05/05/2012 archive

The high seas

   Talk about a bad day: two men from Kanagawa were cruising up the coast to Aomori on a yakatabune when the vessel began taking on water. So they did the smart thing and headed for the nearest spot of land… which turned out to be in the no-entry zone around the Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant.

   The US Coast Guard sank a “ghost ship” that was set adrift from its mooring in Hokkaido following the March 11 earthquake. The 50-meter Ryou-Un Maru had approached within 150 miles of the coast of Alaska.

   Officials in Kochi are considering setting up underground evacuation shelters for local residents in the event of a tsunami. The structures would employ “submarine technology” and be large enough to house 200 people each.

   Police in Kanagawa were forced to issue a public apology after a drunk 73-year-old man hopped into an idling patrol car and took it for a spin.

This was no ordinary homecoming.  This was a do-or-die attempt to lay the ghost of years of rejection from the horse-rearing elite and the literati who sat in those privileged boxes overlooking the track and those unprivileged craven hordes who grovelled around the centre-field where he had suffered as a boy.

The clubhouse as I remember was worse, much worse than I had expected.  It was a mess.  This was supposed to be a smart, horsey clubhouse, oozing with money and gentry, but what I saw had me skulking in corners.  It was worse than the night I spent on Skid Row a month later, back in New York.  My feet crunched broken glass on the floor.  There seemed no difference between a telephone booth and a urinal; both were used for the same purpose.  Foul messages were scrawled in human excrement on the walls and bull-necked men, in what had once been white, but were smeared and stained, seersucker suits, were doing awful things to younger but equally depraved men around every corner.  The place reminded me of a cowshed that hadn’t been cleaned in fifteen years.  Somehow I knew I had to look and observe.  It was my job.  What was I being paid for?  I was lucky to be here.  Lots of people would give their drawing arm to be able to see the actual Kentucky Derby which was now hardly an hour away.  Hunter understood and was watching me as much as he was watching the scene before us.

Something splattered the page I was drawing on and, as I moved to wipe it away, I realized too late it was somebody’s vomit.  During the worst days of the Weimar Republic, when Hitler was rising faster than a bull on heat, George Grosz, the savage satirical painter, had used human shit as a violent method of colouring his drawings.  It is a shade of brown like no other and its use makes an ultimate statement about the subject.

‘Seen enough?’, asked Hunter, pushing me hastily towards an exit that led out to the club enclosure.  I needed a drink.  ‘Er… one more trip to the inner-field Ralph I think,’ I heard Hunter say nervously.  ‘Only another half-hour to the big race.  If we don’t catch the inner-field now, we’ll miss it.’  So we went.

While the scene was as wild here as it had been in the clubhouse, it had a warmer, more human face, more colour and happiness and gay abandon – the difference in atmosphere between Hogarth’s Gin Lane and Beer Street.  One harrowed and death-like the other bloated with booze but animal-healthy.

Who would have thought I was after the gristle, the blood-throbbing veins, poisoned exquisitely by endless self-indulgence, mint juleps, and bourbon.  Hide, anyway, behind the dark shades you predatory piece of raw blubber.

The race was now getting a frenzied response as Dust Commander began to make the running.  Bangles and jewels rattled on suntanned, wobbling flesh and even the pillar men in suits were now on tip-toe, creased skin under double-chins stretched to the limit into long furrows that curved down into tight collars.

Mouths opened and closed and veins pulsed in unison as the frenzy reached its climax.  One or two slumped back as their horses failed, but the mass hysteria rose to a final orgasmic shriek, at last bubbling over into whoops of joy, hugging and back slapping.  I turned to face the track again, but it was all over.  That was it.  The 1970 Kentucky Derby won by Dust Commander with a lead of five lengths – the biggest winning margin since 1946 when Triple Crown Champion, Assault, won the Derby by eight lengths.

‘I think it’s time I was thinking of getting back to New York.  Let’s have a meal somewhere and I can phone the airline for plane times.  What day is it, we seem to have lost a weekend.  I need a drink.’

‘You need a lynching.  You’ve upset my friends and I haven’t written a goddamn word.  I’ve been too busy looking after you.  Your work here is done.  I can never come back here again.  This whole thing will probably finish me as a writer.  I have no story.’

‘Well I know we got a bit pissed and let things slip a bit but there’s lots of colour.  Lots happened.’

‘Holy Shit!  You scumbag!  This is Kentucky, not Skid Row.  I love these people.  They are my friends and you treated them like scum.’

Ralph Steadman- The Joke’s Over

The Kentucky Derby and the Slow Death of Horse Racing

By Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic

May 3 2012, 12:31 PM ET

This dark and stormy Derby week, there is no other way to put it. These are dismal days for horse racing in North America. We once said, in the grandstands and along the backstretches, that all horse racing needed to reassert itself onto the American sporting scene was a Triple Crown winner. But the last 3-year-old colt to accomplish that task was Affirmed in 1978. And that means that a third of a century, an entire generation, has come and gone without such a champion. In the meantime, chaos. The great gaming monopoly that once was horse racing has devolved into a rudderless mess.

All across the continent, from Ontario to Kentucky, from Maryland to California, the industry and the sport are under siege. From venal legislators, who have raided gaming coffers to cover their own budgetary failures. From the politically connected gaming industry, which sees horse racing as a mere nuisance. From underfunded and lazy regulators, who are more concerned about securing their own patronage than they are about enforcing the rules. And from cheating owners, trainers, jockeys, and drivers, who are laughing at the rest of us as they deposit their ill-gotten gains.

…

No matter who wins, every racing fan everywhere mostly prays that none of these beautiful animals (or any others) get hurt on Saturday. Remember Eight Belles? She was the filly who raced a brave second to Big Brown in the Derby in 2008 before breaking down on the track. I hosted a Derby party that year and there were maybe half a dozen children watching that race. They were rightly horrified by Eight Belles’ on-track death and I daresay that none are likely to ever want to see a horse race ever again. That’s why horse racing has to do much more to better protect the horses.

That protection begins and ends with the vices and failings of the human connections who surround every racehorse. Although there is a healthy and continuous debate within racing about the efficacy of the drugs that are lawfully given to horses, the fact is that the pervasive use of such drugs (not to mention the illegal blood-doping ones) has had a devastating long-term impact upon the horses. We breed them for speed, we push them to race early, and then we have the nerve to pump them full of drugs to hide their ailments or to make them run faster.

…

There is no excuse for this, on any level. The owners are to blame for permitting their trainers and veterinarians to give drugs to their horses on such a scale. The trainers are to blame for putting their financial interest above the interests of their horses’ welfare. The veterinarians are to blame for allowing themselves to be used as instruments of the horses’ destruction. Track officials are to blame for not taking seriously their obligations to ensure the safety of the horses. And regulators are to blame for not punishing even the obvious offenders.

The reason all these people so often don’t do right by their horses is because the horses are perceived as fungible property rather than as the irreplaceable centerpieces of the sport. Insiders lament the breakdowns but perceive them to be exceptions to the rule. The problem is, the public doesn’t see it that way. To the lay person, each and every breakdown is proof that racing is a brutal and violent sport and, just as importantly, that the humans in charge of it aren’t doing enough to protect the horses. The cumulative effect of that perception has severely damaged the sport’s reputation and the industry’s ability to attract new fans.

There is no carrot and no stick-no economic incentive to play fair and no fear of swift and severe punishment for transgressors. It’s a system where integrity is talked about more than it is practiced, where everyone blames everyone else. Track officials blame the regulators for not enforcing the rules. Regulators blame legislators for not giving them enough statutory power. Defense attorneys hired by the alleged transgressors are allowed by state judges to make a mockery of the justice system-often delaying suspensions until their clients are ready to take their vacations.

…

No one wants to be regulated. No one wants to give up what little power and control they have over their corner of the industry. And too few, clearly, are willing to spend the money it would take to increase the pace of drug testing and enforcement or to aggressively market and lobby for the sport in bold new ways. Folks will pay millions for a nice colt. But they won’t pay millions to save the sport. The industry talks and talks and talks. And its leaders ponder incremental changes when great strides are desperately needed. In the meantime, too many of the fans, owners, and bettors have gone.

…

It’s not rocket science. It just takes will. And sacrifice. And humility. And money. All it would take for the sport to give itself a fighting chance for the future would be for stakeholders to hold each other, and themselves, more accountable. You can’t grow horse racing today without ensuring the safety of the horses. You can’t ensure the safety of the horses without limiting the drugs in the sport and punishing the cheaters.  And you can’t market any of it until potential fans realize that the industry takes its responsibilities seriously.

Hmm… remind you of anything?

If you want to you can watch Kentucky Derby coverage from 11 am ET (on Vs. where it actually started on Wednesday) until 7 pm (on NBC, where they spare you the pre-race hype until 4).

I suppose this is good thing since you can hardly be expected to follow Horse Racing unless you’re a tout or plunger in one of the few forms of gambling deemed socially acceptable (as opposed to Poker, which is not gambling at all) and 2 year olds don’t have much of a record to handicap.

Ice Cream.  Get your Tutsi Frootsie Ice Cream.

It’s really mostly an excuse to wear hats that would be rejected from a 5th Avenue Easter Parade or Royal Wedding and get tanked up on Bourbon that is best sipped with a soda chaser and not muddled up with mint.

Mint Julep

Ingredients

• 4 cups bourbon
• 2 bunches fresh spearmint
• 1 cup distilled water
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• Powdered sugar

Directions

Post Time is 6:24 pm ET.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

   I always associated high omega-3 content with fatty cold-water fish like salmon, mackerel and tuna, but it turns out that there are 1,472 milligrams of omega-3s in 6 ounces of mussels (the approximate amount of meat you get from a pound in the shell), only 400 milligrams less than the same amount of salmon.

   Farmed mussels are a much more ocean-friendly seafood choice than farmed salmon…. Look for mussels that are shiny and black, and somewhat heavy for their size. When you get them home, take them out of the wrapping immediately, give them a quick rinse and put them in a big bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and refrigerate until you’re ready to clean and cook them.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

“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”.

New York Times Editorial: A Clear Warning From the Jobs Numbers

This week’s economic news was mixed, but the employment report on Friday was unmistakably weak. The economy added only 115,000 jobs in April, versus 154,000 in March and 200,000-plus in each of the three months before that. Even taking into account that unusually warm winter weather probably distorted the recent results, the underlying trend shows an economy that has been creating about 175,000 jobs a month – enough to keep the recovery crawling along, but too weak to appreciably raise hiring or wages.

Nor is it clear where more growth will come from. Manufacturing picked up last month, but activity in the larger service sector slowed. Recent auto sales were up, and home sales have been slowly, if fitfully, improving, but home prices continue to fall. Consumer spending, in general, rose in the first quarter, but it appears to be driven by people who are profiting from a rising stock market. Increased market volatility, like Friday’s 168-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average, would make them nervous and less inclined to spend.

Paul Krugman: The Rise of Orwellian Economics

These past few years have been lean times in many respects – but they’ve been boom years for agonizingly dumb, pound-your-head-on-the-table economic fallacies.

The latest fad – illustrated by a recent commentary article in The Wall Street Journal – is that expansionary monetary policy is a giveaway to banks and plutocrats generally. Indeed, that screed, titled “How the Fed Favors the 1 Percent” and written by the hedge-fund founder Mark Spitznagel, actually claims that the whole 1 versus 99 thing should really be about reining in or maybe abolishing the Federal Reserve. “The relentless expansion of credit by the Fed creates artificial disparities based on political privilege and economic power,” Mr. Spitznagel wrote.

What’s wrong with the idea that running the printing presses is a giveaway to plutocrats? Let me count the ways. First, the actual politics is utterly the reverse of what’s being claimed.

The name simply means “The Fifth of May” and it’s an oddly U.S. American holiday.

Except in the State of Puebla they don’t much celebrate the victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in Mexico which makes it much more like Patriot’s Day that we here in New England get to celebrate almost every year as an extra filing day (I understand there’s also a foot race in Boston).

Interestingly enough it was a stand up fight against the banksters which they lost (those who do not remember history…).  Some people say that the French intervention was intended to establish a supply line to aid the Slave Owner’s Rebellion (or as the more charitable put it, The War of the Rebellion).

Not Congressionally recognized until 2005, celebrations started in California as early as the mid 1860s and for over 100 years were most common in Southwestern States with a large population of people of Mexican descent.  Now of course it’s just another excuse to over consume the cheap crappy Tequila and Beer that Mexico exports (don’t get me wrong, there are good Mexican Beers and Tequila but Corona, Dos Equis, and Jose Cuervo are not them) and ignore real, actual factual Mexican history because we’re so fucking exceptional that understanding and caring about the countries we border is as beneath us as even knowing which ones they are.

Just don’t mistake it for Grito de Dolores.

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.

Click on images to enlarge

May 5 is the 125th day of the year (126th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 240 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1862, the Mexican Army defeated the French forces at the Battle of Puebla

Certain that French victory would come swiftly in Mexico, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles. From his new headquarters in the north, Juarez rounded up a rag-tag force of loyal men and sent them to Puebla. Led by Texas-born General Zaragoza, the 2,000 Mexicans fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On the fifth of May, 1862, Lorencez drew his army, well-provisioned and supported by heavy artillery, before the city of Puebla and began their assault from the north. The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated they had lost nearly 500 soldiers to the fewer than 100 Mexicans killed.

Although not a major strategic victory in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza’s victory at Puebla tightened Mexican resistance, and six years later France withdrew. The same year, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who had been installed as emperor of Mexico by Napoleon in 1864, was captured and executed by Juarez’ forces. Puebla de Los Angeles, the site of Zaragoza’s historic victory, was renamed Puebla de Zaragoza in honor of the general.

Mexico

Cinco de Mayo is a regional holiday limited primarily to the state of Puebla. There is some limited recognition of the holiday in other parts of the country.

United States

In a 1998 study in the Journal of American Culture it was reported that there were more than 120 official U.S. celebrations of Cinco de Mayo, and they could be found in 21 different states. An update in 2006, found that the number of official Cinco de Mayo events was 150 or more, according to Jose Alamillo, professor of ethnic studies at Washington State University in Pullman, who has studied the cultural impact of Cinco de Mayo north of the border.

In the United States Cinco de Mayo has taken on a significance beyond that in Mexico. The date is perhaps best recognized in the United States as a date to celebrate the culture and experiences of Americans of Mexican ancestry, much as St. Patrick’s Day, Oktoberfest, and the Chinese New Year are used to celebrate those of Irish, German, and Chinese ancestry respectively. Similar to those holidays, Cinco de Mayo is observed by many Americans regardless of ethnic origin. Celebrations tend to draw both from traditional Mexican symbols, such as the Virgen de Guadalupe, and from prominent figures of Mexican descent in the United States, including Cesar Chavez. To celebrate, many display Cinco de Mayo banners while school districts hold special events to educate pupils about its historical significance. Special events and celebrations highlight Mexican culture, especially in its music and regional dancing. Examples include baile folklorico and mariachi demonstrations held annually at the Plaza del Pueblo de Los Angeles, near Olvera Street. Commercial interests in the United States have capitalized on the celebration, advertising Mexican products and services, with an emphasis on beverages, foods, and music.

Rachel teaches viewers how to make a Stinger as a means for acquiring a taste for a real Mint Julep. [..]

Ingredients:

   2 1/4 oz. Cognac or Brandy

   3/4 oz. ounce creme de menthe (get a good brand — and get the clear one, not the green one).

That’s it.

And then you have to shake the living daylights out of it. The key is to make it absolutely frigid. That’s why you shake it with ice and then you pour it over ice.

OK. I know you don’t cook Margaritas but this Cinco de Mayo is special. It’s 150th anniversary of defeat the French forces by the Mexican Army at the Battle of Puebla. (It’s also Dr. TMC’s 70th birthday. Time flies when your living life.)

There are various filling for Quesadillas but essentially they are the Mexican version of the French crepe using a flour tortilla instead of a thin pancake. It can contain vegetables meat or sea food, especially shrimp, or not, but it always has cheese. Use your imagination, be creative.

Quesadillas

The way I make them is rather easy, using mostly store purchased ingredients:

You’ll need a grill pan or a 10″ large, heavy flat skillet, cooking spray or a small bowl of vegetable oil and a brush, a large spatula and a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil and a dinner plate.

Preheat the oven to 200° F. Heat the skillet over medium heat, sprayed with vegetable oil. Place a tortilla on a dinner plate. Over half of the tortilla about a inch from the edge, spread some salsa, sprinkle with cheese, refried beans and shredded chicken/beef/pork/shrimp. If you like extra “heat”, add some jalapeño pepper slices. Fold in half. You can also cover one tortilla with fillings and top it with a second but it’s harder to flip.

Gently slide onto the skillet.

Let brown for 2 to 3 minutes until golden brown. Using the large spatula, flip, cooking 2 to 3 minutes, until golden brown. Adjust the heat if browning too fast or too slow. Place the finished quesadilla on the lined cookie sheet in the oven to keep warm. Repeat; making sure the pan is lightly oiled.

You can do to or three at a time, depending on the size of the tortilla and the skillet. If you have a grill top on your stove, you can do as many as will fit.

Cut quesadillas in half, thirds or quarters; serve with more salsa, refried beans, sliced jalapeños, sour cream, guacamole and avocado slices.

Margarita

This is the recipe I have used for years without complaints. I use 1800 Reposado Tequila, Rose’s Lime, Triple Sec, Kosher or course ground sea salt and fresh slices of lime. You’ll need either a shaker or a large glass filled with ice and a strainer and you’ll need lots of ice.

Ingredients:

Moisten them rim of a large glass with lime juice. Dip the glass into salt spread on a flat plate. Fill glass with ice.

In the shaker or other large glass filled with ice add tequila, Triple Sec and lime juice. If user a shaker, shake vigorously or mix with a stirrer in the glass. Pour through a strainer into the salt rimmed glass. Serve with extra lime slices.

Last time we talked about the origins of The Moody Blues and some of their earlier work.  We ended on “The Best Way to Travel” from In Search of the Lost Chord.

I was called away to help my friend do something to get ready to attend a wedding the next day, so we shall finish that album tonight and start on the next one, On the Threshold of a Dream.  That was also a fine album.

It’s time to stand still a moment, look up, and breathe. Saturday night at 11:34 PM EDT the moon will reach its perigee, its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit and one minute later it become full. According to NASA, 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the other full moons of 2012.

Saturday also marks the midpoint of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The exact moment between the March equinox and the June solstice occurs at 10:11 a.m. EDT May 5.  

High tide will be higher and low tide will be lower. The only worry there is if Manhattan slides away into the Atlantic but Long Island would have to go first.

But whatever you’re doing, take time to go out side, stand still a moment to look up at the night sky and breathe.