Sunday, August 27, 2006
Flix
Enjoyed Hardball, in which Keanu Reeves plays a ne'er-do-well down-on-his-luck gambler who coaches a team of baseball kids from the Cabrini Green project. For all you Siskel and Ebert types out there, it's a formula movie with no surprises in particular, and of course it's sentimental. We loved it. Another movie we enjoyed was Elling, a Norwegian movie about two ex-mental patients who rehabilitate themselves in Oslo. We loved it.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
HP* Rules
Went to a meeting (not at liberty to disclose what kind, of course, or for that matter, where -- don't worry, Alberto, if you're reading this, it's not a terrorist cell) this evening, the first I'd attended since receipt of my 25-year token. It was held at an inpatient treatment facility and there were many people, all younger than I, except for the manager of one of the halfway houses who has forty years. He passed out tokens after the lead (that's pronounced like the present tense of the verb "to lead", not the noun for the metallic element that has the symbol Pb -- I suppose we should spell it "leed," in California in 1967 they called it a "pitch") and there was one person who took a 24-hour token and two who took 30-day tokens. I went to the meeting to meet my young cousin, who is doing very well in the fellowship. I went to bolster his morale and of course mine. I think the objective was achieved. I keep encountering HP through one happenstance or another -- the most recent was the viewing of The Scarlet and the Black, about Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty of the Vatican during World War II. He smuggled people, including Jews and escaped prisoners, out of Rome when it was occupied by the Nazis; the commanding Colonel tried to thwart him and failed. The end titles stated that Monsignor was the only one to visit the colonel after the fall of Rome, while he was in life imprisonment for war crimes. Visiting people in prison keeps coming up in my conscience because of Jesus' words in Matthew 25: "I was in prison and you visited me..." My cousin is on probation, so going to the meeting with him was the same sort of thing, I hope. I'm going to pursue this thing, with HP's help.
*Higher Power
*Higher Power
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The Ebert of Forlorn River
I’ve just watched Match Point, written and directed by Woody Allen. I've been less than lukewarm about Woody Allen in my time and I suspect it’s because I’m stupid. I've missed the hilarity in most of his humor and I think he is a snob. It’s Dostoyevsky and Strindberg and La Traviata and of course Freud (whose technique of psychotherapy has been all but discredited and whose theories of "mind" have been hotly disputed by the majority of practitioners for decades except, of course, in Manhattan) and many esoteric allusions we unwashed don’t get.
As for this movie, (here I go again -- I did cross my fingers when I promised in the last post) I’m put off by the cigarette-smoking of Scarlet Johansson (I assume that the blonde who is obviously supposed to be the hot one is she), which is occurring in
scenes with the frequency it did with those containing Humphrey Bogart.*
*(One of my favorite actors, and Americans, ever, died of throat cancer in 1957, two years after the first Surgeon General's report on cigarette smoking and health. Bogie winced a lot on camera from another ailment but he never coughed because of the one ailment that claimed him, to my knowledge. He should have. As for the SG's report, the cig companies claimed for many years afterwards that a "causal relationship between smoking and cancer" (translate: cigarette smoking causes cancer) had never been proved, and we weren't even talking about emphysema then, but scientists have long since trounced the cig companies and put the lie to them.)
As for Scarlet Johansson, you only have to be a male, even an old decrepit one like me, to grant she is good-looking, sexy, and all that jazz. As for her smoking in all those scenes, I recall what it is to kiss and caress a girl whose hair and clothing smell of tobacco smoke, who tastes like an ashtray, who just plain stinks. Sorry, the sexiness goes up in smoke. I too smoked at the time I smooched it up with smoking chicks so I didn't mind as much. (Smoking kills your sense of smell generally before it kills you.)
I had a particularly hard time with the first scene in which she, "Nola," meets "Chris." He is obviously taken with her. But as they stand close she exhales smoke from her nostrils like an old veteran police detective of yesteryear. Is he turned on by that? (Perhaps Woody is.) As for acting, the fewer props the better.
All right. Bloody hell! Bugguh! This bloke is daft on the topic of smoking, eh what? (That little display of Brittania is by way of segueing back to the movie, which is set in London.)
Woody does not act in the movie and, for once, does an admirable job of not insinuating himself into it. (Did I say that in my opinon he has a big ego? But he's of course no worse than John Wayne. Being a narcissist goes with being the hero of your own movies, and if you are talented enough to make movies, I suppose you've a perfect right to make yourself a demigod.)
Allen has written a fine screenplay. It has what the writer and teacher of fiction, John Gardner, called "profluence," which means it's presented in such a way that you want to know what happens next. It's a "page-turner."
I read the review by Roger Ebert and he said that "everybody in it is rotten," and I think that's a little harsh, but I do agree that there aren't too many likable characters in it. What keeps your interest is your hope that the ones who indeed deserve retribution do get their just deserts. Dostoyevsky is invoked and Crime and Punishment definitely comes to mind, if you've read it. I read it decades ago and I still remember the wretch,
"Raskolnikov," and my sympathizing with him and loathing him at once. People are betrayed and crimes are committed in Match Point, and there are twists and turns such that you stick with it to see what finally happens.
One thing that occurred to me after seeing the movie was that there was little humor or attempt at it, and I for one was relieved, because I haven't cared for most of Allen's humor, which I've found to be extremely low-grade ore with few nuggets that evoke even a smile, much less laughter. Psychoanalysis and existentialism are good subjects for irony and spoofing hypocrisy, but Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have far surpassed Woody in irony and spoofing hypocrisy, and they provide belly laughs four nights a week.
Anyhow, I liked the movie and found it to be very entertaining. I still prefer Columbo and Sipowicz for crime drama, and for that matter even Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes -- philistine that I am -- but, Woody, ya done good.
It's worth a looksee, folks.
As for this movie, (here I go again -- I did cross my fingers when I promised in the last post) I’m put off by the cigarette-smoking of Scarlet Johansson (I assume that the blonde who is obviously supposed to be the hot one is she), which is occurring in
scenes with the frequency it did with those containing Humphrey Bogart.*
*(One of my favorite actors, and Americans, ever, died of throat cancer in 1957, two years after the first Surgeon General's report on cigarette smoking and health. Bogie winced a lot on camera from another ailment but he never coughed because of the one ailment that claimed him, to my knowledge. He should have. As for the SG's report, the cig companies claimed for many years afterwards that a "causal relationship between smoking and cancer" (translate: cigarette smoking causes cancer) had never been proved, and we weren't even talking about emphysema then, but scientists have long since trounced the cig companies and put the lie to them.)
As for Scarlet Johansson, you only have to be a male, even an old decrepit one like me, to grant she is good-looking, sexy, and all that jazz. As for her smoking in all those scenes, I recall what it is to kiss and caress a girl whose hair and clothing smell of tobacco smoke, who tastes like an ashtray, who just plain stinks. Sorry, the sexiness goes up in smoke. I too smoked at the time I smooched it up with smoking chicks so I didn't mind as much. (Smoking kills your sense of smell generally before it kills you.)
I had a particularly hard time with the first scene in which she, "Nola," meets "Chris." He is obviously taken with her. But as they stand close she exhales smoke from her nostrils like an old veteran police detective of yesteryear. Is he turned on by that? (Perhaps Woody is.) As for acting, the fewer props the better.
All right. Bloody hell! Bugguh! This bloke is daft on the topic of smoking, eh what? (That little display of Brittania is by way of segueing back to the movie, which is set in London.)
Woody does not act in the movie and, for once, does an admirable job of not insinuating himself into it. (Did I say that in my opinon he has a big ego? But he's of course no worse than John Wayne. Being a narcissist goes with being the hero of your own movies, and if you are talented enough to make movies, I suppose you've a perfect right to make yourself a demigod.)
Allen has written a fine screenplay. It has what the writer and teacher of fiction, John Gardner, called "profluence," which means it's presented in such a way that you want to know what happens next. It's a "page-turner."
I read the review by Roger Ebert and he said that "everybody in it is rotten," and I think that's a little harsh, but I do agree that there aren't too many likable characters in it. What keeps your interest is your hope that the ones who indeed deserve retribution do get their just deserts. Dostoyevsky is invoked and Crime and Punishment definitely comes to mind, if you've read it. I read it decades ago and I still remember the wretch,
"Raskolnikov," and my sympathizing with him and loathing him at once. People are betrayed and crimes are committed in Match Point, and there are twists and turns such that you stick with it to see what finally happens.
One thing that occurred to me after seeing the movie was that there was little humor or attempt at it, and I for one was relieved, because I haven't cared for most of Allen's humor, which I've found to be extremely low-grade ore with few nuggets that evoke even a smile, much less laughter. Psychoanalysis and existentialism are good subjects for irony and spoofing hypocrisy, but Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have far surpassed Woody in irony and spoofing hypocrisy, and they provide belly laughs four nights a week.
Anyhow, I liked the movie and found it to be very entertaining. I still prefer Columbo and Sipowicz for crime drama, and for that matter even Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes -- philistine that I am -- but, Woody, ya done good.
It's worth a looksee, folks.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
My LAST Word on Smoking (crossed fingers)
My friend's "serious response to a fun post..." (Thanks, mate, for calling the post "fun." I'm truly complimented. I'm not sure about my ability to satirize.)
"In general I've always believed that a person should have the freedom to drink, smoke or use other substances so long as you're not hurting someone else. For example, go out and get drunk, just don't get in a car or get rowdy and punch someone out.
"Unfortunately, many of these practices cannot be kept to the body that indulges.
"I think of my wife who, when she gets in the vicinity of cigarette smoke, gets awful migraines. At that point you might as well have punched my poor girl in the face and she'd have been in equal pain.
"So where does a smoker's freedom end and my wife's begin? How do you balance a smoker's right to smoke versus the health of those around?
"I think of this today because I made the mistake of telling the clerk at the Sunoco how much nicer it was to be in a smoke-free gas station and she growled 'have a nice day' at me. I should have guessed. My joy at her lack of freedom?"
My response:
Mate, you are just awash in schadenfreude! -- gloating over the suffering of nonsmokers in Madison right there in Fast Max's? How could you be so cruel?
Seriously: I get my gas at Wal-Mart (not because they pay fair wages but because it's nearest to home) and I've noticed that, since the enactment of the ordinance, the small space inside the building continues to reek with tobacco smoke.
I smell civil disobedience. (And insubordination toward the employer, if anyone cares about that. I'd like to see a strike myself.)
Perhaps I should say (with a straight face) to the Wal-Mart clerk the same thing that you said at the Sunoco. I suspect that she would accept the remark without knowing it is tongue-in-cheek, because, as a smoker, she doesn't know how loudly stinky cigarette smoke is. It amazes me how unaware smokers are of the stink it creates.
This lucky (in her value system, not mine) soul, however, has not suffered the fate of the other smoking employees: they must go outside now. Yet the employer -- who is party to a corporation that is notorious for its low wages and strategems for employing people "part-time" (35 hours a week and never two consecutive days off) in order to bilk them out of health insurance -- has provided them with two picnic tables and a shelter overhead.
I noticed a friend huddled in that small space with the other miserables, and I happen to know that this lovely woman has recently been stricken with breast cancer. She is a die-hard smoker -- who is neither stupid nor militantly and stridently against a common-sense law (as our letter-writing friends seem to be).
This noble lady happens to be a life-long practitioner of a merciful health-giving profession and knows the dangers of smoking. She is a die-hard because she is addicted. And in this absurd world, we severely punish anyone who is addicted to pot, cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, etc. Not only do we punish the "undesirables" of our society because of addictions to these substances, but we even take the licenses away of medical doctors if they recklessly prescribe suspect substances such as Xanax and Vicodin.
Yet we do this while we are hard-put to keep poison out of the air we breathe -- our infants breathe -- because it is expelled into that air by a minority (well, maybe not here) of curiously excepted and emboldened addicts.
I'm sure my family members, who are probably sick and tired of seeing still another blog-post on the evils of smoking, will glance at this without comment. Thank God, none of them now smoke tobacco, so far as I know. They'd better not, since they have so many smokers in their ancestry who suffered and died of emphysema or lung cancer or both.
But I am so passionate about this because, for one thing, I, who have succeeded at so few things in this world, managed to succeed at escaping from the addiction of smoking. And believe me, I was addicted. I couldn't go twenty waking minutes between cigarettes. I of all people wouldn't have been able to live with smoking
restrictions. I started and stopped and started again, hell though it was even to start as well as to stop.
I am passionate about this because, as a once-upon-a-time counselor of addicts and a recovering addict myself, I invested a lot of energy in trying to help others quit smoking. Most of the quit-smoking work I did was pro bono publico, when I was getting paid very well for my other work. I am as greedy as the next person but I was truly committed to helping people quit smoking.
Yet here in backwater Forlorn River (cf. Lake Wobegon) -- I speak of Madi-Tucky -- Madison, Indiana -- the city and state that I came back to against my will and the city and region that I at last love and will die and be buried in-- these privileged addicts continue to have the temerity to scream their abused lungs out that their rights are being violated. Enough!
"In general I've always believed that a person should have the freedom to drink, smoke or use other substances so long as you're not hurting someone else. For example, go out and get drunk, just don't get in a car or get rowdy and punch someone out.
"Unfortunately, many of these practices cannot be kept to the body that indulges.
"I think of my wife who, when she gets in the vicinity of cigarette smoke, gets awful migraines. At that point you might as well have punched my poor girl in the face and she'd have been in equal pain.
"So where does a smoker's freedom end and my wife's begin? How do you balance a smoker's right to smoke versus the health of those around?
"I think of this today because I made the mistake of telling the clerk at the Sunoco how much nicer it was to be in a smoke-free gas station and she growled 'have a nice day' at me. I should have guessed. My joy at her lack of freedom?"
My response:
Mate, you are just awash in schadenfreude! -- gloating over the suffering of nonsmokers in Madison right there in Fast Max's? How could you be so cruel?
Seriously: I get my gas at Wal-Mart (not because they pay fair wages but because it's nearest to home) and I've noticed that, since the enactment of the ordinance, the small space inside the building continues to reek with tobacco smoke.
I smell civil disobedience. (And insubordination toward the employer, if anyone cares about that. I'd like to see a strike myself.)
Perhaps I should say (with a straight face) to the Wal-Mart clerk the same thing that you said at the Sunoco. I suspect that she would accept the remark without knowing it is tongue-in-cheek, because, as a smoker, she doesn't know how loudly stinky cigarette smoke is. It amazes me how unaware smokers are of the stink it creates.
This lucky (in her value system, not mine) soul, however, has not suffered the fate of the other smoking employees: they must go outside now. Yet the employer -- who is party to a corporation that is notorious for its low wages and strategems for employing people "part-time" (35 hours a week and never two consecutive days off) in order to bilk them out of health insurance -- has provided them with two picnic tables and a shelter overhead.
I noticed a friend huddled in that small space with the other miserables, and I happen to know that this lovely woman has recently been stricken with breast cancer. She is a die-hard smoker -- who is neither stupid nor militantly and stridently against a common-sense law (as our letter-writing friends seem to be).
This noble lady happens to be a life-long practitioner of a merciful health-giving profession and knows the dangers of smoking. She is a die-hard because she is addicted. And in this absurd world, we severely punish anyone who is addicted to pot, cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, etc. Not only do we punish the "undesirables" of our society because of addictions to these substances, but we even take the licenses away of medical doctors if they recklessly prescribe suspect substances such as Xanax and Vicodin.
Yet we do this while we are hard-put to keep poison out of the air we breathe -- our infants breathe -- because it is expelled into that air by a minority (well, maybe not here) of curiously excepted and emboldened addicts.
I'm sure my family members, who are probably sick and tired of seeing still another blog-post on the evils of smoking, will glance at this without comment. Thank God, none of them now smoke tobacco, so far as I know. They'd better not, since they have so many smokers in their ancestry who suffered and died of emphysema or lung cancer or both.
But I am so passionate about this because, for one thing, I, who have succeeded at so few things in this world, managed to succeed at escaping from the addiction of smoking. And believe me, I was addicted. I couldn't go twenty waking minutes between cigarettes. I of all people wouldn't have been able to live with smoking
restrictions. I started and stopped and started again, hell though it was even to start as well as to stop.
I am passionate about this because, as a once-upon-a-time counselor of addicts and a recovering addict myself, I invested a lot of energy in trying to help others quit smoking. Most of the quit-smoking work I did was pro bono publico, when I was getting paid very well for my other work. I am as greedy as the next person but I was truly committed to helping people quit smoking.
Yet here in backwater Forlorn River (cf. Lake Wobegon) -- I speak of Madi-Tucky -- Madison, Indiana -- the city and state that I came back to against my will and the city and region that I at last love and will die and be buried in-- these privileged addicts continue to have the temerity to scream their abused lungs out that their rights are being violated. Enough!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Chit-Chat
I have two new diversions: cooking and sudoku. I read in Wikipedia that sudoku as it is done in the USA today was introduced in Indianapolis in 1976. Ha! Well, we are now manufacturing Japanese cars in Indiana. I've learned to do the "easy" puzzles. The first one took me a couple of days, off and on, but then my learning curve kicked in and now I do them in about a half-hour. The easy ones. Like the bunny runs in skiing, I'll probably be satisfied to stay with the easy ones for quite some time.
My cooking is pretty rudimentary: I concoct a mean vegetable soup without a recipe, and I assiduously follow the recipes in the American Heart Association cookbooks, which are great for anybody. I'm learning this and that by watching the Food Channel. "Good Eats" with Alton Brown is enlightening and the guy is funny.
One other thing: ta-daaa! I graduated from the first phase of rehab on Friday. I'd say overall I kicked ass. I lost 21 pounds, 2.1% body fat (they say that's good because it takes a long time), and my strength and stamina as measured by a treadmill test has improved by 106%. Not bad for a couch tater.
Enough for now. His Rudeness requires attention. Cheerio, lads and lasses.
Oh. And I guess you aforenamed lads and lasses weren't too impressed with my idee fixe on smoking. I thought the doc might put on her copy editor's green eyeshade and blue-pencil the Courier cub's letter to me, but God knows she has enough to read. As for the rest of you, been there done that, I guess. But I digress. His Rudeness awaits. Later.
My cooking is pretty rudimentary: I concoct a mean vegetable soup without a recipe, and I assiduously follow the recipes in the American Heart Association cookbooks, which are great for anybody. I'm learning this and that by watching the Food Channel. "Good Eats" with Alton Brown is enlightening and the guy is funny.
One other thing: ta-daaa! I graduated from the first phase of rehab on Friday. I'd say overall I kicked ass. I lost 21 pounds, 2.1% body fat (they say that's good because it takes a long time), and my strength and stamina as measured by a treadmill test has improved by 106%. Not bad for a couch tater.
Enough for now. His Rudeness requires attention. Cheerio, lads and lasses.
Oh. And I guess you aforenamed lads and lasses weren't too impressed with my idee fixe on smoking. I thought the doc might put on her copy editor's green eyeshade and blue-pencil the Courier cub's letter to me, but God knows she has enough to read. As for the rest of you, been there done that, I guess. But I digress. His Rudeness awaits. Later.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Saint Herbert
Yes, dear friends and gentle readers, Herb Parker is a hero and a patriot. Not only that, he is a saint. We ought to submit him for canonization to Pope Benedict right away. And we should elect him Mayor of Madison. And boss of the City Council. We should also bestow upon him the honorifics of Sagamore of the Wabash and Kentucky Colonel.
Not only is Herb Parker a saint, he is a martyr. He has been sacrificed on the altar of greed – the greed of nonsmokers for every bit of unpolluted air they can possibly suck down in their lungs. Why do they want clean air so bad?
There is just no limit to what these inconsiderate nonsmokers will do! Why don’t they appreciate the truth? Which is, that the air – God’s plentiful air - belongs to everyone, and that those who choose to poison their fair share with carcinogens have the perfect right to do so. (And that God will not change his laws of physics: gases will still expand to fill the spaces in which they are enclosed and thus nonsmokers too will just have to breathe the smoke of smokers. Tough, you sissies. Get over it.)
Where will the nonsmokers’ greed for clean air end? Next, people will not be able to smoke in their cars. (Little children in them or not.) There will be roadblocks set up everywhere. Police will search for and seize tobacco. They will get smokers out of their cars and rough them up, and molest the women, and then throw the people in jail, where they will be held without bail until they suffer a terrible jones from nicotine withdrawal. Without patches! The corrupt Mayor and City Council will authorize it and enforce it, you just wait and see.
Next, smoking will not be allowed in our very homes. Mark my word, jackbooted city government thugs will crash our doors down and throw firebombs inside and we and our beloved cigarettes and our poor old emphysematous lungs will go up in smoke. (We will not get the joy of living out our lives gasping for breath and having everyone feel sorry for us.)
You think the people at Waco had it bad, wait till you see what Huntington and those traitors who voted for this unconstitutional, Communistic, terrorist no-smoking ordinance have up their sleeves next.
The next thing they will do, they will interfere with freedom of the press. That’s right, the guarantee of the First Amendment. They will force the Courier to print all this goody-two-shoes stuff put out by the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association and the United States Surgeon General and even the turncoat Philip Morris that secondhand smoke is harmful and the only way to protect nonsmokers in enclosed spaces is to make those spaces smoke-free. Period.
In other words, they will force the Courier to become a tool of the pinko city government. (Instead of the tobacco farmers.)
So, smokers of Madison, unite. You have nothing to lose but your butts.
Not only is Herb Parker a saint, he is a martyr. He has been sacrificed on the altar of greed – the greed of nonsmokers for every bit of unpolluted air they can possibly suck down in their lungs. Why do they want clean air so bad?
There is just no limit to what these inconsiderate nonsmokers will do! Why don’t they appreciate the truth? Which is, that the air – God’s plentiful air - belongs to everyone, and that those who choose to poison their fair share with carcinogens have the perfect right to do so. (And that God will not change his laws of physics: gases will still expand to fill the spaces in which they are enclosed and thus nonsmokers too will just have to breathe the smoke of smokers. Tough, you sissies. Get over it.)
Where will the nonsmokers’ greed for clean air end? Next, people will not be able to smoke in their cars. (Little children in them or not.) There will be roadblocks set up everywhere. Police will search for and seize tobacco. They will get smokers out of their cars and rough them up, and molest the women, and then throw the people in jail, where they will be held without bail until they suffer a terrible jones from nicotine withdrawal. Without patches! The corrupt Mayor and City Council will authorize it and enforce it, you just wait and see.
Next, smoking will not be allowed in our very homes. Mark my word, jackbooted city government thugs will crash our doors down and throw firebombs inside and we and our beloved cigarettes and our poor old emphysematous lungs will go up in smoke. (We will not get the joy of living out our lives gasping for breath and having everyone feel sorry for us.)
You think the people at Waco had it bad, wait till you see what Huntington and those traitors who voted for this unconstitutional, Communistic, terrorist no-smoking ordinance have up their sleeves next.
The next thing they will do, they will interfere with freedom of the press. That’s right, the guarantee of the First Amendment. They will force the Courier to print all this goody-two-shoes stuff put out by the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association and the United States Surgeon General and even the turncoat Philip Morris that secondhand smoke is harmful and the only way to protect nonsmokers in enclosed spaces is to make those spaces smoke-free. Period.
In other words, they will force the Courier to become a tool of the pinko city government. (Instead of the tobacco farmers.)
So, smokers of Madison, unite. You have nothing to lose but your butts.
Friday, August 04, 2006
More Blowing Smoke, and More Objection to It
Here's a letter to the Courier:
Upset with smoking ban
Thursday, August 03, 2006
To the editor:
I commend Herb Parker on standing up for his customers. As a smoker, I will not patronize any non-smoking restaurants. I will not vote for any of the current council members that voted to make smokers law breakers in their own hometown.
This town was founded on their tobacco crops, and the taxes that have been levied on the smokers of Jefferson County are sure supporting a lot of roadwork for this county.Tobacco money from Milton, Carrollton, etc, surely augments the local groceries and stores.
How sad is it that Madison has chosen to abide by a tobacco study that even the World Health Organization says was severely flawed? Their basis for second-hand smoke is not correct and they can't show any evidence that smoking bans make any difference in the communities that have enacted them.
Yet smokers are persecuted and made to feel like second-class citizens or criminals. They are subjected to the stress of trying to work all day without being allowed a release through smoking in a job where smoking has been allowed since the beginning. The workers didn't vote for this ban, but they are the ones suffering.
Have you ever tried to keep a patch on in 100 degree weather? Simple answer is...you can't as the guys in our factories are learning.
I urge all smokers (or non-smokers who agree with this view for freedom of choice) to write their local government and complain. Withhold your patronage of businesses that ban smokers like criminals. I'll go to Carrollton, Milton and other close towns that will welcome my smoker's business.
Withhold your vote for the people that voted this smoking ban in, that limits the freedom of everyone, businesses and individuals alike. Today it's smoking, what will it be next time?
Sandi Pennington
Madison
(In speculating about the last question: masturbation? Doh! It is against the law --when done in public. Just like smoking, now. At last. (You can still pleasure yourself and poison yourself in private And the WHO -- part of the UN? -- dissing a study? Oh never mind. The assertion that there is no evidence that second-hand smoke is harmful is arrant poppycock.)
And another letter to the editor:
He's No Hometown Hero
Friday, August 04, 2006
To the editor:
I would like to respond to the article "Supporting Smokers" from the Wednesday, August 2 edition of The Madison Courier and my own personal experience at Frisch's Restaurant.
First I would like to state that I was disappointed in the bias of the article itself. While Mr. Parker was doing nothing but breaking the law, he was made out to be some sort of "hometown hero" who caters to smokers.
Also, I don't see how Mr. Parker expected his "employees to focus on their job and not breaking the law." He stated "I did this for them (employees)." It's more like you did this to them. I was a patron of Frisch's on Tuesday and was very disappointed to find smoking still in place. If it were not for the tight schedule of others in my party, I would have gone elsewhere for lunch. I approached the manager upon my departure. I was told that Mr. Parker was not there or I would have spoken to him directly.
I voiced my disappointment and concluded by stating I would not be back until it was a smoke-free environment.
Whether you agree with it or not, as of Tuesday Aug. 1, it is illegal to smoke indoors in a public building in Madison. The City Council voted on this months ago. I honestly think that this will help our community, not hinder.
Melissa K. Enstrom
Hanover
Thanks, Melissa. I needed that.
Upset with smoking ban
Thursday, August 03, 2006
To the editor:
I commend Herb Parker on standing up for his customers. As a smoker, I will not patronize any non-smoking restaurants. I will not vote for any of the current council members that voted to make smokers law breakers in their own hometown.
This town was founded on their tobacco crops, and the taxes that have been levied on the smokers of Jefferson County are sure supporting a lot of roadwork for this county.Tobacco money from Milton, Carrollton, etc, surely augments the local groceries and stores.
How sad is it that Madison has chosen to abide by a tobacco study that even the World Health Organization says was severely flawed? Their basis for second-hand smoke is not correct and they can't show any evidence that smoking bans make any difference in the communities that have enacted them.
Yet smokers are persecuted and made to feel like second-class citizens or criminals. They are subjected to the stress of trying to work all day without being allowed a release through smoking in a job where smoking has been allowed since the beginning. The workers didn't vote for this ban, but they are the ones suffering.
Have you ever tried to keep a patch on in 100 degree weather? Simple answer is...you can't as the guys in our factories are learning.
I urge all smokers (or non-smokers who agree with this view for freedom of choice) to write their local government and complain. Withhold your patronage of businesses that ban smokers like criminals. I'll go to Carrollton, Milton and other close towns that will welcome my smoker's business.
Withhold your vote for the people that voted this smoking ban in, that limits the freedom of everyone, businesses and individuals alike. Today it's smoking, what will it be next time?
Sandi Pennington
Madison
(In speculating about the last question: masturbation? Doh! It is against the law --when done in public. Just like smoking, now. At last. (You can still pleasure yourself and poison yourself in private And the WHO -- part of the UN? -- dissing a study? Oh never mind. The assertion that there is no evidence that second-hand smoke is harmful is arrant poppycock.)
And another letter to the editor:
He's No Hometown Hero
Friday, August 04, 2006
To the editor:
I would like to respond to the article "Supporting Smokers" from the Wednesday, August 2 edition of The Madison Courier and my own personal experience at Frisch's Restaurant.
First I would like to state that I was disappointed in the bias of the article itself. While Mr. Parker was doing nothing but breaking the law, he was made out to be some sort of "hometown hero" who caters to smokers.
Also, I don't see how Mr. Parker expected his "employees to focus on their job and not breaking the law." He stated "I did this for them (employees)." It's more like you did this to them. I was a patron of Frisch's on Tuesday and was very disappointed to find smoking still in place. If it were not for the tight schedule of others in my party, I would have gone elsewhere for lunch. I approached the manager upon my departure. I was told that Mr. Parker was not there or I would have spoken to him directly.
I voiced my disappointment and concluded by stating I would not be back until it was a smoke-free environment.
Whether you agree with it or not, as of Tuesday Aug. 1, it is illegal to smoke indoors in a public building in Madison. The City Council voted on this months ago. I honestly think that this will help our community, not hinder.
Melissa K. Enstrom
Hanover
Thanks, Melissa. I needed that.
More on T'backer
I sent a copy of my recent post ("Die Hard in Burley T'backer Country") to the Madison Courier reporter who wrote the story about Frisch's civil disobedience. He replied to me and gave me permission to post his reply.
Our email exchange:
On Aug 3, 2006, at 1:20 PM, JT Evans wrote:
Mr. Estridge:
I put the following on my blog site. As you may deduce from this, my opinion of your coverage of the smoking ordinance is that you have been overly sympathetic with smokers' rights and neglectful of the rights of non-smokers. In your own poll, 46% of readers who responded disagree with the militant tactics Of Herb Parker as opposed to 27% who agree, whereas 25% endorse "More businesses should take a stand." That could be taken to mean that more should take a stand against smoking in public gatherings.
If you disagree, you are welcome to add your comment to the blog and rebut what I have to say. I don't try to get letters into the Courier anymore; the last one was ignored and the one before that was, worse, edited (partially censored). I have been friends with most of the Courier reporters, having been one myself in antiquity, and I wish you well.
Sincerely,
John T. Evans
Here's my blog link: (etc.)
***
Mr. Estridge's reply:
Thanks for your comments. On the issue of my coverage, I understand everyone has an opinion and is entitled to his or her own opinion but it bothers me when people accuse me of being overly sympathetic to one cause. Nothing can be farther from the truth. If you were to read my articles more closely you will see that I made organizers of the smokers march look dysfunctional and disorganized. There have been numerous publications where I have talked to the mayor and city council leaders who have refuted the claim that this is detromental to the economy. People who are blasting me now tend to forget those stories.
I don't make up comments from people. I just write them. People are so polarized on this issue and everyone has an opinion.
But to say that I am sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong and ignorant. The items that I wrote about have been strictly news items. You have the Broadway that is no longer the oldest family restaurant in the state. I am not making Ryan Shaw out to be a hero, I am merely talking about his business. Then on Herb Parker, I wasn't going to do a story, but when there is a restaurant that is in defiance, then it should be reported.
There are things that happen in news that we don't always agree with or want to write about but we have too. I have no problem with people saying that I am one way or another, at least they are reading what I write. On this issue, I have my opinions, but those don't matter in the public eye. I can never come forward because of items like this. I assure you that I go to great strides to be fair and balanced. Feel free to post this on your blog. Thanks again for the email.
***
My reply to Mr. Estridge's reply. (I get to have the last word. It's my blog.)
Donovan:
Thank you for your reply. I think you have defended yourself quite well, and I commend you for that. I will post your letter on my blog. That blog, by the way, is read by perhaps all of ten people: I say this to assure you that our exchange is a tempest in a teapot and you will not get your reputation sullied (or I should say neither of us will get our reputations sullied). I assure you that Elliott and Jane will never know that this sole reader has criticized your coverage! Nor, for that matter, Herb Parker. I do not want to hurt anybody who is trying to earn his living and get along with the people around and above him.
I am assured that you don't "make up comments by people" -- that you "just write them." I accept your beliefs that for someone to say you are "sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong, and ignorant" and that you "go to great strides to be fair and balanced." You have a lot more firsthand experience with the smokers of this area than I do -- I avoid them, partly because I am afraid I will commit the unpardonable gaffe, in this culture, of saying, "Yes, I do mind your smoking in the air I must breathe" -- but I concede that you are far more in touch with the people of this issue than I am. And I further confess that I have not read all of your coverage of the issue. And did not have all of them at hand to vet when I responded. Journalists have noted that we bloggers as a lot are loose cannons and that such is the dreadful state of affairs in these days of the internet. May I become more careful and thorough. May all of us become so.
Having made that mea culpa, I will say in my defense, and perhaps yours, that what I have seen missing in the Courier's coverage of tobacco are the inconvenient truths about smoking, and what those truths might portend for this town and the Kentucky counties nearby. The gist of the current blog post is by and large a lament that those truths seem to be missing in coverage anywhere in the Courier. I might be paranoid, but I suspect that offstage characters are the tobacco farmers of these parts who might be offended if they thought the Courier was not defending them with great vigor. Here's another blog post I made about the issue.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Keep FDA* Off the Farm
(*Freaking Dumb Asses)
Forlorn River (aka Madison, Indiana, USA) had a public hearing the other night on a proposed non-smoking ordinance. I didn't attend because I no longer have a dog in the fight: I quit smoking and drinking almost 25 years ago. I don't frequent bars or locally owned greasy spoons, and there is now a public transport service on which no smoking is allowed.
Well, there is one lunch counter where I occasionally eat, and often some inconsiderate person there lights up, poisoning others' air with second-hand smoke. I hate it but say nothing. No one says anything because we non-smokers don't want to have the effrontery to tell the smoker that his -- or her -- behavior is obnoxious. Our silence gives smokers the notion that we tolerate their smoking.
We put up with it but we don't welcome it. In this town, nobody who has the gall to smoke in an enclosed area such as a restaurant or a retail store or a taxicab says, "Mind if I light up?" But if they did, there'd be few who would say, "Matter of fact, I do." It wouldn't be nice. It would make a scene. It wouldn't be Christian. It wouldn't be patriotic. (The smoker might be a vet. Or a Republican.) So (sigh -- cough! cough!) -- live and let live. It's about "freedom," right?
There were people at this protest who objected to a smoking ban on libertarian grounds, i.e. governmental intervention is generally bad and we should have as little of it as possible. A lawyer said that the proposed ordinance would be "government interference in property rights," and added, "I will decide for myself whether I will ban smoking in my business." (I detected a militant tone there: will we see civil disobedience from the counselor? Perhaps a class action suit? Will she be joined by the owners of bars and pool halls, who appeared to be, along with their patrons, the chief protesters the other night?)
I remember a Madison teacher once saying, "My freedom to swing my fist ends where the other person's nose begins." Fair enough. And my freedom to poison my lungs ends where someone else's lungs begin. The analogy of restricting people's right to eat junk food, from Hinkle's or elsewhere, does not hold -- unless in doing so they throw it up on others.
Tobacco smoke is dangerous: "Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." Source: www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/health_issues
And -- just in case you decide that discretion is the better part of valor and therefore to fight your own tobacco addiction instead of the rights of non-smokers to breathe clean air in public places, I quote from the same source:
"Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers."
Since (1) smoking is the leading preventable cause of ill health in the United States, claiming 400,000 premature deaths every year, and (2) ours is the only wealthy country in the world without affordable health care for all, then (3) it would make sense in terms of both health and wealth to quit smoking.
***
OK, Donovan. I'll leave you alone now. Good luck and have a good life.
JT
Our email exchange:
On Aug 3, 2006, at 1:20 PM, JT Evans wrote:
Mr. Estridge:
I put the following on my blog site. As you may deduce from this, my opinion of your coverage of the smoking ordinance is that you have been overly sympathetic with smokers' rights and neglectful of the rights of non-smokers. In your own poll, 46% of readers who responded disagree with the militant tactics Of Herb Parker as opposed to 27% who agree, whereas 25% endorse "More businesses should take a stand." That could be taken to mean that more should take a stand against smoking in public gatherings.
If you disagree, you are welcome to add your comment to the blog and rebut what I have to say. I don't try to get letters into the Courier anymore; the last one was ignored and the one before that was, worse, edited (partially censored). I have been friends with most of the Courier reporters, having been one myself in antiquity, and I wish you well.
Sincerely,
John T. Evans
Here's my blog link: (etc.)
***
Mr. Estridge's reply:
Thanks for your comments. On the issue of my coverage, I understand everyone has an opinion and is entitled to his or her own opinion but it bothers me when people accuse me of being overly sympathetic to one cause. Nothing can be farther from the truth. If you were to read my articles more closely you will see that I made organizers of the smokers march look dysfunctional and disorganized. There have been numerous publications where I have talked to the mayor and city council leaders who have refuted the claim that this is detromental to the economy. People who are blasting me now tend to forget those stories.
I don't make up comments from people. I just write them. People are so polarized on this issue and everyone has an opinion.
But to say that I am sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong and ignorant. The items that I wrote about have been strictly news items. You have the Broadway that is no longer the oldest family restaurant in the state. I am not making Ryan Shaw out to be a hero, I am merely talking about his business. Then on Herb Parker, I wasn't going to do a story, but when there is a restaurant that is in defiance, then it should be reported.
There are things that happen in news that we don't always agree with or want to write about but we have too. I have no problem with people saying that I am one way or another, at least they are reading what I write. On this issue, I have my opinions, but those don't matter in the public eye. I can never come forward because of items like this. I assure you that I go to great strides to be fair and balanced. Feel free to post this on your blog. Thanks again for the email.
***
My reply to Mr. Estridge's reply. (I get to have the last word. It's my blog.)
Donovan:
Thank you for your reply. I think you have defended yourself quite well, and I commend you for that. I will post your letter on my blog. That blog, by the way, is read by perhaps all of ten people: I say this to assure you that our exchange is a tempest in a teapot and you will not get your reputation sullied (or I should say neither of us will get our reputations sullied). I assure you that Elliott and Jane will never know that this sole reader has criticized your coverage! Nor, for that matter, Herb Parker. I do not want to hurt anybody who is trying to earn his living and get along with the people around and above him.
I am assured that you don't "make up comments by people" -- that you "just write them." I accept your beliefs that for someone to say you are "sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong, and ignorant" and that you "go to great strides to be fair and balanced." You have a lot more firsthand experience with the smokers of this area than I do -- I avoid them, partly because I am afraid I will commit the unpardonable gaffe, in this culture, of saying, "Yes, I do mind your smoking in the air I must breathe" -- but I concede that you are far more in touch with the people of this issue than I am. And I further confess that I have not read all of your coverage of the issue. And did not have all of them at hand to vet when I responded. Journalists have noted that we bloggers as a lot are loose cannons and that such is the dreadful state of affairs in these days of the internet. May I become more careful and thorough. May all of us become so.
Having made that mea culpa, I will say in my defense, and perhaps yours, that what I have seen missing in the Courier's coverage of tobacco are the inconvenient truths about smoking, and what those truths might portend for this town and the Kentucky counties nearby. The gist of the current blog post is by and large a lament that those truths seem to be missing in coverage anywhere in the Courier. I might be paranoid, but I suspect that offstage characters are the tobacco farmers of these parts who might be offended if they thought the Courier was not defending them with great vigor. Here's another blog post I made about the issue.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Keep FDA* Off the Farm
(*Freaking Dumb Asses)
Forlorn River (aka Madison, Indiana, USA) had a public hearing the other night on a proposed non-smoking ordinance. I didn't attend because I no longer have a dog in the fight: I quit smoking and drinking almost 25 years ago. I don't frequent bars or locally owned greasy spoons, and there is now a public transport service on which no smoking is allowed.
Well, there is one lunch counter where I occasionally eat, and often some inconsiderate person there lights up, poisoning others' air with second-hand smoke. I hate it but say nothing. No one says anything because we non-smokers don't want to have the effrontery to tell the smoker that his -- or her -- behavior is obnoxious. Our silence gives smokers the notion that we tolerate their smoking.
We put up with it but we don't welcome it. In this town, nobody who has the gall to smoke in an enclosed area such as a restaurant or a retail store or a taxicab says, "Mind if I light up?" But if they did, there'd be few who would say, "Matter of fact, I do." It wouldn't be nice. It would make a scene. It wouldn't be Christian. It wouldn't be patriotic. (The smoker might be a vet. Or a Republican.) So (sigh -- cough! cough!) -- live and let live. It's about "freedom," right?
There were people at this protest who objected to a smoking ban on libertarian grounds, i.e. governmental intervention is generally bad and we should have as little of it as possible. A lawyer said that the proposed ordinance would be "government interference in property rights," and added, "I will decide for myself whether I will ban smoking in my business." (I detected a militant tone there: will we see civil disobedience from the counselor? Perhaps a class action suit? Will she be joined by the owners of bars and pool halls, who appeared to be, along with their patrons, the chief protesters the other night?)
I remember a Madison teacher once saying, "My freedom to swing my fist ends where the other person's nose begins." Fair enough. And my freedom to poison my lungs ends where someone else's lungs begin. The analogy of restricting people's right to eat junk food, from Hinkle's or elsewhere, does not hold -- unless in doing so they throw it up on others.
Tobacco smoke is dangerous: "Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." Source: www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/health_issues
And -- just in case you decide that discretion is the better part of valor and therefore to fight your own tobacco addiction instead of the rights of non-smokers to breathe clean air in public places, I quote from the same source:
"Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers."
Since (1) smoking is the leading preventable cause of ill health in the United States, claiming 400,000 premature deaths every year, and (2) ours is the only wealthy country in the world without affordable health care for all, then (3) it would make sense in terms of both health and wealth to quit smoking.
***
OK, Donovan. I'll leave you alone now. Good luck and have a good life.
JT
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Die Hard in Burley T'backer Country
TEXT See "Supporting Smokers"
What is it with this Donovan Estridge and the no-smoking ordinance? The Madison City Council passed the ordinance some time back and it went into effect two days ago. Mr. Estridge has come up with at least three stories that I can recall since then featuring people who are outraged about it. Not only has he featured such people but he has in fact made them into heroes. He has, to the best of my knowledge, ignored or brushed off those who approve of the ordinance: their comments are buried in or excluded from each story.
All right, forgive my rudeness, but Donovan's Heroes (Was there a movie with that title?) who champion the cause of smokers look more like fools to me. Tobacco smoke kills, and it kills innocent people who do not willingly ingest it into their lungs as well as those who foolishly do. Having non-smoking sections in restaurants is like having non-chlorinated sections of swimming pools.
"Chutzpah," a Yiddish word, has been defined as that quality in a person who kills his parents and then at his murder trial, begs for mercy because he is an orphan.
I am nauseated by this absurd tirade of tobacco addicts -- who know damned well that smoking is bad for everybody, including them, and who have tried to quit time after time and rue the fact they ever started -- and who ought to be ashamed of having their photographs on the front page of the paper -- that their "constitutional rights" have been taken away, that the people who have promoted these laws are "Communists," and such moronic swill. When they give two seconds' thought to their plight, they know they are hooked on tobacco and must obey their habit. And therefore they have about as much "freedom" as prisoners at Guantanamo -- yet they brazen out their diatribe that their "freedom" has been taken away -- and a reporter prints their inanities and -- it sure as hell appears to me -- glorifies them.
Of course smokers have constitutional rights. They just don't include spewing poison into the air that others breathe. Endangering others' health is against the common law, just as physical assault and reckless driving are. There is nothing in the constitution guaranteeing any group of citizens the right to hurt other citizens. It is an absurdity that we Americans fill our prisons with addicts to practically every other drug in existence but tobacco; but smokers -- at least in this ignorant backwater -- rail about not only their "rights" to enslave and injure themselves but also to injure others in public places.
Has anyone considered the child abuse -- endangerment -- involved in smoking in an enclosed car in which their children must be passengers? The child must inhale the addictive substance. We would be outraged if parents put cocaine or heroin in children's baby bottles, but say nothing when we see parents smoking in their cars with small children. That "right" has not been taken away by the ordinance. Why not? Why do we let tobacco rule? Why do we put up with inanity and insanity over an issue that is so clear-cut?
What is it with this Donovan Estridge and the no-smoking ordinance? The Madison City Council passed the ordinance some time back and it went into effect two days ago. Mr. Estridge has come up with at least three stories that I can recall since then featuring people who are outraged about it. Not only has he featured such people but he has in fact made them into heroes. He has, to the best of my knowledge, ignored or brushed off those who approve of the ordinance: their comments are buried in or excluded from each story.
All right, forgive my rudeness, but Donovan's Heroes (Was there a movie with that title?) who champion the cause of smokers look more like fools to me. Tobacco smoke kills, and it kills innocent people who do not willingly ingest it into their lungs as well as those who foolishly do. Having non-smoking sections in restaurants is like having non-chlorinated sections of swimming pools.
"Chutzpah," a Yiddish word, has been defined as that quality in a person who kills his parents and then at his murder trial, begs for mercy because he is an orphan.
I am nauseated by this absurd tirade of tobacco addicts -- who know damned well that smoking is bad for everybody, including them, and who have tried to quit time after time and rue the fact they ever started -- and who ought to be ashamed of having their photographs on the front page of the paper -- that their "constitutional rights" have been taken away, that the people who have promoted these laws are "Communists," and such moronic swill. When they give two seconds' thought to their plight, they know they are hooked on tobacco and must obey their habit. And therefore they have about as much "freedom" as prisoners at Guantanamo -- yet they brazen out their diatribe that their "freedom" has been taken away -- and a reporter prints their inanities and -- it sure as hell appears to me -- glorifies them.
Of course smokers have constitutional rights. They just don't include spewing poison into the air that others breathe. Endangering others' health is against the common law, just as physical assault and reckless driving are. There is nothing in the constitution guaranteeing any group of citizens the right to hurt other citizens. It is an absurdity that we Americans fill our prisons with addicts to practically every other drug in existence but tobacco; but smokers -- at least in this ignorant backwater -- rail about not only their "rights" to enslave and injure themselves but also to injure others in public places.
Has anyone considered the child abuse -- endangerment -- involved in smoking in an enclosed car in which their children must be passengers? The child must inhale the addictive substance. We would be outraged if parents put cocaine or heroin in children's baby bottles, but say nothing when we see parents smoking in their cars with small children. That "right" has not been taken away by the ordinance. Why not? Why do we let tobacco rule? Why do we put up with inanity and insanity over an issue that is so clear-cut?
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
New Endeavor -- Yum, I Hope
Rosie has suggested that I take over cooking for us. During the day she runs a lot, virtually managing a senior assisted-living program for two 90-year-olds who happen to be her parents. She helps a dysfunctional family or two, also related. Considering that she taught herself to cook with her nurse's uniform still on from the day's work and a baby on her hip, I guess it's not too much to ask for me to help out with the meal preparation as often as possible in our senior years.
Also I have a lot more invested in proper eating now that the old ticker has given me a message. No more dashing over to Wendy's for Junior Bacon cheeseburgers or snacking on peanuts and Cheez-its. No more Krispy-Kreme doughnuts. No more quarts of Breyer's butter pecan with hot fudge topping. Paigey (my rehab counselor) said an indulgence once in a while -- a great while -- is OK. My buddy Warnie and I made an excursion to the Brick Tavern in Jonesville two months ago where we had one of their legendary cheeseburgers apiece. Two months since my last cheeseburger: that's about right. No doughnuts yet, although I am weakening.
So I went to the store last evening and shopped for our supper. Before that, I'd stopped in our most excellent library and checked out a good cookbook from the American Heart Association and sat down and studied it. I brought the groceries home and prepared supper, with just a little prepping assistance from Rosie. The two dishes were butternut squash soup and tuna bean salad. I worked with things like canellini (sp?) beans and garlic and basil and dill weed. I had to rinse foods to remove salt and measure with spoons and cups. (I'm a holdover from my college chemistry days, carefully measuring, reading liquid levels from the bottom of the meniscus, etc.) I was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest doing everything that needed to be done to get both dishes to come out at the same time.
The dishes were satifying and tasty enough. The soup was best, even though I used yellow squash in pinwheels instead of butternut squash pureed like pumpkin. The flavor was good and even the texture wasn't bad, with a little flour to thicken it. We agreed that the tuna-bean concoction could have stood a little mayo: instead it had balsam vinegar.
Tonight we had beef-barley-vegetable soup. Didn't need a recipe; easy and delicious. We ate it with whole-grain bread and heart-smart spread.
We are in the dog days and today was the most dogged yet. I think the heat index was about 105. I didn't walk outdoors. Thank God for a-c. And electric fans.
Also I have a lot more invested in proper eating now that the old ticker has given me a message. No more dashing over to Wendy's for Junior Bacon cheeseburgers or snacking on peanuts and Cheez-its. No more Krispy-Kreme doughnuts. No more quarts of Breyer's butter pecan with hot fudge topping. Paigey (my rehab counselor) said an indulgence once in a while -- a great while -- is OK. My buddy Warnie and I made an excursion to the Brick Tavern in Jonesville two months ago where we had one of their legendary cheeseburgers apiece. Two months since my last cheeseburger: that's about right. No doughnuts yet, although I am weakening.
So I went to the store last evening and shopped for our supper. Before that, I'd stopped in our most excellent library and checked out a good cookbook from the American Heart Association and sat down and studied it. I brought the groceries home and prepared supper, with just a little prepping assistance from Rosie. The two dishes were butternut squash soup and tuna bean salad. I worked with things like canellini (sp?) beans and garlic and basil and dill weed. I had to rinse foods to remove salt and measure with spoons and cups. (I'm a holdover from my college chemistry days, carefully measuring, reading liquid levels from the bottom of the meniscus, etc.) I was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest doing everything that needed to be done to get both dishes to come out at the same time.
The dishes were satifying and tasty enough. The soup was best, even though I used yellow squash in pinwheels instead of butternut squash pureed like pumpkin. The flavor was good and even the texture wasn't bad, with a little flour to thicken it. We agreed that the tuna-bean concoction could have stood a little mayo: instead it had balsam vinegar.
Tonight we had beef-barley-vegetable soup. Didn't need a recipe; easy and delicious. We ate it with whole-grain bread and heart-smart spread.
We are in the dog days and today was the most dogged yet. I think the heat index was about 105. I didn't walk outdoors. Thank God for a-c. And electric fans.
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