Maggie's Farm

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:

Important message from white men: We suck and we’re sorry

The Last Communist City - A visit to the dystopian Havana that tourists never see

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.

Trigger Warnings, Campus Speech, and the Right to Not Be Offended

The Koch brothers: What can’t they do?

Who Really Created the ‘Rape Culture’? The cultural Left has encouraged the worst instincts among some young men

The Closing of the Collegiate Mind - Opponents of free speech have chalked up many campus victories lately as ideological conformity marches on.

Obama Administration Attacks Cross-Examination and Due Process Rights in Campus
Guidance

Marco Rubio Has Climate Denial, And Florida Is Dooooooomed From Sea Rise

Society Crumbles When It Takes Its Cues From The Underclass

On Paper - We choose not between Marx and Adam Smith but between the DMV and the Apple store.

Fear of Frankenfoods:

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.

Language not suitable for kids

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.

I was reminded of this wonderful and amusing old Evan Sayet speech by the Other McCain.

Powerful stuff.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

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.

Photo: Sicilian Anchovies in oil

'Have you ever done anything of particular merit?' St. Peter asked the cowboy.

'Well, I can think of one thing,' the cowboy offered. 'On a trip to the Big Horn Mountains out in Wyoming, I came upon a gang of bikers who were threatening a young woman. I directed them to leave her alone, but they wouldn't listen. So I approached the largest and most tattooed biker and smacked him in the face, kicked his bike over, ripped out his nose ring, and threw it on the ground. I yelled, 'Now, back off or I'll kick the shit out of all of you!'

St. Peter was impressed, 'When did this happen?'

'A couple of minutes ago.'

They call themselves The World's #1 Active Travel Company.

They probably are. We have friends who use them, and think they are great. If you like traveling with groups and hate to gain weight, give them a look.

A good story: Contract to fix 3rd c. wrestling match found

The Fiddler of Dooney

WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'
And dance like a wave of the sea. 

You can listen to Yeats reading it, here.

Not exactly fun books, but worthy of notice:

First, from one of Maggie's favorite Liberals: Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent

Second, from Kevin Williamson: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism

Matisse was a consistent believer in the decorative value of art. In old age, he took to scissors and paper from his bed.

He and Pablo Picasso grew old together, Matisse contentedly but Picasso not so.

From Gods and Gopniks by David Bentley Hart:

...we have reached a moment in Western history when, despite all appearances, no meaningful public debate over belief and unbelief is possible. Not only do convinced secularists no longer understand what the issue is; they are incapable of even suspecting that they do not understand, or of caring whether they do. The logical and imaginative grammars of belief, which still informed the thinking of earlier generations of atheists and skeptics, are no longer there. In their place, there is now—where questions of the divine, the supernatural, or the religious are concerned—only a kind of habitual intellectual listlessness.

A Florentine Steak is generally considered the ultimate of Secondis in Tuscany cuisine, but it can be had in provinces close to Tuscany too.

It's usually a Porterhouse cut, but it's huge because it comes from the Chianina cattle - the tallest and heaviest breed of cattle. One steak feeds several people. They are all free-range, and no feed-lots, so they aren't as juicy as American steaks.

Florentine steak is cooked over a wood fire, and flavored with fresh Lauro - the Mediterranean Bay leaf which is nothing like the American Bay Leaf - and salt and pepper. Simple, and served rare.

Hungry yet?

At dinner with friends last weekend, a pal said to me "When it comes to important things like health and education, I'd rather have Washington make the decisions than my dopey neighbors."

I replied "But is that Washington's proper role, given our inheritance of supposedly limited central government? "

He said "All that really matters is what is effective."

I said "All that really matters is our dopey neighbors. In America, we're all somebody's dopey neighbor - and the dopiest end up in politics."

Anyway, I dropped the topic, but felt like I was not conversing with an American. I do like the guy otherwise. Yes, he is a Progressive.

A re-post -

Wine tasting, and taste in general: a quote from Do You Taste What I Taste?. at Slate:

It was less encouraging to discover how easily the nose can be led astray by the eyes. For his next stupid human trick, Wysocki produced two jars, one labeled "Food," the other "Body." I was told to sniff each. I actually was one of the few people not fooled by the experiment: I said both jars smelled like vomit. In fact, both jars contained the same chemical compound, butyric acid, which can be perceived as vomit but also as perspiration or Parmesan cheese. Wysocki told me he often conducts this test at seminars and that, on average, 60 percent of the people in the room will claim they enjoy the aroma in the "Food" jar, with most saying it's redolent of Parmesan cheese; but when he asks if anyone found the "Body" jar pleasant, no hands go up the participants invariably claim that it smells of puke or body odor. He mentioned similar work done with wine by Frederic Brochet, a French cognitive psychologist. Brochet has shown that people given a white wine that has been dyed red will describe it exactly as they would a red wine. He has also found that if he serves the same wine in two different bottles, one labeled a cheap vin de table and the other a pricey grand cru, people invariably lavish praise on the latter and scorn the former. Brochet has dubbed this phenomenon "perceptive expectation."

I have no interest in being a "super-taster." I want to continue to enjoy red wines under $25/bottle.

Althouse's post on ticks reminded me of the Kit Cat clock I had on my wall as a kid. It was a Christmas present, as I recall. I wanted a clock in my room, and kids did not have watches in those ancient days. Did its tail and eyes move and did the eyes and numbers glow in some radioactive way, or am I remembering wrong?

That memory of my Kit Cat clock was like a Madeleine to the sentimental Proust in me. I see my room, the window overlooking my Mom's hosta garden, my bookshelf-turned-rock-and-fossil collection, the Revolutionary War prints on the wall, my little desk and chair with my chemistry set in one of the drawers, my first precious little transistor radio, the big aquarium set up with rocks and sand for my various lizards, and my bed that I hid my forbidden Mad Magazines beneath to read with a flashlight after lights-out.

And I remember Question Time as a young lad.

Every night, at lights-out time, my Dad would stand silhouetted in the doorway to invite one question. It would be things like "Why do snow crystals vary when quartz crystals don't?" or "What's this new Continental Drift idea?" or "How do birds navigate?" or "How do sails work?" (We sailed quite a bit.) Being a Harvard guy, an MD, and highly curious about everything in this world, he usually had an answer.

Oh, I also remember asking "Where do babies come from?" (My parents were constantly making annoying new babies, it seemed.) The answer, as I recall, sort of freaked me out but he always did - and still does - say it straight. Except when he doesn't want to. When he was young, he looked like Gary Cooper, was 6'3, never tolerated fools, had Commie politics, and was inner-directed to a fault. The latter three still apply to the laconic and enigmatic old Yankee guy, who would be still working today if his eyes and ears hadn't worn out.

But back to the clock. Remarkably, you can still buy them, but the new ones need batteries. The originals plugged in, which made much more sense because time marches on whether you can find any C batteries or not.

George Psalmanazar, a blond-haired man with blue eyes, convinced English
intellectuals that Jesuit priests had kidnapped him from the savage
island of Taiwan.

This is a lovely hymn written in 1868. The music, I think, is derived from a traditional British Isles tune, similar to a tune I have heard the Clancey Brothers and Dylan use.