Bookshot #37: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded

A delightful collection of essays from science fiction author John Scalzi's blog Whatever, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded covers topics ranging from politics, writing and everything in between and it is a fascinating, well-written collection that makes you think and makes you laugh and honestly makes you want to read more of Mr. Scalzi's books as well as making his blog, Whatever appointment viewing on your daily travails through the internet.

Some standout moments: 'The Lie of Star Wars As Entertainment' with it's money quote of: "Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot."

'When Stupid People Do Stupid Things, And Then Do Even Stupider Things' (this was Scalzi's thoughts on a Florida State Legislator who was caught soliciting sex in a public bathroom and then tried to blame it on his supposed fear of African Americans.) The money quote in this particular piece: "Which leads me to ask: What, is this like a Florida thing? For generations, have the white men of Florida pulled aside their sons and passed along the secret knowledge that the best way to avoid racial conflict with a black man is to offer him pizza money and a hummer?"

The titular piece is to found on page 29, 'How To Send Me Hate Mail' in which Scalzi expounds his basic rules for sending him hate mail, exhorting his detractors to use their creativity when sending him hate mail. I could honestly fill whole blog posts with quotes like this- the brilliance of Scalzi is that he is an engaging, intelligent writer who refuses to write down to his readers. He is by turns intelligent, witty, thought provoking and laugh out loud funny all of which makes him probably one of the more worthwhile commentators on the interwebs today. The punchline of this piece is that, at the very end of the book, he includes three of his favorite pieces of hate mail- all follow his rules and are worthy of the title, however this one stood out as a fine example of pith and wit: "You suck. Postscript- since the winner will be published in your book, I thought the email should be kept in line with the average attention span and intellectual capacity of your reader base." I literally laughed out loud.

Overall: This is a decade of the greatest hits of one of the best internet commentators out there- not to mention a guy who's written such extremely worthwhile books as Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades- a must read for any science fiction out there. Here's a link to his blog. Whatever. Put it in your favorites and go read it everyday- you won't regret it.

Required Reading #4

It's been while since I've done one of these, so I thought it was probably overdue. The usual favorites are here- 2 very nice, thought provoking pieces from WRM, another one on the unfolding mess of higher education from Forbes.com, still another on the Terraformation of Mars- an idea that would be kick ass to at least see started in my lifetime and finally some bartending fun from PopSci. Enjoy!

The Once and Future Liberalism, Walter Russell Mead

Beyond Blue Part One: The Crisis Of The American Dream, Walter Russell Mead

Why You Should Postpone College, Brett Nelson, Forbes.com

Does Mars Have Rights? Ronald Bailey, Reason.com

Bonus Video: Mixing 21st Century Cocktails from PopSci.com.

Food Adventures #8: Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Cupcakes

Yesterday while the Missus was up in Iowa Falls for a mild girl's weekend, I had a hankering for Laird's Applejack. I'd heard about the stuff here and there and thought, in a fit of patriotism that it'd be pretty kick-ass to try the hooch that (reportedly) the Founding Fathers themselves were hip too.

Unfortunately, I didn't find any- but what I did find was some Evan Williams Cherry Reserve. For some reason, flavored or infused whiskeys seem to be popular as of late. Jack Daniels has their (delicious) Tennessee Honey. Wild Turkey has their (equally delicious and slightly cheaper) American Honey. Southern Comfort turned to lime and then, strangely, to Tabasco (I'll be reviewing that in an upcoming 'Hooch, Man'- it's not quite as bad as it sounds.) So I figured, why not see what the Cherry Stuff was like.

And it was good. Sweet- perhaps a little reminiscent of cough syrup, but it went down nicely.

But I was sitting there this morning when it struck me. I had been thinking about using some Orange Patron and making some Chocolate Orange Patron Cupcakes for Nurse Ratchet's Birthday party- but then, suddenly, I thought, why not Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Cupcakes? And thus, the wild hair reached up and tickled my nether regions and these emerged:

How did they emerge? Easy- the original recipe was for Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes:

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 heaping TBS of cocoa
1 stick butter
1/2 cup coffee
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

All I did was swap out the coffee for the bourbon and added a cup of chopped maraschino cherries and that was it. (For the Orange Patron ones I was going to switch out the coffee for Patron and throw in some orange zest- but that's a recipe for another day.)

For the rest of the recipe-
In a small bowl, dissolve baking sida in room temperature buttermilk.

In a sauce pan, melt butter and cocoa together at a low temperature, when smooth add coffee (or bourbon or whatever)

In a separate bowl, sift together sugar, flour and salt. Add cocoa mixture and egg and mix at low speed.

Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

So, switch out coffee for whatever you want and get a little crazy and add something if you need too. The results could be... delicious.

P.S. My downfall continues to be frosting. I just can't get it quite right and it just spreads everywhere and looks like crap. Gonna keep hammering away at it.

Food Adventures #7: Reese's Pieces Banana Bread

So this was actually my first kitchen disaster- and let me tell you, I rue the fact that I didn't snap a picture of just how bad this disaster was. For some reason, I completely forgot to check the middle with a knife/toothpick to see if it was all the way done, got excited and then attempted to pry it out and get it onto a plate... where it promptly fell apart in my hands.

Take 2:

As you can see was a lot more successful- it actually held together once I got it out of the pan and onto a plate and it tasted delish as well. A few notes: I found it to be very crumbly- which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing but it makes it sort of a bugger to slice. However, the outside was very nicely formed and crunchy and the addition of peanut butter as well as the Mini Reese's PB Cups added a nice burst of flavor (probably unhealthy flavor, to be honest about it- unhealthy but delicious) to the bread. Overall, I liked it- but I want to make a run at plain, straight up banana bread at some point and work on expanding my bread portfolio as I go.

Fair

I've decided that I hate the word 'fair.' In general, I consider myself to be a fairly fair mind person. I get along with people. I don't hold grudges really. I don't really hate people- because, I find that by and large it takes a lot of energy to hate people and I'd much rather do something productive with my time.

But Jesus, do I hate the word 'fair.' Whenever I whined about life 'not being fair' I usually got the standard response of 'Life's not fair. Deal with it.' (There were variations on this: my Dad doing his impression of Mick Jagger singing 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', and 'this is the world's smallest violin playing my heart pumps purple piss for you' being amongst the most popular.) Needless to say, when politicians especially start talking about people 'paying their fair share' it tends to rankle me a bit.

I did not watch the State of the Union address last night- I saw bits and pieces of it and scanned a transcript on USA Today.com this morning and I realize that I was somewhat glad I didn't sit through it. Drinking heavily as you're being reduced to an inarticulate rage and swearing at your television isn't good for your blood pressure.

Politically, this year is kind of bumming me out. So far I've always managed to vote for a real human being but this year, this year has got me wondering what the point of it all is. This year, voting for Bart Simpson or 'The School Sucks' is starting to sound really good. That's not to say that I'm part of the 'President Obama is going to send us all to socialist gulags' crowd. By and large, it's been four years and we're all still here. Four more year isn't going to mean the end of civilization as we know it- people need to calm down.

We're standing at an incredible turning point in our country's history- we're moving into the post-industrial age. What does that look like though? How do we bring our institutions into the 21st century? What does a 21st Century education system look like? What does a 21st Century welfare state look like? These are not insignificant, small questions and they're not being addressed by either side of the political spectrum. Last night's State of the Union was tepid and uninspiring on this point- in fact, the whole Democratic Party is uninspiring on this point as it seems they are hellbent on defending the status quo of the dried, decaying remnants of the New Deal/Post-War Coalition even though that status quo is looking increasingly unsustainable.

The Republicans sound better but really are no better. It's ridiculous for me to buy into the notion that the party that presided over the largest expansion of government since World War II barely a decade ago has somehow had a 'come to Jesus' moment and can be trusted with the keys to the car again. They can't. They're no better than the Democrats.

I saw nothing new. I saw a Washington completely out of touch with reality. It was uninspiring especially when we were all exhorted to work for a better, fairer America by people who have little to no idea about, well, reality. So a town that can be charitably described as having it's head up it's ass a lot of the time gets to decide what's 'fair' and what's not?

Does that seem fair to you?

Time to reform a flawed Journalism Program...

I'm not a journalist, nor did I major in journalism during my time here at Iowa, but I'm going to waste your time by pontificating about the state of Iowa's journalism program anyway. For the past two months, I have seen our community struggle to understand and deal with the flawed instruction, intellectual laziness and generally piss-poor writing emerging from the Journalism program: namely Professor Stephen Bloom's now infamous article in The Atlantic and more recently, Mr. Ted Gutsche's guest editorial bemoaning the state of the Iowa City Transit System.

First of all, let's start with the basics: how to construct an argument. Right from the start, Mr. Gutsche undermines himself: "I do not use the Iowa City transit system..." Then how do you know anything about it? What makes you qualified to talk about it? Are you unable to find 75 cents, fight your way through the apparently rampaging hordes of out of control juveniles downtown and hop on a bus? Forgive my ignorance, but I thought 'reporting' actually meant investigating what you were writing about.

Happily for Mr. Gutsche, I have used the Iowa City Transit System and found it to be efficient, affordable and always running on time. The addition of the Bongo system for area transit makes it even more convinient- I'm only a text message away from finding out just when my bus is set to arrive.

The crux of my objection to Mr. Gutsche is that he exhorts us to be 'smarter than blaming kids' and then proceeds to turn around and blame the school district. (After all, why blame the kids when the teachers are a much jucier target?)

He cries: Nobody works downtown anymore, so why do we need a bus hub downtown? I suppose thousands of University students, staff and faculty don't count.

He accuses: It's the school district and their fussy rules- our transportation system should, after all, be taking these kids directly home! Actually, I'm pretty sure they have buses that do that. They're yellow and have the words 'SCHOOL BUS' written on the side.

He says that downtown businesses will complain that they don't have the money to fund a shuttle- so they're just going to move. He doesn't have a solution to that problem- and why should he? At that point he hadn't constructed much of an editorial.

I think the best answer is for everyone to breathe deeply and calm down. Having used the bus in recent months, I can say that I was not bothered in the slightest by the crowds downtown. The vast majority of this supposed problems is merely kids being kids- and for the minority that escalate things to outright violence, well, that's what the police are for after all. No one's advocating breaking out the riot gear and the tear gas- it seems just the mere presence of uniformed officers has been enough to keep Mr. Gutsche's alleged chaos in check.

Mr. Gutsche does make some vague, somewhat valid points: we could, I expect, do better at providing more service and certainly a study of how our already excellent transit system could be made even better is a matter worthy of consideration. But turning our City buses into school buses? I don't think so. A judicious experiment in creative scheduling could yield some results: stagger the bus schedules to make sure downtown isn't flooded with arrivals within minutes of each other.

Of course, perhaps the most interesting question posed by Mr. Gutsche is the one left unanswered: if the majority of these kids were white and not African American, would he be quite so concerned?

1 Down, 1 To Go...

Defunct Books is moving to Sycamore Mall! (This makes me happy...)

One of two business left suddenly homeless by the decision by local developers to tear down their current locations to replace them with probably still more plastic apartment buildings, Defunct Books along with the Red Advocado experienced a huge groundswell of local support as the citizenry erupted in internet outrage about it. But at least one business has landed on it's feet- hopefully! Now they just need to find a home for the Red Avocado...

And hopefully, the move to Sycamore pays off. I'm glad Kevin Dingmann the Mall Manager was so proactive about it- hopefully he can be equally as proactive snagging a new anchor store for when Von Maur leaves.

Pop-Up Store Success

Came across this in the Iowa City P-C this morning about the new 'pop-up' store in the former Gilda's space along Clinton Street. I had seen the Christmas one spring up about a month and a half ago now and not thought anything of it, but now the concept is going to rotate monthly, which I have to say is a fascinating idea...

I'm going to go ahead and give this a two thumbs up. What a creative use of the space- what a creative idea for a retail business! A collaborative effort to create what essentially amounts to a new store every month? It's something quantifiable new and different in downtown Iowa City which makes it worth noting- and, I think, makes it worth checking out.

The Trouble With Devolution

Sitting here on my perch 3,000 miles away from the United Kingdom, I'd like to think that I have some insight into the current wrangles that are emerging about my birthplace's future. I tend to scan British papers online regularly and I go absolutely nutty for their election coverage- they never fail to supply readers with widgets and gidgets to plot their own electoral outcomes as they see fit. (Monster Raving Loony Party for the win! It's going to happen!)

Not actually living in a place means that making grand pronouncements about said place becomes something of a dicey business. (Stephen Bloom discovered this recently: though on our Twin Cities adventure this weekend, it was universally decided by the four of us- The Missus, The Quiet Man, Nurse Ratchet and I that had he written exclusively about Fort Dodge, people might have actually agreed with him.) But the constant and increasing debates about the future of the United Kingdom fascinate me and it boils down to a question that so far, Prime Minister Cameron and none of the political establishment have seemed interested in addressing: what to do about England?

As it stands now, English MPs in Parliament cannot vote on matters that have been devolved back to Wales or Scotland. However, Scottish and Welsh MPs can vote on matters that pertain more to England than their own respective regions- as a result this sets up something of a constitutional muddle that results in a general disparity between how Scotland, Wales and England are treated in the grand scheme of things. When the English bitch about Scotland wanting independence because they have to pay tuition fees and the Scots (I believe) don't- it makes a certain amount of sense. The real issue confronting the UK then is not the future of Scotland but rather the future of England.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: take it to it's natural conclusion. Give England a Parliament (or devolve more powers down to the local level) and make Westminster a truly Federal Parliament. It's the only way to redress the imbalance in the system and it might be a deal that all parties could agree too.

Or this could all be a moot point: if Spain vetos a Scottish entry into the EU- hell, if there is a Euro left by the time they even vote on this stuff, independence might be looking a lot less attractive to the Scottish than it does now. But Cameron should take devolution to it's natural conclusion and untangle the constitutional muddle left behind by Tony Blair- even if he accomplishes nothing else in his time in office- that alone would be legacy enough.

Perry is OUT.

Wow, didn't see this one coming. Please note the sarcasm- OF COURSE I saw this one coming... everybody did- when you want to cut three government agencies and you can only remember two of them on national television you know it's not going to end well for you. And sure enough, the end has come for Texas Governor Rick Perry. He's dropped out, endorsed Gingrich and is going back to the ranch. To be honest, I really thought when he got into the race he would pose a serious challenge to Romney. Texas' economy looks impressive given all the mess that's going on and even if he fudges the numbers on job creation- which he probably does somewhat, it's pretty evident to everyone that economically speaking, Texas is working much better that states like California or Illinois.

But he was a HORRIBLE debater.

South Carolina votes Saturday and Gingrich is surging- but a big interview by his ex-wife that's breaking (in a somewhat convenient piece of timing) might potentially put a dent in that somewhat. But if Gingrich can win South Carolina then we might actually have a race on our hands- and Gingrich, despite being, well, kind of an asshole sometimes, does have some extraordinary ideas that at the very least deserve to be injected into the national debate.

We will see what happens...

UPDATED: Apparently Rick Santorum might have won Iowa after all. Ick.

Huntsman is OUT.

This bums me out a little bit- sure, Huntsman probably wasn't going to fly with Republican voters given the fact that he worked for 'The Evil O' himself for a bit as Ambassador to China and had a remarkably reasonable view about many issues. Apparently, reasonable views aren't in high demand in the Republican Party this time around. I didn't see much of Governor Hunstman, but what I did see, I liked- his speech in New Hampshire was really, really good- stressing that he's an American before anything else and calling for term limits for Congress- amongst other things! I couldn't help but wonder if the Republicans might be letting their most electable candidate slide right out of the door- and for sure, he came across a genuinely good guy whom, at the end of the day, I don't really think got the fair shake he deserved from Republican voters.

But, there's always Americans Elect-- hopefully he can catch fire there, because I would be happy to vote him...

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo-- A Review

The Parents texted me out of the blue today and asked me if I wanted to take in the afternoon matinee of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and not having anything better to do, I said yes. I enjoyed all three books and saw at least one of the Swedish film trilogy- possibly two, I can't quite remember off the top of my head and was interested in seeing just exactly what they were going to do with the much ballyhooed Hollywood adaptation of the trilogy.

Happily, they hit a home run. David Fincher (director of Seven) was perhaps the perfect choice to direct this movie and casting Daniel Craig as the enterprising journalist Mikael Blomqvist and Rooney Mara as the titular tattooed hacker, Lisbeth Salander both of whom are employed by a wealthy industrialist (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the disappearance of his niece four decades before. The secrets they unearth, however are beyond what either of them expected...

(No, I'm not going to dish on anything more than that- I know everyone and their mother has read the books but on the off chance that one of the three of you who read this thing haven't, you'll have to read/see the movie for yourself.)

The movie grabs you right away with an intense opening credits sequence paired with a creepy and must download cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song.' Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross followed up their eerie music for The Social Network with an entirely more appropriate and fitting score for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo that really stands out over the course of the movie. The cinematography is also noteworthy, I think: there's lot of winter colors- whites and greys, everything is muted, quiet- secret, appropriately enough.

Fincher stays true to the book and you almost don't notice that the movie itself clocks in at pretty close to 3 hours long. This isn't a movie that drags, in fact, it moves quick like it's on a mission and has a lot to pack in (it does) and only leaves a couple of things out- changing one probably fairly minor thing about the ending- but nothing that really detracts from the overall presentation of the movie.

Overall: **** out of **** Perfect casting, perfect director, perfect score- as it gleefully proclaims 'the feel bad movie of the holidays' it certainly delivers on that. (Added bonus: you'll never listen to Enya in quite the same way ever again.)

The Adventures of Tintin-- A Review

One of the staples of my childhood, I was unbelievably excited to see this movie and even happier that it was Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson who were spearheading the project to screen. With these two guys running the show, I thought, there was no way they could screw anything up- and lo and behold, I was entirely correct. This movie is a solid gold home run.

The story of the adventurous young journalist Tintin (Jamie Bell) and his faithful canine companion Snowy, who stumble onto a chase for buried treasure after he buys a model ship and people start chasing him, ransacking his apartment, attempting to steal it from him, etc. Soon enough, he finds himself smack dab in the middle of an adventure beyond his wildest imagination- as his adventures find him kidnapped, escaping from a ship, crashing a seaplane into the desert and being helped along the way by Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and the Bumbling Detectives Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) as they race to find the treasure before the evil Sakharine (Daniel Craig) does. Along the way they discover the true secret of the Unicorn (the sunken ship) and the pirate Red Rackham's (also voiced by Craig) treasure-- leaving the way open for what I'm really hoping are not just one but two equally awesome sequels!

Overall, Speilberg managed to combine elements from three of the original Tintin books (The Crab With Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure) and made them into one helluva movie that remained very true to the original, adventurous spirit of the original while compromising none of the intelligence and wit of Herge's original text. He also managed to resist the urge to modernize or sex up Tintin- no iPhones, no computers, just Europe and good old fashioned adventure and John Williams provides the old school, retro score to match it all up perfectly.

What struck me the most was how hard it must have been to figure out how to sell this movie to kids that don't remember the cartoons (from Nickolodeon of my youth- very awesome) or have ever heard of the books, let alone read them. This isn't a movie that lends itself well to action figures and Happy Meal toys and in the hands of the wrong director it could have been disastrous- but the fact that they hewed so close to the original source material makes this a hard movie to define. Is it for kids? Yes. But is it a traditional kids movie? I would say no- the adventure is something that will appeal to audiences of all ages.

If there was one tiny criticism I could level at Tintin, it would be that it did take a little while to get going- but then again, presumably, it's being designed as the first of a trilogy, so establishing characters and things of that nature does take time and well, plot- but once this movie got going, it took off- and in the best way possible.

Overall: **** out of **** Once it revs it's engines, this movie flies! Perfect!

Food Adventures #6: Irish Carbomb Cupcakes and Spicy Sticky Sweet Tofu

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes- the Missus found this recipe and, of course, my initial reaction was: 'Shit, I gotta make these things- stat!' As it turned out- it was extremely simple to do. I already had a recipe for Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes and I had leftover Bailey's Frosting from the Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes so two out of three elements came together pretty quickly. The final element was the Whiskey-Chocolate Ganache. (For those that don't know: an Irish car bomb consists of dropping a shot of Bailey's into maybe a half-pint, 3/4 pint of Guinness. If you can drink it all down before the Guinness curdles the Bailey's, it's quite delicious.)

Needless to say: I'd never made a ganache- ever. I only vaguely knew what one was, but obediently got the bittersweet chocolate and Irish whiskey ready to go. I thought I'd have to do something idiotic to heat the chocolate- but it turns out that I was going to chop the chocolate and then pour heated cream on top of it to melt it all. And you know what- that worked nicely. It was yum-tastic and although I think I need practice excavating holes in my cupcakes for filling, my first time out wasn't too bad. Except for one tiny snag.

I've discovered that I lack patience when it comes to frosting especially. I either don't let the cupcakes cool enough, thus making the frosting all melty or I don't let the frosting thicken up enough, so it's a little runny. Needless to say, I ran into the latter problem with these cupcakes so I snuck them into the fridge quick to try and cool 'em down for a bit to stiffen up the frosting. Unfortunately, I didn't reckon about the ganache. Chocolate and cream when combined is delicious. When cooled, however, it hardens right back up so the ganache was less the exciting filling than it was supposed to be than a hard chewy core. So that was unfortunate...

But all in all, it was delicious! The cupcakes will, I expect, continue...


[No, there's no picture for the tofu. I forgot to take one when it was fresh and it definitely loses luster when you keep it in the fridge and re-heat. Doesn't mean it doesn't taste good- just that it doesn't really look all that good.]

What the hell do I do with tofu? Tofu is one of those things that you see in the Supermarket and you think: 'tofu's healthy, I should get me some of that' and then you do and then you've got this big ass block of stuff and you have no idea what to do with it except maybe, Asian stir fry- which isn't bad sometimes, but I wanted to find something a little more creative to do with it.

Enter this recipe. Easy, quick marinade followed by a good sautée and you've got a pretty good appetizer- I whipped up a garlic Sriracha mayo and grabbed some Asian Sweet Chili Sauce for dipping sauces and overall, it scored a B+ from everyone. And given the fact this was my first time doing something like this, I'll take it.

Food Adventures #5: Coffee Chocolate w/Bailey's and Guinness Chocolate w/Cream Cheese

The Cupcake Adventures continue! For those that are wondering just where this weird obsession with cupcakes came from well, I don't really know. I haven't overdosed on episodes of 'Cake Boss' if that's what you're wondering, but I did stumble upon this incredible website which has enough cupcakes to keep me busy for the next year or so- not to mention various recipes from Pinterest that have wandered through my radar.

Anyway, next up were these bad boys:

Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's Frosting- and yes, they were as delicious as they sound and were given two hearty thumbs up by the fam. As you can probably see, frosting is not my strong point as of yet- that's an emerging theme in my cupcake adventures. The frosting either gets put on too soon (ack! My impatience!) or doesn't have enough time to settle up to be fully effective- plus, I found myself ending up with way too much excess frosting. There's currently a tub of cream cheese frosting in my fridge that I need to figure out what to do with. Notes for the future: piping bag is a must acquire (I've currently knicked my Mother's and I know she'll want it back at some point) and mayhap a touch of cooling it down in the fridge might help make it go a little better. If anyone out there has any good tips on frosting, please, add them in the comments...

This also marked the first time I'd made chocolate based cupcakes. I think it went fairly well- and I had plenty of opportunities to practice with these bad boys:

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes. Yes, they are as delicious as they sound, even if the Guinness gets a little lost with the chocolate it does add a lot of heft and texture to the cupcake. I'll make a mild confession and confess that the ones pictured above are the Irish Car Bomb variant but the cupcakes themselves are Guinness Chocolate. These went a little better and are super easy to make. The addition of Sour Cream to the recipe confused me a little, but the batter thickened up quickly and very nicely. They too were delicious and received positive reviews...

14: Attend The Iowa Caucuses

Yes, being finally back in the state of Iowa for the caucuses this time around I had thought that I might have to give this one a miss. I thought maybe, just maybe if I run on down to the Hamburg Inn I can cast my coffee bean and leave it at that. Sadly, when (very hungover I might add: cider and that alcoholic whipped cream they sell at Hy-Vee equals a very bad idea) I managed to get down there early this afternoon they had already wrapped it up and ludicrously, Michelle Bachmann had won. (Which should be a minor consolation to her as she's looking to finish close to the bottom tonight.)

I also experienced some last minute reluctance due to the fact that none of the Republican candidates really got me all that excited. Was it really worth it to change voter registration just to cast my vote in these things? Would it be a total waste of my time as I wasn't really planning on voting for any of them anyway? I almost convinced myself that the deadline to change registration had probably passed but then learned that you can 'switch teams' right at the door on caucus night, so I found the necessary identification and decided to head on over to Southeast Junior High to participate in one of Iowa's grand traditions.

(I should pause here for a brief, important aside: I'm an independent, kids- if you didn't know, I might have mentioned casting entirely fictional Kids Vote votes for Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996- it takes a lot to get me to vote for either of the two parties and I tend to measure such decisions on the potential for creating real and lasting change for the good in this country. In 2008, I really believed that President Obama had that potential. But I was also less than pleased with the Congressional Governance of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid so I went Republican for my Congressional races- figuring that a sane President with a Republican Congress might actually inspire some maturity and compromise in Washington. What the hell I was smoking when I came to this decision is still something I'm trying to figure out- because whatever it was, it was very, very, very good.)

Anyway, I'm not really a Republican or a Democrat- I'm a loud, proud Independent who doesn't want to be shackled to tired political parties on their machines- but when it emerged that my Ancient and Venerable Father (Rabid Conservative) was going to not only vote for Newt Gingrich but speak for him as well, I felt that I had to bring some good karma back to the family name by countering his actions with a vote for Ron Paul. (I was sorely tempted to speak up for Gary Johnson, but since he's running as a Libertarian now, he'll probably be my main 3rd Party Guy. The Republicans did themselves a serious disservice by not giving this guy a closer look. He's like Ron Paul- except he might actually be able to win an election.) Anyway, I bundled up and trundled over to Southeast Junior High to switch teams for a night and participate in the process...

The Quiet Man has spoken often for his hatred of Southeast Junior High and, walking into their old gym, I could see why. The place had the ramshackle feel of a place where adolescent dreams get crushed under the harsh reality of body odor and a sadistic gym teacher. The entire place reeked of industrial cleaner and teenage angst and to be quite frank, brought back so many pleasant memories of junior high for me (spent at the School That Shall Not Be Named at the north side of town) that the words 'threshold of hell' kept coming to mind looking around the place.

The crowd was good- the bleachers, such as they were, were full and there was standing room only along the side and once everyone was in, things went smoothly. Each candidate was allocated 5 minutes for people to speak on their behalf- and if it was 10 people wanting to speak, it was 10 people, if it was 1, it was 1. Ron Paul's peeps kicked things off in fine fashion- they seemed to have an argument prepared and had their shit together. After that, no one really impressed me. No on spoke up for Gary Johnson or Jon Huntsman (another guy that should have gotten more consideration, in my opinion) and everyone else said their thing and moved it right along. Rick Perry's fan might have been my old optometrist from Sears- Larry something or other and he trotted out the old 'Perry can run Texas so he can run Amurica too' argument. Didn't impress me. Bachmann's fans were... well, not impressive. Gingrich's people spent 4 minutes on damage control and 1 minute on an actual pitch and one of Romney's fans spent his time launching an ad-hominem 'talking out of his ass' attack on Ron Paul over the issue of Iran until someone in the crowd asked to hear about Romney. The second speaker for Romney, thankfully, had his shit together and saved it.

Then, everyone cast a vote and I got the hell out of there. (Yes, I know you're supposed to care about precinct delegates and all that jazz- but I was sweaty, tired and hungry- so I didn't.)

UPDATED THIS MORNING: Wow! Romney nips Santorum by 8 votes for the win- ridiculous!

In terms of my predictions- I was wrong. Santorum didn't quite win, but he came close- and Paul finished 3rd which wasn't what I was expecting, but probably should have given the fact that caucusing came in the middle of college students winter breaks. The current meme about Romney is that he can't crack 25% but the problem I see for the others is that none of them have the experienced 'kick you in the balls' campaign staff that Romney seems to have. He's quietly playing for keeps and the others if they want it are going to have to up their game in a big way. If Gingrich is to survive, he needs to have a big showing in New Hampshire and if Santorum is to survive he needs to do the same in South Carolina (along with Perry.) At this point: if Gingrich doesn't come in 1st or 2nd in New Hampshire, he's done. If Perry doesn't do the same thing in South Carolina, he's done and if Santorum can't finish in the top 3 in New Hampshire and the top 2 in South Carolina, his momentum will slow considerably. Which leaves Nevada- which might just be Ron Paul's high noon. But we'll see...

2012: Some Thoughts

As 2012 dawns, I find myself increasingly withdrawn from the events of the wider world around me. Everywhere you turn, it seems you find another tiresome prediction about disaster, doom and decay in the coming year- not to mention the purported Mayan apocalypse looming on December 21st. I, for one, find it tiresome and think that we need to change the direction of the conversation a little bit.

The Industrialized World is in crisis, no doubt- but that's because the process of creative destruction is taking hold worldwide and no stone will be left unturned before it's finished. The Modern Welfare State, founded in the aftermath of the Second World War is finally crumbling into dust and our greatest crisis is not it's collapse, but our staggering deficit of political leadership to deal with the crisis. Something has to follow what has gone before- but so far, no one seems interested in having a debate on just what that something might be.

And do I know the answers? Nope. Not a clue. As I'm distinctly not a policy-maker, I'm going to resign from the answer-prognostication business as it's become plainly obvious to me that I'm no damn good at it. Why bother talking when nobody important is willing to listen? Why speak, when you no longer have a voice? On my bucket list of things to do before I'm 30 I included going to the Iowa Caucuses. I don't think I'm going to succeed at that one and I'm cautiously OK with that. The Republicans don't have a candidate worth supporting anyway and quite frankly, I'm tired of believing that anyone in either of what passes for our two parties has the capacity to create and oversee the serious changes necessary to make it through these turbulent times.

But enough of politics, we all know how that goes: what do with yourself- what then is the individual to do in turbulent times such as these?

What indeed. That, perhaps more than anything is going to be what I'm wrestling with this year. What can I do to contribute something, anything to my personal growth and prosperity? Do I want to do what I'm doing forever and if not, what comes next? Essentially, the never-ending quest to figure out what to do to fill up the hours of one's life continues. At a certain point, I'm sure something will rise to the occasion and blow all the rest out of the water, but in the meantime trying everything possible should be a lot more fun than it currently is, I think. I'll have to work on that.

But in the meantime, according to Wikipedia (the font of all knowledge), here are some things you probably didn't know about 2012:
It's a Leap Year

The United Nations has declared it the International Year of Cooperatives (I might have to learn my NewPi number for once...) and the International Year of Sustainable Energy For All (Ha!)

It's also the Alan Turing Year- celebrating the centennial of his birth.

February 6th marks Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee, celebrating 60 years on the throne.

July 27th will mark the opening of the Summer Olympics in London.

Curiosity is set to land on Mars sometime in early August.

China should get back into space again.

There might (or might not) be a new President come November.

And of course, the current baktun of the Mayan Long Count Calendar ends on December 21st. (Craziest theory I ever saw- in Prairie Lights, no less was that the Angels that rebelled against God, including Lucifer were exiled to other planets and soon they'll be able to contact us again. I'm not sure I like that notion.)

So either we're all doomed and you might as well live it up this year or it'll be just another year. Another year to learn, grow and generally live the shit out of life. (I like that: live the shit out of it. I think we should add that to the general lexicon of 2012. 2012: Live The Shit Out It- has a better connotation that beating the shit out of it does, don't you think?)

Anyway: I'll see you kids on the other side of the great cosmic apocalypse/convergence in 2013- thanks to the 12 of you that care enough about The Cigar to look at it every once in awhile. Hopefully by the end of the year, there will be more of you.