Wonkosphere

I am absolutely exhausted and brain dead, having been up since 4:30 in the morning. Was it the full moon? The first day of school for DD#1? Stress about how to handle the coming weeks? The nanny who never came back from vacation? I don't know, but I did want to take a moment in between getting the kids to bed and before losing consciousness myself to link to an interesting site I stumbled upon earlier today called Wonkosphere. The site describes itself as "your listening post for the 2008 presidential election." It also has a nice blog. Genuinely non-partisan, they update every four hours with all kinds of info on all the Republican and Democratic candidates, from the so-called "first tier" establishment candidates (Obama, Giuliani, and Hillary) to those who have no chance whatsoever (John McCain) to those the mainstream media all but ignore (Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel), giving equal weight to all, although, of course, I found no reference to any third-party or independent candidates.

Gone-zales

I will post more on this later, but just wanted to quickly note my favorite reaction to the long overdue resignation of AG Alberto Gonzales. This, from Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL): "Alberto Gonzales is the first attorney general who thought the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth were three different things."

Russia Goes Ga-Ga for Topless Putin

Russian president Vladimir Putin made headlines around the world yesterday after he stripped off his shirt for photographers while on holiday in the Siberian mountains.

Is this a new trend for world leaders? Perhaps 54-year-old Putin was trying to show he is just as macho as French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently posed topless for the paparazzi while vacationing in the U.S. But Kremlin watchers are abuzz trying to guess just what sort of political message the pictures, which have been prominently displayed on the Kremlin website, might send. There has been speculation that the images of a vigorous healthy president are meant to appeal to voters, to enhance Putin's image in case he decides not to relinquish power at the end of his current term, as he is constitutionally required to do. Reportedly, Russian gay chat rooms and blogs have said that the pictures represent a plea for greater tolerance of homosexuality in Russia (say what?).

You have to admit he doesn't look that bad topless. While this must be driving W crazy, I am only grateful that I've never seen a photo of Bush or Cheney without their shirts on. And hopefully never will.

Grace Paley Dies

I was greatly saddened to read about this today. Paley was a huge influence on me in my attempts at writing short fiction, particularly her 1974 book of short stories called Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, which I read over and over again, utterly amazed at her mastery of dialogue: so spare yet utterly loaded. She used to teach at the City College of New York, which is where both my husband and I received our master's degrees in fiction writing, and, coincidentally, where we met. Paley had stopped teaching there a few years before I attended, but her presence was definitely felt, and we actually got to meet her after a reading she did at the 92nd Street Y in the early 1990s.

From her obituary in today's NYT: "Ms. Paley was among the earliest American writers to explore the lives of women — mostly Jewish, mostly New Yorkers — in all their dailyness. She focused especially on single mothers, whose days were an exquisite mix of sexual yearning and pulverizing fatigue. In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud’s men had loved and left behind."

In the coming days I'm sure I will be rereading her work.

Dweezil Zappa Rocks!

Went to see a great Zappa concert last night. “Zappa Plays Zappa” is Frank Zappa’s oldest son, Dweezil, and other musicians performing Frank’s music with the goal of bringing it to a new generation of fans. At times Dweezil was even accompanied by his father himself: Old footage of Frank playing guitar was synchronized audio-visually on a large video screen so that father and son could actually jam together. It was seriously amazing. In my opinion, this music benefits from having a state-of-the-art sound system behind it, as well as being performed live. I went to this show because my significant other has been a Zappa fan since his tween years. So I had heard plenty of Zappa music around the house before, but I never really "listened." After seeing this show I am now a fan. Dweezil is an amazing guitarist in his own right, and the music, considering how long ago it was originally composed, didn't seem dated in the least. In fact, one can really get a sense now of how far ahead of his time Frank truly was. Here is a clip of dueling guitarists Steve Vai (left) and Dweezil (on the right) from the ZPZ 2006 tour:



I also realized that one reason I never got into Zappa back in the day was simply visual aesthetics. By that I mean that as an adolescent girl I recall being a bit freaked out (no pun intended) by Frank's weird facial hair (hitleresque soul patch, 70s mustache) and bizarre fashion choices (particularly his penchant for performing topless). If Frank's appearance had been more Dweezil-like, I suspect he might have had a more gender-balanced fan base.

Here are the rest of the ZPZ tour dates. If you can make it to one of these shows, go. (Melkweg, anyone?) You won’t be disappointed.

Billions for War, No Health Care for Children

The Bush administration has just adopted new rules making it much more difficult for states to provide health care insurance to children of "middle-income" families. According to the government, if you are a family of four making over $20,560, you are officially not living in poverty. What century are they living in? I guess when your lame-duck presidency is imploding and you're busy killing, maiming, and torturing tens of thousands of people in an unpopular war halfway around the world, now is about as good a time as any to finally toss that mask of compassionate conservatism aside once and for all.

In Search of Constant Bliss

The cheese, I mean. After recently reading about the luscious virtues of a delectable cheese called Constant Bliss produced by Jasper Hill Farm, I decided to go down to the Cheese Board in Berkeley to sample some for myself. After my first attempt was thwarted due to the Cheese Board being closed for a summer vacation, I returned again last week to find that they didn’t carry this particular cheese, but they did have on hand another of Jasper Hill’s products: Bayley Hazen Blue, and I sure am glad I brought some of that home with me.

This was without a doubt the best blue cheese I’ve ever tasted. With some crusty bread and some sweet-tart apples from a friend’s tree (yes, apples are ripening in California in August), I was close to nirvana. This cheese literally melts on the tongue.

Jasper Hill Farm is a small family farm located in beautiful Greensboro, Vermont, run by brothers Andy and Mateo Kehler, which, since 2002, has been producing three varieties of raw milk cheese. According to their website, Bayley Hazen Blue is made with raw whole milk every other day, primarily with morning milk. Containing “an array of flavors that hint at nuts and grasses and in the odd batch, licorice… [the] texture reminds one of chocolate and butter.” Yum.

The cheese is actually named after an old military road commissioned by George Washington, which ultimately brought the town of Greensboro its first settlers, and is still in use today.

Fortunately I still have a small bit of this scrumptiousness wrapped and waiting in the refrigerator. In the meantime I am looking into other options for acquiring a hunk of Constant Bliss. I’ve never ordered cheese online before, but am considering it now. This artisanal cheese website looks promising. If anyone has a favorite cheese to recommend please post.

Overheard in Berkeley

"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination."
Michael McClure quoting Diane DiPrima at the 2007 Environmental Poetry Festival

Light Blogging

There will be very light (if any) blogging for the rest of this week, as I have no child care until next Monday. In fact, my older daughter is here with me at work today sitting beside me in my office cubicle. I am a firm believer in my kids having as much unscheduled, unstructured free time as our work schedules will permit; the problem is that there are not a lot of other school-aged kids that are just "around" during the summer anymore. There is no good solution for working parents during the time in between the end of summer camp and the start of school, but at least she seems to be enjoying herself today making artwork for everyone's cubicle.

New York in Pictures

For the last six months I've been learning to take pictures with a digital SLR camera. I even took a digital photography class at UC Berkeley, which really opened my eyes to all the variables and complexities involved in making good photographs. I have a friend who has been shooting for somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 years, and want to share with you some of his amazing work. If you scroll through the pages you will find some extraordinary pictures of New York City street art from the era of Haring and Basquiat, and scenes of protests that took place in various parts of the city in the 1980s. I found the Bensonhurst series particularly arresting. This is a New York that no longer exists, that people barely remember anymore, even those of us who were there, and I was moved to see it so vividly documented here. There is also a series of moody and dreamy atmospheric photos taken with a plastic toy camera called a Diana. You can view the work here; it is well worth exploring.

Bubba's Pie Redux

For those of you who have been anxiously waiting for it, here is the recipe, straight from Bubba's mouth to your eyes: I won't post the full recipe, 'cause it's a little long, but here are the basic ingredients:

-your favorite 2-crust pie dough
-1 lb. of strawberries, hulled & halved
-1 lb. rhubarb in half-inch dice
-1.25 cups o' sugar
.25 cup of corn starch (or less, if you like a runnier pie)
-.5 tsp. of cinnamon

Assemble all this stuff and bake in a 400-degree oven for 50-55 minutes, or until top is nicely browned and juice is bubbling out of the crust vents so thickly that you can't stand it anymore. Das it.

Rove Resigns

When I woke up this morning and logged on to my computer the first headline to filter its way into my groggy brain was the one about Karl Rove deciding to resign from the White House "for the sake" of his family. Paul Gigot has the interview in the Wall Street Journal. I don't know about you, but I've been getting tired of hearing that same old lame excuse -- spending more time with the family -- being trotted out by the ever-lengthening list of resigning Bush administration officials. I was surprised to see this, though, as on the surface it seems like it would now be even more difficult for Bush to claim executive privilege in order to keep Rove from testifying in any number of investigations into this administration's wrongdoings. Obviously I need to think this through a bit more, but it seems to me that spending more time with his family (his son is away at college) can't be the real reason for Rove's departure. I think everyone knows by now that nothing anyone in this gang of "Mayberry Machiavellis" says can be taken at face value. Any thoughts?

Seven Years

I've been meaning to write something on the topic of motherhood. I know, that is such a huge and daunting subject that I will only be able to address bits and pieces in various blog posts, and it is hard to know where to even begin. I'd been thinking that as Noelle approaches seven years of age (exactly two months from today), I've been hard at work on this motherhood gig for almost seven years already! I can hardly believe it myself that I've made it this far. I remember how overwhelmed and awe-struck and inadequate I felt when she was first born. Today, seven years and another daughter later, I am much more relaxed and comfortable in my role.

I've been thinking a lot lately of all the ways motherhood has changed me inwardly and outwardly, as well as radically altered the general flow and direction of my life. (Speaking of "outwardly," there is a fascinating website where very brave women post photos of their bodies before, during, and after pregnancy.)

Our daughters are almost five and a half years apart. By the time the second one came along, it had been literally years since we had had a diaper, bottle, or pacifier in the house. It's very strange and wonderful to be back in the thick of it again, feeling a little bit wiser but very much older. Having two kids is more than twice as difficult as having one. It is more like exponentially more difficult. As a working mother I am doing twice the running around to school, activities, day care, preschool. And when I begin to think about adding up the financial costs of this endeavor I never allow myself to follow that thought through to its conclusion. (This article I just read today sums up some of the basic costs--minus private schools and college, the most prohibitive expenses of all--although it seems a conservative estimate to me. Babysitting costs for a night out? Joining sports teams? Piano lessons? Paying for full airfares and extra sleeping accommodations in hotels if you dare to travel anywhere after the child turns two? Not really addressed in the piece.) But there are moments, like this one, when the older one takes the younger one by the hand or squeezes her with pure affection, or when they are playing and laughing together and the house feels full of life, that truly do make it feel like the everyday struggles and sacrifices are all worthwhile.

Sicko

It's not a coincidence that I'm thinking of this film today because I'm home from work sick. This is the first time in years that I am getting paid to be home sick because in February I acceped a job that provides health insurance coverage for me and my family. It had been more than ten years since I've been in that position (having health care through my work), although I worked nearly all of that time.

I saw Sicko, Michael Moore's scathing documentary about the U.S. health care system, a few weeks back, and like most viewers, my initial reactions were of outrage and frustration. I've seen all of Michael Moore's films, and in my opinion this is his best. For one thing, he doesn't insert his usual gadfly self into the story as much as he has in past films, and this allows his story to unfold. Yes, his presentations of the English, French, and Cuban health care systems are one-sided, but so what? This is what makes a compelling documentary. I was particularly piqued to learn that in France new mothers are treated to a government-sponsored (free) nanny who comes to your house and helps with cooking, laundry, and looking after the new baby. That is in stark contrast to what new mothers in this country go through, often overwhelmed, in isolation and with only six weeks maternity leave. When the new moms in France are ready to return to work, they can rely upon high-quality child care that costs roughly the equivalent of about a dollar an hour. All French workers receive unlimited sick days.

It has only been in the last six months that my family has had employer-provided health coverage. For the previous several years we paid for a very basic plan that fell short of what we needed when our second daughter was born with health problems. The out-of-pocket cost of even minimal coverage for a family of four is prohibitive. Like many Americans we have been forced to reevaluate job and career options through this lens.

This is one of the most entrenched problems facing this country, one that none of the presidential candidates have addressed in a satsifying way. However, if only because the costs to corporations for providing their employees with health coverage are so exorbitant that it makes them less competitive in the global marketplace, I remain hopeful that in the not-too-distant future we will begin to see at least some reform on this issue.

Hiroshima

Today is a tragic anniversary. On this day in 1945 the American crew of the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb codenamed "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 70,000 people were directly killed, and in the months following, approximately 60,000 more people died of injuries and radiation poisoning. Three days after Hiroshima a second atomic bomb codenamed "Fat Boy" was dropped on Nagasaki.

When we read and hear in the mainstream media about the dangers of other countries possessing weapons of mass destruction, and how even "preventive war" (as in Iraq, and next possibly Iran) is a solution to this problem, it is important to remember that only one country in the history of the world has ever used such weapons on a civilian population.

Tzatziki

When we were in New York this summer another friend gave me his recipe for tzatziki. This is that delicious, creamy Greek cucumber-yogurt dip often used as a sauce for gyros or souvlaki, but is great with pita bread too. I tried out this recipe recently and it is quick, easy, and very authentic. My friend says that whenever he has one of the ingredients in his kitchen, he goes out and buys the rest so that he can always have some of this on hand. Exact measurements are not given--just prepare to your taste:

1. Grate skinned cucumbers.
2. Squeeze out and discard liquid.
3. Mix with any plain yogurt.
4. Add crushed garlic, olive oil, salt, and torn (not cut) mint leaf.

Always serve cold. Enjoy!

Yet Again!

ABC reset its tally of poll results reflecting who, in viewers' opinions, won the GOP debate they broadcast this morning, Sunday, August 5--in which Ron Paul was winning in a landslide! Computer glitch, or dry run for the real election? You decide:

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/050807_b_reset.htm

Look at the results of this poll, and ask yourself why you hardly ever hear Ron Paul so much as mentioned in the mainstream media:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/popup?id=3436820

Ron Paul Destroys All GOP Candidates in Straw Poll

This poll mirrors the same results of every single Republican post-debate poll that I've seen to date:

http://www.freedomworks.org/strawpoll/

So why does the mainstream media continue to utterly ignore the existence of the congressman from Texas and presidential candidate? Could it be because Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the only Republican candidate advocating a complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq? Just asking.

Bubba's Pie

I am fortunate to have a very dear friend who bakes the most excellent pies I have ever tasted, although unfortunately I only see him infrequently these days, as we now live on opposite coasts. Of his many fabulous creations, I have heartily partaken of a quince tart, several apple and apple-cranberry pies, about three different sweet potato pies, and a peach pie. When he visited at the beach house this summer he brought along this incredibly scrumptious strawberry-rhubarb pie, which we devoured bit by bit, sometimes even for breakfast, the goal being to have the pie last for the duration of the week he was visiting. I think we made it four days. It was usually eaten a la mode. It's been several weeks and I'm still thinking about it longingly. (Is this what is meant by food porn?) I've been asking for the recipe, and if he sends it along I will post.

In Between Books

It is not often that I have a lull of more than two or three days between books I'm reading. I finished two books while on vacation recently: Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Hope Edelman's Motherless Daughters. Anne is often dismissed as the lesser writer among the three Bronte sisters, and after reading this book I would have to agree. I was especially perturbed to find that the narrative tied up all too neatly with everyone enduring through their problems to live happily ever after. Edelman's book, a nonfiction exploration of the lives of girls who have lost their mothers (most through illness-related death but also through suicide and abandonment) resonated with me because so much of what these now-women had to say about the emotional, psychological and existential condition of motherless daughters is familiar to adoptees such as myself.

On that note I also recenly finished reading the memoir The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes. I had always been drawn to Homes's fiction, but it wasn't until her personal essay about being found by her birth parents when she was an adult appeared in the New Yorker a few years ago did I realize why I so identified with her writing. The Mistress's Daughter is her first autobiographical book (the New Yorker piece was its genesis). This is a quick read--I read it in a day--though passages of this book was hard for me to read because I kept having the strange sensation that I could have written a lot of it myself, word for word. It definitely stirred up a lot of emotions that I keep tamped down in daily life, so it left me feeling a bit wrung out. Although her reunion story and mine are different, we still share much of the same feelings of being betwixt and between, of having been broken and then put back together again in a new configuration.

There is a fairly new David Talbot biography of John and Robert Kennedy that I picked up from the review pile at Mother Jones that has roused some interest. I'm thinking of reading this next if I could find where in the house it is, but if anyone has any books to recommend please let me know.