a new project

so john and i have embarked on another joint venture, and this one i'm really excited about---it's a 1916 house in college park that i've always admired---sort of a distress sale, so we got a good deal i think---rent it for a while and if i ever get sick of the concrete jungle, i can retire to college park---

the house was well-built and nicely-detailed from the beginning, it had the good fortune of having been relatively well-maintained since that time---there was a fairly significant fire at some point, but repairs were also solid and restored the original design it seems---in recent years, it has been somewhat neglected, especially over the last couple of years---but it's gonna be a great house----

tonight we met with the contractor, michael, who did some of the work on our wells drive project---there is a large amount of overgrown this and that---saturday i start chopping---

keeping up with brian

update your bookmarks, y'all---
http://tancred62.wordpress.com/

the war on terra

everybody got all freaked out about the unidentified vessel floating in the east river within yards of the queen mary II---turns out it was some fool in a his replica of an 18th-century submersible----it just goes to show you. . . . .

A man in a Revolutionary War-era submarine was cited by the U.S. Coast Guard for drifting into a security zone, and for unsafe sailing in New York's East River near the Queen Mary 2 luxury liner, the Coast Guard and New York City Police Department said Friday.

plus there are claims that some major terrarist attack will occur in the next 6 weeks----

the balcony

tuesday, 6:00 PM

ageing well

. . . or not---each week, creative loafing, southern voice, and david are sitting at the door of urban outfitters, the gay-boy clothing store on the first floor---i usually pick up the first two, but not the latter, which is the last in a long series of little party-boy rags that have been published for the last 25 or 30 years---but i try to look once a century or so, so i picked one up the other day--- flipping through it (issue #459, by the way) just now, i am absolutely amazed at the number of ads for spas and "aesthetic surgery centers" and what not---laser hair reduction, juvederm & radiesse dermal fillers (i should google those), laser resurfacing, skin tightening, chemical peels, spider-vein removal (wtf does that involve?), and botox, but i spewed out my cocktail just now when i saw the ad for fkg pectoral implants!!! from a place claiming to provide "surgical and non-surgical anti-aging solutions"---i have been wondering about all of the spas around here, including one in metropolis and two just opening up in the plaza---i guess there is more to them than mudpacks and full-body massages, although none of them can keep you from being an asshole---

dog

dog enjoyed his birthday party a great deal---he thanks you for all of his cool gifts---

factoid

the teevee just said that, each year, more people are killed by ostriches than by sharks---it just goes to show you, don't it?

the kitten

another benefit of tax cuts for the rich

so the chinese are selling shit for food, but we don't even begin to know what is going on, since the dept. of agriculture, like every other agency of federal govt. except those agents of the police state, is underfunded and understaffed and simply can't keep up with what's going on---

Implementing a 21st-century food safety system in China poses a challenge. It is dfficult to standardize and monitor production practices in a sector composed of 200 million farm households who typically have 1-2 acres of land divided into 4-6 noncontiguous plots. Farmers have only usage rights to their land, so they lack ownership incentives to make costly investments. Many of China’s food safety problems can be traced back to the farm level. Farmers rely on heavy use of chemicals to coax production out of intensively cultivated soils and deal with pest pressures, a practice that contributes to food safety problems. China has one of the world’s highest rates of chemical fertilizer use per hectare, and Chinese farmers use many highly toxic pesticides, including some that are banned in the United States. Farm chemicals are sometimes mislabeled. The Chinese government is tackling this problem by encouraging farmers to buy agricultural chemicals only from approved outlets. Some farmers have little understanding of correct chemical use; for example, they may fail to wait the prescribed number of days between the last application of a pesticide and harvest, resulting in excessive residues in the harvested product. Antibiotics are widely used to control disease in livestock, poultry, and aquaculture products. Industrialization and lax environmental controls have also led to concern about the potential for heavy metal contamination of food products. Untreated human and animal waste in fields and water raises the risk
of microbial contamination.

plus, for five years, the republicans have blocked laws requiring country-of-origin labeling of all food stuff---it's required for clothing, but not for food? i feel sick---

possibly outstanding eats

1 ripe banana, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon sugar
4 ice cubes
1 cup buttermilk
Combine banana, blueberries, sugar, ice cubes, and buttermilk in a blender and blend until smooth.

yum

i need to go to the store----

shameless

So your president is at 25% approval rating. Your attorney general is a laughing stock who doesn't even bother concealing his perjury and contempt for Congress (including members of your party). Iraq continues to spiral out of control. On just about every issue, your political foes have the upper hand. And on that one advantage you could always count on -- cash -- you're getting blown out.

So what do you do?

Seeing that Republicans can't function without an enemy, and seeing that efforts to demonize scaaary Nancy Pelosi have failed disastrously, they're moving on to Plan B -- Harry Reid.

"We really ought to be asking why this Democrat leadership won’t allow Congress to move forward on serious policy debates,” Mr. Kyl said, when asked about the talking-points memorandum he is circulating.

god, don't you just want to slap him? on top of that, the republicans are on their way to a record number of filibusters, which cnn and fox generally translate as democratic obstruction---

mediocre eats

so i made gazpacho, but i didn't much like the recipe, so i kinda wasted susan's tomatoes---not wasted, really, since it was edible, but just not quite right---the recipe was from joy of cooking, but like all such, i consider recipes more as guidelines, a place to start---joy of cooking guided me to an excellent tzatziki, and she will guide me to at least a better gazpacho (as soon as i get some more tomatoes)---i liked the recipe because, unlike many gazpacho recipes, it did not call for chicken broth to start with----completely vegan---just tomatoes, onion, cucumber, bell pepper, garlic, parsley, tomato juice, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper---clearly a half cup of parsley, packed, is way too much for two-and-a-half lbs. of tomatoes, but beyond that i'm not sure what to change---next time maybe i'll try one of these recipes---

really bad weather

the caption for this image reads:

A Spectacular and Ominous View of an Approaching Sandstorm, a Gigantic,
Rolling Wall of Sand 4,000 to 5,000 Feet High, April 26, 2005 Al Asad, Al Anbar
Province, Al Jumhuriyah al Iraqiyah – Republic of Iraq

looks truly horrible, worse than the giant dust storms they had in the great plains in the 1930s, and apparently a nearly daily occurrence in the evening---

r.i.p.

tammy faye is dead
i remember rolling on the floor laughing with claudia at the bakkers, and tammy's constant tears and running mascara----but she somehow redeemed herself after jim's fall from grace---

the fate of the republic?

Old-line Republican warns 'something's in the works' to trigger a police state .
. . Americans think their danger is terrorists," said Roberts. "They don't
understand the terrorists cannot take away habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights,
the Constitution. ... The terrorists are not anything like the threat that we
face to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from our own government in the
name of fighting terrorism. Americans just aren't able to perceive that.

depressing

update

it's been within minutes of a full week since dexter arrived---and i gotta say, he is one fine kitty cat----

now if i can just keep robert or somebody from spoiling him----

serendipity

i guess i will not call it good eats anymore, since somebody, probly brian, didn't much like the tzatziki----whatever, i wanted fresh tomatoes last night and, lo and behold, today, ms. hitchcock comes into work with a bag of beautiful home-made tomatoes---and promised to bring more---so i'm off to the store to get the fixin's for gazpacho---

good eats

if i had access to decent tomatoes, i would be making gallons of gazpacho, but an excellent substitute summertime food is tzatziki:

1. two cups of greek strained yogurt (they've even got it in fat-free at publix---delicious taste and texture and two active cultures)

2. one large cucumber, seeded and diced

[2a. one medium vidalia onion, diced, which is technically not part of any authentic greek tzatziki recipes that i've seen, but is recommended nonetheless]

3. two cloves of garlic, mashed together with a teaspoon or so of salt until it is a nice paste and then mixed with a teaspoon or so of olive oil and a couple of teaspoons of white wine vinegar

4. fresh dill, a teaspoon or two, cut fine

5. black pepper to taste

mix all of that together and serve cold----you can be a pig, like me, and eat it with a spoon along with toast or crackers, or eat it like you are supposed to with pita or as a sauce on something else---yum

race

i just finished reading white flight: atlanta and the making of modern conservatism (kevin kruse, 2005), an amazing analysis of post-war atlanta, the civil rights movement, and resulting white flight----put a context to a lot of my childhood memories but it is not just a rehashing of the past----he makes a very strong case for how much from atlanta's segregationist and racist past still resonates today and puts words to much that i have always felt about all of that----

At the start of the twenty-first century, the politics created by white
flight are not simply still present; they are predominant. . . . Much of the
modern suburban conservative agenda---the secessionist stance toward the cities,
the individualistic outlook, the fervent faith in free enterprise, and the
hostility to the federal government---was, in fact, first articulated and
advanced in the resistance of southern whites to desegregation. No matter how
sincere conservatives may be in insisting that their politics are
"color-blind"---and, to be sure, a great number of them are sincere---a closer
reading of the historical record shows that the politics of race and racism did
inspire policies that no seem to have little to do with race. Recognizing the
legacies of white flight would be a first step in reducing the steady tensions
between the cities and suburbs and help bring together a nation that with every
year seems ever more polarized by race, regioin, and class. Before that can
happen, however, white Americans must stop running away from their past.

sunset