The patty pans squash plant I was checking on yesterday when I saw the goldfinches in the zinnias turned out this afternoon to have a stalk so damaged that I was going to pull it this evening. But before I headed out I had the impulse to check my e-mail and learned that one of the tuba players in our community band had a severe heart attack in the wee hours on Tuesday morning. His wife plays tenor sax in the band and posted updates on Facebook — I don’t know why they didn’t show up in my newsfeed. The blockage that caused the heart attack has been removed, but he suffered anoxia and has brain damage. His prognosis is guarded. He was the healthy spouse and she has a disability. They both are in need of prayers of healing, support and protection.
In a situation like this — because of the brain damage, something I struggle with myself from all the hypoxia before my sleep apnea was diagnosed — I don’t pray for a specific outcome. The master prayer, which I learned from Unity minister Catherine Ponder, which transcends human will and creates the best outcome is, “God’s will be done in this situation now for the highest good of all concerned.” This enlivens infinite wisdom and infinite organizing power and when they are freed up like that, they can produce results so amazing that they like miracles. This prayer also enlivens faith and trust, which help ease the pain of your more agonizing miracle processes.
Update, 7/23/2010, Fri.: Kelly said good-bye to Steve on Thursday afternoon. It is one of his wishes to be an organ donor and the requirements for calling the time of death due to brain death are strict. Kelly says he will meet the requirements sometime today. A memorial service will be held on July 31.
Since Steve played the tuba, in his honor, here is one of the world’s greatest tubists, Roger Bobo, playing “Carnival of Venice” on “The Tonight Show” and then being interviewed by host Johnny Carson:
A few mornings ago when I looked down from my bedroom window I saw two male goldfinches clinging to the spikes of tiny, pale lavender flowers in the catnip patch below, daintily pecking at the blossoms. I grew the catnip plants from seed last year and they got a couple of feet tall. This year they are almost four feet tall and when their flowers blossomed they became one of the busiest parts of the garden for bumblebees and butterflies.
This evening I went out to check on the patty pans squashes, which are next to my flower patch where I planted zinnias I grew from seed this year. A little golden flash darted up from a purple blossom to perch on a forsythia branch. Then I saw his friend — life partner? — another male goldfinch clinging to the blossom of a Burpee Purple Prince zinnia. I don’t have close-ups of these flowers because none of them have looked good enough to bother photographing, since they were missing petals. And then, as the goldfinch hung onto the zinnia stalk and worked over the blossom, I was delighted to see why my flowers look so tattered — he was pulling off the petals! I couldn’t tell whether he was eating them or flushing out bugs for his dinner. After awhile he spotted me and then he and his friend darted off to a hickory tree in the backyard.
As for the patty pans squashes, their broad leaves droop a bit when the sun is bright and hot but they perked up as the sun was setting.
Most of the heirloom tomato plants are doing well and I picked some of the first ripe cherry tomatoes this morning from Wild Cherry and Galina’s Yellow Cherry. Berkeley Tie-Dye is not going to make it — I think tomorrow I will replace it with a pot of marigolds that have been looking for a home. Dr. Wyche, one of the Galina’s and Virginia Sweets all have suffered chompage from the deer. When it rains and the ground gets soft, I’ll be able to drive the stakes in my deer fence more firmly into the ground and then I can make the tape taut again, the way it’s supposed to be. Until then, I’ll have to use anti-deer spray.
Dear Matthew Vadum, who writes like Mario Puzo, put me up to this thanks to a post of his I spotted in my Facebook newsfeed last night. Then dear Dan Collins of POWIP inspired me to mosey over to Protein Wisdom to check on Jeff Goldstein, whose father recently died suddenly and could still use some financial help paying for expenses associated with the funeral. And while I was there, I spied a post by The Sanity Inspector, who also has given the style analyzer a whirl, and found he writes like David Foster Wallace. It turns out “I write like …” is a new Web site that has exploded in popularity on account of the blogosphere being jam-packed with, um, waddayacallums — writers!
I couldn’t be more tickled to find my style is like Mark Twain’s. My sixth grade teacher at Fairburn Elementary School in Los Angeles, Mrs. Wash — who fought back tears when she told us Pres. Kennedy had been killed — and who was a slim and beautiful black woman who showed us slides of her travels in India of children who were maimed by their parents to help them be more successful beggars — was the first person to give me one of Twain’s books: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A year or two later I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and in high school I read my older brother’s copy of Twain’s collected short stories and The Screwtape LettersLetters from the Earth, which was not published until 1962. But perhaps the passage from Twain’s writing that influences me now the most is one I didn’t read until my forties, from the second chapter of Roughing It — I’ve boldfaced the passage that changed how I write:
Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was our fellow-traveler.
We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original “Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a “pepper-box.” Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an “Allen” in the world. But George’s was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward said, “If she didn’t get what she went after, she would fetch something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon–the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.
I laughed until tears ran down my face at the contrast between the scene I imagined of the infuriated owner of the mule demanding payment and the mild description that Twain provides. It made me realize how necessary it is — and how funny it can be — to set a scene and then give the reader some space for his or her own imagination to fill in the rest. I always try to do that in my writing here. I don’t know when or whether I will write something that persuades my dear gentle readers of something. But I always try to make the goal charming and to leave enough space for my readers to be comfortable that, if they decided to go to it, the decision was their own, and fulfilling on their terms.
Whole and sliced green tomatoes with a jar of Herb Ox Sodium Free Chicken Bouillon.Green tomatoes coated with corn meal mixture and ready to fry.Green tomatoes frying on the first side.Green tomatoes frying on flip side.Fried green tomatoes ready to serve.
One of the foods that Dad loves is fried green tomatoes, but he is on a sodium-restricted diet, so I have figured out a recipe for low-sodium fried green tomatoes. A four-ounce tomato has 11 grams of sodium. Corn meal does not have sodium — although corn meal mixes do, so check the package — so the main source of sodium in fried green tomatoes is the obvious one: salt. Instead of salt, I use Herb Ox No Sodium Chicken Bouillon and ground pepper. If you need extra flavor, add chili peppers to the oil when frying.
Here are the steps for making low-sodium fried green tomatoes:
If you are growing your own tomatoes and don’t know when to pick a green tomato for frying, it’s ripe enough when it reaches full size and too ripe when it is past the breaker stage and really starting to show its mature color. (The breaker stage is when the tomato’s color breaks from green and starts blushing with its mature color. Most hybrids are pink or red, but heirloom tomatoes come in a rainbow of colors.) The reason for not frying ripe tomatoes is that once the gel is fully developed around the seeds, they become loose and will fall out during the frying process. But a green tomato is almost as solid as an apple and when sliced will stay together.
Wash the tomatoes.
Slice off the bottom and trim the shoulders of the tomato, so that those slices will sit flat in the frying pan. Cut out the small core at the top of the tomato. Slice the tomato into 1/4-inch slices. If you make the slices too thick, the corn meal crust will burn before the tomato can cook through enough to become soft.
Using the proportions above for the number of tomatoes you plan to fry, mix the corn meal, no sodium bouillon and pepper in a measuring cup, then pour some out on a plate.
Coat each slice of tomato on both sides with the corn meal mixture and put them on a plate. If you are preparing several tomatoes, use a paper towel to keep the layers of tomatoes separate.
Put enough canola oil or ghee in a frying pan to coat the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat to medium. The oil is hot enough when it bubbles when you add the first tomato slice.
Watch for the cornmeal to turn light brown at the edges of the tomato slices and flip the slices when they do. Each slice is ready when the cornmeal is light brown and the tomato is soft when you stick it with a fork or the edge of your spatula.
Layer the cooked fried green tomato slices on paper towels to absorb any extra oil.
Serve hot or room temperature.
Tip: some of the cornmeal coating will fall off the tomatoes as they fry. To keep that cornmeal from burning and making subsequent batches taste bad, when it starts to brown, pour out all the oil and cornmeal and wipe out the pan. Then add fresh oil or ghee and let it heat up again before adding more green tomato slices.
First of all, let me be clear, Bookworm: there is NO SUCH THING as a good reason to deny lesbians and gays equality, including the right to choose a same-sex spouse in a federally-recognized marriage. The General Accountability Office in a report to Congress on the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 identified 1,138 federal rights allowed to couples whose marriage the federal government recognizes. There are hundreds more rights at the state level that attend the right to marry. The purpose of DOMA was not to defend marriage, it was to disadvantage a group of people that a coalition of religions — Mormon, Catholic and Evangelical Protestant — wish to destroy or bully into making babies to increase their power and wealth.
The issue is equality for lesbians and gays. Start from the concept of equality, rather than piecemeal rights. Then remember that lesbians and gays are NOT first-class citizens in the United States. And think about how much you are asking of lesbians and gays regarding marriage when our ability to commit and marry is under attack at all times. For example, gays and lesbians do not get to date in high school the same way straight kids do. They may not get to date until their late teens or early 20’s. This causes a developmental delay — you really do have to go through those stages and it is a terrible loss not to have the same support, guidance and approbation that your straight peers do as they practice the skills of finding an appropriate spouse and staying together.
On top of that, straight children grow up with the dream of marriage. They don’t just fantasize about what their spouse and wedding will be like. From an early age, they plan their education and careers with marriage in mind and the prospect of creating a family. This target is a huge blessing because it motivates and socializes the people who have it — straight people.
It is crippling to lesbians and gays NOT to have equality and the dream of marriage. Why make sacrifices for something you can’t have? In addition, why learn the skills of building a life together when so much is stacked against you? In fact, it’s hardly possible to learn the social skills required for marriage under those circumstances.
Social conservatives may believe they are well-intentioned, but the reality is that they destroy the lives of lesbians and gays via deaths of a thousand cuts, then gloat and preen themselves that the ones who are permanently damaged or killed at their hands are proof of the natural inferiority of lesbians and gays, which proves they should never have equality. It’s quite the sweet little self-fulfilling prophecy.
How about this? Why not give lesbians and gays the same equality and support for marriage that straight people have, for at least as much time as y’all have had, and then let’s see if we really come out all that differently with regard to our ability to build lasting marriages?
And here are three closing thoughts: first, why did you not notice that the story you linked discussed only men, yet you applied it to dismiss marriage equality for lesbians, too?
Second, the idea that same-sex marriage equality “redefines” marriage comes from religious propaganda aimed at giving people a rationale — any rationale — for denying lesbians and gays equality. Most religions have their own definition of marriage. A Catholic marriage is not the same as a Methodist marriage, which is not the same as either of the two Mormon definitions of marriage (not including the “plural” marriage used to create the largest number of members in the shortest possible time, which the church did not renounce until 1904). You do know the Mormon church has re-defined marriage so that the only truly spiritually superior marriage is between Mormons and consecrated in a Mormon temple, right? Well, the Metropolitan Community Church is just as entitled as any other religion to define marriage and lo! it approves of same-sex marriage!
Finally, what we seek is equality, so all we want changed regarding marriage laws is simple inclusion, including in the laws regarding monogamy.
This popped up in my Facebook feed from Karen Kelly. Steele provides the perfect description of the motivations of the NAACP and its fellow travelers and useful idiots in the racial grievance industry. What they have done to feed their own greed and lust for power is enslave blacks to racial grievances instead of creating and supporting programs like the one run by Geoffrey Canada to mentor and inspire black children to succeed in school and finish college. The result has been a holocaust of black talent since the advent of the Great Society welfare programs. This destruction of human potential must stop now — the race card has expired.
Coming attractions: I am not satisfied with the post I’ve been working on the last couple of hours, so it will have to wait for tomorrow, or another day, but I will post the video of Shelby Steele that got me started on it. This weekend I want to write more about Jim Rutledge and Maryland’s Senate race, show how to make low-sodium fried green tomatoes, give a garden update and maybe show some photos of my father with some local celebrities.
Jim Rutledge, candidate in Maryland for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate who can defeat Democratic incumbent Sen. Barbara Mikulski.
Maryland has a fiscal conservative Republican candidate who can win the race in November for U.S. Senate against Democrat incumbent Barbara Mikulski and his name is Jim Rutledge.
I’d have told you on July 3 when I heard Jim speak at the Tea Party in Bel Air, Maryland, and then got a chance to interview him, but it took several days to resolve technical difficulties with my blog. I also took extra time to re-build it with better integration with Facebook and Twitter so I would be more effective at my Paul Revere ride to wake the conservative blogosphere to the importance of Jim as a candidate WHO CAN BEAT BARBARA MIKULSKI IN DEEP, DARK BLUE MARYLAND!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!!!
Yes, I know Jim Geraghty pronounced Sen. Mikulski safe from all rivals in February when a blogger floated a rumor that she was about to retire. Hah! Sen. Mikulski will turn 74 on July 20, but my take on her is that she would prefer to — um, I’m a little stuck here on metaphors for dying in office that won’t cause gales of laughter when applied to a famously-closeted lesbian: stay in the saddle? drop dead in harness? die with her boots on?
Anyhoo, a tidal wave of tax hikes is on the horizon and will arrive on Jan. 1, 2011, to wipe out jobs in Maryland and across the U.S. and Sen. Mikulski’s name is right there on each and every one along with Barack Obama’s. PLUS, as dear Moe Lane points out today, the Democrat brand is losing favor here in Maryland to such a degree that polls show Republican Bob Ehrlich stands a very good chance of creating the coalition of Republicans, independents and disappointed Democrats that will win him the governor’s seat back from Democrat incumbent Martin O’Malley. This is the very same group that Jim Rutledge is inspiring with his Reagan Republican approach to unleashing the power of individual creativity and ambition that will transform our economy back into an engine — THE engine — of prosperity for our nation and the world.
If Jim Rutledge wins the Republican primary election on Sept. 14, HE is the candidate who can beat Barbara Mikulski in the general election on Nov. 2. All of the other candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate for Maryland emphasize their positions as social conservatives. Jim’s wealthiest opponent for the Republican nomination, Eric Wargotz, calls for free healthcare for illegal immigrants. They can’t win against Barbara Mikulski because our most pressing problems as a nation right now are jobs and our economy — and these are best addressed by the candidate who is a fiscal conservative: Jim Rutledge.
I shot the video of Jim Rutledge in this post at the Tea Party in Bel Air, Maryland, on July 3. Since the purpose of the day was to honor the founding of the United States of America, each speaker was scheduled to talk about part of the Constitution. Jim’s speech is about the Fifth Amendment. Laws-a-mercy, when that man gets going he fires up a crowd!!! I was touched that he remembered me from last year’s Independence Day Tea Party — I spoke about the need for conservatives to stand up for our own so that our best and brightest don’t have to fear for their families when they enter the marketplace of ideas bearing the standard of conservative causes (also: fire David Letterman!). But then I realized that this means Jim has been running for the Republican Senate nomination to run against Barbara Mikulski for over a year and that he has become a seasoned candidate who knows how to campaign AND WIN.
OK, conservative blogosphere, here’s the call to action:
m. Short version: Jim grew up on the farm in Harford County, Maryland, that his family has owned since the 1600’s. He is an attorney with a wife and two children. Jim believes in limited government, free markets, lower taxes, balancing the budget, term limits, securing our borders, no amnesty for illegal aliens, the sanctity of life, and school choice.
If you live in or near Maryland, Jim’s also having a fundraiser on Sunday, July 18:
Beer & Wine Fundraiser Reception
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Eastern Shore Brewing
605 S. Talbot Street
St. Michaels, MD 21663
$35 per individual
Please R.S.V.P. to 410-745-0079
Pay at the door or in advance at www.RutledgeforUSSenate.com.
Please remember, as we cover Jim’s campaigh, the fable of the sun, the wind and the traveler. The sun and the wind argued each was more powerful than the other and wagered on which one could prove his power by getting a traveler to take off his coat. The wind went first, but the more furiously he blew, the tighter the traveler wrapped his coat around him. Then it was the sun’s turn, and he radiated light until the traveler became so hot that he took off his coat. Let’s use the approach of the sun to help people get out of the grip of the false promises of the Left. Families in Maryland and America are hurting and fiscal conservatism is what will heal their pain and restore our economy to health. Think about it — when you hold out a carrot, you know which direction the horse will go, but when you apply the stick, you only know it’s going to run away. Fiscal conservatism is about creating the conditions for everyone to fulfill their fulfill potential and keep the majority of the fruits of their labors with the liberty to enjoy them as they see fit. That’s the BEST CARROT EVER. So for heaven’s sake, don’t frighten people with the stick, inspire them and enliven their energies with the carrot!
P.S.
When I spoke with Jim on July 3, he told me that one of his brothers is openly gay and that he and his partner endorse Jim’s candidacy. I hope to get an interview with them soon, which I will post here and on YouTube.
Merrie Street is the Republican candidate for Register of Wills in Harford County, Maryland, whom I support as the person who will do the best job when she is elected. However, it’s the darnedest thing, since Republicans and conservatives are so energized this year, Merrie is one of five candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Register of Wills in the primary vote on Sept. 14.
I’ve known Merrie over 40 years because we went to high school together — go Bobcats! — Bel Air High School class of ’71. It has been a great pleasure to see her rise in her career as a journalist and communications professional. She knows how to organize information, present it to people and get them to connect with it. This is amazingly crucial for the job of Register of Wills because people shrink from the task of making their wills, or fail to change their wills when their wishes or circumstances alter, which can add thousands of dollars and untold grief and acrimony to settling their estates. As Merrie explained to me from a case she followed recently of a fairly small estate of $350,000, which can come just from owning a house free and clear, the way a will is drawn up can mean the difference between being able to go through probate on your own or having to pay an attorney over $8,000 to do it for you.
If Merrie wins the Republican nomination for Harford County Register of Wills on Sept. 14 and wins in the general election on Nov. 2, she’s going to put in place the informational and outreach programs that will save Harford countians money and grief — she’s the only candidate with the smarts, the heart and the savvy to do it.
I made this YouTube video from an interview with Merrie during the Independence Day Tea Party in Bel Air, Maryland, held on July 3. That’s why there’s someone speaking to a crowd over a PA system in the background.
