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You are here: Home / Archives for Hillary Rettig

Hillary Rettig wrote for Balloon juice for about a year from 2016-17.

Hillary Rettig

New Hampshire Man Strikes Again

by Hillary Rettig|  January 31, 20169:48 am| 154 Comments

This post is in: Politics, Assholes

My Facebook friend Jonathan Kranz was canvassing in New Hampshire yesterday when he encountered the below charming specimen (reprinted with Jonathan’s kind permission):

Today, I went out canvassing again, my fifth time in New Hampshire. Mostly, it’s been a pleasure; for all my bitching and moaning, I love my country and I take the honor of citizenship VERY seriously. And as many of you know, I love talking to people. But today, something really ugly happened that I’m having trouble shaking from my mind.

Context: I was canvassing with a young man, a junior in high school, who not only looked young, but was wearing a Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra sweatshirt — in other words, it would be damned near impossible to not understand that he was a kid. He is also Chinese-American. So we knock on this door and this guy answers and when I ask if he plans on voting in the Democratic primary, he says he kind of likes Bernie (we declared ourselves as volunteers), he’s probably going for Trump. So far, so good: I’ve seen a lot of that in NH, and I said to him what I always say when someone expresses their inclinations: “What issue is most important to you?”

This is where it gets ugly. “Immigration,” he said. Then he lifted his head toward my colleague. “People like this kid’s parents come over here, and then they ruin the country they came here for. Think about it.” Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Setting aside the obvious lack of logic behind the idea, what I can’t wrap my ahead around is this: What kind of person would say something that nasty, that warped, about a kid standing at his door? Who does that? Why?

I abruptly thanked him for his time and we walked away. I talked to my colleague about it, and assured him that this was the worst I’ve seen and it’s not like this most of the time. But shit, that’s not a conversation I wanted to have with a young person who loves his country enough to get personally involved in politics.

Not much to add except: (a) I wonder when this jerk’s ancestors came over, and (b) I can haz national primary?

New Hampshire Man Strikes AgainPost + Comments (154)

Over My Dead Body

by Hillary Rettig|  January 30, 201612:06 pm| 92 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

I’ve always been intrigued by mushrooms, but ever since moving to the midwest, three years ago, I’ve been flat-out obsessed. Last year I attended the Telluride Mushroom Festival, a kind of mycological cross between Burning Man and Davos; and this year I’ll be attending the National Morel Festival, from which I hope to report back in a few months.

I’ve also grown a few, as documented earlier on this blog.

I’m in the midst preparing an epic fungi post, but this popped up in the newsfeed:

Just when you thought you had a handle on all the intricacies of modern, eco-friendly burials, a new post-mortem option has emerged. After creating a stir when it was announced five years ago, the Infinity Burial Suit, also known as the Mushroom Death Suit, is almost ready for real-world use.

The suit is embroidered with thread infused with mushroom spores that grow from the body after burial. These mushrooms digest the body as it decomposes and neutralize many of the environmental contaminants found in the body—including pesticides, preservatives, and heavy metals. In other words, wearing this suit will make mushrooms eat your body once it has been buried.

Jae Rhim Lee and Mike Ma, co-founders of the Infinity Burial Suit, met at the Hassno Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. Lee conceptualized the idea of a burial method that would help reconnect our bodies with the earth. She came up with the idea of an “Infinity Mushroom,” a fungus which would be able to “eat” her body and neutralize its toxins once she died. To test it out, she began “feeding” a group of mushrooms her hair, skin, and nails, and selected the ones that were able to best decompose them.

“We are both responsible for, and victims of, our own pollution,” Lee said in a 2011 TED talk on the Mushroom Death Suit. As a way of handling some of this responsibility, the suit would prevent the toxins in the human body from being released into the environment after death. It would preclude the use of formaldehyde, which is used in many American funerals as a preservative in order to slow the decomposition process. The suit is also intended to help deliver nutrients to plant roots more quickly and efficiently.

Personally, I’m not one of those nonattached Buddhist types who can view her own demise with perfect equanimity, but I have to say that being food for pretty and useful mushrooms does make the outcome more (err) palatable:

mushroom death suit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

btw, in the realms of the mushroom obsessed, I’m not even close to the most, or worst, or whatever. Last summer I was hanging out in a local graveyard (as mushroom people are wont to do) and saw these:

morel headstone 1

morel headstone 2

Yeah, that’s a headstone carved with morels and another flanked by some wooden morels.

Of course, here in Kalamazoo I routinely spot headstones sporting Wolverines and Spartans, so why the hell not morels? Fly your freak flag proudly!

So would any of you consider being food for shrooms? Also, fess up! How many of you read the headline and thought this was going to be a super-inflammatory Bernie post? :D

Over My Dead BodyPost + Comments (92)

Three Questions for Joan Walsh

by Hillary Rettig|  January 28, 20169:18 am| 478 Comments

This post is in: Bernie Sanders 2016

Dear Joan,

I get that you’re mad. But:

Q1: Did you ever consider that there’s a reason the “likeability” issue gets more traction with Hillary Clinton than, say, Elizabeth Warren? Yeah, Clinton absolutely was, and remains, a target of the right. Also, she’s aiming higher, which makes her more of a target. But perhaps—as you yourself felt when giving her your (as you put it) “careful, qualified quasi-endorsement” in 2008—she also has some problems as a candidate.

Q2: Is it not problematic that, in a piece in which you decry what you perceive to be the erasure of female Hillary Clinton supporters, you reduce Sanders’ vast grassroots and online support—which happens to include many millennial women (like your daughter?)—to a bunch of trollish men?

Q3: Can you really think of no reason other than sexism that people would resent your daughter—and Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards’s daughter—getting prominent gigs on the Clinton campaign?

Yeah, sexism is rampant and trolls exist. And I want a female president as much as anyone. But to pretend that Clinton doesn’t come with a lot of baggage—or that nepotism is unobjectionable—is simply delusional.

Three Questions for Joan WalshPost + Comments (478)

Just Some Tuesday A.M. Bern

by Hillary Rettig|  January 26, 20168:24 am| 236 Comments

This post is in: Bernie Sanders 2016

hey girl bernie

Because if being, “some of the most irritating human beings on the planet, as if they took every annoying fucking trait of the Paulites and said to themselves- ‘Let’s take this to eleven.’” is wrong I don’t want to be right.

More / better below the fold.

show full post on front page

Just Some Tuesday A.M. BernPost + Comments (236)

 

bernie panties

Apparently you can buy these here.

Also, apparently the porn stars are all in for Bernie.

Consider the Cow

by Hillary Rettig|  January 24, 201611:39 am| 207 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

I’ve been haunted, recently, by the news that 35,000 dairy cows froze to death in a massive blizzard in west Texas and east New Mexico.

It’s not the first time, or worst time, that’s happened.

I know that if I posted a story about a dog left outside to die in the cold, you’d all be up in arms. But should we care less about a cow’s (or 35,000 cows’) suffering?

Genuine_Animal_MilkDairy is much crueler than many people realize. The occasional massive frozen die-off aside, year after year dairy cows are impregnated, then forcibly separated from their babies hours after birth. (They often cry for them for days and some fight back.) Eventually, when their milk wanes, they are slaughtered for leather and hamburger. The daughters repeat the cycle, whereas the sons—tiny babies, mind you—live for a few short, miserable weeks isolated, tethered, and deliberately malnourished in veal crates. (Veal wouldn’t exist if there weren’t a dairy industry.)

Dairy is also more harmful to our health than many people realize. It’s linked to many health problems including obesity and cancer. And, by the way, skim milk has even more cancer-causing hormones than whole.

Below is my partner’s Luscious Lasagna, which in place of cheese features a rich and savory tofu/tahini filling that will bring winter comfort to both you and the cows.

 

Dr. T’s Luscious Lasagna (serves 6)

 

Ingredients

 

12 lasagna noodles cooked as directed

24 oz jar of your favorite pasta sauce or make your own

8 oz of Daiya Mozzarella-Style Shreds

 

Tofu/Tahini Mash:

1 12 oz block of firm tofu, mashed with œ tsp pepper added

2 Tbsp tahini

2 cups (or more if desired) chopped spinach

1 tsp onion powder

1 Tbsp nutritional yeast

4 Tbsp UNsweetened non-dairy milk

1 Tbsp flax seeds

 

Stir Fry Layer (optional):

1 cup onions, peppers, mushrooms

1 cup Beyond Meat Beefy Crumble

(stir fry together in advance)

 

Topping:

GoVeggie Parmesan grated topping

 

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Spread a small layer of sauce in a rectangular oven-proof casserole dish

Add four noodles

Add half the Tofu/Tahini Mash

Add Stir Fry layer

Spread a third of the sauce

Spread half the Daiya

Repeat with noodles, Mash, sauce, and Daiya

Add last four noodles

Top with last third of sauce and sprinkle with GoVeggie Parm

Bake for 35 minutes and then cover with foil and bake for another ten minutes.

 

Consider the CowPost + Comments (207)

Happy Belated Birthday Dolly Parton!

by Hillary Rettig|  January 22, 20169:19 am| 75 Comments

This post is in: Music

Happy belated 70th birthday to Dolly Parton, a true national treasure: singer, songwriter, actor, entrepreneur–and, from all accounts, truly decent human being.

So which of her many wonderful songs to use?

Whitney Houston’s belting cover of Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” is always something to hear. (And now kind of melancholy, knowing what came afterwards.) But for my money Dolly’s softer, hymnlike version wins the prize. Listen through to the very end:

(BTW, Baud informs me he’s making it his campaign song.)

Also, in honor of my esteemed colleague and fellow Papillon (butterfly dog) enthusiast Anne Laurie:

Years ago, I would waltz my own sweet butterfly dog, Orbit, around the room while listening to this.

Happy Belated Birthday Dolly Parton!Post + Comments (75)

Meet the Radical Brownies

by Hillary Rettig|  January 20, 20163:43 pm| 69 Comments

This post is in: #BLM #M4BL

Some crappy personalities in the news today, so here’s something nicer. Meet The Radical Brownies.

The Radical Brownies, a social justice-oriented version of the Girl Scouts, was set up only a few weeks ago to “empower young girls of colour to step into their collective power, brilliance and leadership to make the world a more radical place”. The group of 12 girls are not affiliated to the Girl Guide movement and there are no badges for hostessing. Instead, the members, aged between eight and 12 years old, learn about black history, civil rights and social justice; their reward system includes a “Black Lives Matter” badge and lessons in sustainable agriculture for a “Food Justice” badge. “Radical Beauty,” “Radical Self-Love,” and “LGBT Ally” badges are also on the curriculum.

This picture slays me:

radical brownies

I still remember showing up at my first Girl Scouts meeting, way back when, thinking that I was going to get to go camping like the boys; then finding out that we were actually going to learn to bake and make lanyards.

[insert sad trombone sound here]

I think I lasted two weeks.

Meet the Radical BrowniesPost + Comments (69)

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