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.
With Thanksgiving on the way, my thoughts have wandered to one of my favorite desserts - Indian Pudding. I don't know about the rest of the country, but up here old Yankees view it to be as essential as Pumpkin Pie and Winter Squash Pie on the dessert table. (I usually consider Mince Pie to be more of a Christmas treat.) Here's one good recipe. I think ice cream overpowers it, but a drizzle of heavy cream does not.
Since we're on the subject of corn meal, here are a few of my other favorites:
Cheese Grits. This would be good for Thanksgiving too. Cheese grits are good with game meat, and with barbecue too. I could live on cheese grits.
Related, but not ground corn: Cope's Dried Sweet Corn. The best for corn pudding, which is a Thanksgiving necessity.
Almost forgot - Cornmeal pancakes. More interesting than ordinary pancakes.
The American Indians ground their teeth down to nubs from chomping ground corn (samp) - and especially from the stone particles in it from their stone mortars.
23:33 When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.
23:34 Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing.
23:35 And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!"
23:36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine,
23:37 and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"
23:38 There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."
23:39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!"
23:40 But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
23:41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong."
23:42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
23:43 He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
My friend who I trust completely emails me: "Have you heard of this recipe? It was in the Chicago Tribune many years ago. I've made it several times. A labor of love, but soooo good."
I think I will try this, but not at Thanksgiving. Tradition must be observed here. I am one of those people who truly enjoys a roast turkey, as long as there is plenty of cranberry sauce, mashed rutabaga, creamed onions, and mashed potatoes to go with it. I like the dark meat.
Photo: I forget where that photo came from, but it's not a photo of Thompson's Turkey. Maybe from Dr. Bob.
"Our check’s gonna come in the mail every month, and it’s gonna be on
time, and we get subsidized housing. We even get presents delivered for
our kids on Christmas. Why should I work?"
Middle America isn’t frothing over Obamacare because we are a nation of racist policy wonks who did the math and hate the blacks. The public is angry first (as Edsall mostly seems to understand) because of the supremely infuriating blend of incompetent arrogance our Second Lincoln has brought to the greatest domestic challenge of his presidency. They are angry because an expensive and cumbersome new piece of social engineering looks badly engineered. But in the second place, they are angry because the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and its journalistic spear carriers in the MSM systematically misrepresented the nature of the new system.
Does Edsall or anybody else really think that Obamacare would have passed Congress if public opinion had understood back in 2010 that all those assurances about keeping your plan and your doctors were as bogus as the old line that the check is in the mail?
My buddy got two this year. Here's one of them. Then I wonder, if he's a buddy, how come he never invites me along? (Woops, my dumb error - that was a pic of his spring Turkey)
Political views as social signaling. I get it. I am better than those hick bitter clingers. No - wait. I am one of them, but not very bitter. I'm a sweet person.
We did one turkey in the oven, stuffed with cornbread stuffing, and the other one on the grill with occasional doses of soaked apple wood chunks from my neighbor's tree, and with white wine in the steam water. Both birds were brined 24 hrs before cooking, and each around 18 lbs.
We had plenty of family and friends to eat it all up.
I think people preferred the grilled (no stuffing in the grilled bird). It was my first time trying grilled turkey. Beginner's luck: It came out perfectly: moist, with a pleasant hint of smokiness. It took around 3 1/2 hrs to cook. Keeping the temp at near 325 involved carefully titrating the number of briquettes and fruitwood chunks to keep the heat low, but to not let the fire go out. Basted it with veg. oil and honey.
Nice grill, eh? This cast-iron thing weights 500 lbs. I had to assemble the darn thing off a truck, and got most of it right. Except for the wheels, which fell off. Now it takes a few pall-bearers to move it.
This is halfway:
And done:
The puppy seemed equally happy with scraps from the grilled and from the oven-roasted turkey.
We have plenty of space if you would like to go on a duck goose combo hunt. We get ducks and geese in the same blinds on the marshes we hunt. It is $190 (plus $10 tax) per full day per hunter. We hunt all day and meet you at 5:15 am and hunt till sunset. We can come in for a lunch break or a break at anytime during the day or we can bring you lunch from a local restaurant if you want. We have many nice duck blinds, most all have roofs, we have all the decoys, you will be in your own blind & dogs are welcome. Hotels are listed on our website and off season rates are about $55 a night. Just bring your gun, ammo, boots and lic. You can get your license by calling 866-721-6911, it is easy and immediate over the phone, you get your lic, hip number and state stamp, just get the federal stamp at the post office, you can also get a 3 day out of state lic. for about $40, be sure to sign your state and federal duck stamps. You will love this place, we get a large variety of waterfowl: black ducks, mallards, teal, shovelers, brant, pintails, wigeon, gadwall, a bunch of other ducks plus Canada and snow geese.
...Paine sat down beneath the dark December sky and wrote his electrifying The American Crisis, the first of a series of essays, on a drumhead by the flickering light of a campfire. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” he wrote—words that should be engraved on every American heart and that never lose their power to thrill. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, at this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” How unworthy of a man and a father to sigh, “Well! give me peace in my day.” A loving father would say, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” As for the American army, Paine reported from firsthand experience, it remained cool and orderly during the tough retreat across New Jersey, and the soldiers, “though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision . . . bore it with a manly spirit. . . . The sign of fear was not seen in our camp.” And now, “we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast.”
This was just the bucking up that the army and the nation sorely needed, and when the essay appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet on December 19, 1776, the soldiers read it to one another as they huddled together for warmth by the banks of the Delaware. Wavering civilians within reach of Washington’s camp made up their minds to join his force, and long-expected reinforcements finally arrived, temporarily swelling the Continental Army to 7,600—enough to cross the ice-choked Delaware River on Christmas Day, win the Battles of Trenton and Princeton in the next ten days, save the revolution, and change the course of world history. “Without the pen of Paine,” John Adams judged, “the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.”
I suspect that most of my ancestors were Tories, but so were most Americans at the time. A dramatic rebellion, nonetheless, with the American Constitution as its crowning jewel.
Some readers have asked what tools my pal used for his fine outdoor Churchill photos which I have been posting for the past week.
He says "I only use Nikon D800 with a Nikon 200-400 zoom, f4 straight through." I don't know what any of that means, but readers might. I don't do photography - I take snapshots. When I was young, I drew pictures and painted pictures.
If the true history of
the West and Islam is being turned upside its head, what other
historical “orthodoxies” being peddled around as truth are also false?
21:5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said,
21:6 "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."
21:7 They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?"
21:8 And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!' Do not go after them.
21:9 "When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately."
21:10 Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;
21:11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
21:12 "But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.
21:13 This will give you an opportunity to testify.
21:14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance;
21:15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.
21:16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.
21:17 You will be hated by all because of my name.
Jeff Lynne is almost a necessary addition to any group with his addition of depth, rhythm, and complexity to instruments with strings. He would make even me sound good. And nobody can compete with Roy. Even Elvis envied him. He is just too much. George has good taste on guitar, too. RIP, you two wonderful guys who enriched our lives.
What a Supergroup, just good guys having fun with tunes, with Bob always a humble minor player: "I've been f-ed up, and I've been a fool..." Indeed.
Churchill is technically sub-arctic, but it's in a band where the Red Fox and the Arctic Fox ranges have historically overlapped: Red Fox mostly to Arctic Circle, Arctic Fox mostly above. Here's his Arctic Fox pic:
Genital mutilation. The Christian view of God does not demand that slicing and dicing but the Jewish view of God does, and the Muslim god requires it of both men and women. What's that all about?Sacrifice?
Can't blame Con Ed. It's the taxes. Only the poor and the rich can afford NYC - and the struggling ambitious youth and new immigrants whowill put up with anything to be part of the Big Time.The youth and the immigrants should not care about comfort.
Nothing new about government idiocy. Everybody knows that governments are idiots.
Niall Ferguson: Paul Krugman Has Gotten Nearly Everything Wrong,
And Yet This Has Only Provoked Further Arrogance, Self-Flattery, and
Sneering At Those Who Got It Right
So shalt thou rest- and what if thou withdraw Unheeded by the living- and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow them. - So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, 'Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Read entire master work by the Massachusetts Berkshire poet below the fold.
Bryant is the man for whom NYC's Bryant Park was named, a lawyer-journalist-poet who turned the New York (Evening) Post into a Republican, abolitionist, pro-Lincoln and highly influential newspaper.
A book: 
My friend who I trust completely emails me: "
It's official: Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
Heritage 
Thanks to Myron Magnet for 
Norway Moves Against Circumcision
Excerpted from Thanatopsis: