Blogging Through the Gas Mask

Egyptian authorities quickly and neatly shut down all communications in an attempt to disrupt grass roots coordination of demonstrations and protests against President Mubarack.  What the government seems to miss is that frustration and anger with the government has gone way beyond posting one-liners on Facebook. The communication has gone super-personal… face to face… and texting for the moment anyway, is not relevant while you’re throwing rocks at policemen, ducking bullets and running from tear gas clouds.

The very neat and clean shut down of 21^st century communications is just another example of why the people have gone to the streets, and if nothing else, reinforces their resolve for democracy and fuels their anger to seek reforms in the face of real and personal danger to their lives.

We’re witnessing a modern day storming of the Bastille. Our Government is caught mumbling for restraint, calm, and talks with both sides because we’re “all-in” with Mubarack and have been for decades. Egypt receives the second largest amount of foreign aid from the US. And while we like the notion of democracy, we still prefer a dictator who will take our money and do our bidding in the interest of “stability”, rather than allow the people to choose a government that may not be a puppet of our economic empire.

Authoritarian dictators supported by the US rule most of the Arab countries. If they lose control, we lose control. When the chips are down, we’ll choose preserving our economic empire over human rights and liberties of any people. This is only the beginning of what may be a long and ugly moral dilemma for our Government in the Middle East as we struggle to maintain control of the regions oil resources.

Flash- Crazy Man Goes Crazy

I’m as appalled as everyone by the senseless shooting in Tucson, but as much as I’d like to blame it all on Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, that’s a putt too far for me.  Civility has long since left the political lexicon. And yes, we need a return to more civility and more respect for people with opposing views- even radical views, but that's a different issue.  Jared Loughner has a history of untreated mental illness.  He’s a sick person. Sick people do crazy things. How he managed to go through life undetected and untreated is yet another issue for discussion in this tragedy.

But let's be frank. There are a lot of crazy people in the world. Politicians and radio talking heads could be blamed for firing them up, but hey, these people are already pretty fired up and ready to commit atrocities. Like all crimes, they need means, motive and opportunity. Their illness is their motive. It's up to the public to deny them the means (guns, bombs, etc) and opportunity ( such as public gatherings). Blaming the shootings on Sarah Palin is a joke. We should cut the Momma Grizzly a little slack. Her target metaphors are no worse than when President Obama said, “… if you want to win a knife fight, bring a gun…” 

What we really need is an adult conversation about gun control and how we can establish limits on what can be purchased.  The second amendment was written when all rifles were single shot muskets. We don't allow fully automatic rifles. Why can't we have protection  to prevent people from purchasing high capacity 30 bullet magazines for pistols? That’s what’s crazy about this tragedy.  Why should any civilian need to kill something 31 times in self-defense? It's time we limited all large capacity ammo  to law enforcement and the military, period.  


When crazy people do crazy things, they’re not in control of their actions, they're just the delivery agent. The gun is the murderer.  The NRA should stop looking at the world through its rectum and start promoting safer gun laws rather fighting every attempt by Congress to improve gun safety. We can’t eliminate crazy people, but we can make the world a little safer by eliminating crazy guns.

What happens when China starts to behave like America?

Think about it. Everything we do in the international community is done because our interests are at stake. Or we perceive they are. Or we convince the world it’s the right thing to do. Or if we don’t take action, then nobody will.

We were the world's leading power of the 20^th century. Now China is well on its way to replacing us in this century.  Since 2009 China is the largest energy consumer, so what might we expect them to do? Follow in our footsteps?  We could view this push to the backseat as a threat to our world dominance, or we could breath a great big sigh of relief and let China become the world’s whipping post.  We might need to suck up our pride to in order to sit comfortably as number 2, but life could become so much simpler. We could live in the shadow of China, and be more like, you know—Canada, UK and Australia.  We might have to change our national bird to the Turkey- something more conciliatory than a predator. This would make Ben Franklin very happy. And of course China could become the majority financier of the UN and have the privilege of hosting the UN in their country. 

I can’t wait until the next world crisis comes along and Chinese President Hu Jintao says, “Bring it on”. Can’t you just see him landing on an aircraft carrier with a huge banner (electronic no doubt) that says, “Mission Accomplished”?  Then maybe we can go off quietly and fund domestic things like health care, infrastructure and education. Someday we might even be manufacturing goods that are exported to China and sold at the Beijing Walmarts.  Yep, that would be the life.

DADT Repealed!

So there we have it. The Senate repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"  today by a vote of 65 to 31.  This is truly a civil rights milestone, and the President redeems himself to me for many of the recent disappointments. Over 14,000 troops were expelled from the military during the 17 years the law was in effect. From now on military personnel will have the freedom to declare their sexual preference, or not, without fear of retribution.

I can only imagine how these servicemen and women must feel tonight.  I didn’t expect this law to be overturned with the impending GOP majority in Congress next month. President Obama must have negotiated for more than we thought when he gave into Republican demands to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires.

America has closed one more chapter on our ugly past of discrimination and public persecution of our people. America is a better place today. Thanks Mr. President.

Obama- The Great Compromiser

The art of compromise is finding a solution that everyone hates, but they vote for anyway.  The President seems to be on track as “The Great Compromiser” of all time.  Early on he compromised on his pledge to end the war in Iraq by delaying the withdrawal of troops and leaving 50, 000 troops in Iraq after he pronounced the combat to be over.

Then, after promising to close Guantanamo, he now sees no immediate closure in sight.  After supporting the public option as an alternative to private, for-profit health insurance corporations, he compromised by giving the health insurance industry 32 million new “consumers” of private health insurance, rather than fight to include the public option.

Now we have the greatest insult of all, the President caved in to the GOP’s position and agreed to continue the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. This comes after he already gave up any hope of a Climate Change bill, slow rolled on DADT, and completely ignored Union Reform legislation. He must have nothing more to give. He’s all compromised out.

I’m beyond being tired of defending the President. My faith in his ability to bring change to America is gone.  He’s become a DINO- Democrat in Name Only.  We are truly being ruled by Demopublicans.

Best New England Clam Chowder

Everyone in New England has a recipe for clam chowder. This recipe has evolved over the years. The flavor is very strong and the taste is heavenly. This photo was soft shell steamer clams. Any type of fresh clam can be used with equally tasty results. If you live on the west coast, razor clams, manila clams and gooey ducks can be used, but you’re on your own for how many to use. Manila clams are very much like littlenecks. You could probably make the whole chowder from one gooey duck.

Preparation time: Soak clams 2-3 hours, prep 1 hour

A Forward on Buying and Selecting the Best Clams:

The best clams are the clams you dig in the clam-flats at low tide. Ok. We can’t all do that. So the next best clams are the clams someone else dug that same day and they’re willing to give you some or sell them to you. The next best is a trustworthy fishmonger. I’m fortunate to have a fishmonger who digs his own clams and sells them out of his truck every Friday. Now I know fishmongers are going to say anything to get you to buy their fish, so you still have to be careful, but this old guy has been selling seafood for a long time and he has a loyal clientele, including my very seafood finicky gourmet cook cousin, so he has a good reputation.

The next best way to get clams is to pick them over yourself at a fish market where you can select the clams that look happy and healthy. If you are at a supermarket and the clams are prepackaged, you can still test them by giving a little squeeze. If the necks move, you’re ok, but you will still have to sort them individually before you steam them.  If the seafood person selects them for you ask him or her to make sure they’re alive. High volume supermarkets generally have good quality and high turn over so they’re generally pretty reliable.  I’ve only had to return clams to the supermarket once because I had so many dead clams it was disgusting, but that only happened once. If your fishmonger has more than one variety of clam ask which is the freshest or select the freshest looking variety. If you see a lot of dead clams on ice, avoid them entirely.

All clams must be alive, not just living, but very lively happy clams.  The shell should be closed tight. For soft shell “steamer” clams, if the neck is sticking out, tickle the clam, it should retract the neck and close up tight.  If the neck is limp, the poor clam is on it’s last legs. Discard it. If the shell stays open when you squeeze it, he’s dead, say a few kind words and discard it too. Test every clam you have before you steam them because a dead clam can spoil the taste of the broth and give you digestion problems.

A medium shell clam can be found in Maine. They’re called Mahogany clams. They are yellowish brown.  Mahogany clams are very inexpensive, but they have a short life and tend to spoil quickly. When I can buy them in the supermarket, many are dead on the ice, so buyer beware. I avoid them, especially when the price is too good to be true. They’re probably trying to get rid of them before they spoil.

Hard shell clams come in different sizes (and ages).  All hard shell clams should be closed up tight. If the shell moves at all when you squeeze it, don’t select it, and if you already own it, discard it before you steam them. The best hard shells are gray to grayish white in color. The youngest are called “littlenecks”. They’re about an inch to inch and a half in size. The next larger size is the “Cherry Stone”, they’re roughly 1.5 to 2.5 inches in size, and the largest size is the “Quahog”, 2.5 to 5 inches size.  There are even larger deep sea clams, but not something you’d see in the clam flats and in local markets.

(Just an aside- Quahogs were a staple of the early Native Americans in New England. They prized the purple color on the inside of the shell and made beads with the purple shell and called it wampum. The wampum beads were used as jewelry and currency because they took a lot of labor to make. When metal drills were acquired from traders, the process to make them became very efficient and the wampum beads became devalued as they became more numerous. Early settlers would buy large parcels of land in Massachusetts with a handful of wampum beads.)

Ingredients:

4 pounds of steamer clams, or 4 dozen  “Little Necks”, or 2 dozen “Quahogs”

3-4 medium red potatoes

1 large sweet onion

2 tbs butter and additional 2 tbs optional for creamy chowder

4 tbs sea salt

crushed pepper to taste

1 cup of water

1 cup of store bought clam juice

1 cup of cornmeal or polenta meal

1 cup of heavy cream (optional)

2 tbs flour (optional)

Optional- 1 strip of uncooked bacon (chopped) or 2 tbs sized cube of salt pork

Preparation Time:  2-3 hours of soaking & 1 hour of prep

Preparation:

The clams can be cleaned before they are cooked by placing them in a pot covered with water with sea salt and cornmeal. Stir and place in the fridge, or add ice cubes to keep the water cold. After about 2-3 hours they digest the cornmeal and the bellies are a white and clean. This produces a clearer broth. The only downside to this process is some flavor is lost. If the clams are freshly dug, the taste of the ocean is preserved by not cleaning them with cornmeal. If they’ve been lying around on ice in a store for a few days that fresh ocean aroma is gone by then, so you may as well feed them cornmeal. The bellies taste sweet and they aren’t as gritty.

Remove the clams from the cornmeal solution and rinse well. If they haven’t been soaked in cornmeal, give them a thorough washing to remove the residual mud and grit.

Add 1 cup of water to a large soup pot and a steam grate to keep the clams out of the water. Add the clams. Place on high heat covered. When steam forms, turn down to med-high and cook for 7-10 minutes or until the shells open. Small clams cook faster. Large clams take longer. Leave the cover slightly ajar to prevent the foam from boiling over. For chowder, undercooked clams are ok. They’ll be cooked again when the other ingredients are added.

Remove the meat from the clams being careful to retain the liquid, and set the clams aside.  If large clams are used, dice the meat into smaller portions. Steamers can be whole or separated into necks and bellies. Dice large necks if you prefer smaller pieces. The steamers have a long neck with a skin. To remove the skin pinch the clam at the base of the neck with one hand and strip the skin off with the other. The littlenecks are much easier to clean, but all clams have some skin that has to be removed.

Dice the potatoes and onion. Slowly drain off the broth from the clams into another bowl, rinse the pot to remove the grit. If you use bacon or salt pork, add to the pot with 1 tbs of butter and onions, and simmer until onions are translucent, then replace the broth in soup pot. Add the potatoes, and enough clam juice to cover the potatoes if needed, and crushed pepper (it’s best to take about 2 tsp of whole peppercorns and crush them coarsely rather than milling the pepper) if you grind the pepper, use much less- 3-4 twists). Bring to a boil and simmer until potatoes are soft (approx 10 minutes)

Add the clams and 1 tbs of butter to the pot and allow 3-4 mins to cook in on med-low heat.  Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. This makes low fat, clear clam chowder.

If you want creamy clam chowder, melt 2 tbs of butter in a sauce pan on med heat, add 2 tbs of flour, stir quickly until blended and bubbling as a roux, then slowly pour in 1 cup of cream, stirring until thick and creamy. Stir into the chowder and simmer for 2-3 minutes before serving.

Serves 6-8 generously

One Nation Rally- An Opportunity Lost

People from all over the country came to Washington Saturday, Oct 2, to demonstrate support for jobs, social justice and education. President Obama went to Camp David.  This comes just a week after Vice President Biden scolded liberal Democrats, told them to stop whining and Obama said "buck up".  So the party faithful came to Washington from all over the country and the President gave them brush off.

His lack of support is cause for more than whining. The President obviously thought this was a whining fest, and so, why should he coddle to these people?   I’ll tell you why. They elected him and if he doesn’t start acting like a Democrat, they’ll turn against him in 2012.  The jobless rate is still 10%, Obamacare is a failure, and the war rages on. These are not good one-liners to get re-elected on.

He lost an opportunity to reel in some supporters. He could’ve been the keynote speaker. He could’ve gotten everyone fired up. He could’ve boosted his supporters through media coverage. He could’ve restored some hope. He could’ve given people a reason to believe. He could’ve spoken out for real change, but instead he went to Camp David. 


If President Obama keeps steering the bus of state to the right he'll be off the road in a ditch by 2012 without these whiners.

UFOs, Neanderthals and Republicans

On Monday, September 27, 2010, a former Air Force officer, Capt Robert Salas, who was stationed at a Minuteman silo in Montana in 1967 will give a press conference at the National Press Club.  He’s coming out, so to speak, from his government imposed silence of events that occurred there. He claims that on March 16, 1967, a large, brightly lit, disk shaped UFO, presumably piloted by aliens, hovered over the missile silo and disabled all 10 nuclear warhead missiles. His story is collaborated by other witnesses, so it must be true.  OK! Exhale!

Meanwhile in Italy, a researcher, Riel-Salvatore spent seven years studying Neanderthal sites. He conjectures that Neanderthals may have been the first “techies” in the human race. He found tools they used 42,000 years ago- long before any use of tools by “modern” man. Furthermore, he asserts they were not conquered and driven into extinction as commonly assumed. Rather, they were absorbed into the larger society of Homo sapiens through mating. Evidently their population was very small in comparison to the Homo sapiens, and well, they must have been lonely and vulnerable to a good pick up line.  

And in Washington, we have “back to the future” going on as the Republicans dusted off their 16 year old plan for fixing America and launched a serious, no kidding, re-run of the plan that got us into this mess we have today- all under the audacious presumption of making a “fresh start” to put America back on track. “Let’s toss all that regulation overboard. Who needs it? Health care? We don’t need no stinking health care.” They’re sure the American voters will support them this time.  Honest.

So I suppose if people can believe aliens from outer space can disarm nuclear warheads, and primitive homo sapiens can have a “love-in” with Neanderthals, then people could believe that Republicans can dust off the old failed plan and make it work this time. As this all unfolds though, I’m beginning to wonder if there's a dormant Neanderthal gene lurking about here, and were these legal or illegal aliens?

Congressional Debate Highlights Need for the Green Party

The first debate for the 2^nd Congressional district in New Hampshire between Republican Charlie Bass and Democrat Ann Mclane Kuster was predictable.  Kuster accused Bass of being in Washington for 12 years when all the deregulation was enacted, while Bass said after nearly two years in office, President Obama is responsible for our unemployment today. Both are right. Maybe it’s time to look for a third party- like the Green Party.

Democrats point out that without Obama’s actions unemployment would be worse than it is, and the bank bailout and stimulus bill (better known as re-pave America) averted a second depression that could’ve pushed unemployment to 20% or 25 %.  We’ll never know if that is true. Economists have computer models that may be accurate predictors, but yawn… the average American wouldn’t believe that any more than they believe Obama is a Christian.

One thing is certain though. If Obama didn’t take the action he did, and unemployment did soar to 20%, the Republicans would be on the eve of election victories of landslide- no, of avalanche proportions, and the Tea Party would account for 80% of the electorate.

The Republicans want to bet all their economic recovery hopes on tax relief. I don’t believe that tax relief is the answer. No one wants to point the finger at the true culprit- the banks. For the last two years banks took taxpayer money at bargain rates and invested it for their own profit rather than loaning it to businesses. The investment banks had record profits in 2009, while Joe the Plumber couldn’t get a loan for a new roto-rooter.

As long as the banks horde the money for their own gains, the economy will remain mired down regardless of who is in office, and both parties are letting us down for not addressing this.  People need to wake up to the fact that both major parties are essentially the same, and they argue vehemently around the edges.

I like the Green Party. I like what it stands for. I don’t think I’m alone.

“Pledge to America”, More like a Contract on America

Where’s Bill Murray? Is this Groundhog Day?  Why do I feel like I’m reliving a nightmare from 1994?  Furthermore, since when does leaving the womb of Capital Hill and being videoed at a hardware store in nearby Virginia make you an outsider? This whole charade smacks of a hillbilly Tea Party gathering complete with pitchfork and overalls.  Is America really this gullible and stupid? Let's take a little quiz. Who really benefits from this pledge?

Not the children who are sick and could lose their health coverage

Not the people with catastrophic health care bills that will have lifetime limits restored

Not the 32 million Americans who couldn’t get health insurance before the reform

Not the people who will be dropped by their insurers if they get sick

Not the young people under 26, who will lose their insurance through their parents

Not the people who depend on Social Security

Not the people who depend on Medicare

Not the workers who would like to organize, but can’t because of corporate veto.

Not the gay/lesbians who want to be treated like citizens

Not the workers who lose their jobs overseas
Not poor immigrants trying to eek out a living

Not the troops killed in needless wars

Who then?

The Wall St Banks

Food factories 

Oil, Coal and Nuclear power

Defense contractors

Millionaires

China and every other country that steals American jobs

New? This sounds like old time GOP religion to me.