Sunday, May 25. 2014
Path in the town park in Ragusa Ibla
Saturday, May 24. 2014
 For some fans of Bob Dylan, no level of involvement is enough.
Bob Dylan might be a poet, a thief, a genius, or a fraud. He might be stone-cold crazy, like the Dylanologists who worship him. But he’s not what you thought he was. He’s much more interesting than that.
Got up at 4 this morning for the meteors. Clouds and light drizzle, so headed to Dunkin Donuts instead.
Excellent travel site: Travel Insider
All-You-Can-Eat Taco Bars Deemed Offensive
Pope Francis 'Not Pleased' About Scandalous Canonization Banquet
When Sprawl Hits the Wall
The Hungry Kids Act of 2010
WHY THE MONA LISA STANDS OUT
Famous for being famous
How the Hiring Process Marginalizes Candidates on the Autism Spectrum
How Do We Feel about Incarceration?
Team Obama knew about VA’s cooked books for years
The VA Really is Socialized Medicine – That’s Why It’s Terrible
Immigration Creates Political Earthquake In Britain
A Blow to Campus Barbarism - A former Princeton president stands up against student-radical intimidation
A big part of the reason why more young people don’t vote conservative (i.e., as a practical matter, Republican) is that they have no freaking idea what is going on.
Perhaps, but Repubs have their share of low-information voters too
Radical chic and today's politicians
Radio Hosts Fired for Failure to Revere Transsexual Freakazoids
Everyone knows that they have major "issues," but it's not permitted to say it. Except here.
Hamas: We'll Use Unity Accord To Move Terrorism To West Bank
 A Miracle for Breakfast
At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee,
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain balcony
--like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.
The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river.
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee
would be very hot, seeing that the sun
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.
He stood for a minute alone on the balcony
looking over our heads toward the river.
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,
consisting of one lone cup of coffee
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,
his head, so to speak, in the clouds--along with the sun.
Was the man crazy? What under the sun
was he trying to do, up there on his balcony!
Each man received one rather hard crumb,
which some flicked scornfully into the river,
and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee.
Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle.
I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle.
A beautiful villa stood in the sun
and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee.
In front, a baroque white plaster balcony
added by birds, who nest along the river,
--I saw it with one eye close to the crumb--
and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and the river
working the stone. Every day, in the sun,
at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.
We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee.
A window across the river caught the sun
as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.
A piece about Bishop in the WSJ
Friday, May 23. 2014
When we look back from our trip, it's no surprise that we came home tired and needing a beach vacation. It's also no surprise that I lost 5 lbs. - we covered a lot of ground. Go-go, Hi-ho is us. The BD family never sits - except in Italian cafes for a short spell. Carpe diem.
But first - don't forget the "cannolis" (connolo is singular, cannoli plural, naturally). I confused a waitress by asking for un cannoli.) I got the same stern "Are you retarded?" look I'd get when we didn't want vino with meals. Even tho Italian food doesn't taste too great without a glass or two of wine (as I have said, Italian food is designed for wine on the side), I really do not want to feel sleepy at 2 pm in a special place.
A sign in Petralia Soprana:
The cannolo di ricotta is a Sicilian-origin afternoon pick-me-up treat, same as gelato is. After school, kids pack the gelato and cannoli "bars" on their way home. In Sicily, the shells are thick, very hard and crunchy, deep-fried hard. They do not fill them from a pastry bag until you order one, like an ice cream cone. The filling is thick and only slightly sweetened. At your request, they will dip the ends into chopped chocolate or chopped pistachios. Mrs. BD and I would share one, but I have no pics because we consumed them too fast.
Speaking of pistachio, a great thing on an antipasto plate: Slice of fresh ricotta sprinkled with chopped pistachio and then a drizzle of honey. Simple country food.
More good fun travel adventures and info below the fold -
Continue reading "Sicily Photo Travelogue, #4 of 5: Now rambling around eastern Sicily"
 I forget where that image came from
California’s New Solar Plant: Burning Up Taxpayer Money, Land, and Wildlife
AVI on a book I enjoyed too: 1493 by Charles C Mann
Driscoll on Mark Steyn's new book: Mark Steyn Surveys the Passing Parade
Here's What Happened When I Went To Vegas With 1,800 Hedge Fund Managers
Derb: Confessions of a Middlebrow
The Rise of Mob Rule in America
Where VA has taken veterans, Obamacare is leading all Americans: Kevin O'Brien
3 Ways to Make Obamacare Less Horrible
Bernard Mandeville, Psychiatrist in the Marketplace
Will America’s Future Be Whiter Than We Think?
It is a good thing that president Obama watches the news
Barack Obama has a strange habit of acting like somebody else has been president these past years. It’s really odd.
Europe's Soaring Revulsion Against "Europe" In One Chart
A commenter there noted "The peoples of European countries never voted for, and don't want, a "United States of Europe". They want individual sovereign States within a Free Trade Area, which IS what was voted for."
Russia Shifts to China After Ukraine Crisis
Chart below via Watts:
Thursday, May 22. 2014
Who are these old farts?
Pic is my caffe gelato and my caffe, and her nocello gelato just off the large piazza (to annoy Mrs. BD, just ask which way to the Pizza del Domo) in Ortygia during the passaggiata. Prego.
From Wiki:
The history of gelato dates back to frozen desserts in Sicily, ancient Rome and Egypt made from snow and ice brought down from mountaintops and preserved below ground. Later, frozen desserts appeared during banquets at the Medici court in Florence. The Florentine polymath Bernardo Buontalenti is said to have invented modern ice cream in 1565, as he presented his recipe and his innovative refrigerating techniques to Catherine de' Medici, who in turn brought the novelty to France as Queen consort, where in 1686 the Sicilian fisherman Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli perfected the first ice cream machine.[4] However, the popularity of gelato among larger shares of the population only increased in the 1920s–1930s in the northern Italian city of Varese, where the first gelato cart was developed. Italy is the only country where the market share of handmade gelato versus industrial one is over 55%.
Do you have to be raised Italian to know what the word "prego" really means? Probably. I've tried and I don't get it. It's used for answering the phone, and it's used when they deliver a gelato to you. Literally, I believe it is translated as "I pray" or something like that, so I think the connotation is something polite like "at your service" mixed with "you're welcome," "thank-you", "hello," and other things.
Help me out if you can.
Most important Italian term to know: "Dove il gabinetto."
Seemingly the most common name of towns in Italy when driving: Uscita. A mystery town to which the arrows disappear.
Basic Italian Words Travelers Should Know - Italy Travel Glossary
The Least Italian You Need to Know
 See how much it costs to hire your favorite band…or your least favorite, for that matter
A book: The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World*
Postal service: Committee OKs end to door-slot mail for millions
Lipson:
At a recent meeting with two dozen Chicago leaders, some Democrats, some Republicans, I asked a simple question, “Can anyone name a significant American achievement in world affairs over the past five years?”
The room was completely silent. Since the group had traveled widely, I posed a second question, “Have any of you visited countries where relations with America are better than five years ago?” Again, silence.
Chatting With ‘A Climate Heretic’
Hooray! You Can Fast To Stop Climate Change Typhoons!
Critics call Obama funding plan for health insurer losses a 'bailout'
You have a right to be offended
Billionaire plans to target Republicans in seven states
Folding knives in NYC
Chipotle and Guns: Three Separate Issues
Tiananmen: How Wrong We Were
*The
Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World - See more at:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/05/the-impossible-exile-stefan-zweig-at-the-end-of-the-world.html#sthash.6j5BmCEQ.dpuf
Wednesday, May 21. 2014
 We link Dalrymple's stuff all the time. It's time to let you know about his new book, Threats of Pain and Ruin.
I learned, from the Amazon blurb, some things about him that I did not know:
Theodore Dalrymple is a former prison doctor and psychiatrist. He has been arrested as a spy in Gabon, been sought by the South African police for violating apartheid, visited the site of a civilian massacre by the government of Liberia, concealed his status as a writer for fear of execution in Equatorial Guinea, infiltrated an English communist group in order to attend the World Youth Festival in North Korea, performed Shakespeare in Afghanistan, smuggled banned books to dissidents in Romania, been arrested and struck with truncheons for photographing an anti-government demonstration in Albania and crossed both Africa and South America using only public transportation. He is also the author of more than two dozen books and innumerable essays.
If only half of that were true he'd be in line to be my next shrink - after I wear out my current confessore.
Prego, Dr. Ted.
- Ways of smoking meat. It's fun, easy hobby with endless room for creativity, and delicious food.
- He reminds us of the always-handy digital meat thermometer
- My Paris-trained chef friend says that canned or jarred Cassoulet au confit de canard is better than you will ever have time to make. Says it is dee-licious. Recommends the brand with the rooster. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs, heat up in oven until it begins to bubble, then some chopped parsley and it's ready.
- Does adding pasta water really matter? With some other excellent tips about pasta.
- Pasta with tuna roe. I had this in Sicily. Very pleasant. Nice with some squirts of lemon on it. I'd guess the best place to get that dried tuna roe is online, like so many good things.
- Sicilian classic primi: Pasta con Sarde. Sarde, sardines, are pretty much the same critter that we often call anchovies in the US, but not the canned brown overly-intense salted variety that most people (not me) hate on pizza. The dish is best with fresh sardine/anchovies, which you can find in some stores, or canned Italian sardines without the tomato. When I was a lad doing manual labor with mostly black and hispanic guys during summers, our favorite sandwich was sardines and onion slices with some mayo, on a hard roll. Maybe a leaf or two of lettuce.
- Another easy Sicilian one, ubiquitous in Sicily - Pasta alla Norma. You can use whatever type of pasta you like for that.
Tuesday, May 20. 2014
Interesting stats, via Carpe Diem. Does it mean anything?
Pic of photographer pigeon from World War I in Photos: Animals at War
Scientists discover how to turn light into matter after 80-year quest
The Power of Character on ‘Mad Men’
The Knightly Ideal
How to get and keep a job
Nanny State University: Students Campaign for Warnings on “Offensive” Books
Fragile little totalitarian bullies. Trigger Warning for Maggie's Farm: "Danger!!! Reading this site might cause you to lose your hatred of Libertarian/Conservatives after a while."
Why the "Check Your Privilege" Crowd Won't Win
The extremist error was to draw the attention of the broader public in the first place. They can only win in undemocratic spaces, spaces where an elite minority can act without an effective majoritarian backlash. The radicals prefer to seize control of these spaces, to achieve influence on them, or to carve out fiefdoms within them. Failing that, a small but vocal minority can badger elites unused to dealing with bad press and public pressure. Indeed, all of the recent radical victories have been confined to elite, undemocratic spaces. The media? A salon for well-educated Northeasterners. Universities? Opaque bureaucracies flush with cash. Corporate boards in the tech industry? They’re corporate boards in the tech industry. And that’s the dark truth of Cultural Marxism: While it claims to stand for equality and against elite privilege, its method has always been to become the elite, not to destroy it.
A Connecticut Yankee in Appalachia - Alice Ely Chapman wages a one-woman war on poverty
Reynolds: Higher ed becoming a joke
Thomas Sowell – Campus Rape Cases Should be Handled by the Criminal Justice System
Goldberg: The Washington Post, Life & the Trouble with Experts
Greg Mankiw feels that Summers has the best review of Piketty
Behold the power of Power Line: It appears The Nation has scrubbed the politically incorrect comments we highlighted here.
Settled science and saturated fats
Warmist Bill Moyers is utterly concerned with saving the planet from “climate change”, so, obviously, he recommends that Warmists practice what they preach, and has promised to give up his own use of fossil fuels!
The IRS’s Media Firewall
EPA to Unveil Carbon Regs Next Month
The insanity of the Left’s opposition to voter ID Laws summed up in one poster
The Logic of Castro’s Nomination:
It’s More Than Identity Politics
The New Palestinian "Journalists"
Monday, May 19. 2014
That's a menu for tourists. Note that their prix fixe menu includes a primi, a secondi, and a side of something. Only tourists eat dessert. Tourist menus are generally in Italian and English, but not because of Americans. It's to keep it simple: European travelers read and speak English better than many Americans, especially the Dutch, Czechs, the Germans, the Swiss, and the Scandinavians. Aussies always the most fun to meet - warm, open, exuberant, and they will try anything. Brits stand-offish and chilly which is annoying when you are of Brit extraction yourself and want to see them as your paysans. I liked the Czechs we encountered best: adventurous, curious, friendly, energetic, with joie de vivre and happy to travel on the cheap. Wood-grilled meat is the typical Sicilian secondi, but they love their seafood too - and their eggplant (melanzine). Pretty much all kitchens have wood-fired grills. Wish I had an old stone-lined one indoors, but my iron grill is outdoors. I too prefer wood to charcoal.
Before we left western Sicily to head to the Madonie Mountains in central Sicily, we took a side trip to take this tiny ferry see Motya. Phoenicians founded this walled island colony in 800 BC (along with many other cities in Sicily). The Greeks drove them out, but they came back again and were finally eliminated by the Romans when they just got fed up with them.
Lots more fun stuff below the fold. Have you planned your trip yet? Or have we saved you the trouble?
Friends consider us to be adventurous travelers because we plan our trips ourselves, drive ourselves, study the books ourselves, educate and guide ourselves, visit places where few people go, etc. Happily, our kids now can do the same. Mrs. BD is a great travel-planner, relatively fearless with a great sense of adventure and economy and she doesn't mind mountain driving which sometimes gives me the creeps (and she doesn't really mind getting lost - figures she's still somewhere safely on planet earth). But come on, people - how about some guardrails for the narrow cliff-edge roads? Sheesh. Some of us have a touch of acrophobia.
Continue reading "Sicily Travelogue #3, with Sicilian food!"
 Is there any difference, other than the surroundings in which you eat it - and the flavors?
Sort-of, not very much.
Not as sweet as American ice cream. Mrs. BD likes Pistachio best, I prefer Hazelnut (Nocello - and you'd better say Nocello or they won't know what the heck you are talking about) - but I'll try anything to try to keep my weight up.
College Bans Fencing Team from Practicing w/their “Weapons”
Deep question: Is a Hump Day camel … racist?
California Chrome's run in Belmont Stakes in doubt over nasal strips?
Want to Know If Your Food Is Genetically Modified? Across the country, an aggressive grassroots movement is winning support with its demands for GMO labeling. If only it had science on its side.
Three Ways of Looking at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
15 Examples Of "Liberal Privilege"
Check Your Own Damn Privilege Week at College Insurrection
Spying Is Meant to Crush Citizens’ Dissent, Not Catch Terrorists
Minimum wage: Learning the laws of economics the hard way
An Idea Whose Time Has Ended? Take our poll: Should the federal government get out of the student loan business?
Kerry tells Yale grads to keep faith in government
What???
The Great Society at 50
What LBJ Wrought - After 50 years of his anti-poverty policy, a “tangle of pathologies” has spread dramatically.
The Real Palestinian Refugee Crisis
Among other talents, Mrs. BD does flowers for parties. Not for pay, but for the challenge of it. This is a haul from NYC's flower district. Wander around there for fun if you're in NY, but they usually sell out their nighttime shipments by 9 am. Serious flower people are there by 6 or 7 am.
Sunday, May 18. 2014
I mailed a bottle of Sicilian Limoncello to Roger de Hauteville. Hope he likes this product of his ancestral homeland. Best when chilled in my view. My Italian in-laws are fond of it. Me? Not so much. And Grappa, I feel, is even worse but the Italians love that stuff too.
When it comes to lemon flavor, I can munch a big Sicilian lemon just picked from the tree as if it were an orange. Deliciously sweet zing.
John 14:1-14
14:1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.
14:2 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
14:4 And you know the way to the place where I am going."
14:5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"
14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
14:7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
14:8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."
14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
14:12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
14:13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14:14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
Saturday, May 17. 2014
 Eggplant is such a ubiquitous food in Sicily that you would not expect that the name, in Sicilian dialect "moolinyan", would also be a disparaging word for those with dark skin.
We had eggplant in Sicily at least three ways:
- We were served it as part of antipasto plates at least twice, sliced fairly thin with skin on and wood grilled and blackened a bit the way I like grilled vegetables.
- We were served it in the form of caponata as a bruschetta, again as part of an antipasto plate. It was served on wood-toasted bread. Fire-toasted bread is the best.
- We were served it at least three times as a pasta sauce. It's a peasant staple. Annoying that they sometimes do it with skin on, but they do. Sometimes they add chopped olives to that, or spicy pork sausage meat or zucchini. Pignoli or raisins, too. It's pretty good but not great. The only great southern Italian and Sicilian foods are their fish. Just my opinion, of course, and I do eat all of this stuff sometimes even though I am not a big fan of pasta courses.
Here's an all-purpose eggplant caponata.
As in the different parts of Italy, in Sicily they use whatever sizes or shapes their local sub-regional version of (non-egg, in S. Italy and Sicily) pasta happen to be, which is made fresh daily at the corner market. It's generally sold out before it's fully-dried. In northern Sicily, a preferred pasta is Busiata. It's a thick, curly, hand-made and hand-curled pasta. There's a career: Busiata-curler.
True story: I broke a front tooth on a hard piece of busiata and spent the rest of the trip with a missing front tooth. I told Mrs. BD that I was imitating a Brit, but also threatened to superglue a pebble in there. "Al dente" indeed. In Italy, they do serve pasta quite hard, pretty chewy with some hard and dry parts. I've broken a few front teeth, the first one playing hockey.
(A reminder about pasta: the authentic Italian way is not to put sauce on top, but to throw the pasta into the saucepan and to just lightly coat the pasta with the sauce. There is never very much sauce, just the flavoring really. After all, it's just a primi, pasta is a flavor-delivery system, but if you are a farmer you need those carbs.) I'll post on some very unusual Sicilian pasta dishes that we had, in the future. Some were more like soups.
 An interesting website: American Renaissance
From Duck Vaginas to Bumblebee Sex: The Amazingly Overlooked Science of Genitals
"Overlooked"? Who has ever overlooked genitals?
"Gluten Sensitivity" May Be a Misnomer for Distinct Illnesses to Various Wheat Proteins
I am yet to be convinced that it exists
Here’s what’s not sustainable: organic farming
No matter what the boss says about flextime, get to work early
Berkeley students say their biodegradable caps and gowns aren’t green enough and it’s an embarrassment
Sure is an embarassment, but not in the way they think
On Top of Piketty - The new Marxism has nothing to offer us but chains.
... Marx has never vanished from the academy. The stubborn refusal of applied Marxism to produce anything but mass murder merely led to efforts to reframe the philosophy. Through much of the 20th century, Marx was clearly the greatest economist of all time, but his ideas had never been properly put into practice. Then he might have dwindled as an economist but was indisputably an important historian. When that didn’t pan out, Gramscian “cultural Marxism” allowed overwhelmed graduate students to avoid economics and history altogether in order to focus on Batman. When all else failed (and with Marxism, it always fails), Marx lived on through the claim that while his ideas may have faded, he was still an important figure of literature — a particular howler to anybody familiar with his clotted, vituperative, headache-inducing prose.
I'd vote yes. If they used to be reserved for Brit royalty, they're good enough for me. Furthermore, Mute Swans are not even native to North America. They were imports to grace the ponds of 19th C Long Island robber baron estates - but they are not garden decor. They are royal food.
The painting tells me that working in a royal kitchen was a pretty good gig.
Article here.
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Due cappuccini, at a highway rest stop. Some cocoa powder dusting on top. Yes, cappuccino is a morning/breakfast drink.