We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
A remarkable report from a Liberal public defender, which sadly fits most of what we all know from life experience: Confessions of a Public Defender.
These people weren't raised right. In fact, it doesn't seem as if they were raised at all. A damn shame. Barbarians in our midst. However, I would not generalize his experiences of black criminals to black Americans in general. There are plenty of dysfunctional, ignorant low-lifes out there of all skin colors, and the government makes life relatively easy for them to make useless, effortless, unconstructive lives.
We flew into Palermo via Rome, and picked up our nice rental Peugeot there (at the end of our trip, we flew out of Catania in eastern Sicily. Is Alitalia a stupid airline? Yes. Just assume they will screw up something, and put up with it). Then we headed out of town to our first countryside tenuta, but detoured to stop at Segesta to check out the Greek temple (built 100 years before the Parthenon) and the Greek theater there. There is no mountaintop town there anymore. There is a crazy history of that ex-town.
That tall flower is wild celery - fennel - finocchio. It's in bloom everywhere in early May. Used a lot in Sicilian cooking.
One heck of a view from the mountaintop theater. Greeks knew how to position their theaters. It was important - theaters were their movies and TV, with some religion, music, etc. mixed in.
As I understand it, the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) view God as both immanent and transcendent. I do, I suppose. However, I know little to nothing about theology.
I fell into this subject while thinking about the word numinous (from Latin numen - a spirit which inhabits a thing or place). My Pastor referred to "numinous experiences," by which I believe he meant moments in which God's presence is strongly felt. I like the word very much.
It's been a hot topic in recent years. You might imagine that all young males are beasts and barbarians, but they are not. Are they horny? Of course they are, terribly and sometimes painfully so, but in Christian countries rape is still one of the most serious crimes and everybody knows it.
Sunset from the long curvy drive down from the mountaintop town of Erice on the west coast. Tons of history in that little town.We could not find the cable car, so we just drove up.
1. Sicily is safe. No Mafiosi are going to bother you (and there are very few creepy Somalis the way there are in mainland Italy and nowadays in Europe generally - Sicilians do not welcome black-skinned people very much). Very few Muslims either. Anyway, Mafiosi don't do low-life things like break-ins or street theft: they just run the place as a shadow government. They don't know much but they love brutal politics and unions. On several occasions, we left our rental car in parking lots for hours at a time, loaded with all of our stuff. It's not recommended, though - even in many parts of the USA.
2. Almost nobody there speaks English. Example: Mrs. BD orders a Pistachio gelato at a cafe. I say I'll have the chocolate, and a caffee. Guy brings her what she wanted, brings me an espresso (ok, fine) - and a cup of hot chocolate. Sheesh.
I forget from whom I stole the above image about home economics. However, I would dispute the "Low Difficulty" label of vegetable gardening. It's plenty of work and you have to love doing it as a hobby, like growing flower gardens.No, of course it's not worth the effort if your time and effort have any value - except for the tomatoes.
I view part of my duty as to debunk folk myths about health and medicine. Readers know that one of my bugaboos concerns the human diet and the First World preoccupation with what we eat as if it mattered all that much. Food faddism has always been part of American life since we became a wealthy country and had food choices.
Eating fats does not make you fat. Carbs make you fat. That is no longer in dispute.
Do saturated fats "cause" heart disease? There is no evidence for it. Bacon and eggs is the Great American Breakfast, with or without grits, or biscuits and gravy. In the WSJ,The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease -Are butter, cheese and steak really bad for you? The dubious science behind the anti-fat crusade.
Thanks to Roger De Hauteville, King of Sicily, who kept our morning links going over the past week and a half. Kings are busy people, and I am grateful to him for having given us the time and for sharing his talent for the rare, the odd, the enchanting, and the absurd.
Speaking of the absurd, I'm back to work on today's collection:
Cuba isn’t a developing country; it’s a once-developed country destroyed by its own government. Havana was a magnificent Western city once. It should be compared not with Baghdad, Kabul, Guatemala City, or Port-au-Prince but with formerly Communist Budapest, Prague, or Berlin. Havana’s history mirrors theirs, after all.
Mrs. BD and I were tasked with spending the past 12 days inspecting the domain of Roger de Hauteville and his Norman descendents across the land known to the ancient Greeks as "the land of the sun," Sicily.
From the furthest western end of the isle to the furthest east, we covered all we could in the allotted time with a nice diesel Peugeot and a Garmin, touring from remote agriturismo to remote tenuta to agriturismo with many fun adventures, mishaps, annoyances, etc, along the way and mostly avoiding the tourist traps and tour buses. Still married, however, at present. Possibly the most lovely and dramatic land we have explored thus far.
I will of course assemble, in time, a photo travelogue with all sorts of travel tips and deep insights because that is my way of processing an adventure, but for tonight, just two comments.
First, I had two bottles of Marsala Dolce from Marsala itself to send to Roger to try. Sad to say, they tipped the luggage scale at Alitalia - and that would have made for some very expensive wine, so we abandoned them at the Catania Airport. I did manage to bring him a bag of Busiata Trapanese though, which I doubt can be found in America. I will tell him how to make it, country-syle.
Second, we quickly realized why the Greeks of Attica - and the Phoenicians of Palestine - were so eager to get out of their crappy places and to vie to live in Sicily. (Also why the Romans, the Arabs, the Normans, the Spanish, and recently the Italians) all wanted it. For all of them, especially the Corinthians, it was like going to America. During the prime of Hellenistic civilization, Siracusa was the largest and wealthiest city in the Western world. It was NYC. Greeks moved there around 700 BC.
This rock pile in Segesta in western Sicily was built 250 years before the Parthenon. They had a large theater, too, up the hill.
A farm road outside Ragusa. We took a long morning walk down the road, saying hi to the cattle and the wheat fields and the hay fields.
Entrance to our somewhat exclusive tenuta about 30 minutes outside Ragusa:
There is nothing below the fold. I am tired and I messed up.
My sis asked me to post our favorite carrot recipe. It's Italian.
Peel a mountain of carrots. Cut them into roughly 3 inch lengths, then quarter them lengthwise - more than quarters for thicker ends of thick carrots. Regular carrot sticks, like a pile of split logs, with enough consistency of thickness to cook evenly.
Toss into lightly salted, lightly-sugared boiling water for several minutes until firm but no longer crunchy. When at the exact right point, toss them into ice water to arrest the cooking, and drain.
Sprinkle the carrot sticks first with red wine vinegar, then sprinkle to your taste with finely chopped garlic (I use a LOT - such that each carrot stick has 5-10 little pieces of garlic on it, but most people don't like garlic the way I do), then toss gently with good olive oil. Marinate thus in the fridge for several hours, or preferably overnight, then serve at room temperature with fresh chopped parsley on top.
It can also be done more properly, and less intensely garlicky, by holding off the chopped garlic and simply burying a bunch of halved or quartered fresh garlic cloves amongst the carrots to marinate with the oil.
It's Sunday. Have a pleasant Sunday. But remember, Sunday is Monday's mother. She seems nice, but she's just as likely to smack you with a hairbrush as not. Happens almost every week.
But we were good boys. We didn't break the Sabbath often enough to signify--once a week perhaps. Anyway, we were good Presbyterian boys when the weather was doubtful; when it was fair, we did wander a little from the fold. --Twain
There are some fairly bright people abroad in the land that don't understand that if the velocity of money is zero, as far as inflation is concerned it doesn't exist.
Another fine kiddie chair from my Mom's stash of furniture: a kiddie potty chair from the olden days. Of course, you put an old pot under it but it had already been adapted to a regular kid's chair when I was a lad.
Thanks to Mom for having saved all of this old stuff.
I wonder whether any readers know anything about the history of this one.
Tuna and anchovy have a natural affinity. For those who enjoy intense Mediterranean flavors, here's the spaghetti sauce I made the other night:
Season and sautee in butter (to pink inside) a couple of fresh Bluefin Tuna filets
Dice an onion and sautee in plenty of olive oil until soft. Add 3-6 canned anchovy filets. Throw in a tablespoon or so of diced garlic. If the pan gets dry, throw in a 1/2 cup of the pasta water: you don't want the garlic to brown, you do want the anchovies to dissolve, and you want a sauce. Cut sides from the pit up to around 1/2 cup of Italian olives and toss them in, along with a tablespoon or two of capers. Season. Simmer for a bit, adding pasta water if needed to make sure you have a sauce. Then toss the tuna filets into the saucepan and crumble roughly with a fork to 1-1/2" chunks. Mix and serve over angel hair pasta with a good sprinkling of fresh chopped parsley on top.
You can also use the same sauce as a sauce for tuna filets themselves. Some might add a little tomato paste to the recipe, but I think tomato and tuna don't mix.
1 Boring Old Man has been devoting himself to uncovering the Pharma-Psychiatric research cabal, but nobody is really listening. My rule of thumb is to take everything I read with a a few grains of salt.
Drudge's headline: 
Fancy theological words for 
What's your favorite - granite or gelato? Pic is my fresh mandarin orange granite in the nifty
David Warren:
I view part of my duty as to debunk folk myths about health and medicine. Readers know that one of my bugaboos concerns the human diet and the First World preoccupation with what we eat as if it mattered all that much. Food faddism has always been part of American life since we became a wealthy country and had food choices.
Thanks to Roger De Hauteville, King of Sicily, who kept our morning links going over the past week and a half. Kings are busy people, and I am grateful to him for having given us the time and for sharing his talent for the rare, the odd, the enchanting, and the absurd. 
My sis asked me to post our favorite carrot recipe. It's Italian.
Tuna and anchovy have a natural affinity. For those who enjoy intense Mediterranean flavors, here's the spaghetti sauce I made the other night: