He's completely right if you are careful to eat animals that have never eaten plants.
I only eat whale, because food chain.
Crop rotation! No-till methods! This guy obviously didn't have to participate in the all-state soil conservation poster contest in elementary school.
3: He spent 13 years at Dalton, if memory serves. So yeah.
Well, this point is certainly right:
but eating soy burgers that rely on pesticides and fertilizers precipitates destruction too.
(including the destruction of zillions of actual living animals, like mice, that are killed in the crop process).
But the biggest problem with his argument is that an overwhelming portion of the US vegetable crop, mostly corn, is grown to feed animals. The argument works much better for grass-fed animals, who live on a range.
From the link at 7: "We no longer use synthetic fertilizer, fungicides or pesticides."
I note the absence of herbicides from that list. Somehow I think their talk of cover crops and diversification aren't the whole story for how they got no-till farming to work.
The real problem, of course, is neither livestock nor vegetables, but way too many human beings. So, unless you're ready to thin our own herd by half or more, I'd like someone to explain the phenomenon of the self-righteous whatever-vore.
If only more vegetarians were mass murderers, like Hitler.
9: So if I support genocide, I get to be self-righteous?
12: Yes! As long as you dispose of the bodies in an ecologically sound manner.
Can you compost meat? I always heard it wasn't done.
Duh, you feed the with the bodies. Then I eat the pigs. It's the beautiful circle of life.
There's a lot of wasted energy in that circle.
Duh, you feed the with the bodies. Then I eat the pigs. It's the beautiful circle of life.
Wait a minute, you mean you don't hunt wild boar with a stone tipped spear?
I thought you paleo types were supposed to be hard core.
San Francisco's municipal composting system accepts meat waste. When we relied on backyard composting we excluded meat waste to discourage rats. Although we also chucked in an astonishing number of low grade plums from a scrappy tree around this time this time of year and would basically create an uncontrolled slivovitz fume volcano. Turning that sucker was hazardous duty. I always wondered if the local vermin were visiting in the night for a toot. Prost, Ratty!
We're in a transitional period, awaiting the advent of the iPhone atlatl for hunting virtual boars. Until then we let pigs do the work.
I can't figure out how to copy the url on this thing to post a link, but if you go to www.ladybugletter.com the top post right now is about pesticide regulation and use, from the perspective of a small farmer on the CA coast. Andy is a great writer and very thoughtful on both ecological and labor issues. Highly recommended.
19 to 17. Anyway, as I mentioned at the other place, one of my daughters announced that she was vegetarian the day after (unbeknownst to her) I had sealed the deal on a lamb and half a pig, and the week after I deposited a quarter of a cow into the freezer. If it doesn't turn out to be a brief phase, we may have to enter negotiations. Even if the argument in the OP is stupid, I may use it to stall her perfectly valid ethical intentions at least until we work through all this goddamn meat, which is going to take a year, easy.
My cousin composted an entire dead llama once, so I think people would probably be okay too. Obvs, the bigger problem with composting humans for food production is the bioaccumulation of various toxins and the possibility, however small, of having various pathogens re-introduced. But if you were spacing them out, and just using 'em for orchards and what not, I think composting corpses is a great idea.
My cousin composted an entire dead llama once...
If that were the start of a novel, I'd read it.
Works with a one-l lama also.
If people really want to eat "low on the food chain" the obvious solution is to eat as many weeds as possible -- amaranth, milkweed, lamb's quarters, plantain, kudzu, knotweed, dandelion greens, etc. etc. Just make big weed gardens every where you can and harvest and eat them right away. Plus plant tree crops of various kinds. Also, you could make r-selected animals, either indigenous or feral, a part of your diet -- pigeons, gulls, sparrows, rats, mice, voles, squirrels, rabbits, etc.
23: He's fixin' to have quite the memoir someday. Grew up poor and dyslexic and from a despised religion; got into a selective SLAC, founded a successful int'l development NGO, married a musician/model...and he's young still.
Also, you could make r-selected animals, either indigenous or feral, a part of your diet
I prefer R-value-selected animals like lambs and bison.
Bison meat is tasty, but they don't do as well in urban environments for some reason.
The other day I was walking near campus at twilight and there was a whole flock of thousands of pigeons coming to roost for the night. They're all on top of CMU's Mellon Institute (aka city hall in one of the newer Batman movies), if anybody is hungry. My son asked, "What would happen if they call pooped right now?" Now I don't have to wonder if he gets me.
29: Not much meat on those, but surely, aside from their salubrious effects on water clarity, there must be something you can do with the little momsers. Grind 'em up for a concrete additive? Use 'em for sandblasting? I dunno.
21: Can I have her email address, please? It's . . . unrelated.
32: Are they appreciably less meaty than the other types of mussels?
Just send the meat to me. It's a win-win.
I mean, you don't win, but I do. It's the circle of life.
It seems implausible that it would take that long to eat all that meat, but who knows.
Eat politicians. No nervous system, no higher brain functions, and even though so many are owned by corporations, they'll simply make more.
On a more serious note, Dan Barber is an ass. But this is nothing new.
21: Meatup in Portland! Consider it. Vegetarian visitors could cook for your daughter while the omnivores vore up your animals.
As for pro foodies being delightful people: once I had a vision of Mark Bittman finally losing it and peeing on someone's food, then solemnly informing them that he'd just improved the nutritional content of their meal. The vision wasn't clear on which restaurant, though.
To the OP, I'm entirely with apostropher about the lack of any sense of scale in these arguments.
Well, we don't eat meat every day, and I don't use that much when we do, and there's plenty of chicken and fish and eggs in their diet as well. So a year for upwards of 200 pounds of meat for three people seems not unrealistic, unless one of those people is Halford.
On preview, I will be happy to cook for a Portland meetup. I imagine Emerson doesn't eat that much.
34: They're just tiny, and mostly shell. I don't think they get much bigger than a nickel, fully grown.
33: Does your niece still work at our coöp? That place makes a good argument for vegetarianism, in that all the meat is frozen and ridiculously expensive. Then again, everything else there is ridiculously expensive, so maybe it just makes a good argument against being poor.
43: Yep! She used to be a vegan in college, and now is all "foodie" ZOMG bacon! offal! in manner of Portland.
I probably average at least 1lb/meat per day just by myself.
I probably average at least 1lb/meat per day just by myself I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
44: Nice to know she's adapted to the local foodways. Ask her if she's eaten at the veg/vegan place down the street. Someone brought me some vegan mac and cheese for the girls from there, and it was so atrocious that I got out Alice Waters' vegetable cookbook to show S that vegetarian cooking could actually be quite good.
48: I love that cookbook. Vegan mac and cheese is frequently horrible, but I will admit to a certain affection for the frozen Amy's version of it. This article from Food and Wine on Tal Ronnen's quest for a non-shameful vegan cheese is fascinating though.
49: It came with tempeh, which S tasted and promptly spat out. If I really wanted to interfere with her vegetarian intentions, I would just take her there to eat all the time.
50: Hey, I like tempeh! But not in mac and cheese. Or rather, you know, mmmaybe in mac and cheese, but tempeh can't just be tossed in things willy nilly.
This particular tempeh was so unappetizing that I couldn't bring myself to taste it (and I like nattō). Those Ronnen cheeses look good, except it looks like trying them would require my going to Whole Foods.
Our meat-eating 2yo cannot ever get enough tempeh. "Very yummy!" Because it's soy we only serve it occasionally, but it's always a hit.
The best tempeh I've had was at the one (excellent) Indonesian restaurant in Madison, WI, Bandung -- they made a fresh batch weekly and I would occasionally pick it up on my bike ride home from work, a decade ago. I also remember a waitress there apologetically reciting the specials one night: "So our main special tonight is a... a little duckling... oh, God, that sounds so awful, but it's really good!"
I have never enjoyed the texture of tempeh. The flavor was not a problem, tho.
I like vegetarian mac and cheese with salsa.
I like to put Frank's Red Hot in mac and cheese.
||
Maybe The Ocean is Broken also lacks ecosoph. From a fish caught everyday to two fish in 30 days...in the last ten years. From no damage to paint job eaten away in ten years. This is accelerating.
Ian Welsh cries DOOM! 60 years? 60 years my ass.
From comments, Welsh:
I have long advocated that Canada needs a credible deterrent beyond the ability get nukes in 6 months to two years (which we have.) The US is too strong, all our industrial centers would be gone before we had a chance....I would train the Canadian military in (ostensibly) anti-insurgency, but really in insurgency. In the event of an attack, most of them would put on civilian clothes. Teams would be set up to infiltrate into the US and wreak havoc, as well. A few hardcore regiments filled with the glory or death types would make a last stand in some important places like Ottawa, but otherwise the plan would be to make extracting any value from Canada impossible. Occupy what you like, it doesn't matter, Canada was MADE for guerilla warfare. You won't get an ounce of oil or aluminimum or water without a gallon of blood mixed in.
Chris Hedges says "Let's Get This Class War Started"
The seesaw of history has thrust the oligarchs once again into the sky. We sit humiliated and broken on the ground. It is an old battle. It has been fought over and over in human history. We never seem to learn. It is time to grab our pitchforks.
Cheers
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The ocean really is broken, but somehow "pescatarians" see themselves as more virtuous than those of us who eat up a ton of sustainable bison and pork.
I only eat dwarf wheat. Or dwarfs and wheat? Something along those lines.
60: right, the perennial confusion between meat-related health concerns and meat-related ethical concerns, which blur together into a kind of foggy aesthetics.
"I don't eat anything with a face" has always bugged me. What is this, Cooking With Levinas?
"I don't eat anything with an ass" is I think the same set of exclusions, but much likelier to stop the conversation before nearby diners break out the earbuds.
63: cloacal species are okay?
62: best to avoid.
I guess in a way I'm glad the google image search for "meat fog" doesn't turn up anything interesting.
64.1: I ain't gonna judge. I should add that I have no idea what the "face" thing works out to in practice: shellfish are OK, maybe? Earthworms? Lamprey? Stingray? Tanqueray?
65: literalizing figurative language is like slaughtering little birds to make a pie.
60: welcome to my spiritual-ethical unsustainable smooshiness.
I've really gone all in with the eating meat is ethical move. If God is a vegetarian, I'm pretty much fucked. Fortunately there is Acts 10, also known as the "here, go forth and chow down on this awesome blanket full of tasty meat."
Earthworms? Lamprey? Stingray? Tanqueray?
This made me laugh.
Heh. No, that article does not appear to be informed by a great deal of ecological sophistication.
I'm guessing that the WSJ is going all in with the slatepitchy contrarianism. Shortly we'll be hearing that locavorism is stupid because the cuisine produced is really bland and awful, as everyone knows.
No, everyone knows locavorism is stupid because it isn't actually environmentally friendly
Locavorism is awesome because it creates local food economies, which will be useful when everything collapses Mad Max style.
71: That piece suffers from the same mistake as the one in the OP: what it understands as locavorism isn't what everybody means by it. IF you mean by it what's sketched at least on the first page of the piece, sure, reducing food miles doesn't necessarily lower your carbon footprint.
That's not what everybody means, though: sometimes they're interested in locally-sourced foodstuffs because it supports the local economy (keeps local money local), sometimes because they're into eating seasonally: eating what's seasonal in your region at a given time, either because the food's most delicious that way, or because they have idears about our rhythms in sync with the areas in which we live. Think Small is Beautiful.
Tempeh is great. I had it for lunch today, in fact, at the hippie/organic restaurant in my neighborhood, which is pretty much the closest thing to a vegan restaurant that there is in Alaska in that they have multiple vegan options on the menu, but of course they also serve lots of (organic free-range etc.) meat.
There's also a good Indonesian restaurant in my sister's neighborhood that has good tempeh. I like to eat there whenever I visit her.
Small is beautiful! The ultimate 70s revival! Time to put the "Ass, Grass or Gas: Nobody Rides Ror Free" sticker back on the ole van.
Speaking of ass, what happened to Rob the Masshole?
And speaking of locavorism, in my Yup'ik class I'm learning a lot about Yup'ik cuisine.
Or what Chopper said.
I was actually interested in the "everybody knows" rhetorical move. See also "nobody denies that", "it's clear that", "the fact is that", "everyone agrees that", "there's no doubt that", or "Obviously".
(This comes up a lot in debt and deficit discussions.)
Most recently sighted version, though! A radio piece on the apparently forthcoming movie version of Fifty Shades of Gray. The specialist commentator -- from the Hollywood Reporter, maybe? -- said that Obviously, the interest in a movie version is because basically every woman over 30 in the entire world has read the book. And been affected by it. Heh heh heh.
Salmon is probably more important, though, if less exotic. The generic word for "food" literally means "fish."
"That's not what everybody means" meet "everyone agrees that".
Because it's soy we only serve it occasionally
Wait, why? Something tells me I don't want to know the answer.
84: Soy shrinks your balls or something if you eat too much of it.
Steroids shrink your asteroids into soyds.
I would love to read (a short version of) Cooking with Levinas. Does the light become heat?
82: Interesting. I didn't realize that salmon had enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, but now that I've looked it up, I guess it does. Thanks!
84: Some compounds in soy are pseudoestrogens, although I haven't seen convincing numbers on whether it's actually a high enough dose to cause any effect. So what 86 said but in more sciencey terms.
How can you be more scientific than my balls?
It took three years of constant soy consumption before they fit in standard pants.
Meatup in Portland!
Can we make this happen?
So we shouldn't be feeding our boys so much soy? Good grief, feeding kids is fucking exhausting.
I didn't realize that salmon had enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, but now that I've looked it up, I guess it does. Thanks!
It also has lots of vitamin D, of course, which is important because of the dark winters.
97: No, you just need to supplement it with testosterone injections.
Or give up on grandchildren, I guess.
97: You also have to raise them not to talk about their balls very often. Because manners.
92
I learned about vitamin C in meat from this fascinating article about how the knowledge of how to prevent scurvy was somehow lost over time:
"It is not easy to find fresh foods that lack vitamin C. Plants and animals tend to be full of it, since the molecule is used in all kinds of biochemical synthesis as an electron donor. But the same reactive qualities that make the vitamin useful also make it easy to destroy. Vitamin C quickly breaks down in the presence of light, heat and air. For this reason it is absent from most preserved foods that have been cooked or dried. Its destruction is also rapidly catalyzed by copper ions, which may be one reason sailors, with their big copper cooking vats, were particularly susceptible."
I like to put Frank's Red Hot Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning in mac and cheese.
Also guanciale.
The argument works much better for grass-fed animals, who live on a range.
Dan Barber does in fact serve mostly or entirely grass-fed animals. But he is indeed an ass. And his cooking is unacceptably bland, particularly for what he charges.
103: Yeah, I read the same. I thought I remembered liver as the vitamin C rich part of seals so I thought salmon might not be adequate as the major source, but it turns out raw salmon contains about 9 mg per 100 g serving, and RDA is 45 mg daily for adults.
106: Well, the Yupiit certainly do eat plenty of seals in addition to salmon, so it's not an either-or thing. At one point my professor described in detail the process of making a sort of sausage out of chopped seal organs (including liver), marinated in Worcestershire sauce and various spices then poured into a length of seal intestine.
They probably get most of their vitamin C from berries rather than from either seals or salmon, though.
Perhaps he should, if he's going to pretend that this sort of thing is a legitimate course.
110: I wonder how much soil those carrots depleted. Also how much he charged for them.
Dan Barber does in fact serve mostly or entirely grass-fed animals.
The relevance of this fact to his general claim is, of course, nil.
Oh, about the soy: yeah, I could be wrong but my sense is that the phytoestrogens can have effects, and the caution is not "only serve soy twice a month" but "don't give them soy-based meals two or three times a day, plus soy milk, etc." and is particularly given with girls. (This is from two pediatricians, incidentally, but wasn't really news to me aside from the official imprimatur.) Because boys are going to be less sensitive to estrogen levels or something?
The irrational part of this is that female hormones scare me in general. I had a meltdown early in pregnancy after discovering that the flax seed oil I was taking as a non-fish-based Omega 3 supplement was actually so high in phytoestrogens that it was recommended for postmenopausal women. Sorry, kid. Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about your boys unless they're chugging a gallon of soy milk a day or something.
I also kinda think Portland Meatup should really happen. kayak used to live there, we have friends to visit, and the child can always use more meat. A mass road trip from CA might be a little intense, though.
112: The general claim is obviously bullshit.
I dunno, I want to go to Portland too.
There is in fact plenty of precedent for a meetup that people travel long distances to attend.
||
These are, uh, really quite something.
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I like to think that I'm a non-judgmental vegetarian. I haven't eaten meat since I can't remember when (for at least 20 years, though: I was one of those teenage girls whose parents thought she must be going through "a phase"), but I will occasionally cook meat for the (male) carnivores in my household. Apparently, my method of cooking short ribs (a couple of hours or so in a slow oven, with the remaining 15-20 minutes on a grill for char-broiled flavour) can be considered successful. Not that I would know first-hand, because animal flesh? it is to shudder. No judgement, though, and please pass the BBQ sauce.
"Self-righteous vegetarian" is such a bore. What is this? like 1995, or what?
(My mac and cheese is not strictly vegetarian, but it is a high-fat, high-flavour form of comfort food. Do I garnish the dish [of macaroni, milk, butter, and old cheddar, with a bit of Coleman's mustard powder for a bit of a bite] with a mixture of fresh bread crumbs, more butter, and still more cheddar on the top? Er, maybe. So sue me.)
My mac and cheese is not strictly vegetarian, but it is a high-fat, high-flavour form of comfort food. Do I garnish the dish [of macaroni, milk, butter, and old cheddar, with a bit of Coleman's mustard powder for a bit of a bite] with a mixture of fresh bread crumbs, more butter, and still more cheddar on the top? Er, maybe. So sue me.
Wait, how is that not strictly vegetarian?
Wait, how is that not strictly vegetarian?
The cheddar (from Scotland, or Canada, or at least Vermont) is made from rennet. So: not really vegetarian, strictly speaking.
But I'm really that strict a vegetarian, because Scottish cheddar.
I'm really S/B not really...
Huh. I think of avoiding rennet-based cheese as more of a vegan thing than a vegetarian one, although I suppose it could be seen that way.
I thought concerns about rennet were mostly a vegan thing but really, why should I pretend to instruct the vegetarians about what vegetarianism involves.
I guess I owe teo a Coke or something.
I guess it's sort of a transitional thing, since vegans of course avoid all cheese.
127: I'll also accept an equivalent quantity of seal oil.
You can just bring it to the Portland meatup.
Eh, I guess the lining of a calf's stomach seems more hard-core meat-based than eggs and milk (which are also extracted from our mammalian friends, of course). I'm not saying any of this is systematic and rational. I suppose I might draw the line at eschewing honey because it is stolen from the bees, but who am I to judge?
(It's unseemly to brag, of course, but my mac and cheese [based on my mother's approach, but without the canned tomatoes] is what I want to eat whenever I feel down [I just want someone else to make it for me, and I should probably write down the recipe...]).
eggs and milk (which are also extracted from our mammalian friends, of course)
Platypus eggs? Maybe this foodie thing really has gone too far.
I would love to go to Portland. I haven't been there since I lived there back in the previous century. It was a nice place to live except I didn't have any friends.
Platypodes are far from the only mammals that have eggs, teo.
I would totally go to a Portland meetup.
It kinda sounds like there's a quorum for a Portland Meatup. Yay?
Platypodes are far from the only mammals that have eggs, teo.
Indeed, I have a dozen in the refrigerator right now.
I have a dozen in the refrigerator right now.
Platypodes or other mammal eggs?
teo eggs, presumably. Nosflow says they're the only mammals that have them.
Platypodes are far from the only mammals that have eggs, teo.
Indeed. All mammals have eggs. (Or, to be even more precise, pretty much exactly half of all mammals have eggs.) It's just that most of them don't lay eggs.
143: Significantly more than half of mammals have eggs. I had eggs for breakfast twice this week.
my mac and cheese [based on my mother's approach, but without the canned tomatoes]
Wait? Tomatoes in mac and cheese?
Also, I sort of wonder what a monotreme tastes like.
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine, bona fide
Antipodean, flatfooted monotreme!
What'd I say?
--Monotreme!
What's it called?
Monotreme!
That's right! Monotreme!
--I hear it has a tough old hide?
It tenderises well when fried!
--Would it be OK in a curry?
Sure, unless you're in a hurry!
--The texture's kind of like old vinyl
Sorry, Marge, the menu's final!
Monotreme!
Maybe I'll stick to monotreme eggs.
Fuck you for not mentioning me, whiteys. Spine to the jugular smug platypus loving bitches.
Take my eggs I spine your face, "Moby Hick."
You'll never get in a Disney TV animated series with that kind of attitude.
It's just that most of them don't lay eggs.
Oh, now I understand.
I disagree. All mammals have "egg cells" but other than the monotremes no living mammals have "eggs."
That's why my plan to promote the larger types of sea turtles to mammals is so important.
Sign me up for the Portland meet up.
What is the best time of year for a Portland meet up? (When does Jesus have the most wine?)
(When does Jesus have the most wine?)
Whenever; it rains a lot there.
156.1 to 155. I imagine there will be some sort of ceremony?
I disagree. All mammals have "egg cells" but other than the monotremes no living mammals have "eggs."
No, mammalian ova are generally referred to as "eggs"; "egg donors", for example. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority agrees with me.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority agrees with me.
You have to be careful to get the right authority. The Human Fertilization Authority is just a guy with a panel van and a website.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
They sold out, man. Embryology used to be so underground and cool and now it's all Authority this, Official that.
Weirdly, I think I was sort of pwned.
How many divisions does the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority command?
(When does Jesus have the most wine?)
At the marriage at Cana in Galilee, if you believe that sort of thing.
How many divisions does the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority command?
The first eight, I think. After the blastocyst gets implanted it's none of their business.
When I fight embryology, embryology always wins.
||
A candidate for greatest newspaper correction ever:
An Oct. 14 Style article about access to the prison camp for terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in- correctly referred to Navy Capt. Robert Durand as "thickset." He should have been described as muscular.
|>
No, mammalian ova are generally referred to as "eggs"
Since that's what ova are, after all.
Ova are eggs but not all eggs are ova. Easy.
169: I'd love to have access to the correspondence/phone calls leading up to the correction.
166 -- I'd have gone with "delusional."
172: It occurred to me you might be familiar with the person in question.
They should have compromised on "beefy."
"Girthy"
173 -- No, we don't deal directly with the propaganda apparatus. The idea that there is "lawfare" is delusional. And a calumny. That none of the uniformed officers assigned to defend the few GTMO prisoners actually indicted -- at substantial cost to their careers -- has challenged this guy and the other slanderers to a duel is a symptom of our fallen age.
22: My cousin composted an entire dead llama once
I've heard (from a farmer who grows them) that the way you create a truly wonderful asparagus patch is to bury a dead mule in it. (Or maybe it was a donkey?)
("Delusional" is too kind, because it would mean that they actually believe that there is a coordinated AQ campaign to use the courts to harm the image of the US. I don't think even Durand believes this, which makes him scum, not mentally ill.)
There's a great Robert Graves short story about biodynamic compost, along these lines -- guy writing about his neighbors who are getting into organic gardening and composting, and odder and odder conversations about what they're doing to maintain the compost. And then tramps start disappearing.
"Earth to Earth".
And another one (can't remember title or author) about the lady who murders the insurance investigator who comes asking about her fraudulent claim, and buries him under her ratty lawn outside her horrible little house. But then she finds she can never leave the horrible little house and go off with her loot to the tropics, because the lawn is still ratty, except in the perfectly man-shaped patch over his grave, where it is growing lush and green... so she has to stay there for the rest of her life to keep mowing her lawn.
At least she can have nice things.
Also, why not just lease the house with a clause about the tenant can't touch the landscaping and hire a lawn service to keep the whole thing green.
So does the insurance company just accept that the investigator's never coming back and decide to give her the full amount of her claim, or what?
What was she claiming for, even? Clearly she didn't burn the house down.
No, she'd perpetrated the fraud some time before, collected the payout and was just waiting a few months before she headed off to Rio. The investigator was there off his own bat because he didn't quite believe her story. (I can't remember all the details. Read it a long time ago.)
I can remember it was one of these, because I remember which anthology it was in:
The Bitter Years - Dana Lyon
The Judges House - Bram Stoker
Witch - Marian Lines
Natterjack - Mary Danby
Meshes of Doom - Neville Kilvington
Carlton's Feather - Eric Ambrose
The Moon-Bog - H P Lovecraft
The Dancing Partner - Jerome K Jerome
And I suspect it may have been "The Bitter Years". But not sure.
Topically, do you think the animal shelter people check out somebody who asks for a chicken. Asking for a friend.
Jerome K. Jerome wrote something other than "Three Men in a Boat" and "Three Men on the Bummel"?
|| Following up re the GTMO thing, those of you not following probably wouldn't know that the military commissions are having hearings this week in the case of the alleged 9/11 plotters. I'll paraphrase what I have second hand: The issue this morning was whether the defendants could have a UK barrister argue that their torture was in violation of international law. No, says the government, because the tretment of these guys is classified, and so no one can tell the UK citizen what was done. Defense says well it's not a secret from these guys. Gov't says they were exposed to classified sources and methods. Defense: "These defendants were exposed to 'sources and methods' in the same way that the citizens of Hiroshima were exposed to the classified Manhattan Project."
The govt was at one point arguing that their exposure was voluntary because AQ started the war. Defense lawyers clarified that their clients were not willing participants in the CIA's 'enhanced interrogation' program.
You'd think we could gin up a better class of kangaroos. But I guess we have to keep Capt. Durand and his staff of 20 occupied. |>
I have a weak excuse for a compost pile, but there are lots of worms in it, so I might even be wormposting. There are also crane fly larva, so sometimes the top layer gently churns. Anyway, I put that in my garden twice a year and grow a cover crop over winter (primarily because I know that I won't haul myself over to my community garden for chard). I get more produce than we can eat, so for now the tramps are safe.
185: The investigator was there off his own bat
What a charming phrase, one I've never encountered before. I'd like to adopt it.
I'm a fan of good anthologies -- they seem to be few and far between* -- so I was interested in the one described in 185. I'm guessing it's Creepies, Creepies, Creepies (1977).
* My standard for the awesome anthology is Dangerous Visions, and More Dangerous Visions. I'm ready to be schooled on others so excellently gathered and edited.
Yay, Portland me(e/a)tup. There is plenty of wine always, but given that people will have to travel in order for there to be any sort of meetup involving anyone other than me and Emerson (and we're already overdue for a date at the izakaya that shows Japanese slasher flicks), we should allow some time for planning. Spring is lovely here, and the half of a pig I've ordered will be available then. Interested parties can join me for tours of Clear Creek and other distillers of delicious spirits.
Interested parties can join me for tours of Clear Creek and other distillers of delicious spirits.
"Hells to the yeah".
Haha. I will come foul your meetup with tempeh! xoxoxo -- vegetarians
I might be able to make it, depending on dates. Mmm, spirits.
Speaking of meetups, anyone from the Bay Area (or elsewhere) interested in coming up for a guided wine tour of Sonoma County? We could hit 2-4 wineries depending on how people's livers/palates do, and then maybe wrap up at a local restaurant for dinner. No need for folks to stay overnight, just up Saturday morning and back in the evening.
Thoughts?
Vegetarians are welcome, the tastier the better.
196: Oops! My comment got cut off because I tried to get cute drawing hearts. It continued -- "vegetarians [heart] eaux de vie, too!"
Dayum, I would go for the Portland meetup if it weren't, like, 3000 miles away.
195: Did you have a time in mind? I'm in the Bay Area in mid-November. I'd been thinking about going to Sonoma, even.
If it happens in the spring, parsi, you'd have plenty of time to plan.
I have a conference in NYC Sun 17--Saturday the 23rd, but I could do Sat the 16th (or the 9th).
201: I'm around Nov 12-18 with no particular plans, so the 16th would work perfectly, but if that's not convenient to interested others, that's fine.
I'd be down for the Choppo Sonoma Wine Tour.
I'm going to be in the Bay Area over thanksgiving. Would love to do a meet-up.
It may have to be a weekday thing, though. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday before.
I could do Sonoma if there's a lift in the offing.
So three potential takers, shooting for the 16th? Maybe we can get a front page post to recruit a few more?
Minivet, I'm sure we can work something out. I'll have a car.
I will also be in the Bay Area for Thanksgiving, but only on the weekend.
210 gets it exactly right. Start planning, peopoe.
Speaking of meetups, anyone from the Bay Area (or elsewhere) interested in coming up for a guided wine tour of Sonoma County??
GO! GET TO DA CHOPPAH!
