Trumpettes and Their Obsessions

I have already received one comment defending Trump's tweets about Mika Brzezinsky more or less defending Trump by writing that, "Well, she did it first." Guess what folks, the president is supposed to rise above this sort of distraction. The president is supposed to be leading the country into better behavior and actions. The president is supposed to be focused on his responsibilities. He hasn't even nominated people for important posts, hundreds of them, but he has time to attack the people who make fun of him. He is supposed to be bigger than that. There are far more important things that Trump should be doing than making ad hominem attacks on a broadcaster.

I am not going to apologize for this post. Defending Trump's tweets indicates a paucity of intellect.

I Don't Think That Means What You Think It Means

Of course the title of this post is the great line from The Princess Bride but it also applies to Melania Trump now. During the campaign she said her primary goal as first lady would be to work to reduce or eliminate cyber-bullying. Even at the time most of us laughed at that for obvious reasons but today, after Trump tweeted about Mika Brzezinski, Melania defended his cyber-bullying. Oh well, it's par for the course for this administration. Predictable, right?

A Dangerous Tactic

The White House is upping its attack on news media. Keep in mind that the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights thought a free press was important enough to put it in the First Amendment to the Constitution, right there with freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly, and freedom to seek redress for wrongs done by the government. But the current White House doesn't want a free press, it wants a puppet press, one that mouths what is fed to it by that same administration that it covers. Yes, three reporters from CNN were canned but not because they wrote falsehoods. They were canned because they didn't follow the appropriate protocol set up by CNN.

So what do you get when you muzzle the press? You get authoritarian control of information which means you get lies. Of course the current administration is good with lies, loves lies, loves the lying outlets that print the lies like Breitbart. Sean Spicer's very first press conference he lied repeatedly. The administration that cheers the firing of CNN reporters does nothing when its spokespeople lie. That's what the head guy likes to listen to--the lies that his folks tell people. When no one else is allowed to ask questions, gets real answers, disseminates those real answers then we are all up that creek we know about. At that point there is no freedom of the press and you can kiss your sweet patootie goodbye. There aren't alternative facts; there are simply lies.

Sometimes I Am Right, Frequently Not

Goodness knows that I make mistakes every single day. Humans are genetically wired to follow patterns, to be stubborn, to simply make mistakes. Scientific tests have shown that even dogs are better than humans at changing behavior. But occasionally the variety of the experiences both I and my husband have had do add to our understanding of some aspects of life.

The case in point is the young lady who just received her diploma from Harvard. Even before she matriculated my husband and I told her that it would be wise and beneficial if she took advantage of the wide variety of courses available. We advised her to look beyond her concentration to access other ideas. Well, naturally she paid no attention to us, at least not until her very last semester when she took a course on James Joyce. We took her out to lunch last weekend and she just bubbled over talking about that course and finished by saying, "It was the single best course I took at Harvard." The worst part about her dilatory decision is that taking "the best course" last is that it might have made the rest of the work more bearable if she had taken it earlier and followed up with other similar courses. Who knows what might have happened if she had looked outside that little tunnel that she dug for herself?

Not Yet

Luckily a few Senate Republicans held tough with their objections to the AHCA. Obviously many of those people are not folks whose opinion is in line with my own but at this moment "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Mike Lee wants to get the federal government entirely out of health care--no Medicare, no Medicaid, no federally funded research at NIH, nothing. None of us have any clue what that would look like but Lee is convinced that capitalism will solve all the woes. He and many others believe that able bodied people should just pick themselves up by the boot straps and stop looking for help anywhere. That's fine if there is education, if there are jobs, if families are healthy, if communities work together to make sure that all of those items above are good. But Short Sale Lee thinks that if you aren't healthy, wealthy, and wise then you are a wastrel.

There are some Senate Republicans who have separate objections about the proposed AHCA but so far I haven't read about one who complains about the obscene amount of money the bill gives to the very richest among us while throwing the poorest and weakest under the bus. That probably means that most Americans agree with good old Short Sale--if you are poor it's your fault. Please don't misunderstand. There are some people who are victims in their own minds and no where else. People who look for all the angles to keep from working hard at life. But some of those folks are rich people. There are character flaws in all levels of society, they aren't limited to poor people or brown people or black people. Short Sale Lee is emblematic of a white guy with multiple character flaws. Slime of the earth if you ask me.

Lift Your Spirits

It's going to be 100F today. It's so hot that even my squash plants are complaining. Of course there are fires all over Utah as well so the air quality is almost as bad as in the winter when we rival Beijing on some days. Just another good reason to move out of Utah.

Anyway, if there is anyone out there who hasn't seen the video of the gorilla dancing in the wading pool, here is the URL: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/24/us/dallas-zoo-dancing-gorilla-trnd/index.html

Enjoy and share.

Never Disappoints

One thing anyone can count on is that the Trump administration will have a bad idea. Doesn't matter what the topic is, the discussion at the White House or among those who advise the president will be the wrong one. Now advisers are telling Trump that he should take steps to overthrow the regime in Iran. Trump, of course, wasn't thinking hard about the ramifications of that advice. He was tweeting about Hillary Clinton, again.

That is after he went to Steve Mnuchin's wedding. Now this is Mnuchin's third time to swear to live in fidelity. At that point it's more like speed dating than marriage.

Laugh or Cry?

Donald Trump admitted today that he had deliberately misled people about possibly having tapes of conversations with former FBI director Comey. He implied that he had done so in an attempt to get Comey to change his story about conversations with Trump. Of course the only man who changed the story was Trump but we have to keep in mind that he lied about how many stories Trump Tower has when it was built. Anyone who will lie about something so obvious clearly has no moral compass.

Trump himself has had nothing to do with the AHCA that was released for viewing yesterday. He can't even be bothered with reading intelligence reports so why would anyone expect him to pay attention to providing direction or support to a change in health care that affects all Americans and 1/6 of the economy? Of course as it turns out the 13 white men (senators) who were supposedly writing the bill, weren't. Even one of my state's senators, the very conservative and weasely Mike Lee who was supposed to be one of the 13 men writing the bill said the day before the bill was released for viewing that he had never seen it and had no idea what was in it. When you have to rely on a lying sack of manure like short sale Mike Lee to tell the truth you really are in trouble. Of course Lee might have been lying since he knew he wouldn't support it as written anyway.

Giving tax breaks to millionaires so that you can throw needy children and old folks off Medicaid is emblematic of the modern Republican party. I was a Young Republican back in the day and a registered Republican for a significant portion of my voting life. Of course living in Utah can change that quickly. Here it isn't so much that most of the dominant religion votes Republican--people's religious views can irk me but I can't ever condemn someone for those views--but most of the elected Republican officials, nearly 80% statewide, all seem to be crooked real estate developers out to make a buck out of deals that defraud or injure the rest of us. I have lived in more than 20 states in my life and I don't remember any that is more crooked than Utah. So much for those religious views, right?

I have finished two blocks for the Baltimore Album project. Perhaps pictures tomorrow since my husband has been gone to Colorado for a consulting job all week. The two I finished are different from the BOM patterns as I am not crazy about either the blocks as a group or the arrangement  set out by the BOM.    

Read It; Discuss It

The AHCA bill is supposed to be released for perusal today. It's funny that even though one of my state's senators is one of the named 13 men writing the bill he has never seen it. What that means is that the "devil is in the details". Maternity care, pre-existing conditions, pharmaceutical coverage, tax penalties and tax subsidies, and many more substantive ideas are all items to examine carefully. Despite what so many Republican congress people say, it isn't "bad people making bad decisions" who end up with health issues. And even if that were true, denying health care to anyone is problematic.

Unfortunately McConnell wants the bill to be voted on before the close of business a week from today. He also wants it to pass regardless of what's in it and what objections are made. Americans are in for a whirlwind week. I hope everyone is paying attention.

Apology

I participated in the type of confrontation that I find not just distasteful but unproductive. A reader who has commented previously brought up on my Hidden Evils that the ACA had been accused of secrecy and that people had been harmed financially. I responded in the particular fashion that I find distasteful, well your side did it too.

What matters is not what happened in the past, but what happens moving forward for all of us. If you were harmed by the ACA, you should hope that the current 13 man group considers that harm along with considering the myriad ramifications of insurance.

My husband's first job after graduation from the Wharton MBA program was with an insurance company. Compared to most consumers, I know more than I want to know about actuarial tables and risk pools, but unless the lawmakers inform those consumers about what drives prices in insurance bills, there will still be confusion and anger. Your lawmakers are depending on you to be ignorant. Remember that ignorant doesn't mean stupid, it simply means uninformed.They don't have the same insurance as you so they feel safe.

So I apologize for the kindergarten behavior but I ask every voter to pay attention--please pay attention to the details that affect your life and the life of your neighbor. We really are in this together.

Hidden Evils

The Senate is rushing to finish their version of our healthcare bill. The Republican majority has 13 men, no women, writing the bill in secret with no open debate, no participation from even many of their own members let alone across the aisle. They plan to vote on it without discussion or amendments as well. If you don't like the results, the only recourse will be to vote against them at their next election but by then you may be dead, your child may be dead, your daughter may be pregnant because they don't plan to cover contraception at all, and if she or any other female member of your family does get pregnant, they only plan to offer extremely limited maternity care because pregnancy and childbirth is too expensive. Those few items are already out in the open because those are the ones the 13 men, no women, all agreed to. While the details may change, this group is very opposed to contraception and maternity care so the changes will be minimal. But you won't know what they are until the bill is voted on and sent out to the White House.

Now the White House is barring all manner of access by the press--no recordings, no videos, no televised press conference. When a press briefing does occur, most of the questions are not answered. CNN reports that "deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders marginalizes the briefing, routinely responding to reporters' questions by professing ignorance." Finally someone in the White House tells the truth.

So good luck even having a doctor let alone keeping one that you like, especially if you are female.

Hot, Hot Father's Day

One son took us out for dim sum because he has to work tonight; the other son is coming to dinner and his wife is going to her parents. When I heard that she was going to do that I felt very guilty since she always comes here and then takes home the leftover Kentucky Butter Cake to share with her father. Since her mother is a very bad cook, I made a cake this morning and sent it to my son via my husband so that they would have dessert after all. That made it a very active baking day as I made Danish for my husband for breakfast (I had some dough frozen from a previous baking day), made the cake, and then made a pecan pie. I guess it's like that old theory of eating celery or lettuce--you burn more calories eating them than you get from them. Of course it's hogwash, but I feel like I have been stirring butter and sugar for days rather than hours.

It is very hot here. Tomorrow is supposed to be 100F but today at 94 is plenty hot enough. And yes, it is a dry heat here in Utah but that is still hot. Luckily I am not actually quilting anything right now, just working on applique. We also have a basement that stays relatively cool and my woman cave that my husband fixed up for me has a cushy chair to applique in and I have a choice of the Sonos music system or television. 

Don't Be Distracted

Paying attention to details is always helpful for quilters. It should be helpful to all but too many people let their egos get in the way. Rather than act responsibly, pay attention to details, Trump has begun to attack Clinton again. The question any reasonable person would ask is, "Why?" She isn't running for anything. He does have far more important activities to undertake. Obviously Trump thinks that tweeting nonsense at 3 am serves his agenda, but what does it do for you? Even in the unlikely event that Trump gets impeached, Hillary Clinton doesn't become president.

Do your job, Trump. Stop acting like a three year old.

Keep in mind that the Senate is rewriting the ACA. The Senate Republican majority is writing new rules for your health care behind closed doors.  That only means that they don't want voters to know what changes they are making to your access to doctors, to testing, to health care. If you think that Republican lawmakers have your best interests at heart, you don't need to worry. If you think that people need access to health care regardless of their health status, you should contact your senators now.

Keep in mind that the current administration has already cut funding for CHIPS, the children's health funding. Sure, Trump  has proposed funding for child care for working women. The way it is written it only works for women who can pay for their childcare, but now they get a tax deduction. You have to make enough money to claim deductions to qualify for the funding. You have to itemize your deductions to qualify. Ivanka gets a deduction for her childcare, but you get a pat on the head.

Impasse

I took one of the obi down to my dry cleaner. Because everything is so computerized now, there was no clear choice for "14 foot long silk obi" so she had to treat it as if it were a table linen. That means that cleaning just one of these, with no guarantee that the smell would dissipate, costs $78. She suggested that I try storing them for a while with fabric softener sheets between each obi or kimono or roll of yukata fabric. So that's where I am headed now.

Loathsome Act

While all manner of people can feel helpless in this country, there is no excuse for the violence visited on the Republican congressional softball team. Each of us has a responsibility to be good citizens and good to each other. Stand up for what you believe in while respecting the humanity of all.

Lots Of Pictures

As I have written previously, boxes of old  goods have been arriving unannounced on our porch. There are many different articles in them from old books to old kimono. The latest two boxes came a couple of days ago with a wide and wild variety of stuff including more obi, a samurai armor doll and chest, my father-in-law's Bronze Star along with the commendation, and family photographs galore ranging from long before my husband's birth to about thirty years ago. We even got a copy of my mother-in-law's most famous movie but it is in a format that we cannot access since it is film to VCA 3/4 transfer, whatever that means.

I also finished another block yesterday. I have made this block before on Denna's quilt (see 8/23/13) but I changed the vase and the colors so it looks somewhat different. Below are photos of the new block, some of the obi (the more ornate ends), and the Noh masks that I had to repair on top of a separate obi.

If anyone knows what to do with obi, other than the obvious, let me know. And if anyone knows how to get rid of the funky musty smell, please let me know as well.

Loyalty Oaths

In a bizarre event, Trump held a Cabinet meeting today at which he went around the large table introducing each cabinet level person and having each make a statement of "loyalty". I am describing them thus because they were so odd (Reince Priebus whose job is on the line said, “we thank you for the opportunity and blessing you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people.”) and so pointed that there is not any other language that fits. Some of the statements were bizarre, some make the listener cringe, all bring up whether or not Trump has even read King Lear. We already know, given Donald Jr.'s response to the production of Julius Caesar in Central Park, that the Trump family in toto does not get what happens in that play.

As an aside, I underline the titles because of the MLA rules even though when I was a student, plays, regardless of their length or import, were in quotation marks.  I bow to modernity.

How Dumb Are You?

I usually watch the more left leaning "Meet The Press" and the more right leaning "Fox News Sunday because I think it is important to pay attention to both sides. Today I only caught the FNS but that was entertaining. Clearly Republican partisans are depending on their supporters to be just uneducated. The RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, repeated many times that Comey had violated the rules of presidential privilege, despite the absolute truth of there being no presidential privilege involved in what happened in the Green Room. Even the president's team didn't declare privilege until Comey testified that he had sent his personal memorandum to his friend.

Guess what? Just repeating over and over again doesn't establish privilege which has rules and restrictions. Even Trump's lawyers told him before the testimony that privilege would not adhere because he had already destroyed that privilege. Of course Trump's supporters don't understand the rules of law, the rules of privilege, or pretty much anything except that they like Trump. The current data about his supporters is that 77% of them think he speaks the truth.

Oh my poor country.

Drama Ensues

As anyone might expect, there are multiple developments following Comey's testimony yesterday. Now I am not going to say that I am Comey's biggest fan, but anyone who thinks he would lie under oath is delusional. Trump now says in public that he is willing to testify under oath about his interactions with Comey. Clearly that has no value at all. Everyone, including his supporters, knows that he is willing to lie at the blink of an eye. Despite Sarah Huckabee Sanders' assertion that Trump is not a liar, a completely unbiased list of statements, just the statements from Trump, will prove that to be another declaration by a woman who is so out of her depth that she doesn't even know it.

I have been working on the first block that isn't from the original design. I like it very much.Now I am counting the blocks finished, the ones I don't particularly like, and what I can do to change the design to fit my taste. I am thinking about a block that includes some of my pets but I have to draw that out.

Comey Hearing

While I found the Comey hearing fascinating, the part that baffled me was John McCain's questions. Comey tried gamely to keep up with the words falling out of McCain's mouth but to no avail. He ended up just as confused as the rest of us and clearly as confused as McCain himself was.

Looks Like An Interesting Day

Former FBI director Comey released a written prelude to his interrogation tomorrow in which he details his nine White House visits with Trump in the time between January 20th and March. The document makes fascinating reading laying out what might be a good case for obstruction of justice. I write "might be" because any litigation or even impeachment proceedings depend on members of Congress following up on those. But already there are conservative followers who are echoing Trump's words that Comey is a grandstander and only looking for attention.

Trump's son Eric said that Democrats aren't even human. Of course this is the guy who has been rewarding his father's bank account with money donated to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Stealing money from children with cancer is such a human activity. Trump's son Donald Jr. said that the mayor of London was abetting terrorists by not acting with alarm after the latest murders.

All of this is even before the Mueller investigation gets rolling. Back in January I wrote that the best we could hope for is chaos. Well, we've got chaos.

Gorilla Glue

When one lives in an old house or owns old stuff, finding products that work is worth sharing. For several years I have been using Gorilla Glue to repair a variety of goods. This past week, in addition to making two yukata and working on my quilt blocks, I have been repairing some old Noh masks that arrived in yet another box. When I first met my soon-to-be husband, his family still lived in DC where his father edited a magazine for the state department. They had an interesting fireplace with openings on both sides, one into the living room and the other into the dining room. Over the dining room hung several Noh masks.

When my mother-in-law moved to Hawaii to live with my husband's older brother and his wife, she took all the house contents including the masks as I have described in other posts. I don't know if she ever hung the masks in Hawaii. I do know that they didn't like the humidity because when they arrived here, several were in pretty rough shape. Some of the masks are carved wood, but several are some kind of plaster covered with lacquer. These in particular suffered, growing mold on the unfinished insides and crumbling. So slowly, slowly, I glued the fragile pieces together. None could be glued all in one day as there were too many breaks and no good way to brace them while they set. I finally finished the last one on Friday and then devised a way to replace a missing staple that held the jaw strap on. The Gorilla Glue works on the plaster, on the wood, attached a metal circle to the back of a plaster piece--you get the idea.

Now we have to decide how to display these. We are thinking of covering a rectangle of foam core with one of the obi and then hanging the masks from that over the wide door opening between our living room and dining room, so an echo of the old display from my in-law's previous house.

 

London, Poor London

Cowards killed people in London yesterday, people of many nations and many beliefs. London has faced cowards before. Stay strong. Don't overreact and don't listen to morons.

Labour politician David Lammy said Trump's tweet was "cheap, nasty and unbecoming of a national leader." Well said.

Estate Sales

I used to go to estate sales every week with a friend of mine who loved looking for treasures. He had a stroke some years ago and can neither walk nor speak now so I haven't gone for several years. Yesterday my son and his girlfriend took me to one in a large Victorian house near us. Of course neither of them knew that going on Saturday is perhaps the worst day since most of the real treasures are taken on Friday and the goods aren't reduced for quick sale as they tend to be on Sundays. Nevertheless each of us found some stuff to purchase. My son found a copy of the Monkey Wrench Gang and a miniature oak keg, still in its original package, in which he plans to age some of his home made vinegar. His girlfriend found a Native American woven bowl. I found some quilt books, a book on italic calligraphy, and a stack of hand sewn quilt squares of different designs. The woman, whose house it was, sewed beautifully so these squares are nicely done. They aren't in colors I ordinarily favor, tending toward the burgundy, navy, brown spectrum and there aren't too many that are "matches" but I am guessing that I will be able to put something together as a gift for someone. Not that I needed new quilt books or more quilts to work on, of course.

Blocks Five And Six

I finished blocks five and six yesterday. After this I will be adding some blocks of my own devising rather than of the artist's because there were a few that I am not crazy about.

So I am making progress on all fronts.

Where O' Where

My husband and I are trying to decide where to go for our European vacation this year. While we love Italy, Spain, and France we have been to each country multiple times so we are looking further afield. Portugal is a strong contender but Scotland has recently entered the mix because dear husband wants to check out living there. I definitely plan to leave Utah but I am not sold on leaving the US if only because it would be a bigger hassle. We do have two dogs and three cats and a house full of furniture and art and box after box of fabric.

Seriously Delicious

A few months ago I purchased the Del Posto cookbook. Most of the cookbook is beyond the scale of the home cook, especially the home cook in the hinterlands of Utah. But there is one recipe that my husband and I have made and enjoyed four times now. We have changed the recipe and presentation a little bit because we don't make the carrot tangerine puree that the recipe calls for and we use purchased orrechiette rather than making our own, but other than that we follow the recipe. It is incredibly delicious.

Red Lamb Sausage

1 pound of ground lamb
3 tablespoons of roasted red pepper (readily available in jars) chopped fine
1 tablespoon of red wine
1 garlic clove crushed or minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (I use the wonderful Turkish smoked paprika called urfa biber that is available online, otherwise use Spanish smoked paprika)
Fresh ground pepper

1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
14 tablespoons butter cut into tablespoons
1 tablespoon good quality olive oil

Mix all of the ingredients above and let sit at least an hour but up to 24 hours. 45 minutes before you want to serve dinner, pat the ground meat into a 5 inch patty and place in a dry 12 inch skillet. Over medium heat, cook the lamb patty without touching it or turning it for 35 minutes. You will want to have your extracting fan going for this and you will be wiping up lamb fat. At the same time, when there are about 20 minutes left on the lamb sausage, start your orrechiette (if you use the dry commercial variety the cooking time varies from 15 to 18 minutes based on where you live). At the 35 minute mark, take the lamb patty out of the pan and discard the fat. At the same time, when the orrechiette are cooked, drain them and place in a large serving bowl.

Going back to the lamb,  drain the fat, then place the patty back in the 12 inch pan and begin to break it up with your spoon. Then add your chicken broth and stir. Add the 14 tablespoons of butter one at a time slowly over low heat--if you add it to quickly or over high heat the sauce will break. When you get all the butter in dump in the parmesan cheese and stir until the cheese melts and the sauce is creamy. Toss with the orrechiette and serve.

The original recipe makes a puree with carrots, tangerines, and tangerine oil but after a bad experienc with carrot soup with orange, no one in my family wants to go near anything even close to that.

Yes, there are 14 tablespoons of butter in addition to the lamb fat and the cheese. You will thank me when you make this if you like delicious food.

And Trump is still a moron who shouldn't be allowed to shave himself let alone send out tweets or make serious decisions that affect all of us.    

Look At The Birdy

Don't be distracted by "covfefe" fever. While people are laughing, Trump is pillaging. Who cares about climate accords, who cares about Nato, who cares about social welfare protections for children? Just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain of bouffant gold hair.