If you missed it: Word. [via @stokesneuro] pic.twitter.com/IlhxQhk9AE
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) May 30, 2014
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What’s on the agenda as the weekend wraps up?
Anne Laurie has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2009.
This post is in: Open Threads, Decline and Fall
If you missed it: Word. [via @stokesneuro] pic.twitter.com/IlhxQhk9AE
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) May 30, 2014
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What’s on the agenda as the weekend wraps up?
This post is in: Garden Chats
From commentor Gelfling545:
Since you were short of garden pictures I thought I’d add one of mine now that my WNY garden is FINALLY starting to pick up a bit in spots.
Jealous! Gorgeous!
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And a question, from commentor Scuffletuffle:
I have a lovely plant that has appeared in my yard and is thriving. I think it migrated from a neighbor’s house, but don’t know what it is. I’m hoping one of the BJ gardeners can enlighten me.
Some variety of spiderwort, maybe?
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Here north of Boston, my garden’s still a mess, but now it’s a hopeful mess — root pouches full of new tomato plants and roses, flats of annuals waiting to be transplanted into various containers & beds, and gardening clutter (soil mix, fertilizers, stakes, tools) scattered from hither to yon. It would be so much nicer if I had the energy to put in more than an hour or two every not-raining day, but at least I feel like I’m making progress!
How are things in your gardens this week?
This post is in: Open Threads, Readership Capture, Sports
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I assume there’s at least one televised sporting event in the rotation that people want to talk about?
This post is in: Military, Decline and Fall, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?
McCain is right. Treatment of veterans in Arizona is disgraceful. If only there were a prominent veteran in Arizona who could have helped
— Donald J. Drumpf (@RealDonalDrumpf) May 30, 2014
I’d like to believe this scandal — this nationwide collection of scandals — will finally be treated with the seriousness it deserves, and remedied to the extent possible. We’ve got a lot of veterans who need the care we promised them, now and going forward for the next several decades. But I suspect Mr. Charles P. Pierce has the truth of it:
… The problem with the VA system right now is that, for an entire decade, we sent people into the meat grinder of a war the architects of which conducted completely off the books. They kept it off the books used to keep the federal budget, and they did all they could to keep it off the books of the nation’s moral conscience as well. They lied and they cooked their estimates on everything far worse than did the likely criminals who fudged the documentation at the hospital in Phoenix. The whole country was awash in the moral equivalent of a Ponzi scheme, all glistening and shiny and bedecked in bunting. Meanwhile, the physical, financial, and moral cost of it all built up and built up until the scheme got bigger and more complicated and, ultimately, it became untenable. And now, the people who launched it in the first place are tut-tutting about what happened when the whole thing finally collapsed. The one thing to remember about a Ponzi scheme is that the people who get in first get paid off. They got their war. They profited from the double-entry bookkeeping they kept on the national conscience and, now, there’s a Democratic president, and a whole lot of injured veterans, who end up holding the bag.
… Now, there will be a lot of stuff and nonsense about reforming the whole system — privatizing it, so that it more closely resembles the wonderful health-care system we had before the Kenyan Usurper cast his socialist spells upon the republic — and there will be a great deal of posturing from both sides about the “debt” we owe to our “wounded warriors.” But, as we all know, you can’t solve any problem by “just throwing money at it.” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, which has been completely mad since before Reagan closed all those counseling centers, pointed that out to us just today. But, ultimately, Bernie Sanders is completely correct about it all. If you don’t want to pay all the real costs of taking the nation to war, then don’t take it to war at all. It is, after all, criminal naivete to be shocked by the inevitable.
This post is in: Gay Rights are Human Rights, Open Threads
Journalist Masha Gessen, in the Washington Post:
… When I talk to LGBT refugees from Russia about what it’s like to live in New York, the first thing they mention is the safety. Which is funny and awful, because they are talking about the most basic kind: physical safety. People are no longer afraid of being beaten or killed, or having their kids taken from them. Other than that, they have no safety net: no job, nor the right to look for one; no friends, other than those they met at the Russian LGBT refugee support group; no papers. This last one becomes the biggest missing piece. “Bez bumazhki ty bukashka,” an old Soviet song goes: “Without a piece of paper you are but a tiny bug.”
And a tiny bug is exactly what you feel like if you live in New York City, speak with an accent, look like you’re under 40 and have no papers. No rental apartment, no alcoholic drinks, no Costco card for you. One of the most prized recipes exchanged among new refugees, second perhaps to securing a good immigration lawyer, is how to get a New York state ID. It involves opening bank accounts, engaging in a certain number of financial transactions and traveling to the outer boroughs on a regular basis — because not all bank branches will open an account for someone with a foreign passport and without a Social Security number. Refugees also coach one another on how to get an apartment through a co-signer, how to get your emergency-room bill adjusted down and where to find free English classes.
And then there’s the one place in New York City where you can get a gorgeous bumazhka — a piece of paper — recognizing you and a partner as a married couple. You can use your Russian passport with its tourist visa. Hell, the visa can even be expired. You need one witness. Pay $25, and a city official will say to you: “By the powers vested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you married. You can seal your union with a kiss.” Then you kiss. In public, safely…
And I do not even believe in marriage. I’m opposed to it as an institution, and I’ve spoken about it publicly often enough that the Kremlin youth movement has declared me the No. 1 enemy of the traditional Russian family. But it turned out that getting settled in the United States with my partner and our three kids would be a lot easier if we got married. When Darya and I wed in late March, we frustrated our chosen minister by trying to refuse to say vows as part of the ceremony. In the end, each of us ended up writing our own vows. In hers, Darya said she was not so much wedding me as she was marrying the United States of America.
“We are still in the honeymoon period,” she said of her new country. “I’m sure we will have our ups and downs. But I will always love her for enabling me to marry the woman I love.”…
Saturday Morning Open Thread: We {Heart} AmericaPost + Comments (61)
Not technically a Friday Recipe, but who could resist those pics? From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
I love crepes and friend of blog, Kirk Spencer just did a posting on them, reminding me that I had a pretty decent recipe, too. Check out his link, he has some nice filling ideas. For this menu, we’re sticking with fruit.
Do the idea of crepes scare you?! They did me until I decided to brave the waters for this recipe. They are unbelievably easy. The only difference between this and making pancakes is how you manipulate the pan. Make sure after you’ve lightly greased the pan and heated it, you remove it from the heat before adding the batter. Then you need to swirl the batter thinly around the pan and up the sides, until it sets. Return to the heat to let it cook. Immediately begin to loosen the top edges with a butter knife, so when it’s time to flip, it’s easy to do. I found flipping it by hand easiest. Gently loosen the edges completely and gingerly pick up by the edge and flip it over when the bottom is golden. You may need to loosen the bottom with a spatula before flipping. If you’re feeling daring…you can try flipping them. Just remember, they don’t have to look perfect or be paper thin to work!
It looks like we’re going to have another bumpy, rainy, flash flood warning weekend. No grilling. I’ll have to make do with some Buttered Potato Pie and nice Pan-Seared Strip Steaks. And a reminder, there won’t be a recipe exchange this week, but I’ll find something fun for later in the weekend. Until then….TaMara
On the board tonight: Kids Night Crepes Dinner
Fruit Crepes
Raw Vegetable tray w/dips
Popcorn
Friday Recipe: Fruit CrepesPost + Comments (40)
Fruit Crepes
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups flour
2 cups milk
4 tbsp butter, melted
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cinnamon
4 oz sliced strawberries
1 banana, sliced
2 kiwi fruits, peeled and sliced
1 cup granola
1 cup vanilla yogurt
powdered sugar
10-inch skillet with sloped sides or a crepe pan
2 bowls, plate, parchment or wax paperWhisk together eggs, flour, milk, butter, ¼ tsp cinnamon. Mix well and refrigerate for 15 to 30 minutes while you prepare fruit.
In medium bowl, combine ¼ tsp cinnamon, berries, banana, kiwi, granola and yogurt. Cover and refrigerate.
Lightly grease skillet and heat over medium heat. Just before adding batter, remove from heat. Add ½ cup of batter for each crepe. Immediately after adding it, swirl pan until batter is spread completely around the pan and up the sides. Return to heat and cook until golden on the bottom, flip and cook until other side is golden. About 2 minutes each side, but watch carefully. Remove to plate. Repeat for each crepe. Place parchment paper between crepes.
To assemble, put ¼ fruit mixture in each crepe and roll up. Top with garnish of powdered sugar. Makes 8 crepes.Alternately you can prepare them on a griddle, using a ladle to spread the batter around into a 10” circle.
If this still sounds too difficult, you can always purchase pre-made crepes in your produce section, usually by the fresh berries. Follow package instructions to heat.
This post is in: Open Threads
A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N: The tweets declaring our young spelling co-champions un-American, gathered in one place. http://t.co/06LVa4Hg7i
— Jeff Chu (@jeffchu) May 30, 2014
Why did the tweets hit me hard? I was a bee kid—'91, lost on "rimur." And I want those kids never to be asked, "Where are you really from?"
— Jeff Chu (@jeffchu) May 30, 2014
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Apart from the Usual Mob of Idiocrats, what’s on the agenda as we gaze longingly towards the weekend?
Open Thread: Someone Misspelled A-*-*-H-O-L-E-SPost + Comments (162)