not an issue for me; kindness, decency, and tolerance IS. Schlafly advocates for subservience to men based on biblical teachings and was active in defeating the Equal Rights Amendment. So she deserves my respect how?

Thirdly, anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I don’t put up with bullshit from anyone, especially condescension because of my gender. Point a finger in my face and call me a “little lady” in a derogatory tone, and you’re going to pull back a bloody stump. I don’t go around beating people over the head and yelling “Respect mah authoritah ‘cause I AM WOMAN!”, though. I always just did my job—and although I made my share of mistakes over the years, I was pretty good at my job—and did my best to treat people fairly and with kindness, no matter who they were or what they believed. Do I advocate for equal pay and equal rights? Yes. Do I support Planned Parenthood and push for reproductive rights and for getting male legislators out of our bedrooms and our ladybits? Yes, I do. If you want to tell me that I’m not a feminist because I called Phyllis Schlafly an “old broad,” then fuck you. I’ll keep on doing what I do, and I don’t feel the need to be a part of the card-carrying Feminist Club. You don’t sound like you’re much fun to hang around with, anyway.

Finally, lighten the fuck up. I laugh at just about anything, and I appreciate a good—and weird—sense of humor, as well as a sense of the absurd. I’ll poke fun at just about anything. If you are so touchy that the word “broad” sets you off, then you need to get laid or something. It would be like me getting my panties in a wad every time I heard a short joke. If that were the case, I’d have that wad o’ panties so far up my ass I’d be walking on tiptoes.

There. I feel better now. I need a drink, though.

Humankindness

Whew, it’s been a busy time lately! As you might recall, we were on a cruise the week of March 2, and we had very limited connectivity, so there wasn’t a whole lot of internettin’ going on. A couple of days after we got back, we had about 6 inches of snow, and I spent a night in the ER with some abdominal pain that was bothersome and quite worrying. Turned out to be a muscle/blood vessel tear in my abdomen, and it is healing up, slowly but surely. My main worry was appendicitis, but that wasn’t the case, and no surgery, so yay for that!

Based on the timing and activities, I think I got the muscle tear when we were climbing a rock formation in Aruba. As I told a friend, “I got this from climbing a rock formation in Aruba” is a much better story than something like “I tripped over the cat and fell down the stairs”! So at least I’ve got a good story about it.

I hope to write more about the places we stopped and our excursions, but I’ll need to go through my pictures to do that, and I need to catch up on laundry and on my online courses first. I’ll get there...eventually.

Today, I just want to write about how much fun it was to meet new people and learn more about them. The people we interacted with the most were our tablemates at dinner. There were Dave and Gail from Canada, and Nicolas (he doesn’t spell his name that way, but that will suffice for now) and Sharon, and Sharon’s sister, Sharoline. Nicolas is originally from Jamaica and Sharon is from Barbados, but they live in Brooklyn now. Sharoline still lives in Barbados. We had so much fun getting to know them, and we even went out after dinner a couple of times with Nicolas and Sharon. They were such fun and happy people, and I’m sure we’ll meet again. Ken and I have already talked about how it would be fun to meet them all in Barbados when they go back for a visit. You just never know who you’re going to connect with!

Dave and Gail scared us for a moment when on the first night, they asked us about “Obamacare.” I decided to dive right in, and we all agreed that we support the ACA and President Obama. What a relief to learn that they think the ACA is a great start for our country, although they remain perplexed about why so many are against it. Me too, Dave and Gail, me too!

There was also the couple from Chicago on the sunset cocktail cruise excursion when we were in Aruba. He was wearing a Cubs jersey and she was wearing a White Sox jersey, and much hilarity ensued! (The bartender was making up his specialty drink for us, a Stoplight. Red, amber, and green liquor layered...I don’t know what all was in there, but it had to be about 95% booze. I was a hurtin’ unit that night, believe me!)

There were people big and small; people speaking French, Dutch, Papiamento, Chinese, German, and Spanish; there were mostly happy people, but the occasional grump, like the older lady who was giving me and Ken the stinkeye when we were sitting by the pool...it was weird and bad enough that Ken finally gave her a big grin and a howdy-do wave; there were the guys at the zip line excursion who went by nicknames like MacGyver, Gorgeous, and Hollywood...when MacGyver asked where I was from and I said “Indiana,” he said, “Indiana Pacers! They need to bring home the championship!”; there was the guide on the rum tasting tour who was so fun and hilarious that we bought not one, but two bottles of rum; there were all the waiters and staff and our cabin steward who worked so hard and were always kind.

It was a mass of humanity of all stripes and languages, and it was glorious. This introvert enjoyed every moment of it. It made me think about how although we speak so many different languages and have different experiences, we are all human beings. We have the same struggles and the same joys, the same triumphs and the same heartaches. I learned about how on the Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, kids are required to learn four languages in school, and the main language, Papiamento, is a conglomerate of African, Portuguese, Dutch, English, Spanish, and native Indian languages. It made me feel more than a little ashamed of the “This is ‘Murica, lern Inglish!” crowd here in the States.

It wasn’t just a nice vacation in the Caribbean. It was a great reminder of our diversity and our shared humanity. That might sound corny, but I don’t care...that’s really how I feel. It’s one of the reasons we love to travel so much. It’s a great opportunity to learn about other people and other cultures, and to continue our rejection of the small town, isolationist mindset. It’s a big world out there, and I love being a part of it.

Burger Quest

I hope you’ll forgive my lack of posting recently. I’ve had a lot on my mind and a lot on my plate as we get close to our cruise date. Today I got the majority of my packing done, and I feel like I’m in pretty good shape as our departure date approaches. Several odds and ends still to be done, but I feel much less harried than I did, and I found myself hankering to write a bit here.

I’ve had this entry percolating for a while, and I’ve also been gathering data. Well, not so much “gathering data” as “sampling.” I don’t recall if it arose from a Facebook conversation or if it was something that Shane and I talked about, but I’ve been on a kick of trying the burgers at various places we go to around town. I don’t always order a burger when we go out...I like club sandwiches, Reubens, that sort of thing. But I still love a good burger, and I decided to try as many as possible in the area.

I have no criteria for what kind of burgers I order other than I prefer them well done (I’m not a fan of pink burgers) and I’m a burger traditionalist: my favorite is a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato (usually no raw onion because it sometimes upsets my stomach), and I dip it in ketchup and mustard. I have been known to order and enjoy burgers with different toppings on them, like green olives or avocado or even peanut butter. All fun, and I like trying different things, but at the end of the day, I’m a purist. I don’t even order them with bacon!

It’s been a lot of fun to try this little experiment, and it is ongoing. We’re going to a basketball game Wednesday night, and I think I’m going to get a chance to try another place’s burger! Here is a summary of my results so far. Some of these places are chains and some are local, but we don’t really do fast food anymore, so you won’t see anything like that here. I consider Five Guys fast food, and although they do a pretty decent burger, I still consider it fast food and won’t include it here. Same thing for In-N-Out Burger. Heck, I still get a craving about once every five years for a McDonald’s cheeseburger! But those don’t count as bona fide burgers for my purposes here. General rule of thumb: if you sit down and a server comes to take your order, that’s the kind of place that I’m going to be looking at.

BW3 - I liked this burger enough the first time that I ordered one the next time we went. It was juicy and flavorful, and the bun held up well. However, for some reason, I didn’t enjoy the second one as much and even wondered why I liked the first one as much as I did! Was I hungrier the first time? Were my taste buds more primed for a burger? I don’t know, but it wasn’t the same. Would I order one there again? Sure. I’m not a big wing person, and I like getting their sandwiches.

Maxi’s - This is a local place, so if you want a Maxi’s burger, you’ll have to come visit us! Maxi’s is probably our favorite restaurant in town, and you can’t beat it for delicious steaks. It is also locally owned and operated, and that is a big plus in our book. We like to take out-of-town visitors here, so if you head our way, you can probably expect Maxi’s in your dining future. Maxi’s doesn’t do a traditional burger of just a meat patty. They add some spices and stuff in there, and I’m pretty sure that they add chopped onion. Not the kind of burger that I usually like, but these things are very tasty, as well as huge. I think I took half of it home for Ken’s lunch. It was a little on the pink side for me, and next time, I would probably ask that it not be pink, but overall, this was very good. A nice robust bun, because mushy buns suck.

Brothers Bar & Grill - Speaking of mushy buns, I’m lookin’ at YOU, Brothers! We love Brothers, which seems to be a chain that locates in college towns. This is our go-to place before Notre Dame hockey and basketball games. I’ve had a lot of good sandwiches there, and I love both their chili nachos and chicken nachos. I was very disappointed in their burger, though. It was a nice size for me, and I was able to eat it all, but the bun was soft and steamed, and was unable to hold up to the intense pressure of life with a burger. It squished down to almost nothing and although the flavor of the burger was good, the bun really detracted from the whole experience. Get different buns and toast 'em on the grill for a few seconds, Brothers!

TGI Friday’s - Yes, this is a nationwide chain, and we usually try to avoid those. But we had some coupons, and we were going out a lot because of Notre Dame games, so we decided to save a few bucks. I can’t complain a lot about the food there, either...nothing fancy, but it’s decent. Much to my surprise, their burger ROCKED! It had a nice charred edge to it, and I could really taste that charcoal flavor that I love. The bun was nicely toasted and provided a slight crunch. It wasn’t a massive burger, and I was able to eat it all. My only complaint was the chunks of iceberg lettuce (obviously from salad makings) that they piled on the burger. I took most of those off. Just provide a nice, green leaf of lettuce, and a fresher tomato slice (hard to do in Indiana in the winter, though, so no points off for that), and that’s a burger I would eat again.

CJ’s Pub - This is another local place that we’ve added to our regular rotation, often before going to shows downtown. This is absolutely one of the best burgers in town. I don’t know what kind of seasoning they put on their burgers, but the flavor is fantastic. They have numerous varieties and all kinds of ways to customize your burger. This is where I had the olives on a burger, and I liked it...but a straight-up cheeseburger is still king for me, and CJ’s does it great. I always get the Cubby burger, which is a smaller sized burger that is just right for me. My sister seems to like the Juicy Ducee, which is stuffed with American cheese, and there are all kinds of other varieties and combos you can get. It really is hard to go wrong with these burgers!

Hensell’s Oaken Bucket - I have saved the best for last. Another local place, one that sits on the St. Joseph River. When it’s nice out, it’s fun to sit on the patio and look out over the river. Like CJ’s, I don’t know what it is they do to their burgers, but these have incredible flavor. Every time we go there, I think that I should order something different, but I always end up with a burger. The Oaken Bucket is right up there with my all-time favorite burgers, the ones at Breakers in New Smyrna Beach and Port of Call and Clover Grill in New Orleans. They really are that good. It’s a very unassuming place, with wooden booths and college-town decor, but it’s been our experience that sometimes the humblest places have some incredible food. Even if the food isn’t incredible, it’s fun to patronize local places rather than chains, and step outside the cookie-cutter model of what a restaurant is “supposed” to be. I have to give the Oaken Bucket the Best Burger in Town...so far.

Upcoming contenders: O’Rourke’s Pub near Notre Dame and Pat’s Bar in LaPaz (a small town a little to the south of us). Perhaps I'll try one in San Juan, too, before we set sail...we shall see.

The Burger Quest continues.

A Song for Valentine’s Day

"More Bad Times"

1, 2, 3, 4
You never had rabies
You never gained weight
You never drank poison
You watched what you ate
You never came home with a terrible scar
You never so much as put a scratch on my car
You never got measles
You never got gout
You never got dizzy
And you never fell out
You never suggested we all play charades
You never picked up any live hand grenades

You twisted your ankle
I carried you
You got a divorce
So I married you
You fell off a cliff
So I buried you
I wish there were more bad times to see you through
I wish there were more bad times
Wish there were more bad times [x4]
I wish there were more

You never lost contact
You never leaked oil
You never drank cleanser
And you never ate foil
You never got hurt by sticks and stones
You never choked on any big chicken bones
You never got mauled by a mad baboon
You never lost all the air in your balloon
You never got poked in the eye with a spork
You never got sick from all that leftover pork

You twisted your ankle
I carried you
You got a divorce
So I married you
You fell off a cliff
So I buried you
I wish there were more bad times to see you through
I wish there were more bad times

So many things did go wrong
But the list is not long enough
Not enough bad things to fill up a song

Wish there were more bad times [x4]

I'd rather gather your bones
Than mop up this mess
If I scrub us all spotless
I'll wreck our success
I was holding your hand
When it fell on the floor
When you left you broke the knob on the door
I wish there was more

Beth’s Books: The Return of the Grifter

No, that’s not the title of the book. It’s actually Sarah Palin’s latest “book,” Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. I had to put the word ‘book’ in quotation marks, because I’m not sure this crapfest qualifies as a bona fide book.

Full disclosure: I read this book for the sole purpose of trashing it on here. I generally try to ignore the Half-Gov, because she really is irrelevant, but when she told President Obama on her Facebook page to “stop playing the race card,” I thought, “It’s payback time. You called down the thunder...well, you now you got it! I’m comin’, Half-Gov. And Hell’s comin’ with me, you hear? Hell’s comin’ with me!!”

Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes. Payback. Payback for telling our first African-American President to stop playing the race card. On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, no less. If that doesn’t deserve a little bit of righteous smackdown, I don’t know what does. And I’m just the gal to do it. So let’s get started, shall we? Kick back, because this is going to be a long one.

First of all, I refused to give this grifter one penny. I was trying to find a free download, and finally saw that it was available as an e-book from my wonderful local library. You know, the socialist one where all the liberal elites hang out. I’m sure she got a few gullible people to fork over some dough for this, but I wasn’t one of them.

It’s difficult to convey just how horrid this thing is, but I’ll try.

Drop the adjectives and walk away. Nothing is simple in the Half-Gov’s world (except for the Half-Gov herself). There can’t just be a Christmas tree...it has to be a fragrant Charlie Brown tree with twinkling lights. There isn’t just snow...there is crisp and crunchy snow. People don’t just sing carols, their pure voices soar to the starry heavens with humble joy, their eyes alight with Christmas cheer. These are not actual examples from the book (I’ll get to that later), but this is the kind of “writing” you’ll find there. Adjectives are helpful in small doses, but not every noun has to be accompanied by one. There are several grammatical errors, too, including apostrophe abuse. It makes me laugh that she was a journalism major. Oh, wait...it makes me utter a jolly laugh, my rosy cheeks flushed with good humor, my twinkling eyes flashing in the mellow glow of my trusty laptop. ::eye roll::

Ditch the delusion of the idyllic family and household. There is plenty of stuff about the Half-Gov gathering her brood around and reading the story of Baby Jeebus to them and getting all choked up over it. There’s also plenty of family and friends gathering in the kitchen to bake Christmas treats. I cracked up over this: “Nothing says Christmas like strapping on an apron, heading to the kitchen with friends and family, and cooking and baking yourself into the Christmas spirit.” This “book” would have been more tolerable if I’d baked myself! There are stories of her wonderful childhood and the special Christmases she had. She tells a story about wanting a Walkman one year and getting a dictionary instead. “...my good parents were teaching me a lesson I would remember forever. Words matter.” I about fell over laughing. Should have spent a little more time with that dictionary, Half-Gov! Although I’m sure you would refudiate that.

Get off the cross, Mary, we need the wood. There is a pervasive tone of personal persecution in her writing. She would be riffing on the joys of Christmas at one moment and toss in a snarky comment about Nancy Pelosi or liberals in general in the next. She often mentions her and McCain’s loss in 2008, and it’s obvious that she is still very bitter about it. She bitches about her treatment by the “lamestream media” (which she later abbreviates as LSM), she mentions the “angry, outraged, and just plain silly and rude responses” that she gets when she posts something on Facebook, and she says she gets “vile tweets.” She chalks this up to “the fringe” commenters. Sorry, Half-Gov, but not liking you doesn’t make people “the fringe.” She says, “The media speaks for itself and not the masses. Ignore it.” I think a more truthful statement would have been, “If the media calls me on my lies, ignore them.” She even mentions the ridiculous “free Obamaphone vouchers” story. When writing about her and some family members volunteering at a Wasilla soup kitchen on Christmas, she can’t stop herself from going on about losing the election and how she was maligned, her family mocked, their privacy lost. She then bitches about the ethics charges with which she was hit in Alaska: “My approval ratings—which had been the highest in the nation—plummeted.” Merry Christmas, poor people! News flash, Half-Gov: your approval ratings didn’t plummet because you had ethics charges brought against you. They plummeted because people saw for themselves that you abused the power of your office and they realized that you weren’t quite the person you had portrayed yourself to be. She equates the Affordable Care Act with “secular leftists” who view “babies as expendable and older Americans as crippling cost centers.” It’s the death panels again! She just can’t stop herself from regurgitating the same old lies.

Scenariopalooza. We are treated to the inner musings of the Half-Gov’s odd little mind as she regales us with constant fictional scenarios. We start with “Joe McScrooge,” an “angry atheist with a lawyer.” Joe listens to NPR (elitist!), and when he goes to the small town where his ex-wife lives with their son, he is disgusted with the public religious displays. When Joe McScrooge gets to the school, he parks “between two pickup trucks, one sporting a red-and-gold Semper Fi window decal, the other a faded, peeling McCain-Palin ‘08 bumper sticker. Joe audibly gagged.” Audibly! I wonder if he sounded like Sheeba coughing up a hairball? I’d like to think so. We get another pair of scenarios set in 2028, with the Half-Gov visiting her grandson Tripp at the University of Alaska. In the first, atheistic version, the communications director she speaks with wears Birkenstocks, there are gender-neutral bathrooms with foot-washing stations for Muslims, and Pagan and Muslim holiday celebrations occur, but Christian ones do not. In the non-atheistic version, all religions are celebrated—except the Christian celebrations are the best because DUH—and to top it all off, we get to hear about President-Elect Romney and his great hair! The Half-Gov Grammy thinks, “I guess sixth time’s the charm.” By the time I got to the “Joe the Student” scenario, I laughed out loud and thought, “Oh boy, another scenario!” Poor Joe the Student feels persecuted by the anti-Christian policies of his public school, and his parents are too busy with work to push back against the persecution. She didn’t specify if Joe’s dad was also a Joe, but it sure seems like there are a lot of Joes in the Half-Gov’s imaginary world! Personally, I was hoping for a story about Joe the Proctologist or Joe the Male Prostitute, but I was disappointed.

Atheists hate Christmas, the Baby Jeebus, America, and they have no morals. Here we get to the crux of this “book,” which is that “...the ‘war on Christmas’ is the tip of the spear in the larger battle to secularize our culture and make true religious freedom a thing of America’s past.” I call bullshit, Half-Gov. She seems unable to grasp the difference between religious displays on private property and those on public property, as well as the difference between atheists taking offense at the latter as opposed to the former. The vast majority of atheists I know are of the “live and let live” variety. If you want to put up a nativity on your front lawn, knock yourself out. But keep it out of our government offices, okay? She writes, “The atheists are trying to make Nativity scenes such a pain for cities to maintain that the public officials will simply remove all religious displays entirely.” Bingo! Give that Half-Gov a kewpie doll! Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and she got this one right. Until we stop seeing all religious displays in government facilities, I say keep pushing for those Festivus poles. For the record, I don’t know of anyone who sees a Christmas tree (or holiday tree...I don’t care what you want to call it) as a strictly Christian display. The Christians stole it from the Druids, after all. A nativity scene is obviously Christian, however, and if you allow that to be displayed in your county courthouse, you’d better be prepared to allow a Menorah, a Festivus pole, or a pagan display, or any other display that any religious group wants to put up.

As for the “amoral atheists” stuff, I’m going to go into depth here and provide several quotes.

Without God as an objective standard, who’s to say what’s wrong and what’s right? Morality becomes a matter of the human will, as each person decides what’s right and what’s wrong for himself. 

Without faith, I doubt we’d have the love in our hearts that compels one to give, to volunteer, to be kind and loving to our neighbors, and to aspire to live the Golden Rule.

Without faith, we’d be, well, the secular Left—a group that data shows to be notoriously stingy with their time, money, and pleasant attitudes, and that believes ‘compassion’ is best represented by a failed welfare state that traps millions in lifelong poverty and despair.

Left to our own devices, without God in our lives, we drift toward evil.

I call bullshit—again. You DO know that the Golden Rule appears nowhere in the bible, right, Half-Gov? I also find it interesting that you provided no footnote as to your “data” that shows that atheists don’t give their time or money, or that they don’t have pleasant attitudes, or that they have no compassion. You know why? Because that data doesn’t exist. Liar. It strikes me as almost sad that so many people feel that without religion telling them what NOT to do, they would become “evil.” That doesn’t speak very well for you and your pals, does it? So you need to be told not to get all rapey and murdery and junk? Personally, I find that I’m not that way because it’s the right thing to do, both because I value my fellow human beings and because I value a civil society, and want to always try to do what is best for both. I may not always succeed, but I do try, and I somehow manage to keep my vile and amoral impulses in check.
Here are a few more fun quotes and my commentary:

...if you can’t handle protests, then it’s hard to handle other challenges of the job.

Oh, that’s rich! This would be the job that you QUIT halfway through, right? That job? I thought so.

...my friends bobbed their feather-banged heads to “Jessie’s Girl” and “9 to 5” on their headphones (I was more of a Van Halen and Joan Jett-type girl, and to get into a game-day mindset I’d listen to “Back In Black”).

If she listened to Van Halen, Joan Jett, and AC/DC in high school, I’ll eat my hat. I bet she was listening to Debby Boone wailing her way through “You Light Up My Life.”

She mentions her publisher, HarperCollins,

...the same publisher smart enough to publish this book.

That made me laugh.

She writes about the French Revolution and the Jacobins (“radical atheists”) changing street names to remove references to the saints:

We wouldn’t want any Frenchman to be offended and have a totally rotten, ruined day after glancing up at road signs to find his favorite baguette shop.

She really seems to dislike the French. Who can forget the fruit fly research in Paris, France??

I decided to run against good ol’ boy incumbents for mayor, then governor, because I knew the public deserved new energy to get the job done. [Emphasis mine]

Get the job done! That’s a hoot! But you DIDN’T get the job done, did you, HALF-Gov?

To sum up, this was yet another rendering of how the Half-Gov was persecuted and maligned and just plain bullied, gosh darn it. Not only in her brief political life, but those mean ol’ atheists are picking on her and her religion, too. She cherry-picks the words of the founders concerning a religious society, because taking the time to read more about how they felt is just too hard. Check out what Thomas Jefferson had to say about it sometime, Half-Gov, if you can tear yourself away from eating moose chili. Oh, and she includes a few recipes at the end of the book, including one for moose chili, and another recipe for something that I found rather exotic and experimental. Has anyone ever heard of these things called “Rice Krispie Treats”? Sounds really strange to me, but the Half-Gov swears by ‘em. Thank science she included the recipe, because I’m sure I never would have heard about this treat otherwise.

I’m not sure when I’ve read such a steaming pile of literary malfeasance. The Half-Gov is self-serving, self-centered, and completely narcissistic. Her portrayal of her magical, idyllic life (except for that bad spell where her teenage daughter somehow found herself preggers and her and Todd had a fight about it, and then all that losing and quitting and ethics charges junk) reminded me very much of someone we dealt with for quite a while, but no longer have to, thank science. When I was describing some of this to Ken and asked him who it made him think of, he knew exactly who I was talking about, and some of you will, too. There was definitely a feel of the “cozy country cottage” and “little cottage kitchen” (which was actually a small house in a suburb of a small city) in this “book.”

I’ll leave you with one final quote from the “book”:

And yet I’m pegged the idiot by the LSM?

Beth’s Books: Fever Season

Whoops! I didn’t mean to let this many days go by without an entry, but I’ve been battling a cold as well as dealing with lots of wintry weather (piss off, Polar Vortex), so I’ve just been hunkering down and doing some reading.

Today I finished Fever Season by Jeannette Keith, a book about the 1878 yellow fever outbreak in Memphis (as of this posting, the book is only $1.99 for Kindle). Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while knows that I’m fascinated by how disease affects history, and this book didn’t disappoint. Some infectious disease books are about the hunt for the microbial culprit; this is more about the psychological and social effects on the city. (For the record, I like both types of books.) This doesn’t go into any lengthy scientific explanations of the virus or its epidemiology, so it would be easily understandable for a layperson.

Many aspects of dealing with an epidemic are addressed. Sanitation, quarantine, food and water supplies, care for the sick, burial of the dead...so many people were dying each day that individual graves and funerals simply weren’t possible, and mass graves had to be dug. In a Victorian society that placed great emphasis on proper burial and mourning, this was an additional psychological blow.

At the time of this epidemic, the cause of yellow fever and the way it was spread was not known. (It’s a virus spread by mosquitoes.) Much ado was made about proper sanitation and how filthy the city was at the time. Efforts at sanitation and a new sewer system after the outbreak didn’t address the cause of yellow fever, but it certainly would have an impact on general public health and helped to make Memphis an important southern city once again.

One thing I found especially fascinating was the social and racial aspects of post-Civil War Memphis. Black citizens and troops helped to maintain order and were credited with being a big part of keeping things together. Memphis was not a segregated city at this time, and black and white relief workers ate and worked side by side. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that the Jim Crow laws came into being and segregation was instituted in Memphis. Histories of the epidemic written by whites eliminated the important role that blacks played in dealing with this outbreak. It was as though they wanted to deny reality. I guess some things never change! (I’m thinking of that Duck guy saying that he was around blacks when he was growing up, and they were happy and singing songs.)

The book throws in some fairly gory details of the disease (One tell-tale symptom is black vomit, or vomito negro, which consists of digested blood—yellow fever is a hemorrhagic virus, like Ebola. When that starts, the patient isn’t long for this world. One nurse wrote about how a patient’s bed looked like someone had tossed black ink all over it. That’s going to stick with me for a while.), but the main focus is the social and psychological devastation the epidemic brought to the city. It’s hard to imagine the impact that massive die-offs of family, friends, and neighbors would have, even today. Our epidemiology and quarantine capabilities are much better now, but an extremely virulent and transmissible agent would still be hard to contain.

Yellow fever, AKA Yellow Jack, still occurs in Africa and South America.

Beer here!

My immune system is occupied with trying to fight off a cold, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to do an entry. I’ll busy my brain with this while my immune response kicks in. Do your thing, immune system! You rock!

Last night we went to the newly renovated and renamed LaSalle Kitchen & Tavern (née Club LaSalle) for a beer dinner featuring Boulevard Brewing Co. out of Kansas City, Missouri. We had been to one of these before and really enjoyed it, so when Ken get the email that another one was coming up, we thought we’d do another one! This was also our first opportunity to see the renovations at the place. I really didn’t notice much in the way of changed decor, although the sectional couch seems to have been replaced with tables. I’m guessing it’s more about revamping the menu then the decor.

It was a cold and blustery night, and the snow was really flying by the window of the third-floor restaurant, but the place is warm and inviting, and we were happy to enjoy a four-course dinner of yummy food paired with various Boulevard brews. The area rep for Boulevard was there and came around to talk about the brewery and the different beers. Really enjoyed talking to him, even though he didn’t know who the Rainmakers are. (Yes, we asked.)

We started with appetizers, paired with the 80 Acre Hoppy Wheat Beer and the Bully Porter. I’m a big fan of wheat beers, so I really liked that one. The appetizers were grilled ham/provolone/Swiss sandwiches, mashed potato balls, and macaroni and cheese. The mashed potato balls sound weird, but they were pretty tasty, with some earthy mushrooms in there, and a good flavor. The sandwiches were also good, but I stuck with one, because I didn’t want to eat too many appetizers! I made an exception for the mac and cheese, which was the standout for me. Nice and creamy, with a hint of garlic. Delicious! I would eat that for a main course.

The first course was Jerked Shrimp & Scallop with a black bean empanada and mango & papaya salsa. This was paired with Pop-Up Session IPA, a nice smooth, low alcohol IPA. The scallop was wonderful and tender, and the salsa was a fresh, sweet addition to the spiciness of the seafood. The empanada was also very tasty.

The second course was Smoked Rainbow Trout with grilled brioche, fennel & apple horseradish jam, and Bull’s Blood micros. I wasn’t sure what that latter thing was, either, but turned out it was microgreens on top of the other stuff. We had Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale, which was a little heavier than the previous beer. I loved this trout...it was moist and flaky, and the horseradish jam wasn’t spicy at all. It all combined really nicely for a great flavor.

Third course was Braised Short Rib with parsnip purée, thumbelina carrots, and mustard & raisin jus. The beer served was Sixth Class Quadrupel Ale, and yes, that is the way it was originally spelled, so they kept the spelling. Of course, I had to make jokes about quadruped ale and quadriplegic ale. Inppropriate? I don’t know, but I amused myself, if not Ken. I thought this was the weakest course, but maybe I was just getting “fooded out.” The short rib was nice and tender, but I’ve never been a fan of short ribs...I find them overly fatty, and I can’t abide blobs of fat on my meat. [shudder] We both thought the parsnip purée was bland, and the carrots were nothing to speak of. The flavors just weren’t as interesting as the shrimp and scallop, or the trout, in my opinion. However, it was perfectly cooked, not dry at all. The Quadrupel was also a little heavier, but I didn’t find it as one that stood out for me.

The fourth course was dessert, and oh MAN, was it ever good!! It was a chocolate & stout flan with a coffee candy chard. I don’t know if that was a typo and it was supposed to be “shard,” because I know of chard as the leafy greens. This was a chunk of what was basically rock candy, with apparently a little coffee in it. This dessert was absolutely delicious...smooth and creamy, almost mousse-like in texture, with a nice chocolatey-coffee flavor. The beer served was a 2013 Special Limited Release Imperial Stout, and it was perfect with the dessert. Some stouts have a definite mocha flavor to them, and it went well with this. Mmm, thinking back to that flan, I wish I had some more right now!

This was a very pleasant experience for the middle of the week, and we both enjoyed it a lot. I’m sure we’ll do more in the future, when we’re in the mood for a special treat. Club LaSalle may have changed its name, but as LaSalle Kitchen & Tavern, it will remain one of our favorite places in downtown South Bend. It’s a great place to go for a drink after a show, and they usually have musicians on the weekends. I think we’ll keep it in mind for dinners before the show, too. It’s a little more reasonably priced than its downstairs sibling, LaSalle Grill, but the food is also very good. Approved!