Why Do People Hate Americans?

Okay, I know the title of this post could involve a long list, but I just found something Andrew Sullivan wrote that profoundly disturbed me. It appears a website is offering soldiers sexual porn for grotesque pictures from Iraq. For the same sick, inexplicable reason one looks at horrific car accidents on the highway, I was compelled to see if this was for real. After just a little searching on the sight, I found what Sullivan described. I must admit that the few pictures I saw, though graphic and disturbing were no worse than the quick clips I see on television when I don't know to change the channel or look away.

I know there is a long tradition of disgusting behavior by the military that spans history, armies, countries, and continents, but I am amazed at how disgusting humans can be in our self-defined "enlightenment." We claim people hate us because of our freedom? Maybe, I won't presume to know. But this is just wrong. And I'm sick.

Bush and the Bottle

It appears the sleuths at The National Enquirer have uncovered a story most will find shocking: Bush fell off the wagon. Read about it here. See a photo of Bush with alcohol in hand here. Somehow I can't say it surprises me. If I were in that horrible job, I'd drink more than Nixon did. It's a job that is always under scrutiny, and nearly half the American population complains about what you do. Right now, Bush is being hammered for his actions, or lack of action, and I think he's getting a deserved rap. Sometimes I'm shocked that he doesn't get more heat, but I understand how hard it is for much of the country to realize the mistake they made. So, if I were Bush, I'd want a stiff drink, too. I can't say I won't be surprised if we find out he's been snorting the white stuff again, too.

Drinking would also explain much of Bush's erratic behavior, too. He often seems disoriented, at a loss for words (worse than normal), and trying to talk to people who are even there (for more information, see this). Then there is a story from the New York Times showing Bush's desperate attempts to link 9/11 and Katrina; Bush's non sequitors are frightening. Read them here. His handlers better be careful or we'll see him with the DTs.

Pirates! Run!

Arrrr! I can't believe I didn't remember that today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. For more information on the day, click here. I encourage everyone to talk like a pirate today. It's important that we support the heratige of the pirate. Of course, this is the heritage of the mythic English/American pirate glorified or villified in movies, not the pirates who currently terrorize the Asian and African coasts.

Make Johnny Depp proud.

Language Matters

Here's yet another reason why one should be careful about language:



For more information on this photo, click here, or copy and paste this address into your browser address bar: http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/disaster.asp

Block Party

Today my wife and I went to a block party one away from ours. Interestingly, we have many friends on that block, but none really on our own. Fortunately we were invited to the party because, well, we're friends with many on the block. I'd never been to a block party before; we arrived too late for one on the same block two years ago. This was a nice event. It was an excuse to visit with neighbors we regularly see and others we only say hello to when we walk the neighborhood.

So why an entry here? It seems to fit into my vision of the mythic American family life. A block party where people eat three kinds of turkey (roasted, smoked, and deep-fried), potato salad, and dishes and dishes of desserts. We sat in chairs around tables in the street. Kids played around the adults like satellites. The tree-lined street provided shade, while all of the women asked my wife about our coming twins. I feel like I've seen this on an after-school special or on an episode of Little House on the Prairie.

I've often railed against nostalgia for a time that never existed, but there are kernels of truth in that nostalgia.

We were only there a couple of hours. The party was only a few. It was perfect. After we returned home, I felt like we had traveled to a different time, but then I realized this was just the right time.

Pudu Pudu?

As I battle a splitting sinus headache, and I try to be productive, I have stumbled across the endangered Pudu Pudu. The creature, which I discovered at this site, is cute as a button and looks like the perfect food for a komodo dragon, though in the wrong part of the world. Sure the Pudu Pudu may be an elaborate hoax, like the jackelope, but I don't think so. If I had more time I'd do more research. I know our dog Bailey (G-d rest his cute, pouty-faced soul) would have loved one as a playmate almost as much as a fainting goat.

Babies?

This won't come as a surprise to most readers of TML, but I'm going to become the father of twins soon. The babies are due October 22, but there is a good chance they will be born this month. Over the summer, instead of updating this blog, I was busy "nesting" by helping my wife and by preparing the house for our new family members. Part of that preparation, and part I take particular pride in, has been building cribs for them. Many TML readers who have known about my project have wanted to see my work, so here are a couple of pictures. Enjoy.

Bangkok Cafe

Last night some friends and I went to the Bangkok Cafe at 6004 Torrey Rd. and had a fine meal. The restaurant is small, only about 8-10 tables, and it's located in a small strip-mall. It has standard strip-mall decor, simple decorations and tables that vaguely hint at something Eastern. Tolerably comfortable chairs, but really the kind of place that reminds me of a graft, like the movie The Sting, in which an entire place can be transformed into an office in moments with no hint of its past.

My friends and I arrived for an early dinner and the place was empty, but by the time we left there were 3 other tables with people. Oddly, I think there was only one person working in the restaurant, in the front and back. The man was pleasant enough and somewhat attentive. I was never left wanting anything.

I couldn't resist ordering the standard Pad Thai. I know it isn't necessarily the best Thai food, or the most interesting, but I just love it. I can imagine someone opening a Thai restaurant and dedicating an entire kitchen section for the production of Pad Thai because so many patrons order it. I did. And guess what? It was great. In fact it was so good my friends were shocked I ate my entire dinner so fast. (I told them if they spent so much time gossiping that they didn't get a chance to eat.) Another friend ordered the Pad Prik, and that was very good as well. And though he ordered his medium spicy, like I did, his wasn't nearly as hot. Still, it was very good.

I'd go back, but not for the atmosphere. It would just be for the food. I recommend it to you as well.

Mad Cow is Coming, Mad Cow is Coming!

Okay, maybe the sky isn't falling, but I stumbled across this article on the problems with US beef and why we are at risk of an outbreak of mad cow disease. In fact, the blog links to story of someone in Japan who caught it (here). It's only a matter of time until the US has a legitimate outbreak with current beef feeding practices, or the government will continue to hide the beef industry's dirty, repulsive secret of feeding blood and sinew of dead cattle to other cattle.

Now go fire up that grill and plop on some burgers. . . or some portabellas.

Flower

Just a picture I took in the garden yesterday.

John's "Family" Pizzeria

Some friends and I went to a new Italian restaurant last night in search of better pizza. I had stumbled upon John's while driving down Davison Road for an appointment and decided it might be worth a try. It was.

One might question whether the "Family" in quotes in the name was for the mob or more a family-style restaurant. It's definitely the latter. This restaurant is well-lit, has very homey decorations, including lighted plastic grapes (a nice touch) and odd, painted portraits. We were sure it wasn't a mob front when we saw they didn't have a liquor license and they carried chocolate milk. I hoped to see a mob boss or cappo, but all I saw were locals who walked to the restaurant from the neighborhood. I also noticed none of them ordered pizza, what we had gone to the restaurant for, and was a bit disconcerted. But the menu had many items I'd like to try, including "Baked Italian Favorites" like ravioli and vegetable lasagna. I really like baked pasta.

We sat in a large booth and often waited longer than I would have liked for service, but the server was nice. We ordered two large pizza and a appetizer combo plate. It came with the usual assortment of frozen snacks like onion rings, zucchini, mushrooms, and cheese. It was adequate; how can you screw up fried food? The pizzas, one with pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, and yellow peppers and the other with pineapple, green peppers, and ham, were decent. Nothing stood out as great except the crust, which was thin and very crisp. We loved that but collectively decided we preferred Luigi's toppings better.

We considered dessert but opted to go back to our friends' house and have ice cream and conversation.

I would be happy to go there again and try some of the other things on the menu, but I don't know if I will seek the place out.

Recommendation: Maybe, but it didn't set my heart aflutter.

World Expo of Beer in Frankenmuth, MI

Okay, first let me state I'm not a big fan of Frankenmuth because it's primarily a tourist destination and home to the largest Christmas complex in the world. Why the Christian god decided to shine down on a small town in mid-Michigan, I don't know, but he did. And now we have Bronner's.

But more to the point of this post. My wife, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law all went to Frankenmuth to partake in the 10th Annual World Expo of Beers. Frankenmuth has large tents set up with 32 different beer booths. Brewers ranged from the juggernauts of Coors and Anhueser Busch to microbrewers like Dragonmead Microbrewery and Frankenmuth Brewery.

I avoided the larger brewers and focused on the small (and German). Overall I was pleased. A $1 ticket bought a 4 oz. sample, and the brewers were generous with the pour (occasionally forgetting to take my ticket). They even had a few booths with food and souvenirs.

We stayed nearly 2 hours at the Expo. We didn't stay for the music, and we sadly missed Beer School. But we had seen what we wanted and tasted what we wanted, so we decided to venture into the main strip of Frankenmuth to act like the tourists we were.

On the strip, we wandered into shops and enjoyed a perfectly warm sunny day. We ate at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant and had their "famous" chicken dinner. It's really good fried chicken and it comes with lots of other goodies, like stuffing (good tasting -- soggy texture), mashed potatoes (good --how can you screw those up?), and three "salads" that included a bean salad, pasta salad, and some kind of cranberry-orange relish-type salad (very good and refreshing). The meal is finished with a small bowl of ice-cream.

As tourists we had a good time sampling candy and cheeses. If you haven't been to Frankenmuth, it's worth a visit just to see what it's like. If you can time it during one of Frankenmuth's festivals it's even better. I don't recommend going any time near Christmas (Nov. 1 - Jan. 15) when things seem a bit crazier there. I still have never been to the enormous Bronner's CHRISTmas complex, so I can't recommend it either. But if you like fried chicken and have some good friends to go with, it's worth a trip every few years.

As a last note, we stopped at my wife's grandmother's house for visit and got a homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie. They are amazing. My favorite pie after having hers. Sorry, you'll have to get your grandmother to make it. I'm not sharing.

Frist Filibuster

Check out Princeton University's Filibuster of Senator Frist. You can watch it live here. It's already been going on for nearly 70 hours. I think it's great, not only because I think changing the senate rules for something I disagree with would be terrible, but I think it's great that students are taking an active, creative role in politics.

If more students and young people became more active in politics, the future of America would be better represented in government. It wouldn't just be rich, special interests (read large corporations) that really should have no say in government that had an influence.

My two cents for the morning.

The Lunch Studio

Despite having a stuffy nose, and thus an inability to taste, I went with friends to The Lunch Studio today for, what else, lunch. I've been skeptical of The Lunch Studio since it took over two hours to get served Sunday brunch. It wasn't so much that it took 2 hours(that just happened to some friends and I at the French Laundry in Fenton, but I'll get over it), it's that the service is so idiosyncratic and prolonged that the experience, well, was not really worth a return visit.

Let me digress. They don't have a coffee pot. When you want a refill, the server, when she materializes from the ether, takes your cup, fills it from an unknown source, and returns it. One cup at a time. I don't think she even took one cup in each hand. I recall she did it one cup at a time. Thank goodness I wasn't fourth or fifth in line for a cup.

The food had a similar pattern. One person at a time, and sometimes it was one plate at a time. So your eggs could be cold, or eaten, before your bagel arrived. The food once it arrived was fairly good, but not nirvana.

But that was brunch. Today we had lunch, and the assurance from my friend the service was better for lunch. And it was. I had a grilled cheese with tomato and a cup of blended roasted pepper and corn soup. Both were good; I would recommend them. The service again was a bit odd. It was prompt (a plus), but we received our soup before our sandwiches. One friend, who was only having soup, had his with ours, so while two of us ate sandwiches, he could only watch (I was never good at sharing). Now most restaurants I've eaten at serve "soup and sandwich" together. It's obviously a service choice, but what I think is an odd one.

The food was good, the service fine (despite the oddities), and the company exquisite. I'm sure I'll return because I believe is supporting businesses in downtown Flint and it has a fairly good menu with healthy and vegetarian options (read -- not Coney).

If your around town and have some time, consider stopping in, but be prepared for quirky service.

Spring Showers?

It's still snowing.

Illegal Executions

As many of my friends know, I am adamantly against the death penalty. Despite research that shows the death penalty does not deter crime and costs more than incarcerating a prisoner for life, and despite the seemingly clear idea that killing someone does not fit into the "culture of life" (read Pope not Prez on this one), states still insist on murdering those who perpetrate heinous crimes (and one former governor mocked those condemned).

I'm still not sure how the state murdering someone does not violate the 8th Amendment, but maybe I'm slow. I know how Texas is trying to get around the "unusual" part of the amendment: kill as many as they can and then it won't be unusual (According to the BBC story Texas and Virginia account for 45% of executions in the US. I don't doubt it.). The cruel part, though, has come into question from a recent BBC report. It seems victims of state-sponsored murder may have been "aware" during their execution. It's a good thing guards use a paralyzing agent so victims can't move, scream, or provide any other clue to their suffering other than some apparent muscle thatches.

It seems that victims may not have gotten enough of the drug sodium thiopental, an anethetic that supposedly numbs them before they are given pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes them before they are given potassium chloride, which kills them. It seems the drugs were administered by untrained staff, and they do not know how much dosage to administer.

Okay, now explain to me how this isn't cruel?

What Would Hemingway Say?

Did you know Wisconsin is considering cat hunting? Yes, those cute little furry creatures who like to snuggle up to you while you're on the couch or trying to work at the computer. They're only following the model set by South Dakota and Minnesota. Oh, hunters would only be allowed to kill feral cats, or any domesticated cat that isn't under the control of its owner. Well, I know all of the cats in my neighborhood are always under the control of their owners when they're outside.

This is important because according to a state [Wisconson I assume] study, feral cats kills 47 million to 139 million song birds a year. With highly accurate and specific studies like these, I can see the immediate need.

I'm interested to think about how cunning a hunter must be to stalk another predator. Would we need to cat-bait with cans of tuna fish? Would we use decoys, like stuffed Tiggers or Hello Kitty? I can see it now. We can have Hello Kitty crying for help from the evil clutches of Scooby Doo! Surely some cat would come to her rescue.

I think Michigan should jump on the bandwagon before it's the last state in the Midwest to allow cat hunting. I can only imagine the tourist revenue that will be lost because we're behind the times. Come on Lansing, get with the program. Hunting Mourning Doves is so last year. Now it's cats!

[Update: Apparently the governor of Wisconsin killed the cat-hunting bill. Read more here.]

Michigan State Women's Basketball

I was sorry to see the Michigan State women lose in the championship game (especially to a team from Texas). They had a great season.

I also didn't hear about any rioting in East Lansing. Hmmm. Interesting.

Go State!

Well it appears Michigan State showed its true colors again. Win or lose, State fans like to cause trouble. I'm not sure why they don't care if they are sprayed with pepper spray or gagged with tear gas. Somehow neither of those options appeals to me. Now, if a cop in full riot gear (this is worthy of analysis, too, but maybe in a different post) reads a message asking me to disperse after a sporting event or risk suffering bodily harm and arrest, I'm going to leave or go back into the bar.

Clearly having half the police force of southern Michigan in riot gear standing in the street lends itself to another potential Kent State, but losing a sports event isn't worth it. If you think it is, get a life. There are far more worthy things for college students to protest. (For example, the Michigan government going back on its promise to not cut higher ed. money if higher ed. doesn't raise tuition beyond the rate of inflation. Granholm looks to be doing it for the second year in a row. Now that is worth protesting.)

I wonder if MSU fans will riot after the MSU women play in the championship game. Then again, I wonder if most fans there even know the women are in the championship game.

Go State! You make us proud.

Eating in Adrian

On Friday I attended a conference in Adrian, and I had to eat breakfast before I arrived. I stopped at the first small restaurant I saw, the Main Stop Restaurant, because it had a sign that it was voted the best restaurant in Adrian. I later learned it won the best breakfast in Adrian four years in a row (1999-2002).

I sat at the counter, something I used to love to do, but seldom do now because I don’t typically eat out alone any more. The place is small, with fewer than a dozen tables and only 6-8 counter seats. It was busy, but not bustling when I arrived around 8. The staff were all middle-aged women or older, except for the young, female dishwasher. I was quickly served my coffee and water, and the server seemed surprised I knew exactly what I wanted. Eggs over hard (The surgeon general has determined that eating raw eggs can make you ill because they carry nasty and disgusting diseases like salmonella. Besides that, eating nearly raw egg yolks is disgusting in itself and just wrong.), home fries, and wheat toast. It’s my favorite breakfast when done well, and it’s a benchmark I use for new restaurants.

The breakfast came quickly was inconsistent. The eggs and toast were quite good (How do you mess up toast?), but the home fries, thinly sliced potatoes, were soft and relatively tasteless. The servers were friendly, and when I asked for more coffee and water, they brought it promptly. The problem was I had to ask. I don’t think a patron should have to ask for more coffee in a breakfast joint. Coffee should flow freely.

I was ultimately pleased with my experience, and I would return, but I think my small complaints could have been the reason the Main Stop hasn’t won best breakfast honors since 2002.

If you’re ever in Adrian and looking for breakfast that doesn't come wrapped in wax paper and the question, “Would you like fries with that,” I would recommend the Main Stop Restaurant. It’s located at 1003 N. Main Street. It may not be the “best” breakfast in town any more, but you won’t leave disappointed.