Saturday, September 30, 2017

Addendum to "Are You Angry Yet?"

I know that many of those who read my words agree with me. I know that in many circumstances I am preaching to the choir, but my question still stands; I want to know what it takes for you who still support Trump to change your minds.

It isn't only my opinion that Trump has appointed people who have lied, stolen, trashed American values, it is their own admissions including apologies and paying back money to taxpayers (Mnuchin and Price). The Republican government is in disarray, unable to write and pass substantive legislation and unclear about whether they should stick with Trump.

So why are those on the other side, who are Americans too, not pissed off? I know there is still a strong vein of racism in this country, I live with that every day and this is in Utah not Alabama. But tell me please, what has Trump done for you that makes you happy he is the head of state. And I don't mean that otherwise it would be Clinton because I didn't like her either. What does Trump do for you that makes you cheer?

Essays

I just finished scoring three classes worth of essays--one class on Crime and Punishment and two classes on a lovely poem called "A Story." Two out of three of the groups performed reasonably and in a strange turn of events they were the first two I scored. So I was feeling pretty good about the students and started on the third and last set of essays.

There seems to be some unwritten rule that the worse a student writes, the longer the paper is. Turgid and stiff presentation over four pages of very small handwriting makes me want to weep. Not only is the grammar, syntax, and diction poor but the understanding of the poem is shallow if it exists at all. One kid starts his paper by declaiming that the only job a father has is to teach respectful demeanor to his sons. After that, what else is there to write? Apparently four pages of junk because that is what I read. At least I have the lovely ones to think about but some of these just left me shaking my head. On several I asked them what they would do if I forced them to cut these down to two pages, which is what they are supposed to be--what can be omitted? Sometimes I think they will be fine if they just cross out every third word.

Friday, September 29, 2017

Sold A Bill Of Goods

Most English speakers understand what being sold a bill of goods means but just in case, it describes what happened to you when you were given promises but none of the promises were kept. In other words it's an idiom for a fraudulent transaction in which one party swindles the other party.

Well, Trump made promises and so far he isn't doing very well at keeping them. Even before the election, he promised to provide his tax returns but so far only a partial one (and that arrived at the New York Times under dubious circumstances) is part of public knowledge. Now that his new tax proposal is described as a package of lies by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, pigs would have to fly before anyone other than his lawyers and his accountants see those returns. Trump promised to drain the swamp but at this point the various people around him, most chosen personally by Trump, have proven themselves to be the very essence of swamp monsters. Today, Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services, resigned. I don't know if he wrote his check yet, but the revealed cost of all his gallivanting has grown to $1M and I expect it will rise further after more investigation. Now as a licensed orthopedic surgeon he probably has that $1M but there is no chance in the world that he will repay the entire amount even though from what has been reported, most of his little excursions amounted to little more than boondoggles (another odd word that means: "work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value"), like the one where his friend arranged for him to speak to some other doctors so he could see his son at Vanderbilt. He offered to write a check for $50K but that is clearly inadequate. Jared Kushner, among other close WH advisors has been using private emails to conduct government business but Trump is silent on the flaws of this arrangement though we know he is aware of them because Trump made much of Mrs. Clinton's arrangement.

It would be charitable to think that these lapses in judgment, integrity, honor, etc. are simply because the man is new at the job, but we were also promised that he was the world's best dealmaker. It would also be charitable to think that Trump is just a cheese headed fopdoodle, as someone described Boris Johnson, but we were promised he was very smart, so smart. This would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

Are You Angry Yet?

HHS Secretary Tom Price promises to pay back one-tenth of the taxpayer money used to shuttle him and his cohort around the world on either private jets or military aircraft and apparently thinks that's enough.

Accountants estimate Trump will accrue a $1B benefit from the tax proposal he put forth this week.

Betsy DeVos abolishes the guidelines espoused by the Obama administration about campus rape because she believes that girls are liars, sluts, and complicit in their own rapes.

Roy Moore wins the Republican primary in Alabama by blaming godlessness for everything from homosexuality to the massacre at Sand Hook elementary school. Most Republicans in government swear they don't know who he is.

Trump dog whistles that NFL owners are afraid of their players.

That's only a partial list of the outrages the current administration committed this week. You can add your own if you want.

Like Peter Finch's character in "Network" I am mad as hell but I am also helpless to make any changes. I live in Utah, a one party theocracy.

I am glad that my husband and son are not climbing in Yosemite this week. The part of El Capitan that fell is the part that contains the routes they have climbed in the past, so I guess I have blessings galore to treasure.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

No Big Deal

The biopsy of my latest suspicious spot turned out to be a squamous cell cancer. No big deal but I have to go back to the dermatologist to have some more skin removed. For me that makes three squamous and three basal cell. I not only go to the dermatologist once a year for my body mapping, but I know all the necessary signs and symptoms to go in between times if I think something is suspicious. I joke that I am the gift that keeps on giving for a dermatologist.

No Idle Hands

I have just finished block 15 of 16 in toto. Of course that still leaves three of the borders. The original design called for eight border pieces to be attached, in theory because the act of applying distorts the fabric so it is a safeguard against the designs not fitting together. But I don't work that way and my applique tends to be undistorted (perhaps my stitches aren't pulled as tight?). I did make the first border that way so I am wedded to adding blocks to the two lower corners, but I found the instructions and the process quite confusing and frustrating even though I am very experienced at elaborate applique.When I finish all 16 I will finish adding the dogtooth sashing and then move to my own method for making and applying the borders.


Disruptive

Poor Puerto Rico. Not only has the island been hit by two hurricanes in a month, now they will be hit by the arrival of Donald Trump. A presidential visit is completely disruptive, using people and resources that are better if targeted to those in need. Various presidents have come to Salt Lake City during my nearly three decades here and the havoc it wreaks is seen for days in advance and days afterward. Seems like the last thing Puerto Rico needs. If Trump's hot air could be harnessed....

The last thing Trump needs is a tax cut. Although we have only seen one partial tax return, we know from that little bit that in that one year he would have saved at least $26M in taxes if his proposal had been in place. Of course he is lying like the champion liar he is by saying he won't be helped. There are so many give-aways in the proposal it's like one of those old gift balls that you unwrap to reveal little treasures. The various ideas will be hashed out prior to voting but this is another very bad idea that needs careful observation.

The whole David Stockman idea of the rising tide lifting all boats is silly anyway. The tide lifts from below, not trickling down from above. Analysis of previous tax cuts for the wealthy reveal that the results are mixed at best and toxic at worst. Tyler Fisher has graphs and charts today that show the impact.

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/gop-tax-rate-cut-wealthy/ 

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Victory Of Sorts

Mitch McConnell admitted defeat and pulled the latest Republican health care bill from a vote. That isn't necessarily a reason to celebrate because the Republican majority in government is still determined to see that you can't afford your health care and you can't access insurance coverage.

As much as single payer appeals to people, too much of the US economy is tied to health care. Most of our health care dollars go to insurance executives and drug company executives (not the scientists who do the work), rather than the providers of care. Republicans like to exclaim that it's because people sue doctors but that's so stupid it isn't even worth a response. We have nearly 20% of our economy tied up in making some people a whole bunch of money, but we are at the 37th worst results for health care in the world despite spending more per capita. How the hell can that be a good thing?


Monday, September 25, 2017

Blast From The Past

Steve Mnuchin, treasury secretary, was on a couple of talk shows yesterday where twice he said that football players should do whatever their team owners wanted; that if they wanted to protest they could do it on their own time. What a swell idea. Then it would be just like the old days, before the Civil War, "Yes, massa." Of course the NFL is tightly unionized so it would be difficult if not impossible for Mnuchin's suggestion to become reality. Players can be fired for embarrassing the league (rarely observed in real time), but the commissioner of the league had already tacitly approved the protests before any of Sunday's games.

Sure, there are plenty of jobs where the boss, or owner can "own" your time and fire you at will, but I don't think sports teams qualify. I would be willing to bet that Robert Kraft can't catch or throw a football. I am pretty sure that Shahid Khan can't punt or center a football. Hard to maintain a good squad if the owner acts like an owner of men rather than the owner of a franchise. Mnuchin, who asked for a government airplane for his honeymoon and did take a government flight to see the eclipse for which he was correctly shamed and accused, also said that Trump's comments were in no way racist. That's also very hard to defend as nearly 80% of the players in the NFL are black so any complaints about their behavior when they are protesting the treatment of their fellow blacks is on the very face of it racist. Besides that, Trump called them "sons of bitches" so he insulted their mothers as well. Many of the men and their mothers called Trump out on that one. Trump wraps himself in the flag while simultaneously disrespecting hundreds of mothers--following through on his previous statements about women.

Nascar owners vowed they would follow Trump and Mnuchin's guidance but Dale Earnhardt, Jr. has more integrity and a better grasp of freedom of speech, tweeting,

"All Americans R granted rights 2 peaceful protests
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable-JFK"


On a different note, I wrote previously about my Maine coon cat being very smart but not yet dangerous as he could not open doors. Last night he learned how to open doors. Not only did he learn how to open doors, but when I tried to prevent him opening the door that allowed him to freely roam by putting a 5 pound weight in front of it, he just moved the weight out of the way and then opened the door. Luckily this is still just an interior door that we close at night to try to keep the cats contained in one area of the house while we sleep. The other bit of luck is that the door locks with a key so we will be doing that very task tonight.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

When?

When is Trump going to start working for a living instead of campaigning for applause? Instead of complaining about hard working Americans using freedom of speech and freedom of expression to make a statement about conditions in their community and in the broader world, Trump needs to go back to Washington and really work. All he does is rant about men who all worked hard to earn their jobs and continue to work hard to earn their salaries. I know exactly which SOB I want to fire.

To mimic the little putz, "Lost by more than 3M votes. Terrible ratings, sad."

Friday, September 22, 2017

Pre-Existing Conditions

In an earlier post I wrote that I have asthma. That was a late addition to my life, only affecting me and diagnosed after I was 45 years old. The proximate cause of my asthma, according to my primary care doctor at the time, was that I had started competitive swimming again, in a county run pool that over-chlorinates (yes, it still does) to avoid lawsuits about bacterial infections. After only a few months at the pool, I went to the doctor because I was having breathing problems. The pool still over-chlorinates and youth swim teams, both age group and high school work out there. You figure out the damage.

My asthma was a factor before I qualified for Medicare by living to 65 , but my pre-existing condition was not from a bad choice on my part. At least not a bad choice by most people's judgment. The other factor in my medical health that stems from my swimming is that I have had several skin cancers that have been removed and have ongoing keratoses. Just yesterday I had one spot frozen and another biopsied and I am waiting for the results. I am comparatively lucky as I have a sister who had a melanoma removed when she was quite young, but once again my pre-existing condition is not from a bad lifestyle.

Pre-existing conditions can be a congenital problem as in Jimmy Kimmel's son or they can be from good choices or bad choices. Preventing anyone from getting medical care is a moral flaw regardless of the cause.

Glimmer of Hope

“I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried,” McCain said. “Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will affect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it.”

While this is not over yet since we haven't reached 10/1 yet, there is at least some hope that this very bad and dangerous bill will not make its way out of the Senate. Sure, there are problems with the ACA. Some of those problems were deliberately caused and continued by Republicans who didn't want Obama to have anything that looked like a victory. But millions of people got access to health care that they had not had prior to the ACA. Millions of people were helped. Yes, in many cases the young and healthy had to pay far more than they expected or wanted for the coverage but that's how insurance works, not just how the ACA works.

John McCain is right that finding out what will happen if the bill passes, but the problem with this bill is that there will be 51 different answers and 51 different solutions. That extra 1 is for Puerto Rico which as a dependent country has access to the benefits or faults of the bill. Since each state will have a different process and different benefits, the analysis will be incomplete and premature before September 30.

John McCain is also correct that working together, really working together, can only improve the outcome. Rather than having one side of the aisle taking pot shots (figuratively) at the other side simply because it is the other side makes any discussion, any government, difficult.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Sham and Shame

Bill Cassidy is a gastroenterologist by training and a freshman senator from Louisiana who, along with Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum (yes, that Rick Santorum), wrote the new Republican health care bill. As many of you know, Jimmy Kimmel has been pointing out Cassidy's shimmering stances on his own health care bill, the stances that shift depending on which way the light hits him. After initially promising that he wouldn't deny anyone in the US insurance and that he would absolutely guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions, like Kimmel's infant son, like me, like my adult son with asthma, like many if not most people, would have access to affordable health care.

The problem with that promise and the problem with the bill is the language of the bill also shape shifts. Yes, the bill does prohibit states from denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions but it does nothing, not one thing, to control the costs of that coverage. In fact, as written right now (and remember that they want to rush this monstrosity through by September 30), the bill incentivizes states to allow higher premiums and higher charges at hospitals and doctors' offices in order to reduce the cost of insurance and care for younger and healthier consumers. It still finds that simply being a woman is a pre-existing condition because women can get pregnant, a very expensive medical condition these days.

And if you think that because Cassidy is a physician that he cares about the poor or the sick, just remember how Louisiana treated the poor and the sick after Katrina. Or for that matter before Katrina.

If you find any of these facts reprehensible, you can contact your senators by email if you go to their websites, or you can reach the Senate switchboard at  (202) 224-3121 and ask to be directed to your state's senators' offices. It generally does not do good for someone from another state to contact any senators, so I cannot contact Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins or Jeff Flake (or even Bill Cassidy). But if you live in Alaska or Maine or Arizona or any state where your senators are still not committed to this debacle, you can put in your two cents. My state's senators are a hopeless cause--Orrin Hatch is a senile sneak and Mike Lee is just a sneak (or snake if you prefer that spelling).   

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Greed and Stupidity

I have asthma which means I have to use medication daily. My primary care doctor decades ago prescribed Advair, a GlaxoSmithKline product. The chemical formula for Advair aged out of its patent protection several years ago but knowing that this was going to happen and not wishing to lose a cash cow, GSK changed the delivery system a few years back, a delivery system that lost its patent protection last year. Several European nations approved generic versions of Advair, an action that lowered the price in those countries.

So when will a generic version be available in the US? The latest version didn't pass FDA muster for reasons that I couldn't find online, but I can't say that I was disappointed since Mylan was the company applying. Remember that Mylan is the company that makes the generic Epipen that they charged thousands of dollars for once they got the rights. That seems to point to Mylan trying the same tactic with Advair so becoming generic doesn't mean it becomes cheaper. Martin Shkreli is not the only greedy slimeball in the racket.

The entire system is so crooked that everyone gets used to looking behind the curtain for Oz, the Great and Powerful.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Trump Still Doesn't Care

The newest push to do something, anything, about the United States' health care problem is being worked on in the Senate. Although the CBO has not scored the rererewrite, reliable sources report that the proposals being looked at push more people out of access on multiple levels. Since so many conservative politicians believe that those who need health care but cannot pay for insurance are blood-sucking wastrels, any money for Medicaid is on the chopping block. Some of this would happen upon passage of the bill, but the larger portion of the money would be eliminated in approximately ten years. Because of the way Medicaid rules are written, a huge percentage of those dollars are spent on the elderly, to keep them in long term care, or on the very young, to provide them with any care at all.

Many other vulnerable populations are at risk as well. Those with pre-existing conditions will have access to insurance but will not be protected from prohibitively expensive bills for that insurance. Having read the commentary from my own state's politicians, I know that they believe that if anyone has a pre-existing condition, it is because they deserve it due to some combination of God's wrath and poor choices. Of course the fact that this is specious reasoning eludes them entirely.

Then, in the traditional knee jerk blow we expect from the right wing, funding for Planned Parenthood would be completely eliminated. This despite several lawsuits that found that removing access to medical care from poor populations is illegal. Planned Parenthood is often the only provider for poor women in many places in the United States and is by no means only an abortion provider, but then the right wing apparently believes women should be punished for having sex at all.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Tasteless and Clueless

Donald Trump retweeted a video showing him hitting Hillary Clinton in the back with a golf ball and causing her to fall. Of course it's a mishmash of real time videos and gifs, but what Trump found humorous about the video highlights Trump's attitude toward women. Any man who finds videos that show anyone being harmed is a monster. What say you, Trumpettes? Is this acceptable from a President of the United States?

I don't like Hillary Clinton. I voted for her because the alternative was Trump. Men who find violence against anyone, let alone men who find violence against women amusing, are beyond despicable. I don't care what your politics are, this retweet is far beyond the pale for anyone, let alone POTUS.

Please tell POTUS what you think: 202-456-llll.  

Friday, September 15, 2017

Throwing Spaghetti At The Wall

After a calm in the tweet storm, Trump has thrown strands of spaghetti at the wall over the last couple of days. After some of the press, and the politicians involved, announced that an accommodation over DACA was in the works, the conservative political commentators went wild with Ann Coulter even saying that she supports impeachment now. So Trump pouted and lied even though he later took back his lie about his lie. I know, it gets confusing. Last week he called Harvey and Irma the biggest storms ever in language that called into question his sanity since he seemed to think that the storms were some sort of homage to him. Then, because many in his base thought that meant that he was accepting the fact of global warming, he took it all back and said storms in the '30's and '40's and even the teens were much bigger.

Today, a IED on the London tube brought out Trump's inner xenophobe. Now he tweets that his travel ban should be bigger and more onerous. I don't know if that means no Brits can come to the US but I am guessing the mayor of London won't be welcome.

At some point it would seem that reasonable people of all political persuasions would want to get rid of him, but the right and far right are sticking with the horse they rode in on.  Nice job, Trumpettes.

Hillary Clinton still can't just shut up. It's bad enough that the press are putting out excerpts of her execrable book, but she is on TV shows as well, demonstrating anew why she is so hard to sympathize with. Did anyone ever like a sore loser?

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Gift Quilt

As I wrote previously, my husband and I will be visiting some friends of his and rather than bring a bottle of wine, I thought I would bring a small quilt. This is 40 inches by 40 inches with only one block, The Glorious Harp, in the center. The block is intended to be set on the diagonal with other blocks but for a one block quilt, I just centered it in the middle of a 40 inch square of off white fabric.



It ends up looking a great deal like a family crest and makes a simple yet elegant quilt that I finished in two weeks.

School Begins

This is the week when the teachers at the school for which I am a reader start bringing their student essays. A set of essays arrived yesterday and I spoke to two classes over the last two days. Today's class was slightly more engaged but most of these students (juniors) have experienced my presentation and my grading in the past so there weren't any enormous surprises.

I looked at a few of the essays and took one of them in as an example of what not to do when writing these essays. I read the thesis paragraph and asked the class, "What is this student's thesis?" They recognized immediately that he did not have one. I read the second paragraph and one young woman said, "That reads as if he didn't even read the book and is just making stuff up."

Maybe there is hope.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Link To Paintings

I wrote earlier that I had hung a painting that a young woman here in Utah painted of me almost twenty years ago now in our new bathroom. Since she is still painting and still trying to establish herself as an artist, I thought I would provide a link. Her name is Jamie Wayman and she does have her own blog but the link I am providing is an old one to the gallery that represents her here in town.
The link still works even though it is dated.

http://www.hornefineart.com/artists/jamie-wayman/

The painting of me swimming is included in the group shown at that link. It is from her senior fine arts requirement class and is far less colorful than her current work but we still like it. I have another one that she painted in the same series for that class and I am happy to say that I was her first sale ever.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

My Crazy Coon Cat

I have posted many pictures of my Maine coon cat,  Max, whose picture leads off this blog. He is nearly six years old now and still a big mess. He is my first Maine coon cat so I cannot swear to anything but this guy loves water. He likes to wash himself thoroughly in water, he likes to clean his feet in the dogs' water bowl, he likes to hang outside the people shower so that when they exit, they drip on him. His favorite sleeping spot is the dogs' water bowl where he curls himself around and waits for their arrival.

 

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Perspective

When I am working on my quilts, I usually have either music or television in the background. Today I was watching American Experience while quilting the small gift quilt. This episode was about Walt Disney. Of course being nearly 67 years old I grew up with Walt Disney from seeing Disney films to watching the Sunday television show. My mother wouldn't let us watch Mickey Mouse Club but we were very familiar with most of the other products of the vast Disney empire. We even visited Disneyland in 1957.

Still I was surprised to find out that Walt Disney was younger than I am now when he died. I do remember when he died and I remember thinking that he was old anyway. Then watching the television show he even looked old, at least older than I think I look. Part of the reaction is simply perspective. When I was 15 he did look old. But part of that is a different sort of perspective. I think people even thought they were very old at 65 back then whereas now most of us have pushed the "old" label far in to the eighth or ninth decade of life.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

When I went to the doctor's office I took a bag of tomatoes from our garden. I already knew that the doctor and his nurse like home grown tomatoes but didn't grow their own. When I gave the bag to my doctor's nurse assistant, a woman waiting in a different area asked how I had grown so many that I could give bags of tomatoes away. She didn't even know that I had given a huge bag away yesterday.

All I could say was, "Clover." I finally convinced my husband, after decades of yelling at him to stop using the popular fertilizer and start using dirt friendly methods. We had three years of very poor harvests and my husband kept using commercial fertilizer and I told him that his methods had depleted the soil and we needed to begin fixing that. He is notoriously stubborn--once he forms an idea he has trouble letting go of the idea despite evidence. Well planting clover has increased our yield, made the fruit ripen earlier, you get the picture.

The other good news is that we have more or less finished the Jack and Jill bathroom. The bathroom is fully functional, decorated, even has a painting of me when I was a Masters swimmer on the wall. The young woman who painted the two pictures I have of me is pretty well known now but these paintings were done to complete her BFA. Swimming and bathrooms are sort of a natural combination. The room looks nice even though it is tiny--squeezing in a full two sink bathroom with a tub, shower, two sinks, and a toilet. We had a steel fabricator here in town make a stainless sink counter with random etching that turned out very nicely.

The room combination still needs work since the attached bedroom had to lose some wall. Besides that, the family who lived her before us had done some odd repairs. So there is some drywall work, some mudding, some floor moldings, and then painting before I can move the bed back in and the quilts back on the bed.

I told our youngest son last night that if his boss, the well-known TV star who owns the bar/restaurant where my son works, still wanted quilts for either his house or his daughters, then he needed to move before we do. I am giving the quilts away but I already made the stipulation that the TV star has to donate to the local humane society.

Flu Shot

"Tis the season to be fully immunized against the flu. I walked to the library today and on the way back home I stopped at my primary care physician's office to ask about getting a flu shot. The receptionist said, "Oh we can do that now," so I signed the form and sat down.

I don't know if the difference is in the hands of the injecter or in the strain of flu but last year the needle seemed extra big and this year I didn't even realize she had jabbed me. When she said she was done I was flabbergasted. I know that seniors don't retain their immunity as long but I am set for a while anyway.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Especially Good

A long time ago I wrote about using vodka rather than water in pastry. That was for pie crust and I guarantee if you use vodka rather than water, the pastry will be more crisp. But recently,  the abundance of good stone fruit here meant that I needed to figure out the best way to present this fruit.

Years and years ago (1989), Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins wrote a few best selling cookbooks that had a big impact. One of the recipes in The New Basics Cookbook was for a mock puff pastry. I made that a few times, back in the day, but I wasn't impressed by either the texture or the flavor. So now, nearly thirty years later, I revisited that recipe and substituted vodka for the 6 tablespoons of  ice water.

Okay, this is good--I definitely credit the cookbook, but you need to try it this way:

2 cups flour (not cake flour or self-rising)
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks)  butter
(6 tablespoons ice cold vodka
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice)
Mix those last two ingredients together

In your food processor or in a bowl mix the dry ingredients. Add the three sticks of butter cut into tablespoons all at once and process briefly until the butter is mixed in but stop before it clumps up. Then with the food processor working, pour in the ice cold vodka and lemon juice. Stop the processor as soon as you have finished pouring in the liquid.

Dump the mess out on a floured surface and work it briefly in to a solid mass. Wrap it in plastic and put in the refrigerator. After 20 minutes, on a floured surface, roll it out into a 14 x 7 inch rectangle, then fold up the bottom to the middle and the top over that. While everything is still cold, do that again. Then put it back in the refrigerator for twenty minutes.

Do that two more times and then decide if you are going to have an extravaganza of pastry or if you will just use some.

I used half of the recipe for the topping for a cobbler rather than biscuit dough. I also baked up some mock palmieres with some melted butter and sugar and they were fantastic. Everything, including the cobbler, was baked at 425F. The palmieres cooked for 25 minutes and the cobbler for 45.

It isn't the same as puff pastry, but it is close.   
 

Another Good Read

Though I haven't finished it yet, I can recommend The Coward's Tale, by Vanessa Gebbie. As is obvious from the title, it is rather like separate stories with a common thread. That's not surprising since the book jacket describes her as an award winning author of two short story collections. While she is Welsh and this novel is set in Wales, she currently lives in Sussex, or at least she did when the book was released in the US. It has been several years and many other books since then.

The one theme that seems to run through the current administration is to destroy any and every idea or treaty that Obama supported or guided or suggested. From the national monument designations, to the Iran nuclear treaty, to DACA Trump is dismantling it all. Spite and ego are not good traits in anyone and they are very flawed starting points for governing. 

Monday, September 4, 2017

Would Not Have Happened

I am sure most of you have seen the video of Nurse Wubbels (http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/04/health/utah-nurse-police-encounter/index.html) being arrested at the University of Utah burn unit.  I wrote previously that at some point all people have had or will have bad encounters with the police. All of mine have happened in Utah but that doesn't surprise or shock me even though I am nearly 70 years old with no traffic violations or any other legal violations.

Utah is seriously ManWorld. The dominant religion favors men. Most religions do because all humans evolve from similar origins, but the LDS have more modern origins, despite what they will tell you if you answer that knock on the door. But because the local culture is completely dominated by the local dominant religion, even going to the hardware store or the grocery store becomes a cultural confrontation if one is female.  When I first moved here, alone, to supervise the remodeling of the kitchen in our house before the family moved, I recognized the stance.

If the burn unit had had a different, male, nurse on duty, the police actions would have been different. I guarantee it.  If you are female, don't move to Utah, or if you do, expect subtle and not so subtle discrimination.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

97F In September

It's a little more than two hours later and the temperature outside is 97 F. It is too hot now and it isn't going to be cooler any time soon. The difference besides temperature between now and when I moved here in 1991 is the humidity. It is still more dry here than in most places in the United States, but the change in climate has meant that our average humidity is higher than it used to be.

Yesterday the North Korea regime made a nuclear test of what they claimed was a large hydrogen bomb. As far as I can tell as a simple American reader, no one can verify this underground test. What can be verified is that North Korea is starving. Malnutrition has been a feature of the North Korean communist regime since the beginning. But the difference is that now the communist regime spends all its time and money and brain power on building weaponry to threaten everyone.  This isn't communism, this is narcissism running a country.

Unfortunately North Korea isn't the only country.























Way Above Average

Here we are into September and our weather forecast for the next 14 days is for each day to be in the mid- to high 90's. It's 96F right now and only 3:30 so it will probably go higher. The whole summer has been hotter than normal so we officially have the hottest summer ever.

Once again I ask, what is normal? My husband and I have been looking at the temperatures in other places because neither of us likes hot weather, except for the tomatoes, but we don't mind the cold. We will be visiting a friend so I have taken a break from the Album quilt to make a small quilt as a gift. It's still sort of the same theme as it is also a Baltimore block but writ large with some nice quilting around the border. It's only 40 inches square so quick to make and finish. I will post pix soon.

Friday, September 1, 2017

What Is My Responsibility?

When I took on my job of reading student essays (and it was just reading them in the beginning), my participation came from my neighbor who had been doing it for a few years after she had taught at the high school and while she was starting her family. I didn't get picked because I had sat through interviews or applied for the job; it sort of fell in my lap. No one even told me what the limits or obligations of the job were--I took instruction from the individual teachers who all had different standards and requirements.

According to the school district, I am only supposed to read the essays, note misspellings and grammar errors, and then return the papers for the teacher to read and score. Back when I took on the job, the AP classes were limited to 22 students but now there are far more students, up to 42 for all AP classes. Keep in mind that Utah has the lowest per pupil expenditure of all states. So over the years as the classes grew in size and the teachers were dealing with students in an English literature class who couldn't speak English (most of those were Chinese students), my involvement grew. The teachers were overwhelmed so I began to add comments and suggestions. I began to offer free tutoring. What good does it do to tell a Chinese language speaker that her words were misspelled, or that his verbs didn't agree with his nouns if you don't point out the purpose of an essay or the point of the prompt?

But now I am ready to stop, ready to leave this job. There is no one I know who can or will do this job, nor do I think it is my responsibility to do what the school district doesn't even care about. All the teachers with whom I work have declared that they will box things up to send to me and pay me out of their own pockets. Will students suffer? They will but most of them in these odd days won't understand that they will suffer nor do they care. "Why don't I get a 9?" Will me leaving change the class sizes? Not a chance.