November 2011 archive

Reprinted from Wed Nov 14, 2007

I suppose I should come up with some Thanksgiving content but it’s kind of hard since it’s not such a big deal holiday for the Gilmores.

The menu is very traditional- Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Wild Rice, Baked Sweet Potatoes (that’s for me), Acorn Squash (also mine), Broccoli and Cauliflower (everybody likes that), Cranberry Sauce and Cranberry Jelly (the canned kind with the ridges in it, even have special serving pieces), Tossed Salad with 3 kinds of Dressing (all bottled), Jello Salad, Olives (black and cocktail), Sweet Pickles, Carrots, Celery, Cottage Cheese, and Gravy, Sour Cream and Butter.  Cheese and Crackers (at least 4 types of each), Mixed Nuts, Chips and Dip (California Onion, is there any other?) with wine and the finger food while the table is prepared, Apple and Pumpkin Pies (the audience is not at ALL the same) with Whipped Cream, Ice Cream, and Sharp Cheddar (for the Apple, really worth a try if you haven’t) for dessert.

I may have left out a couple, but I’m not as good as Emily.

Of the Turkey I get the giblets, the organ meat, which I like because they’re very different in flavor and texture from what you normally eat.  I’m not a vegetarian, I just like meatless Marinara better than ground beef Bolognese and if a meal doesn’t have meat in it that is so just not a big deal to me.

But the menus and rituals are very closely timed because it takes a while to turn out that kind of spread.  I won’t pretend the production staff is not segregated in it’s roles- Turkey preparation is ladies time from thawing it out as much as 2 days before (yeah it really takes that long for a big bird if you follow directions and do it in the refrigerator instead of cheating by soaking it in warm water- salmonela, isn’t he the Italian guy who lives down the street?).  None of that fancy Food Channel cooking neither, our Butterball is done when the thermometer pops up.

It is something of a rite of passage that moves around from house to house depending on the guest list.  My Aunty Mame will be visiting her daughter and family, so that will be a big deal, but the Gilmores are not traveling.

Nor will we be sticking to a schedule.  Since I’m currently not attached I get to do only the one on actual Thanksgiving with Richard and Emily (no Luke and the Kims for me this year).  My brother and sister and their emotional attachments will check in and out depending on their needs, one good thing about Thanksgiving food is that it re-heats real well.

So the meal will be peated and repeated all weekend until you are thoroughly sick of it, though I must admit a fondness for Turkey hash (Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing, and little broken Turkey bits in Gravy) over noodles or rice- that usually happens around Tuesday.  And the TV will suck too, all this Sports crap and Holiday Parade programming and the knowledge that it’s time to go out there and consume.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

More Holiday Memories.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Paul Krugman: We Are the 99%

“We are the 99 percent” is a great slogan. It correctly defines the issue as being the middle class versus the elite (as opposed to the middle class versus the poor). And it also gets past the common but wrong establishment notion that rising inequality is mainly about the well educated doing better than the less educated; the big winners in this new Gilded Age have been a handful of very wealthy people, not college graduates in general.

If anything, however, the 99 percent slogan aims too low. A large fraction of the top 1 percent’s gains have actually gone to an even smaller group, the top 0.1 percent – the richest one-thousandth of the population.

And while Democrats, by and large, want that super-elite to make at least some contribution to long-term deficit reduction, Republicans want to cut the super-elite’s taxes even as they slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the name of fiscal discipline.

Robert Reich: The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must Occupy Democracy

You’ve been seeing this across the country … Americans assaulted, clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed … Why? For exercising their right to free speech and assembly – protesting the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top. [..]

Across America, public officials are saying Occupiers have to go. Even in universities – where free speech is supposed to be sacrosanct – peaceful assembly is being met with clubs and pepper spray.  [..]

How are Americans to be heard about what should be done about any of this if they are not allowed to mobilize and organize?  When the freedom of speech goes to the highest bidder, moneyed interests have a disproportionate say.

A Friday that feels like Sunday. Unless you’re engaged in the widely hyped capitalist feeding frenzy called “Black Friday.” Or some of the many other activitie your Bloguero disdains. Today your Bloguero’s world is divided into only two parts, day and night, the 1% and the 99%, those who think today might be Sunday and those who think it’s for filling up the credit cards, those who are hung over from tryptophan and wine and those who are not. This way of experiencing the world, sharp, high contrast dualism, is disturbing to your Bloguero. But what can you expect when the first meal of the day is left over turkey and chocolate cake?

A day to make the crooked straight and the rough places plane.  And for this:

This Week In The Dream Antilles is usually a weekly digest. Sometimes, like now and for several of the past weeks, it isn’t actually a digest of essays posted at The Dream Antilles. For that you have to visit The Dream Antilles.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

November 25 is the 329th day of the year (330th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 36 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1999, The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution designating November 25 the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The resolution, which was introduced by the Dominican Republic, marked the anniversary of the death of three sisters, Maria, Teresa, and Minerva Mirabel, who were brutally murdered there in 1960. While women in Latin America and the Caribbean had honored the day since 1981, all UN countries did not formally recognize it until 1999.

Many organizations, including the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), had been pushing for international recognition of the date for some time.

The Mirabal sisters were four Dominican political dissidents who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Three of the sisters were assassinated by persons unknown.

Patria Mercedes Mirabal (February 27, 1924 – November 25, 1960), Belgica Adela “Dede” Mirabal-Reyes (March 1, 1925 – present), Maria Argentina Minerva Mirabal (March 12, 1926 – November 25, 1960) and Antonia Maria Teresa Mirabal (October 15, 1935 – November 25, 1960) were citizens of the Dominican Republic who fervently opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Dede Mirabal was not assassinated and has lived to tell the stories of the death of her sisters. Presently, she lives in Salcedo, Dominican Republic in the house where the sisters were born. She works to preserve her sisters’ memory through the Museo Hermanas Mirabal which is also located in Salcedo and was home to the women for the final ten months of their lives. She published a book Vivas en El Jardin, released on August 25, 2009.

The Mirabal women grew up in an upper class, well-cultured environment. Their father was a successful businessman. All became married family women. When Trujillo came to power, their family lost almost all its fortune. They believed that Trujillo would send their country into economic chaos. Minerva became particularly passionate about ending the dictatorship of Trujillo after talking extensively with an uncle of hers. Influenced by her uncle, Minerva became more involved in the anti-Trujillo movement. She studied law and became a lawyer, but because she declined Trujillo’s romantic advances, he ordered that while she would be issued a degree she was not to receive her practitioner’s license. Her sisters followed suit, and they eventually formed a group of opponents to the Trujillo regime, known as the Movement of the Fourteenth of June. Within that group, they were known as “The Butterflies” (Las Mariposas in Spanish) because that was the underground name that Minerva was given. Two of the sisters, Maria Argentina Minerva Mirabal and Antonia Maria Teresa Mirabal, were incarcerated and tortured on several occasions. While in prison they were repeatedly raped. Three of the sisters’ husbands were incarcerated at La Victoria Penitentiary in Santo Domingo.

Despite these setbacks, they persisted in fighting to end Trujillo’s leadership. After the sisters’ numerous imprisonments, Trujillo was blamed for their murders, but this is now being questioned. During an interview after Trujillo’s assasination, General Pupo Roman claimed to have personal knowledge that they were killed by Luis Amiama Tio, perhaps to create a rise in anti-Trujillo sentiment. On November 25, 1960, he sent men to intercept the three women after they visited their husbands in prison. The unarmed sisters were led into a sugar cane field and executed, they didn’t even have the luxury of being shot, instead they were beaten to death, along with their driver, Rufino de la Cruz. Their car was later thrown off of a mountain known as La Cumbre, between the cities of Santiago and Puerto Plata, in order to make their deaths look like an accident.

This day also marks the beginning of the 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence. The end of the 16 Days is December 10, International Human Rights Day.

Sarah Vowell thinks that Americans should be thanking the 11,000 loyal patriots who perished on British prison ships instead of some Mayflower-cruising Jesus freaks.

What?  You’re not shopping yet?  Don’t you know the whole Capitalist system not to mention our Galtian Overlords’ Rolexes depend on you spending yourself into bankruptcy?

Well good for you.

Today is the 20th Annual ‘Buy Nothing’ Day™, sponsored by Adbusters of #OWS fame, where we rebel in small ways and save ourselves a lot of aggravation and hassle by staying home and maybe watching some TV.

Each time I do this I have to remind myself what works and what doesn’t because frankly a ton of research goes into each one.

What I’ve discovered this year is that the largest amount of time goes into making the passes from one end to the other of my 40+ channel hot list, so it’s actually more efficient to cover a longer period of time than it is to break up the task into multiple segments.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that 6 am seems to be the common reset point for the day’s schedule.  Very few Marathons roll over past that point though some of the movie oriented stations will have a feature that persists through the transition.  If you can’t find it listed you might try yesterday’s effort and for immediate updates you can go directly to my source- Zap2it.

If you click on the link under the network name you see all the shows for the day.  You simply need to cut and paste the ones you’re interested in under the appropriate time label and your outline is done.  Tomorrow I’ll bore you with how to make it look pretty.

This particular schedule covers from 6 am to 6 am Black Friday.

This also is kind of a tough one.  Whom do I hate more?  The Dolphins or the Cowboys?

Cowboys.

Gee.  That wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

This schedule will take you through your second Throwball game, dinner, and your early bird Black Friday.  It goes from 2 pm to 6 am so it covers your wake up time for regular Black Friday too.

I will have the next edition up by midnight, but I need to get my beauty sleep so I can follow Interlagos practice at 10 am Friday.

Busy weekend?  I have no idea what you’re talking about, I sit on my ass all day long.

Some things you may be picking up in medius res.  Check the previous posting.  Latest listings at Zap2it.

Updated to 6 am.

Football is a game you play with your feet.

This one is a pick ’em at my house.  The troll side of me feels a good deal of sympathy for the hapless Lions.  The part that is not under the bridge roots for the community owned Packers, so far undefeated, to continue a perfect season.

Not that the Lions are having a bad year, especially for them.  At 7 – 3 they are off to their best start since 1991 after 9 losing seasons in a row.

Both teams sport high powered offenses and all the pundits are predicting a scoring fest (over/under is 55).  This means of course that it will be a boring defensive struggle decided by a lonely field goal, or perhaps a solo safety.