Merry Christmas!

I hope that all of you have had a wonderful Christmas. Our dinner has been postponed by a day due to a stomach ailment that has hit three of us. So far two of the afflicted seem over it and the third is on the way, so it looks like everything is on for tomorrow, which is good because for the first time in 24 hours roast goose is sounding really good.

The one advantage to being in sleep and rest mode is that I have been able to watch The Way Things Go, which Melanie gave me for Christmas. If you haven't seen this film, you should definitely check it out. I fell in love with it in 1988 when I saw it at the Berkeley Art Museum, and have seen it many times since. The DVD is good, but I would have liked more additional features (surely they could have found some Fischli and Weiss shorts to add to it, or an interview or something).

Penultimately, I want to thank my readers who have helped solve the chamomile Minnesota mystery. It seems it is a wild chamomile that I was smelling and that make me think of Minnesota whenever I smell chamomile.

And finally, please keep sending your artists who really reflect the place they worked in. I know the original entry is off the front page, so feel free to add recommendations to this entry's combox. I will be speaking of C.S. Price later because he certainly captured the feeling of the Northwest (and did a fine job of Northern California when he lived here).

God's Country

Good Lord! I like TSO as much as the next guy, but when he identifies places like Ireland and Ohio and some Carolina and even, gasp, Texas(!) as God's Country, I have to wonder.

Don't get me wrong, they are probably all wonderful places. The ones I have seen are indeed beautiful.

However, they are but specks of dust compared to Big Sur, which is God's Country, which also happens to be a short drive from God's City (even though the adversary seems to be holding it now).

But I cannot complain about spreading the good news about Ohio. I have never been to Ohio, but I find myself often touting its beauty, its low cost of living, its high standard of living to just about anyone in the Bay Area who I think could benefit from this advice! So, TSO, keep up the good work. Could I forward you a list of people bidding on a house or two that I am interested in and have you mention to them the goodness of Ohio, Carolina, etc.?

You better go back to beautiful Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee!

Blood Cults

I have a good friend who has a sentimental attachment to democracy. He tends to see, in the Marxist mode, all right-wing popular movements as being the same and says, "for someone who claims to not be into race and blood cults, your latest post on the Dutch could make someone wonder."

Ah-hah! You must understand that I see these things as matters of cultures, not genetics. And I absolutely affirm and declare that there are some cultures that are objectively better than others. Not only that, but I affirm and declare that one can go from one culture to another, even as an adult, and should be seen as part of the culture he has joined. So, an Algerian can have as credible a claim as Oriana Fellacci to being an Italian should he fully embrace Italian culture (one would have to renounce Mohamedanism to be a bona fide Italian, though).

So, I do not see anything genetically wrong with the Englisch or Dutch: they are people, as much so as Italians, even. They are capable of all the triumphs and failings of the French, the Spanish, the Californian, etc. IF they reject that which is erroneous in their culture (and I will not go so far as to say that ANY culture is all bad, even the Aztec, which gets pretty close in its religion to pure evil).

There is one standard by which to ultimately judge a culture, and that is the Gospel as interpreted by the living magisterium of the Catholic Church, and every culture has some good and some bad. It is just that the proportions of each are not equal.

So, dear reader, have no fear that I am promoting some race and blood cult. Those are wrong and evil and have no place in a Catholic dialog.

Turkey Hunt

Go hunting!

Volcanoes (again!)

This volcano thing has got to stop. I was up until about 2am reading about potential volcanic hazards in California (especially the Long Valley Caldera, a gigantic system that includes Mammoth). Fascinating stuff.

Tonight I have been consciously avoiding those sites, as I needed to get something else done. But I can't get some of the material out of my head, especially the mechanics of a caldera's creation.

It is really quite spectacular. You start with a giant build-up of magma. The magma is expelled and the land above the magma chamber collapses. Boom. Instant valley. Sometimes it fills with water (as is the case with Crater Lake), which can be extremely acidic at times.

Something that surprised me was the figure that the US Geological Survey quoted for the number of deaths caused by volcanoes since 1980: 29,000. That is a lot of people. Now, I know that there were few deaths caused by Mt. St. Helens, and that advancements in Vulcanology kept Mt. Pinatubo from killing a lot of people. I know that there are occassional deaths caused by Mt. Etna and Stromboli, but 29,000?!? I need to dig around more, but not tonight.

One of the most startling things I have ever seen in regards to volcanoes was in El Salvador. There were people who had settled in the crater of a large "extinct" volcano. Just because the thing is dormant does not make it safe. Even outside of cataclysmic eruptions, a gas eruption could smother the whole village in minutes.

Anyway, thinking about calderas made me wonder how we would react if a new caldera-forming volcano popped out in an unexpected place. Even in a remote, uninhabited location, such an event would be startling, to say the least.

Of course from a hazards viewpoint, existing volcanoes (and towns and cities like Takoma that are built on old flows) are far more of a concern than New Krakatoa emerging on Old New York or some other such scenario.

Here in the Bay Area we have a couple of old volcanoes. I think the one closest to us is Round Top in the Berkeley Hills. Other than that, we would have to look to Sonoma and Napa for something that is potentially active (Clear Lake comes up quite often in searches for this sort of thing).

Anyway, if this fascination keeps up, I will end up having to go to Erta Ale to look at the lava lake.

Foul Usury and Spam

I am amused by gambling. I don't go out of my way to do it, since I figure that waking up each morning and the ensuing hijinx (as a fairly avid cook, knives and fire are everpresent) are enough of a gamble for anyone. Once in a great while I will find myself somewhere where dogs or horses are racing or cocks are fighting, and I might put down a bet. Or I might play boss or liars' dice for drinks. I have only played games in casinos about three times in my life, quit while I was ahead and had a moderately good time, but not so much that I would go out of my way (or forego doing something more interesting) to do it.

As a result I honestly cannot understand people who love to gamble, let alone gambling addiction. My general view towards addiction is that it is a moral failing, not a disease, and should be treated as a moral failing. People who gamble all the time are frittering away their time and money to run and hide from some reality, and that's that.

So, I am generally only annoyed at gambling spam on the blog. I have to delete at least 30 messages a day of that stuff.

Porn spam is another story, especially if it claims to offer rape and incest and homosex. That should be suppressed by the power of the state.

Today I got usury spam, from some Payday loanshark. Like pornography, usury is bad, bad news. Everyday we pass one of these loansharks (who, ironically, has a poster of Malcolm X on his wall) and see the desperate folks who made the mistake of walking in there once and have been scrambling at playing catch up ever since.

I am not a computer whizz, so I do not know how to do all that hacker stuff to disable websites and the like, but if you are, www.americacashfast.com might be a worthy target.

Volcanoes!

For those of you who share my love of lava, be sure to add Stromboli online to your list. These fellows are dedicated volcanologists out of Switzerland and they do a great job of presenting photos, streaming video, seismic data, and other information about volcanoes all around the world (they definitely give Stromboli pride of place, but be sure to check out the pictures of Ethiopia's Erta Ale, especially of the lava lake. Also, they have some great photos of Sao Miguel in the Acores).

Happy Feast of St. Francis!

If you are in the Bay Area, come to mass at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach. I will be the fellow with the beard and the three-year-old handing out programs. Say "howdy!"

If you are not in the Bay Area, or just can't come to mass, well, have a good feast day anyway!

Campion College

My SF Faith article on the closure of Campion College is up here.

Stoopid time utilization decisions

Today the Lepanto League had an anticipatory party for Michaelmas. We roasted two geese outdoors (one in a Weber, one in a Green Egg), which is more of a headache than using an oven, but a lot of fun.

Tonight I am making stock with the carcasses (no room in the icebox for the carcasses themselves), and I figured, "well, I might as well render the cavity fat, too." Dumb decision. Now I am exhausted, yet I have to wait for the fat to finish rendering. I can't raise the temperature, because that could make it turn, so I sit and wait and try to stay awake (falling asleep would ensure that the fat goes over the edge beyond the smoking point).

Is it worth it? Yes. Goose fat is the hands-down best cooking fat known to man. I recommend cooking a goose at least once a year, just to have a good supply of this stuff on hand. I also reserve the fat from the roasting pan (provided it doesn't overheat, which one of the pans did - had to throw out a lot of fat), which carries the flavorings of the stuffing. It is ideal for roasting potatoes, for risotto, or anything where hints of fennel, rosemary and garlic would go well. I also use it for my duck confit (another great reason to have goose fat on hand).

For those who think that goose is too fatty, just make a lot of incisions in the skin and that fat will drain out. I make a battutino with pancetta, fennel, garlic, rosemary and the sauteed livers and kidneys of the geese. This battutino goes into the incisions as a subcutaneous stuffing. Not only are the browned bits of this excellent, but it flavors the whole goose quite well.

Generally my favorite snack after rendering goose fat is salted and seasoned cracklings. Since I will be a walking zombie when this stuff is done it will have to wait until breakfast. Shucks.

Someday I want to take the cracklings and simmer them in a salsa verde, the way chicharrones are served in Mexico. I think the goose cracklings would have an even better flavor than the pork (hard to believe, though).

Anyway, I sit and wait and read more of Kevin Starr's latest book.

I know why they call it Labor Day!

I started yesterday by editing a white paper. Then, after cooking breakfast and inventing a new beef wet rub, I prepped and painted the bathroom. Then I made ratatouille and grilled the beef with the wet rub. I finally got a break around 10pm and had coffee with a friend in the City. Was up until 2am doing more writing and editing.

I have always thought that the best way to celebrate labor is by working, and I am pleased to report that yesterday was a great celebration of labor. It was actually great fun, as painting is one of those things you can do while drinking ice cold Budweiser, and the bathroom looks good.

I never could see a point to celebrating labor by being idle, like a bunch of hippies on grass.

Say, sir, do you know Etaoin Shrdlu?

The other day ETAOIN SHRDLU came up in conversation. Unless you are from a long line of printers or newspapermen, you probably never knew old Etaoin. Some say he was a mistake, but he was certainly an inspirational one. Do this experiment: get a few old typesetters together (be sure to check their union cards), get them well oiled with a few rounds of whatever it is they'll be having, and casually mention Etaoin Shrdlu. I am sure you will get some good stories, stories of compositors sneaking out the window for a quick drink in the middle of their shift, stories of how the guys who worked around the big pots of molten lead lived longer than any other of the folks in the printing business, etc.

If you are still confused about who this fellow is, go here.

The Faith in Europe

You hear it over and over, repeated with either a shaking of the head or a sickening Americanist Schadenfreude: The Catholic Faith is dead in EUROPE.

Certainly, the faith is ailing in PARTS of Europe, as it is in PARTS of America. I would figure that there is not much of a pulse in the faith of the Danes, or the Dutch or the Irish, once Catholicism ceased to be the cause du jour of anti-Englischism. France, well, they have been the root and cause of the Liberalism that is the enemy of faith, but there are some tenacious Frenchmen out there who remember that France is the "Eldest Daughter of the Faith."

What amazes me with these reports is that they are repeated often, yet just as often shown to be not that true. For instance, Barbara Nicolosi has returned from Spain and reports that there is an active faith there. Not in the Libertarian Tax Dodge Principality of Andorra, nor in what she observed in France, but in Spain.

This certainly runs contrary to what I have heard from people who love to point out that the Faith is dead over there.

Two years ago we went back to Italy after an extended absence. I was warned that the churches were empty, that Italians had finally gotten with the program and become Americans, etc. Well, I was pleased to see a number of McDonald's gone, and found Sunday masses to be standing-room-only (except in one small town in Tuscany where, it turned out, everyone had gone to mass in the neighboring town where there was a festa).

The miracle of it is how generally lousy the preaching was. Italy needs some of the great firebrands of the past to revive the old art of preaching, but listening to Don Monotoni does not seem to keep the people away from mass. We went to towns where churches three or four blocks from each other were full at the same time.

Does Italy have some problems in following the faith? Yes, and she always has. Italians have followed the Liberal Tide and seemed intent on aborting and contracepting themselves into oblivion, but the thing that I noticed was that it was a discussed issue. There are a whole lot of elderly Italians who are seeing their chances of becoming Nonne getting slim, and they are hopping mad. There are a lot of younger Italians who see the writing on the wall in regards to their own retirement.

Furthermore, it is about time for a Guelph wave. Sure there is resentment that the Holy Father is not Italian, but there is a lot of love for him as well (including a lot of folks who love the Holy Father, but gripe about all the Poles who come on pilgrimages now and clog the restaurants with no real appreciation of what they are eating, no understanding of Italian manners, etc.).

Literary Either/Or

Courtesy of The Summamamas

My answers and comments are in parentheses.

Hardback or Paperback (hardback for most books)
Highlight or Underline (neither)
Lewis or Tolkien (Tolkein, but neither one is really my thing)
E.B. White or A.A. Milne (A.A. Milne)
T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings (Eliot)
Stephen King or Dean Koontz (King, when made into films by Kubrick)
Barnes & Noble or Borders (Yuck. Borders, if I can't get to Cody's or City Lights or Greenapple or...)
Waldenbooks or B. Dalton (a pox on both their houses)
Fantasy or Science Fiction (science fiction)
Horror or Suspense (hmmm. Tie)
Bookmark or Dogear (bookmark)
Large Print or Fine Print (fine print. Saves space)
Hemingway or Faulkner (Papa)
Fitzgerald or Steinbeck (Steinbeck. Kalifornia Uber Alles)
Homer or Plato (Homer)
Geoffrey Chaucer or Edmund Spenser (Chaucer)
Pen or Pencil (pen)
Looseleaf or Notepad (notepad)
Alphabetize: By Author or By Title (by category (which really settles it, since I am nitpicky in my categories), then by author)
Shelve: By Genre/Subject or All Books Together (genre/subject- see above)
Dustjacket: Leave it On or Take it Off (take it off when reading the book, shelve it with it on)
Novella or Epic (epic)
John Grisham or Scott Turrow (huh?)
J.K. Rowling or Lemony Snicket (huh? huh?)
John Irving or John Updike (Updike)
Salman Rushdie or Don Delillo (Rushdie)
Fiction or Non-fiction (both. Fiction wins by a hair)
Historical Biography or Historical Romance (historical biography)
Reading Pace: A Few Pages per Sitting or Finish at Least a Chapter (finish at least a chapter)
Short Story or Creative Non-fiction Essay (both)
Blah Blah Blah or Yada Yada Yada (blah blah woof woof)
“It was a dark and stormy night…” or “Once upon a time…” (once upon a time)
Books: Buy or Borrow (buy)
Book Reviews or Word of Mouth (both, but word of mouth probably wins)

Olympic Groundhog

I have a confession to make: I am bored to tears with the Olympics (with the exception of a couple of events, but I can easily do without those). I was rooting against my beautiful Bay Area getting saddled with the stupid games, and was elated when the bid went elsewhere. Yippeee! Let Newyawk deal with the traffic, security issues, and associated headaches.

Anyway, I used to like the Olympics, but they have steadily grown to the same over-bloated self-importance that I associate with Walt Disney or Steven Spielberg. They really lost me when they turned pro.

When it seems that Olympics fever has gone on long enough, I emerge from my hole to check: Olympics? Yes? No?

Melanie informs me that we are only about half way through. So, back to my hole, and it will be another six weeks of fog. Or is it the other way around?

Mea Culpa...

I have been tremendously busy and unable to blog this last week. I will shoot for some recipes in the next week, an art rant, and some other stuff. Oh what fun it will be!

Maybe tomorrow night I will post some Julia Child tribute stuff. I invented a dish in her honor that went over quite well, considering that it was ox kidneys. I will give you the recipe for that as soon as I can type it up.

On Music

Terry Teachout quotes a snippet about the triad and music from Paul Hindemith. If I were to believe this poppycock for even a moment, I do not think that I would rely on a composer as dry, dull, and all-around awful as Paul Hindemith to go to bat for me. Paul Hindemith is, of course, as well-known for his self-importance as he is for his nearly unlistenable music.

On the topic of terrible composers, I have recently heard Amy Beach rumblings. Amy Beach is the perfect composer to trot out for a variety of reasons: she was a woman, she was writing tonal treacly stuff in the Age of Berg, and she was almost completely ignored in music history.

A number of years ago one of the travelling Beach scholars made a stop at the UC Santa Cruz music department. The feminists were a-goggle, the neo-tonalists had these goofy grins plastered on their mugs, and the majority of us were baffled. This stuff was horrendous. "Danny Boy" treated to orchestral variations sort of bite-your-hand-to-keep-from-laughing-out-loud sort of drivel. For anyone who had ears, this was ample evidence as to why composers thought that tonal romanticism was dead.

Anyway, during the presentation this Beach scholar showed a picture of a whole bunch of people at the Panama Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco. The unjustly neglected Amy Beach was proudly among them. "This is a picture of Amy Beach with her contemporaries in the world of music," and rattled off a list of names. I had heard of two of them (both mediocre treaclers of a quasi-Irish stripe. Yes, I know, I am being unfair to the dear Hibernians. I realize that the Irish take their music very seriously, and I respect that. Now if they would only take it back to Ireland and bury it, then I would be most obliged. I exempt the bagpipes and the work of Planxty, but as soon as the song gets to teary eyes and "only our rivers run free" I start to scream). So, when it really came down to it, Amy Beach was forgotten because, like most of her chums, she was, well, forgettable.

So I cringe when I see some misguided ensemble putting Beach on the program. Western Art Music needs Amy Beach and Paul Hindemith the way haute cuisine needs listeria.

La Notte di San Lorenzo

Don Jim notes that today is the feast of St. Lawrence and that a meteor shower happens on this feast. Back in 1982 Paolo and Vittorio Taviani made an incredible film, called La Notte di San Lorenzo (English title: Night of the Shooting Stars) about a group of villagers escaping the destruction of their town in Tuscany at the hands of the Germans and their Italian Social Republic (you have to understand that at this point the Fascist Party had removed Mussolini from office and had him arrested. The Germans rescued him and installed him in a puppet government in the North called the Italian Socal Republic. Most of the fascists at this point saw which way the wind was blowing and were quickly hiding their black shirts in trunks, along with pilfered guns, just in case the commies really were going to take over, although they were quickly joining partisan brigades as a bit of insurance) stooges.

The film is a beautiful one, well worth watching again and again (I saw if for the first time in the theaters, which, knowing Sacramento's time delay in getting foreign films, must have been 1984 or so. I have seen it many times since). So, if you were planning on watching a movie tonight, I highly recommend La Notte di San Lorenzo.

Starbucks and Lingo

This entry by Terry Teachout has some amusing stuff, but the last item, in which he quotes Lileks, particularly made me giggle. Lileks and Teachout are framing the coffee language in an old-fashioned, 'Mercan versus new fangled, Aye-talian. Teachout even says that, outside Italy, he would never use Italian to specify the size of his coffee.

Now, the funny thing is that the term in question is that Seattle peculiarity, the so-called "venti," which will result in rather strange results if one orders venti caffe latte in Rome. The term, as used by Ahab's mate, is a goofy amalgam of English measures and the Italian language. It has no basis in the real lingo of espresso fanatics.

Now, obviously I disagree with the notion of not ordering my drink in Italian. When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Little Rock, do as the Romans. Well, how about do as the Tuscans or Umbrians? Anyway, Rome is close enough, so it works for me. Exporting Italian culture, manners, civilization, food, art, etc. is an international act of mercy and charity. Being half German, I understand hard-headed pride in thinking that there are ways out there that are as good as Italian ways, but it just isn't true. I think of old St. Boniface, chopping down the oak tree, and I say "bring it on!"

I never have ordered "a cuppa Joe." I never will. First, the sort of places that serve cuppsa Joe are serving drip coffee, which rots you from the inside, if taken more than once a month or so. Second, the cuppsa Joe are generally brewed with horrid Farmer's Brothers coffee beans. Third, if one is going to be a snob, one should be a snob in an elevated direction. Anti-snobbery snobbishness depresses me: "I am superior because I roll around in my own filth."

I prefer to take a different approach on the rare occasions that I have to drink Starbuck's swill. I order in correct Italian coffee nomenclature. If they want to foist "venti" on the world, well, make my espresso molto ristretto, per piaccere! And if I order a double, I don't want to hear you say "doh-pee-oh."

Of course ordering any variant on a classic espresso drink is quite pointless at the Seattle embassy. Years ago they bragged about how well-trained their baristas were. It paid off. One could finally get a decent espresso, even in Minnesota. Then, a few years back, they switched to a completely automated system. Now, the beans are ground, packed, tamped and the shot pulled without the least human intervention. The result is terrible espresso, very much like what is served in almost any Paris cafe.

I initially was a big supporter of Starbucks. After all, they were doing their part to spread some Italian culture. I could even tolerate the "venti" with a roll of the eyes, but that was when they were serving drinkable espresso. Now, I only go there on emergencies, and even then rather reluctantly. I would go back to supporting them in a minute if they got back to the heroic work of bringing decent espresso to the mission territories.

Swimming in Quicksand

So far this week I have the feeling that every hour of work that I do actually sets me two hours behind. One problem solved begets two new problems and so forth, and then a whole new set of things gets plopped on my desk. The good part is that the work I have is pretty fun and yields a real feeling of accomplishment when it is finished, so I really can't complain, but it still seems like I am never going to be done with a couple of projects.

One of the problems I am now tackling is one of perspective, or how to violate the laws of perspective in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I was just in the studio playing with different tricks and I think I may have come closer to resolving it. Once again I owe thanks to recent works of Wayne Thiebaud for pointing the direction out. Now it should be just a matter of fine tuning and I will be able to mail off this sketch! Yippeeee! Once the sketch is approved, the actual painting will be fairly easy, as the nightmare has been in integrating the figure into a particularly difficult landscape (a river, a levee, and a field, with the figure standing on the river side of the levee. The trick is to lift the viewpoint up so that the field may be seen, but not so much as to force the rather strange downward view of the figure (although Chris Brown would have done it that way, and pulled it off, too), or to force the field into the foreground (that is the real trick, and I may have to achieve what I am trying to do by way of color, which rubs me slightly the wrong way)).

I also have a sneaking suspicion that my new editor at the paper is going to drop an unexpected review on me. Just a sneaking suspicion, but enough to make me nervous.

Anyway, blogging might be sparse, or it might be heavy. I don't know.

Tomorrow!

Are you going to be hiding in the oven tomorrow?

Levitating to the rafters of the church?

All to avoid the stench of human sin and corruption?

If so, you must be observing the feast of Christina the Astonishing!

Thanks to Don for pointing out her feast day! While you are at it, be sure to check out Nick Cave's song about her.

Need a Medical Term Please

What exactly do you call the condition that impels people over the age of 30 to listen to hip hop, particularly at deafening volume? There should be some sort of foundation to help these people.

Speaking of Pop culture as medical case studies, the phrase "to rock," meaning to get into rock and roll music, has always struck me as a description of a symptom of some severe mental illness: one that has discrete stages, starting at Soft Rock, then moving to Hard Rock. However, it would seem that it typically goes the other way. As youth fades, the hard rock becomes soft rock. It still brings images of poor souls in institutions, locked into some rhythmic motions ad infinitum.

I was recently at a place where there was one of these "soft rock" stations on. What a bunch of pabulum! Boring harmonies, undeveloped melodies, strained vocals, inane lyrics. These fellows, Hall and Oates, seem to be about the worst of the bunch, but I did not hear one song that was remotely interesting. Soft Rock is where the musical brain, having been fed the pseudo-stimulation of hard rock and not the real meat of the matter, goes to slumber forever.

Of course Soft Rock is not nearly as wretched as "Smooth Jazz," which is not jazz at all (and not all that smooth when played by the intonationally-challenged Kenny G). Who listens to this stuff? Why does Kenny G sell records (assuming that he does anymore. Of course no one sells records these days, the result of too many years of dull music being hyped to the public).

New Rules By and For the Blogduce!

1. Do not go out to review a French restaurant when you are in the early stages of fighting a sinus infection.

2. If you do violate rule 1, have red wine anyway, if it goes with your meal.

3. Prepare to pay the consequences.

4. Drink a lot of water to mitigate said consequences.

5. Avoid the espresso, since the French have no idea how to brew a good coffee of any sort, and you will need a good espresso to fight the sinus infection. Go home to have it. Also it gets tedious having to pan awful restaurant-made espressi all the time (why, oh why don't they just take the time to learn to make it? Those machines are so expensive, there is no reason to not learn how to use them).

But for the French, forget it. You see, the French were anxious to use up their awful West African beans from their own colonies, so they invented the "technique" of incinerating them (they call it "French Roast" but it really means charred). The stuff that was even too awful to foist on the French palate was shipped to New Orleans, where they found roasted chicory root to make it a little more drinkable (and cheaper, to boot).

I don't understand why it is still so, however. The French have access to good beans, they have a vital cafe culture, and even the Englisch are starting to learn how to cook. So why don't the French learn to make coffee? Fer cryin' out loud the Krauts make good coffee (or at least as good as drip coffee can be)!

Anyway, the restaurant was good, Amalia ate escargots for the first time (with a Pernod/garlic/herb butter). She said it was too spicy (!?!), but had seconds anyway. The waiter was most accomodating when she wanted ketchup to go with her pommes frites. It arrived in a lovely crystal serving dish. Major Points! Almost makes up for the fact that the tomato salad was served too cold.

Of course they were good pommes frites and did not really need ketchup (although a dip in the beurre rouge of my steak was mighty nice).

Next time I have to review a restaurant when I am sick, it will be a pho place!

No! Not this week!

Melanie and Amalia picked up some bug last week. It seems to be basically a sinus infection (headache, eyeache, lightheadedness, etc.), but with the added benefit of making the host feel beat up.

I just assumed that it was another example of the supremacy of my regimin. After all, I only get sick a fourth of the time the rest of the members of the household, and since I am the only one to drink 8 to 12 shots of ristretto espresso a day, obviously everyone should drink 8 to 12 shots of ristretto espresso too.

I am six feet tall. Baby giraffes are six feet tall. I am a baby giraffe. Don't tell me that I don't understand logic.

What I don't understand are the strange symptoms this thing has. I woke up feeling like I have been someone's punching bag all night. Then the eye ache (what am I doing at the computer, you might ask?), headache, and dizziness. I don't think I have the horrid fever, yet. I just felt my head and it did not seem too hot. What? Logic train leaving the station again? Curses!

Anyway, that feeling of dread and optimism that I had last night, facing the mountain of work I have, has changed into mostly just dread.

The worst of it is that I have a restaurant review that needs to happen tomorrow. If my nose plugs up, I am going to go crazy (ier).

I still will get everything done, as I am a newspaper man (why are there two superheroes who work in the newspaper business, but only use it as a ruse to look humble and ordinary? Aren't we known for our bulging muscles, our quick wits, our prodigious consumption of whisky? Oh, yeah, that), but I might need the ICU by next week.

However, the bad news is that I probably will use the old blog to take breaks (unless the breaks require drugs and sleeping and nasty hot medicinal herbal teas and all that keee-rap), so if you are one of the poor hooked folks who read this blog with the feeling of horror and excitement that a junkie looks at the needle with, I am sorry. You might just overdose.

Meanwhile, for those hoping to go to Gustine tonight for the bulls, I was pretty sure that I was not going to go anyway, but this caps it. It should be fun, although the cartel is pretty standard. So, if you have an inkling, then go and report. I am always interested in how Cesar Castaneda does, because he is an interesting case in the world of bulls.

I will probably be away from the bulls until August (most of the corridas are too far away), so there will be no bullfight reports until then.

Just Got Back

We just returned from Redding, where we explored caves, hiked around waterfalls, visited with family, and so on. I am facing a heap of work, so will have to just post this quick "hello", but will try for something a little more substantial tomorrow night.

Head for the Hills! Heatwave Coming!

Sensible people leave hot places for milder climes when faces with impending heatwaves. Not us. We leave the Bay Area for Redding, which is basically an out of the air-conditioned arm chair and into the furnace sort of proposition.

I will try to post interesting things from Redding (and a report on the new bridge, which we last saw almost finished), but posting might be spotty until Sunday (we get back Saturday night).

Some Notes

An old friend of mine sent me some comments on the blog. They are interesting, so I am posting them (without permission or credit - although if he wants his name attached, I will be happy to do so). His comments are in italics

1. Bush will not win. Kerry-Edwards will win. You are wrong.

Bush will win. Kerry is too much of a doofus. All the dweebiness of Bush without the common man schtick.

2. If Bush wins, he will be Impeached.

Not going to happen. The Dems did not show enough of a unified block against this Iraqi adventure. Their hands are too dirty. Besides, their constant harping that Bush is a dim bulb has set him up for a plausible deniability defense when it comes out that the WMD angle was a sham. For the Dems to try impeachment and fail, which they certainly would, would guarantee the death of the Democratic party, because there is no way to spin it as anything but a.) a vindictive move to avenge Clinton and b.)a futile way to try a final recount.

3. The top priority of the world today is not to fight those who wish to ordain women. It is to get people to again congregate on their front porch.

They are related issues. The fight for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful must aim for the heart of the evil, and the move to ordain women is at the very heart. I agree with you that suburban tracts, WalMarts and the like are abominable, but to fight the symptoms of bad ideology and to ignore the central thrust of the Evil One's artillery is daft.

4. Joseph Correia's bulls may have been bad, but so was Joseph Correia. He was drunk.

Ouch! You mean the contorted face and the mini tantrum and giving up on all three (!) of his bulls was not rational, honorable behavior from someone who is a professional bullfighter? Drinking? Perhaps. I know that you went and looked over the back of the ring. Did you see something back there?

5. Your Budweiser challenge proves the veracity of point
number 1 above.

We will discuss this when you have certified that you have actually done the critical tasting required. I know that it is quite fashionable to hate Budweiser, but it is not just. Perhaps people have something against the company, or against the adverts or whatnot, but speaking about the beer itself, it is really good.

6. Appreciate your tips about tomatoes, nectarines, and garlic.
Please, more fresh fruit and vegetable alerts.

No problem. Blueberries are still outstanding, as are apricots and nectarines. Brandywine tomatoes are really showing nicely right now. As for garlic, I am currently using some outstanding stuff, although we are beyond the point of the wet garlic (boo hoo). I think it is from Napa, although I can't remember where this farmer grows.

Give blackberries another week or two. And could someone please tell me why there is a market for them? Is there any part of the country, urban or rural where they don't grow wild? I can understand wanting some right away (and for commercial use), but that would account for a farmer having a few baskets in addition to other stuff. A whole stand devoted to blackberries, though? Are people that lazy?

We have also been getting great Englisch peas. Really sweet and plump. Yum!

Cannibals!

Reading this post got me thinking about this.

When my friend and I were baiting 419 scammers on a nearly daily basis, one of my standard characters was a midwestern businessman who was deathly afraid of cannibals. Whenever the exchange got to the point of the Nigerian scammer wanting me to actually go to Nigeria, I would start expressing reservations about going "so deep in the jungle to be at the mercy of cannibals." I would further bait them with things like, "well, Mrs. Abacha, you seem like a nice lady, but how do I know that your family aren't all cannibals?"

The 419ers would be try to go head over heels to prove that their country was free of cannibals. Naturally, the more they tried to prove it, the stranger, more xenophobic and hostile my character became. Eventually I was demanding PROOF! that my contact had never eaten a human being: "Can you provide me a certified psiloscopic resonant image of your intestine so that I can be absolutely sure that you do not have human tissue in there?"

Eventually most of them gave up, although a few kept at it, even as I was degenerating into spewing random bits culled from Mickey Spillane books.

Let's face it. Cannibals are fascinating. All it takes to get me hooked on an episode of Nova is for it to investigate ancient cannibals. It is all very disordered business, this munching on fellow human beings.

Now there was a time in my life when I was a rather doctrinaire relativist: a Marxist CAPITALIST atheist (which is a position I am frankly surprised hasn't caught on: you believe in dialectical materialism and class warfare, but see no reason to go to war for the enemy). It took Thomas Aquinas, Plato, avant-garde music (particularly Stockhausen), abstract expressionism, and Pope John Paul II to get me out of that, but that is a much longer story, best saved for later, over Scotch and cigars, perhaps while sitting under a Pollock and listening to Stockhausen's Hymnen.

Anyway, when I was a doctrinaire relativist (which they all are), I would have maintained that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with cannibalism, and not even anything that dangerous about it, provided it was only done on outside tribes. Obviously once you start eating your own neighbors, it all hits the fan, but eating the losers in warfare could be seen as nothing more than part of the spoils of war.

Anyway, as I said before, I started seeing some holes in this world view, and came to realize that there were a few things that were absolutely right and wrong, not just socially constructed behaviors that could be changed if we had the wrong people in power (next time you think Derrida is bad, just realize how insufferable he would be if he were the champion of the Overdog. Of course he is, but at least he pretends not to be. Must be his social construction). Of course it starts with basics like social order, some respect for life, then along comes the impossible (condensed version): this Aquinas fellow is making a whole lot of sense, much more than Marx or Mohammed (I had already jettisoned any interest in paganism or the various Eastern world-views - I may have been a relativist, but I never liked Wiccans, and my serious interest in Buddhism was short-lived). So, next thing you know, you follow this stuff and find that you are going to mass every Sunday, going to confession, singing in the choir, and all that.

But you still have this little notion that somehow someone could be wrong, but just misguided, that, since you can think of some outlandish instance where it is difficult to discern wrong from right, then one can hedge on the absoluteness of it all, etc. So, you can congratulate a homosexual couple (you still call them "gay") when they fake a marriage, etc. But you are knowing more and more that something rings hollow. Your intellect is finding its own, but your sentiments are still hopelessly modern American.

Now, when I first encountered the life of Tobias Schneebaum (in Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale), I was already a confirmed anti-relativist, but still mostly on the intellectual level, not deep down: "oh, you know that Hitler, bad news certainly, but I would still loved to have sat down and had a discussion with him. He is still human after all. Love the sinner and all that." Here on the screen I was confronted with this toad of a man, this worm who only once (at least in the documentary) had a little sign of remorse that he had partaken of human flesh (and you got the feeling that a little blast of self-esteem talk and he would be doing another book tour touting the glories of cannibalism).

In this film you got 93 minutes of the glory of homosexuality, of how wonderful relativism is, how nifty it is to be so cosmopolitan and superior to these poor dupes who think that there is such a thing as savagery and civilization, with any dissenting view portrayed as nothing but laughable. It pushed me over the top. Love the sinner, sure, see him as a fallen creature made in the image of God and even still liable to be redeemed, yes, but if you ever wanted a picture of Hate the Sin at the same time, here it was.

Watching this cannibal glow with nostalgia over his sexual escapades in the backwaters and then sniff in a superior way over normal civilized folks is one of those moments where you really have to, at all levels, decide where you stand. I know that from the day I saw that film I became a much less accepting, less affirming, even less tolerant person than I was before, and I contend that I am that much better off for it.

Anyway, thanks to Zorak for making me think of Schneebaum!

Labels and Priestesses

I don't trust people who make a big deal of not liking labels. You know the type:

"Oh, I don't like labels, it just simplifies what I believe, etc., etc."

In the matter of how one lives one's faith, a professed avoidance of labels invariably means that the label-hater is a heretic.

"Oh, I would never call myself orthodox or obedient or blah blah blah woof woof woof woof...[discourse on how labels stamp out nuance, so forth and so on]" generally can be translated into "well, I am uncomfortable with being lumped into the category of Cafeteria Catholic, but really I am one."

I recall reading one well-loved and generally orthodox writer (who objects to labels) say that while she upheld the teachings on ordaining women, she could still see some sort of future where the church did ordain women. I suppose when she looks at her radical feminist crystal ball she can also see a future when billy goats give birth to whales, too.

I have a good label for this person: heretic. If the pointy hat fits...

If one is too cowardly to wear the label orthodox, faithful, etc., then let him wear his sanbenito.

Of course the whole reason that I got to thinking about labels and heretics was thinking about the evil of ordaining women. I have decided that of all the evils in the world, none is so great as the movement to ordain women.

All the holocausts, genocides, abortions, sodomy, Communisms, and New Left folk anthems are really the sort of evil that one must assume, given man's fallen nature. They really are straightforward sorts of evil: one succumbs to pride, envy, etc. to the point that it consumes the person, and then one does gravely evil things to bring about some sort of crude remedy.

There is a cure for all of this, although it is lengthy and designed to work with our Free Will, with the full understanding that our free will has some nasty habits. The cure is Grace, which finds its way to us through the sacraments.

Now, the evil of going out and killing a people because of their eye color is bad. No one but a lunatic will defend this sort of business. But it is pretty much a straightforward sort of evil: A kills B and B's folks kill A and A's folks... and so on. Rage, revenge, human, all too human. The cycle can be broken by the Gospel and a life lived in the Sacraments.

So, what better way to perpetuate all the evils of the world than to attack the heart of the sacraments: namely the sacramental priesthood. Of course, following the human, all too human way, Pride, Envy, Greed, all of the Seven figure in. First the priesthood is seen strictly in terms of Power, thus Envy gets a foot in the door. Then comes Pride, as seen in the PBS documentary on the Holy Father, where some woman was in tears talking about her unfulfilled vocation. On and on.

But the real danger is that striking at the priesthood strikes at all the sacraments.

Of course Protestantism struck at the priesthood, but by openly wanting to abolish it and the sacraments, it became very clear what the agenda was. It is really pretty straightforward: Satan uses Pride to strike at God's Church through the tool of the Protestant revolutionaries. But you know who is on whose side. After a few natterings to the contrary, it was quite clear that the heresiarch Luther was not interested in changing the Catholic Church, so much as he was in changing the Scripture and starting his own church.

No one can seriously claim that Henry VIII had any interest in reforming the Roman Curia. Rather, like a proto-Andrew Sullivan, Hank Tudor was all about service to his sex-life (imagine the father of the church of Gene Robinson!), masked in his concern for a male heir.

However, the suburban liberals who want to see women in alb and stole are not claiming to want to start a new church (although it sure would be easier if these persistant heretics just went off and joined a heretic church), but want to strike at the heart of the Catholic Church, the only Church that contains the totality of Truth.

As such these people must be resisted with every ounce of our energy. I would go so far as to say that fighting those who wish to ordain women is the top priority in the world today. And we must start by calling heretics heretics, even if they "object to labels!"

I survived the dentist

The appointment went fine. Modern dentistry is amazing. Of course I am passing on the recommended stuff, for a number of reasons: first, if I had that kind of money to blow on having prettier fillings, I would use it to spend two months in the Azores with Melanie and Amalia, second, even if I had so much money to spend on such things, after having enough money to spend on more important things, my rule is to minimize the number of hours I spend in the dentist's chair.

So, naturally I go for the bargain basement options (here is a quick lesson for you folks: floss daily. Before today I had not been to see Old MacTeague for fourteen years. Basically my teeth are in good shape, in spite of the worn out fillings and the unsightly metal that he would very much like to replace. That's what flossing does for you).

Anyway, I do have to go back in a couple of weeks, and probably again a few times afterwards for those worn-out fillings, but the dentist seems a good sort. Probably even buys bottled beer.

Drowning my sorrows in gin

In seven hours I will be facing one of the worst demons I can imagine: a visit to the dentist. I gave up on dentists after the last final bout with the insidious Dr. K. Melanie has finally talked me into it, so all I can do is face the devil in the white coat.

I am not really drowning my sorrows in gin, but I did have two martinis tonight. I was only going to have one, but it was so good that I had a second. Here is the amazing thing: it was cheap gin. Really cheap gin. I tend to avoid cheap gin, because it usually is as nuanced as chewing a piece of cat-piss coated juniper, but on a lark (and enticed by the very low price at Trader Joe's), I chanced it. I have been enjoying cheap beer these days, and I figured that bad gin can be salvaged with more vermouth, or used in Venetian martinis or gin and tonic. I honestly did not expect to think that much of this gin.

I was pleasantly surprised at how good this stuff is. I am not so sure that I will be buying Bombay Sapphire with the frequency I used to. The stuff is called Rear Admiral Joseph's Original London Dry Gin. It is imported, but has the look of "cheap nasty stuff" all over the label (really bad graphic design), but inside is a gin worthy of my martinis.

So I am planning on rewarding myself for being a good boy and going to the @$##@$# dentist tomorrow. Come cocktail hour, I am going to fix a mighty fine martini!

On other fronts, we went to see the Lipizzaner Stallions tonight. The horses are gorgeous and the riding fantastic, but the show is quite dull, with most of it devoted to explaining the basics of dressage. The MC is pure cornball. I think that the used car lot might be missing him. He was sort of like the love child of Rodney Dangerfield and Regis Philbin.

However, even his cornball delivery could be salvaged with better writing. Why, oh why did they spend so much time talking about the brands? The history of the breed could have been cut in half at least, or put in the program and left at that. And having Mormon-style Americana stuff (arrangements that sound like the Osmond playbook) alongside this noble Hapsburgian tradition, complete with the work of the incomparable Mozart does not make "God Bless America" sound any better.

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I also am perplexed by the need to have the "Star Spangled Banner" open the show. Is it out of some sort of guilt for indulging in such an aristocratic, European tradition? Am I to think that at home the Spanish Riding School plays the Austrian anthem at the start of their shows? I am not one for flag-worship anyway, but I sort of understand the tradition before baseball games. But before an evening of Austrian horsemanship?

Anyway, I have to admit to being a bit jaded when it comes to dressage. Every summer I see the exact same stuff, but done in front of a wild bull. These riders are good, but Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza could ride circles around them, placing bandarilhas in a bull at the same time.

Amalia had a great time, as did her friends who went with us, although she did ask twice were the bull was. That's my baby!

Campion News

Here is the latest:

Campion is working with Ignatius Press/Guadalupe Associates to become completely independent (an all-around good thing), which means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, that light is contingent upon some pretty massive fundraising in a teeny amount of time. Teeny. As in miniscule.

So, if any of my dear readers have a fortune sittting around, please let Mr. John Galten know.

For those wondering more about the story, here is why I have not been posting too much: first, I wanted to pitch it to print media, but no one is biting. The Catholic world is probably not to keen on having to pick sides (and let us all hope and pray that the picking of sides will not even have to happen), and the non-Catholic world sees it as a special interest story, which means not many column inches. Not many column inches means no depth, so might as well leave that sort of thing to regular reporters.

Now, not working for a print media outlet makes me hesitant to call people for interviews. I could always say, "I am with the Daily Argle Bargle," which would be true except that I would not really be covering it for the Argle Bargle, so it would only be partially true, and this story demands truth over anything.

So, without interviews of people on all sides, I will not post a "news" story. Editorializing, sure, but know that if I post a news item it will be something that is quasi-public (in other words I will not break anything that the students and faculty as a group have not already been told officially) and verified by legitimate authority (or by my own viewing of the documents and suchnot).

However, there is one thing that must be said, and that is what an honorable and decent man John Galten is. I have met him maybe twice, and cannot say that I know him, but from what he has said to people involved in this, how he has handled all the factions, he has been a paradigm of honor, calmness, and reason.

If you want just one good reason (and I can come up with a dozen at least) reasons to support Campion College of San Francisco (or if you cannot support it materially, at least with your prayers), it would be simply because it has John Galten as a president.

Stuck in Bakersfield without a dime to my name

No, not really. I am in Sacramento and have at least the requisite tank full of gas that represents supreme freedom in these parts, but I have been listening to a lot of country music (in between the Mexican version of low class Okie music, glorious accordion conjunto) and the idea comes around. Stuck in Bakersfield/Texas/Oklahoma/etc. without the means of getting out. What would it mean to wake up and find that you are flat on your back, and the only option is to beg, borrow, work, or steal to get out of Bakersfield (or Beverly Hills for that matter - anywhere that you know no one, besides decidedly unsavory sorts that you just lost your last dime to at that honky-tonk down the road)?

I have been to Bakersfield and Oildale, and it all seemed kind of fun, sort of like a Cal-Okie hajj to the land of Hag and Buck. But I imagine that it would be different to actually be stuck there.

Lodi, on the other hand, is really quite pleasant. It reminds me of Pisa, and I am always happy to be reminded of Pisa, especially in hot weather. Bakersfield does not remind me of Pisa. It reminds me of Armadillo or Amarillo or whatever that town is in North Texas, except that it is close to the Tehachapis.

All of this is making me itch to go to Death Valley and the Owens Valley, which only lunatic Kraut and French tourists do this time of year. So, it will have to wait until the winter, when it is quite nice to get away to the borax flats.

Meanwhile, I have some Hank Williams to listen to.

O Fado do Campion

I am trying to do too many things this morning: two CD reviews, weekly orchid care, bullfight report, a marketing project under a tight deadline, a trip to Sacramento, three canti of Purgatorio to study, and an update on the Campion situation.

First: the bullfight report will have to wait until tonight. For the few of you clamoring for it, you can wait (big bulls, mixed quality, Cesar was tossed, but avoided goring). For this post the only thing that matters about the bullfight is that the main topic was discussed on a pleasant hillside above the Campo Grande bullring in Pico dos Padres on a warm evening of the longest day of the year. It is a pity that JXrXd (name modified to protect the guilty), who was sent back to the food stands, brought back Coors (dreaded Colorado swill) instead of Budweiser (the King of Beers), but I wasn't the one who had to climb back up to the hill with beer, so I shouldn't complain (not that that has stopped me before).

Digression: Come on, beer snobs, I dare you to try to tell me that Budweiser is inferior and that "once you have a microbrew you will understand." Just try to out-snob me on any matter of food or drink. I dare you.

But back the topic at hand: It seems that word is getting around that Prof. Cordova is calling for a boycott of Ignatius Press. For a clarification of that, please read his comments in the "On Campion" post. He is very reasonable in his approach, and I think I have to concur (which is difficult for me: I tend towards scorched earth politics and favor the old "send the commies to the stadium" approach).

The use of the term "boycott" was my unfortunate mistake. Around the East Bay we boycott things at the drop of a hat (or the refusal to drop all contacts with the oppressive fascist government of... no, wait, I don't boycott those).

I have been told that the term "boycott" goes back to the squabbles between the Picts/Angles/Celts in those little barbarian islands off of France. As a matter of Catlick solidarity, I, of course, half-heartedly endorse the Norman/Celts of Ireland (not to mention a sympathy towards red hair), but frankly, can't see what the to-do is about. We are talking about islands that are barely suitable for habitation. Whatever happened to real rivalry, like Firenze v. Pisa? I know where I stand on that one (facing East with two figs raised).

So I will retract any suggestion or hint that one should "boycott" Ignatius Press. Let the term rest with the dirt-punks of Berkeley and Irish tenant farmers.

I will probably buy an Ignatius Press book or two in the future. I will just hold my nose while doing it. I am not a fan of cults (other than my own. At ease, Gentlemen. Nothing to see. Move along. Believe! Obey! Fight!), and the Guadalupe Associates seem to be acting rather cultlike. We are to believe that they suddenly discovered that founding a college was not fiscally responsible? I am curious as to when they realized this as a group, because they had to have known back when the timing would have been better, or were they waiting for word from Number One, who now has a new toy and sees the old toy as competition for resources?

Basically, from what I am seeing, the Guadalupe Associates have not been acting like adults. I know a few of these folks (although they probably will not admit it in public these days, and I can hardly blame them), and they are intelligent folks. They produce fantastic books. I assume that some of them can read a financial statement. What prevented them from taking action when the students had time to make plans, the faculty time to look for jobs in the fall, etc.? Were they hoping that Number One was going to pull something out of his biretta? Is the Cult of Joe a Cargo Cult?

They talk about the focus of their apostolate, but of all the things they have wasted money on (inept stock market trades, radio, etc.), they really do not have much of a track record of sticking to their knitting. They have managed to keep going even with a history of frivolous spending, so why didn't they do the honorable thing, postpone a few pet projects and honor their commitments?

More later, but a note here to the good folks of Ignatius Press/Guadalupe Associates: what happens when Old Joe, SJ decides that you, too, are yesterday's toy?

On Bulls and their Leavings, not to mention the Campion brouhaha

Monday, Monday. La La. Dum de dum dum. La La. Dum de dum dum.
It must be a day for bulls. La la. Dum de dum dum...

Tonight is a bullfight at my favorite bullring, Pico dos Padres, tucked into the western hills of the San Juaquin Valley. You drive through orchards and dirt roads onto the bull ranch and end up in a little pocket of Portugal, surrounded by Azoran dairymen and their families out for a summer festa.

It promises to be a good one, if you are in the area (it is about an hour and half from the Bay Area, and it is a lovely drive).

Of course, you probably did not come here for bulls. Very few do. I think I have five readers who care about the bullfight stuff. Maybe seven.

You undoubtedly came here for an update on the Campion story. I am working on this, but mostly behind the scenes at this point, for several reasons, not the least of which is that I really want to make sure that my facts are correct. I have heard the same report from several people on certain issues, but need to hear from the other side. Even though I trust my sources (including Mr. Smithers, who has been commenting below), I want to hear it from the other side. In order to hear it from the other side, there are a couple of things that must happen first.

I have in my possession an email from Mr. Brumley, which is quite frankly pathetic. However, it was not addressed to me, but came to me from a couple of directions, so for now I suggest that you contact one of the Campion students to ask to read it (or if one of you lawyer-types from the law school that has very good reason to look with alarm at how Fr. Fessio's minions treat people can post a sound argument as to why I should just post the whole thing, with or without commentary, then I will do so).

Comment freely, and also feel free to contact me privately at EKeilholtz [at] a o l [full stop] c o m.

I am getting a pretty good story together, but I am a stickler for fact checking, and will be off to the bulls tonight, so check back later (and be warned - you might have to wade through a bullfight report before I get the thing posted. It goes with the territory - this is a bullfight blog more than it is an investigative reporting blog).

Englisch Spelling

I am not the best at spelling. I am also somewhat lazy, so when I find I am stumbling on a word I look for another word, rather than look it up. Once in awhile this habit disgusts me, so I go through a rigorous spelling period.

However, I never, ever, have written "rebuttle." I encountered this on another website and had to wonder what a rebuttle is: some reversal of a cosmetic surgery? When one has a rebuttle, does one ask the doc to "rebutt me?" Does it refer to falling off the dietary wagon?

"Oh, she dropped fifty pounds, but then gave into her pastry habit and has had quite a rebuttle."

Or is this some slang term for repaying a person for a bummed cigarette?

"Hey, man, the other day I gave you a smoke, but now I'm out, rebutt me."

Or perhaps it is slang for quitting quitting?

"Oh yeah, he went through some health kick, but stress at work led to his rebuttle."

Then again, it could be an old Southern custom, regarding a return to society:

"Wilma Mae just completely dropped out of society, but when she realized that the hippy lifestyle wasn't working out she decided to become a rebutante. Her rebuttle is going to be held at the Prichett Plantation."

As I said, I am in no position to ridicule other folks' spelling errors, but this crosses the line!

Happy Fathers' Day!

Our Fathers' Day weekend started rather poorly, with Melanie getting a pretty serious case of food poisoning from a restaurant that we really like. By figuring who ate what and who tasted what, my best guess is that some bad cheese was the culprit. Since this is a restaurant that we go to regularly, and that tainted cheese is a rare risk, but one that could happen anywhere, I will not divulge the name of the restaurant.

She seems to be over it (without need for a hospital visit, thank God), but I doubt that she will be in much shape to eat what I planned for us tomorrow. Who knows, though, as her constitution is almost as strong as mine (although we both remember getting food poisoning from an In and Out Burger (if you poison me with a fast food burger, you are going to get named repeatedly, especially given the name of the place and the nature of the illness) on our way to our honeymoon in Yosemite and how I managed to prolong my case by foolishly indulging in prime rib with horseradish and a Kenwood Jack London Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon - chalk that one to Teutonic stubborness; I was not going to miss a great dinner at the Ahwanee just because I had been unable to keep anything more substantial than Saltines and 7-Up in my system for the 24 hours prior. I ate the whole thing and drank most of the wine, as Melanie had more sense. It was marvelous, but caused another 18 hours of misery, although since it was a briefer bout, I felt triumphant).

So, I will be looking at serving something mild and easy on the digestion for her. I will probably have to do two dinners, because the rest of us will not be up for that sort of thing (I can just see the look on my father's face if I propose that we all eat rice mush or some sort of pap).

So, here is the menu:

Cocktails and antipasti
1. Fetuccine al pesto
2. Ensalata caprese
3. Bistecca fiorentina
4. Panna cotta with berry sauce
5. Vin santo e cantucci

In other food related notes, Amalia has taken an interest in snails. I told her that one can eat snails, and immediately realized that I had to add the strong addendum that one must cook them first. Now, whenever I go into the yard to kill the little basil-devouring beasts, she reminds me that I can eat them, but I have to cook them first.

So, this summer I will probably build a small escargot farm (Melanie's objections have been softening) so that I can raise clean, culinary snails. I think that I was about five when I first had escargot, but Amalia is adventuresome when it comes to meat (vegetables are another matter - she will try anything, but rarely wants more than a bite or two of most vegetables).

Anyway, Happy Fathers' Day to fellow St. Blog's fathers!

Fun and Games with Nigeria

It must be something in the water. How long before this guy starts sending me emails asking for help in getting the money out of the Swiss bank account?

HOUSTON, June 18 - Halliburton said Friday that it was severing all ties with Albert J. Stanley, until recently one of its highest-ranking executives, after investigations showed he secretly enriched himself by channeling as much as $5 million from an elaborate payment scheme for a Nigerian energy project to a Swiss bank account.

For the whole story, you will have to read it in The New York Times.

Campion News

From looking at my tracking stats, it would seem that the old Rants and Recipes is going around on the email circuit at a law school that has every reason to watch the dealings of Old Fessio, SJ with close scrutiny. I honestly figured that someone else would write about the closing of Campion by now, but nothing has appeared in the papers or on the internet. A google search yields only me.

Yikes. I am a newspaperman of sorts, but not a reporter per se. I do restaurant reviews and CD reviews, fer