Archive for March, 2011

Americans want to make stuff. We like to make stuff, despite years of being told the future of our country lies in SERVICE…not making things, something quite frankly I’ve never really understood. I mean, exactly HOW is not making stuff going to make us greater…or stronger? It’s going to help the hell out of foreign manufacturers, but if you guys in Washington STILL believe that idiotic idea, tell me…just WHEN is it going to start helping us?
Let’s look at an example, say for instance, computer components…we make very few, if any. The computer I’m typing this on speaks many languages, but none of them are American English. Computers are important to us, so we have to DEPEND on those foreign manufacturers for them…but isn’t DEPENDENCY a form of weakness? What if they decide they don’t like us and cut our supply off? We’d be up the poverbial creek without our foreign-made paddle.
And a lot of those countries don’t like us at all…look at the places we depend on for oil, mostly in the Middle East. They HATE us; a lot of them have dedicated their lives to trying to destroy us, so we sucker up, pay enormous prices, and constantly worry about how what we’re saying will impact them. We’re fighting hard to stay at the hind tit on the hog, bowing and scraping while factories fold and zillions of gallons of oil on (or very near) our soil lie dormant, undeveloped, and unavailable.
And WHERE are all those spiffy, hi-tech jobs we were supposed to transform to? The best estimate I’ve seen says it may take a generation, but considering how bad news is instantly deflated and modified for public consumption, you can just bet it’s gonna be a BUNCH of generations…if ever. So, now we not only don’t make stuff, but the hope of service-based salvation is practically out of our reach.
Every time I call the service department for a national concern I get somebody from India on the line, and they’re always very savvy and up-to-date. I enormously appreciate the effort India is investing to make my Chinese/Japanese computer or my Mexican refrigerator work more efficiently, but…customer service…service…wasn’t SERVICE what we were planning to morph to? I don’t know how to break it to you, Washington, but other countries have already filled that slot. Way to go, Politicians!
Like I said, we’re becoming DEPENDENTS, but in some quarters dependency is considered an exploitable virtue instead of the failure it really is. All I can tell those people is if we don’t start making and selling stuff pretty soon, they can FORGET about their cherished dependent status. NOBODY will be able to foot the bill, so you better wake up, Guys. That hind tit is running a little dry.

The mantle of unproductivity sits uncomfortably on the shoulders of Americans. Go to any fair, any craft show, any flea market, even any garage sale, and you’ll see it…stuff people have made, some of it quite lovely and useful. It’s heartbreaking. They’re making birdhouses, quilts, children’s toys, chairs, and decorative wooden wheelbarrows, even renovating old made-in-America things because they CAN’T make the new stuff we really need, stuff we no longer manufacture.
I know there are a few people making a few things here, but they turn out to be very expensive, more high end…think rich people. The next time you buy something you can afford, turn it over and look at the bottom. Nine times out of ten, maybe even more, you’ll find “Made in China.” I have NOTHING against the Chinese; I consider them intelligent, resourceful people, admire them, actually, but it just kills me when I have to rely on them for everything from tableware to toilet paper, which I buy at stores I drive to using Middle East gasoline.  I bet some of those stores are foreign-owned, too.
A couple of years ago I built a voice-activated CB radio switch and the word got out. Almost instantly, dozens of eager, bright-eyed young people started showing up at my door asking me how to do it. I gave them the schematics, answered their questions, and helped them along by phone, and before long they were coming in with their OWN voice-activated switches. They didn’t look EXACTLY like mine…some of them looked (and worked) even better. I learned a lot from that experience and took it as a sign.
Like I said, Americans like to make stuff…and they’re GOOD at it. God knows where those kids would wind up if they were actually ENCOURAGED, but we’ll never know. The sad fact is they’ll never know the pride and satisfaction of building something useful and important either. They’ll try hard as they can to learn one of the services Washington seems to consider so important…if there are any still left, but there will ALWAYS be a little ache inside. In their souls they want to make things, not use things other people have made.
My grandfather made stuff, even patented a few of the things he dreamed up. One was a particular type of sugar cane hoist. Here in Louisiana we grow a lot of sugar cane, but you gotta get it from the fields to the mill some kind of way. Grandpa designed a simple, inexpensive lifter for the harvested cane, and in no time at all, fields all over Louisiana were dotted with them. They still are, and I get a feeling of pride mingled with sadness whenever I drive past one.
What’s wrong with you people in Washington? You’ve misread one of our most basic, essential characteristics in the process of implementing your utopian dreams…and we’ve become even more miserable. Get with the program, understand the nature of the American soul, and allow us to be what we NEED to be, or as the coach in our high school used to say, “Shape up or ship out.” I liked that guy; he was tough, but he was honest.
We like to make stuff, Mr. Obama, and we’re good at it. For God’s sake, please LET US! You won’t regret it.

My Lady's Collection of Carousel Animals. Round and round, going nowhere. I like the metaphor.

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts ABSOLUTELY.”
Don’t those guys in Washington know that? They should…if they read or study history, but to me, it seems like they’re intent on making the same mistakes over and over again. Go figure.
“Those who will not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
The factor I worry about is intelligence. I mean, just how SMART are those guys over there on the east coast cocooned in all that marble? From what I’ve seen, my answer has to be NOT VERY. Yes, they know how to win elections; it’s easy. Just rev up enough people with grievances and tell them you’re going to get even for them and you’re a shoo-in…but is THAT really what it’s all about, exploiting animosities and gaining advantage?
God, I hope not…or we’re doomed…like Rome and countless other societies showing promise only to fail and fall flat on their faces. To make matters worse, there’s the money angle; we’re running out of it. At least partly, the United States was created in response to “taxation without representation,” but what do we do with taxation WITH REPRESENTATION when it’s coupled with wanton irresponsiblility?
A huge part of our spending involves supporting the military…and exactly WHAT has that done for us lately? I mean…besides involving us in endless, unwinnable wars, alienating about half the planet, and getting a lot of promising young men and women killed without any clearly definable reason. A lot of our lawmakers seem to think we’re the worlds policemen…I say, mostly because they have a military itching to show off its toys. The military is like that; it EXISTS to blow things up, and it has a low frustration threshold.
I’ve said it before. Democracy is messy. If what we’re witnessing in the Middle East is REALLY a drift toward democracy…and we’re FAR from sure about that…what the hell are we doing picking sides? If the dissenters are too weak to prevail, they’re going to lose anyway…and leave us mired in another ugly war in the process. If they’re strong enough, they’ll do it without our help, and personally, I think helping them AFTER they’ve won is money better spent than blowing it all just to show off how strong we think we are.
If we keep on going the way we are, pretty soon we’ll actually go broke…then where will we be? Our infrastructure is in worse shape than many third-world nations, and those entitlements politicians love so much will wither away. Don’t get me wrong; I think some entitlements are necessary and good and see failure to grant them as a disaster, but we have to be realistic and put our house in order if we REALLY want to continue them.
Where the hell do they think the money is going to come from? With gas heading for $5 a gallon, foreclosures on homes dotting every neighborhood, millions scraping by, and other millions unemployed, they ain’t gonna get it. We’re too busy treading water just trying to stay alive. Spendthrift ways, stupid allocation of funds, megalomaniacal dreams of BUYING off the rest of the world just isn’t going to work. It’s not only tacky, it’s dumb.
And while I’m at it, what is all that foreign aid about? We need DOMESTIC aid, Guys. I just recently learned we’re sending aid to Russia and Cuba…WHY? Because they’re ALMOST in as bad shape domestically as we are? Our lawmakers seem entirely focused on the rest of the world, ignoring what’s KILLING us here. Another thing I’ve said before…there seems to be something about marble halls that’s toxic to the human brain.
We have POLITICIANS, not statesmen…and politicians are all about winning the next election. Division is a good idea to them; it gives them an advantage. The sad fact is a true statesman is unelectable today. FDR smoked, had high blood pressure, and was confined to a wheelchair. I can only guess what his opponent would do to him today.
Washington had bad teeth, never smiled, and tended to be pompous…but he was also brilliant. Lincoln was a bumpkin, Jefferson a libertine with one of his slaves, and even humble Harry Truman had his faults. Scratch any of our past great leaders you like, and you’ll find a fallible human underneath. That’s not what it’s about. They had VISION…and the steely determination to do the right thing when it counted.
Virtually NONE of them would look good on TV today, not with the opposition’s talking heads giving them a once-over, so we’re stuck with pretty faces promising the moon then back-pedaling like mad when they get into office. The great promise of America has always been the intelligent consensus of wildly differing ideas. Driving a wedge into our diversity only provides a lopsided, unproductive, hopelessly unwise path.
You people in the toxic corridors of Washington better rethink your strategy, maybe even revisit the words of other imperfect men who did a far better job than you. Otherwise, like Rome, our country will soon become a nation of naked, ignorant, penniless, homeless fools lugging a GIGANTIC sword around.

Guys, I’m really sorry, but Somewhere, a Museum Is Burning has FAR too many comments to leave it open. I closed it, but you can add your comment on that post here if you like. AC

Things were so much simpler in the old days, our parent’s and grandparent’s days. Right was right and wrong was wrong, and NOTHING trumped family, but they lived in a time when you could go a hundred miles in any direction and dissolve into a new community and a new life. People weren’t as interconnected then…or as well informed…or as innundated with technology, but World War II changed all that.
Through pain and death, we learned we aren’t a remote island of calm in the midst of a turbulent world. The winds of horror know no boundaries and can reach us, isolationist or not, but while we were in the process of understanding the real world, we also unleashed a terrifying demon…considered necessary at the time but the consummate game changer in the long run.
Because other nations began developing demons of their own, ours was unleashed many times during the early years, obliterating atoll after atoll in the pacific when it grew too dangerous to study in the continental United States, but eventually we learned to fear its unimaginable power and boxed it. Still, its power too obvious to ignore, we decided to try another tack and use it for peaceful pursuits like the generation of so-called “clean” electricity.
I’ve never understood that concept, clean energy. To me, clean means leaving no trace, but our demon leaves MASSIVE traces in the form of radioactive material too spent to be useful but too dangerous to dispose of with impunity. Even locked in its towers, it leaves little calling cards to remind us how uncivilized it actually is. Some people fear it desperately, others say it’s tame and gentle, but I think BOTH groups are wrong.
It’s dangerous but hopefully manageable, successfully confined but far from domesticated, waiting patiently in its dark, water-cooled towers, looking for the slightest opportunity to escape and introduce havoc. I’m disappointed with all those engineers who designed demon containment boxes to withstand ninety percent of contingencies, considering the remaining ten percent too unlikely to spend time on.
Probabilities are probabilities, guys, and given enough time, even the most UNLIKELY of conspiring events will eventually surface to torment innocents like they’ve just done in Japan. Scientists were wrong when they decided the demon could be tamed, and I wonder how careful they’ve been. When you’re dealing with a demon, you’re in zero error territory…no latitude, no learning curve.
Yet again one of them has escaped its box, and the world is trembling. People here are buying up Geiger counters like postage stamps and filling their larders with iodide pills, but they’ve forgotten this was a Japanese demon. It’s far away and unlikely to reach us with its venom, but we have our own clutch of American demons dotting the countryside, currently obediently living in their boxes, waiting for an earthquake, a flood, or human error to free them.
One of the reasons I wrote Dawn on Earth was to mourn the failure of humanity to be good stewards on the only life-sustaining rock we can find in the void. We’ve forgotten there’s ALWAYS a trade-off. We wanted to avoid all the mess and bother of horses, so we developed automobiles…but they pollute the air and release massive amounts of carbon dioxide, accellerating global warming.
We enjoyed staying up late at night working, communicating, playing with our computers, watching television, reading, or just relaxing…but the fossil fuels we used to produce energy only added to the problem…and we’ve all seen the mess trying to obtain them can cause. We turned to the boxed demon for help…only to be reminded how dangerous and unpredictable it actually is…and how opportunistic.
Yes, we’re working on wind generators and solar panels, but we’re centuries from using them to produce the energy we require…and most people feel they won’t be able to fulfill our needs anyway, only augment existing systems. Like hydroelectric power, they’re actually clean, but very costly, not to mention the jarring discord millions of them would produce on our open plains and seashores. We have precious little beauty left as it is.
The way I see it, we’ve gone too far down the path to go back. To REALLY turn things around would take world-wide consensus and cooperation, and we all know how unlikely something like that is. Of the two alternatives providing the energy we crave, I guess the use of fossil fuels is the most detrimental, making it likely we’ll continue to rely on our boxed demons…even though they escape sometimes and try to destroy us.
My advice is to do it CAUTIOUSLY, guys, and forget about that ninety-percent stuff. It’s a DEMON, for God’s sake, originally designed as a weapon of destruction, and it’s PATIENT…active, endlessly probing, waiting for a chance to be freed. Lock it in well with batallions of redundant backup systems between us and it. Plan for every conceivable contingency, even multiple contingencies. Don’t trust it; it wants to KILL you.
You know, if you’re so inclined, you can keep a rattlesnake as a pet, but NEVER forget it’s a rattlesnake. It won’t.

“God always forgives, man sometimes forgives, nature NEVER forgives.”
As someone who has sat in the crosshairs of a hurricane barelling in, my heart goes out to those poor people in Japan who’ve learned a terrible lesson the hard way. When the incalculable power of natural processes has you in its sights, all you can do is try to get away, but where do you go when you’re on an ISLAND which is shaking like hell and likely to experience a tsunami?
We don’t have earthquakes where I live, but I keep remembering Hurricane Gustav, which was roaring in as a cat 3, possibly a cat 4. I have to admit I got a little spooked…particularly after Katrina and Rita, so I bundled up my mother, my lady, and Angel and went to my sister’s home in Alexandria a hundred and forty miles north of the gulf…seemed pretty safe to me. But I was wrong.
Gustav cheerfully moved east, completely avoiding Lafayette, then took a westward turn and screamed into Alexandria full force. All we could do was wait, curse our bad luck, and hang on. Actually, during the worst of the storm I called my brother…who had chosen to sit it out at home in Lafayette. When I asked him about damage, I’ll never forget what he said. “Couple of limbs down, but we didn’t lose power. The rain wasn’t even bad.” I guess Mother Nature has a twisted sense of humor after all.
Of course, hurricanes are different from what happened to Japan. We have LOTS of advance warning…and time to prepare. After one hurricane I even bought a generator…which has sat in our outdoor utility room gathering dust ever since, but I KNOW it’s there and ready to rescue us, protect our freezer, and power fans in any aftermath…not like Japan.
What do you do when EVERYTHING’S gone? And now they’re talking about meltdowns in three or four nuclear power plants, possibly making even the land uninhabitable. The people on TV are going on and on about OUR nuclear plants, but I SERIOUSLY doubt Omaha is going to be hit by both a 9.0 earthquake AND a tsunami. I worry about other stuff, like what the hell are we going to do with all that spent radioactive waste? Some of it will be active a lot longer than any of us will be around.
You’re taking a big chance when you bet on nuclear power. Japan took that chance, and now they’re learning you don’t always win when you go against nature at HER roulette table. I pray they’ll get those renegade reactors under control and allow poor Japan to dig out, honor their dead, and start afresh, and next time, I hope they put their nuclear backup pumps WAY up high, not on the ground near a beach in a tsunami area.
It’s reassuring to see how many nations are offering help…even China, which hasn’t really warmed to Japan since the second world war, and soon batallions of rescue people will be on site to help…physically. Mentally is another story. The Japanese will rebuild and no doubt prosper again, but late at night dreams and frightening memories will invade their slumber. Night is like that, particularly when Mother Nature has burned you once and you know SHE knows where you live.
I think at times nature gets kind of pissed. We’ve conquered her land, her water, even her air, but she seems intent on reminding us that…whatever we might think…SHE’S actually in charge. Whenever she flexes a muscle, be it a volcano, an earthquake, a hurricane or a tsunami, we recoil in fear. I bet she likes that, our unforgiving mistress, bitch that she is.
The best we can do is hunker down, lick our wounds, pray for our dead, and give nature the respect she seems to crave so badly. We rebuild. That’s what you do when it comes to your home, but once you’ve tasted nature’s fury, you do it with a wary eye and a lot of backward glancing. You try to see through the sadness and LEARN from the experience, making it a little harder for her the next time.
And you know what? Most of the time we wind up better off for it. At least, that’s the way it works in Louisiana…probably will in Japan, too.

Tonight is the last chilly night we can expect before it starts warming up, forty degrees they said, and to a Cajun, that’s COLD. I know we came from Nova Scotia, where it’s freezing all the time, but we’ve adjusted to the warmth of Louisiana. We like it just the way it is, with mild winters, scorching summers, and the odd hurricane every now and then.
Because I’ve burned almost all my firewood…only about ten logs left, I plan to make the den toasty and inviting tonight and finish the job, but that last nippy night also calls for a gumbo, a chicken and sausage gumbo, my favorite. I also love a good seafood gumbo, but frankly, I’ve become a little timid about throwing stuff they pull out of the gulf into things I plan to eat…STILL not convinced, even if the government is.
Anyway, seafood costs a FORTUNE these days, so a chicken and sausage gumbo is much more practical. I’ve had commenters from all over, some as far away as China, so I thought I’d share my way of making a good gumbo with the rest of the world outside Acadiana.
There are THREE secrets to a good gumbo, fresh ingredients, lots of stirring, and a roux.  First, you have to make a roux.  To those who are unfamiliar with it, a roux is flour browned in oil, usually vegetable oil, in a ratio of 2/3 cup oil to 1 cup flour. It’s a tedious process requiring CONSTANT stirring until it is a chocolate-brown color, the color of milk chocolate not dark or semi-sweet, and be careful; it burns amazingly easily, and then you have to start all over again.
I have an almost endless argument with my friends about roux. You see, in south Louisiana, we can purchase PREPARED roux in jars. The purists I know scoff and belittle bottled roux, but I think it’s wonderful. After all, it’s just flour and oil; how much could a manufacturer screw that up? I use it and I’m not too proud to admit it. I’m reminded of the time my dad was giving me a hard time about using olive oil in almost everything I cook. He thought it gave food a funny taste.
So I did the only thing a dedicated olive oil user could, I made him a seafood gumbo (it was cheaper then), using olive oil to make the roux. When he told me it was one of the best seafood gumbos he had ever eaten, I took it graciously and thanked him, but I knew the truth. I suspect he did, too.
Back to the gumbo. While you’re making the roux, bring a kettle of water to the boil. I usually enlist my lady to stir while I fill the kettle and chop the onions, green bell peppers, and celery, the so-called “trinity” of Cajun cooking. For a standard-size pot, I usually chop 3 cups of yellow onions, 2 cups of bell peppers, and one celery heart, including leaves.
The roux will be VERY HOT, so be careful. Add the vegetables and stir well, then add the contents of the kettle, about a quart. Add 1 tablespoon of minced garlic, 1 tablespoon of salt, and as much fresh ground black pepper as you like. Stir well and bring to the boil over high heat, stirring frequently. When your gumbo is boiling, turn the heat down but continue to stir.
Add 1 pack of cleaned chicken gizzards, and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. I usually work on my blog and run back and forth during this stage. After the gumbo has boiled for a while, most of the roux smell should have disappeared. Add 6 to 8 chicken thighs and continue to cook over medium low heat until the gumbo boils again, then add 8 to 10 breast chicken tenders and continue cooking.  Feel free to add more water if your gumbo starts to thicken.  You’re aiming for the consistency of a thick soup.
After fifteen minutes, add 5 links of smoked sausage sliced about 1/4 inch thick, stir well and cook another 10 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when the sausage starts to bulge a little in the middle. Taste and add more salt if you think there’s not enough. Actually, since you didn’t season ANY of the chicken, it will probably need another good dusting. Add slowly, taste, and keep on going until you have it where you want it.
Add 1/2 cup FINELY chopped Italian parsley…none of that “rough chop” stuff…and 1 cup finely sliced green onions, stir, and turn the fire off. Your gumbo is done. Serve over rice with gumbo file (ground sassafras leaves) and hot garlic French bread. If you’re so inclined, a potato salad goes magnificently with gumbo. Gumbo, like soup, sort of grows while you cook it, and I know this recipe makes a LOT…but it freezes beautifully.
Now, please understand…EVERYBODY down here has his own recipe for gumbo; this was mine. Gumbo was the evening meal of slaves and sharecroppers before the Civil war. Actually, they put everything into the pot in the morning, built a homungus fire, and put the pot on it. At the end of the day, they returned to perfectly prepared gumbo, so I guess there’s a lot of latitude in EXACTLY how you cook it.
My dad had an inordinately complicated way of making gumbo, with carefully timed SEPARATE additions of each vegetable, etc. I learned long ago all that folderol wasn’t necessary, but dad stuck to it ’til his dying day. I’m somewhere between the slaves and dad in my preparation, and I guess that only proves gumbo is an incredibly forgiving dish. The only thing I can say is it goes spectacularly with a roaring fire in the den on the last cold night of spring.