I'm just so happy she didn't choke under pressure.
For the first time in history, this gives science a way to control light with matter...
Sweet Jesus! I knew my mirrors and lenses were all incorporeal.
Beam me up, Scotty!
PS -- I think there was a post over at Apo about this last week...
She's look better if she updated her haircut. And lost the boxy jacket.
Well, yeah. That's part of what the post title means -- I simply have no concept of what exactly she's supposed to have done.
Brock, this woman can make light disappear! I wouldn't diss her fashion sense if I were you. Or I'd do so very quietly.
Maybe she should make the light reflecting off her jacket disappear, or turn it into a nice burgundy by slowing it down a little. Burn!!
After reading mmf!'s article, I'm worried that Harvard isn't pacing itself very well. Meh, so you showed how to use neutron stars to control the weather. No new tenured physicists this year.
(Reposted from the personal trainer thread.)
Way to ruin a threadjack, LB. We were this. close. to getting off topic.
Does anyone have a link to a write-up of her experiment two years ago where she slowed light down to traffic speed? That's more interesting (read: less imcomprehensible) to me.
And this article was pretty vague on the whole "turning light into matter and back again" aspect of the experiment. Methinks the journalist didn't really understand the experiment that well, either.
Just to poop in the punch bowl:
MIT's graduate program in Operations Research this year admitted 15 men and no women. There were also no women on the admissions committee.
This is the theory behind it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetically_induced_transparency
What the hell is "Operations Research"?
Logistical aspects of business and finance, I thought.
Can she make Larry Summers disappear, then reappear at at later date?
Here is an article by Lene Hau and others.
http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/26/article1/article1.html
Manufacturing logistics. Boring stuff.
Or, what 16 said.
15/16: I'm pretty sure I know a woman student in that program. She's more likely to wear army jackets than boxy jackets though.
There's probably a wiki, but Operations Research is the application of scientific methods to the organization of processes, to get better results. Widely used in business—Taylor's Scientific Management is a sort of precursor—it was developed in Britain during WWII, where it achieved astonishing gains in operational efficiency. I'd recommend a book if I didn't know that's exactly what I shouldn't do.
Can she make Larry Summers disappear, then reappear at at later date?
I don't know that it'd be a stronger result than simply making Larry Summers disappear, first demonstrated by L. Summers.
I never took a college physics class, and the ignorance in the very first paragraph of that article is glaring. No one since Einstein ever said light couldn't be slowed down! Light is slower in air than in a vacuum, everyone knows that.
So I wouldn't count on the writer to be explaining it very well.
Hm. Operations Research sounds so Macnamera.
23- perhaps giving too much credit to the author, I read "in free space" to mean "in a vaccum". And that we thought it couldn't be sped up or slowed down in a vacuum. And that boxy-jacket/bad-hair lady did just that. Which I'd be curious to know more about, hence 11.
OR isn't just business & finance though ... I know an ex theoretical physicist who ended up do OR for the navy.
25: But it's not in a vacuum, it's in the Bose-Einstein condensate thingie. That's the thing -- when I try and put the accomplishment in terms I understand, it sounds like no big thing, which means that I don't understand it at all.
25: Possibly, but "two years later, she brought light to a complete halt in a cloud of ultracold atoms"? That doesn't sound like a vacuum to me, if it was the same type of experiment.
Hm. Operations Research sounds so Macnamera.
I'll say. His wartime experience in fact was statistical analysis for the 20th AF, the American version. And statistical controls—the famous body counts— were sedulously applied in Vietnam. But "garbage in/garbage out," as we used to say then.
No, it's all operations logistics -- shipping, manufacturing, supplying. Definitely important in the armed forces.
31: apparantly applied to tactics too, these days.
And statistical controls--the famous body counts-- were sedulously applied in Vietnam. But "garbage in/garbage out," as we used to say then.
I'll have you know that this kind of insult to our troops is a grave insult to our troops. "Garbage" indeed. From now on John Edwards will be held responsible for everything you say.
28- I thought the Bose-Einstein speakerbox was for her current experiments, not those of a few years ago? Part of my problem here may be that I don't have a good idea of what a BE-box is, exactly.
I understand the stopping light in a cloud of atoms thing. That's child's play. I'm pretty sure you could do that with any home science-kit in the 70s.
Brock is using a substantially looser definition of "light" than most scientists.
and by "stop" he means "bounce off the particles of dust from clapping two erasers together."
OR is the largest engineering major at Teo U., because it's what all the engineers who fail out of their original departments transfer to.
34: I've only read an article or two about it, but according to Wikipedia, Hau was the first person to do it.
How close is she to an application? I like my Earl Grey hot, thank you.
Less talk. More synthahol.
There's an old SF short story that I can't remember the author or title of, about a kind of glass that slows light to the point where it takes years to pass through. You set it up someplace pretty for ten years, and then install it in your apartment as a 'view'. It'd be funny if that ever became practical.
Oh. And it's cited in the Wikipedia article. I should read links.
Everybody except JM should know that the best one-volume treatment I ever read was Jagjit Singh's Great Ideas of Operations Research, a Dover paperback from the sixties. Good stories, with history.
The traces of light that remain in cold clouds should be called anti-Eeyores.
I'm afraid it's doubtful I'd read that book, IDP, even if it weren't recommended.
Did you ever read Hazlitt's Reply to Malthus?
I at least skimmed it at one point, though I've forgotten the substance of it.
Comments have slowed enough that I don't feel dropping an Ask the Mineshaft: Romantic Food Edition in here: I need to buy or, preferably, make something for my wife for dinner tonight. I don't cook anything unless I'm following a recipe, but I can follow a recipe with the best of them. Restrictions: she's vegetarian, and also for short-term breastfeeding-related reasons can't eat anything with wheat, or soy, or any nuts, or dairy. She'll eat about anything else, except she doesn't really care for peppers. Any romantic recipe suggestions or other ideas? I'm getting nowhere. PS, this is all she gets for Valentine's Day, so you better make it good.
Trying to remember a statistical argument you would like, from a multi-faceted genius. By contrast, the widespread enthusiasm for Paul Ehrlich's neo-Malthusianism, in The Population Bomb while I was in college seems rather naive to me now; the readability of pre-20th-century economics classics was a great discovery for me.
48: With those restrictions, something Indian or Middle-Eastern is probably your best bet.
IDP, that is absolutely the worst romantic recipe suggestion I've ever seen. But I don't have a better one.
I've always thought this sounded pretty delicious. Just change the name to "Geschlechtsverkehr Pie".
48 - Weren't you also the guy who forgot his wife's birthday and Xmas presents? We'd better help you make this a GOOD dinner.
Where's Tia with her coconut rice pudding recipe? Would she like that?
LB, I actually did major in physics, and then some, and I've already forgotten many things as well. That's the nature of physics--it's kind of like exercise. When I was at Berkeley it was a fairly open place, and I met several people in their 50s or 60s--frequently retirees or semi-retirees--who had decided to amuse themselves by relearning relativity or mechanics or biophysical chemistry and take classes again.
Porridge, porridge and more porridge. Festooned with brightly colored Gushers, cashews, and cubes of paneer.
According to Marinetti's Futurist Cookbook, a "Nocturnal Love Feast" should involve an incredibly large ham. I don't remember any other details, though.
How hard is the dairy restriction? A souffle (not cheese, maybe spinach?) would have some milk, but not that much as a percentage, isn't that hard, and would have a pretty good glamour factor.
Here's a vegan chili recipe, courtesy of Tia, that's quite good. You can leave out the peppers.
3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, diced
2 bay leaves
1 tsp each thyme, ground cumin, and basil
1/2 tsp each cinnamon and chili flakes
1/8 tsp allspice
several dashes ground black pepper
1 tbsp coarse sea salt
1/2 cup vegan dark organic chocolate chips or chunks
1 1/2 cups each carrots and celery, chopped
1 each green, red, and yellow peppers, stems and seeds removed and chopped
14 oz can each pinto, garbanzo and kidney beans, rinsed
28 oz can diced tomatoes, or 4 cups fresh tomatoes
1 cup corn kernels, fresh, frozen, or canned
In a large pot, warm the olive oil on medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, spices and salt, sauteing until the onions begin to turn translucent. Stir in the chocolate until melted. Add the carrots, celery, peppers, and beans and saute for 5-10 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and corn, and reduce heat to a low simmer. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, Serve over a bed of warm rice with fresh bread. Serves 6-8.
Becks can help with the porridge; JM's roomate has given her an idea.
Birthday/x-mas was handled smoothly with a post-christmas shopping trip. But, yes, a good dinner, please.
Just make sure that something is festooned with something else. The only real opportunity you get to use the word "festooned" is when you're describing some sort of complicated thing you made, so don't miss this chance.
OK, back to "work".
60 sounds good, and is the winner so far. I've never heard of chocolate in chili.
59- probably a little would be okay. But not much.
This is HARD. I'm trying out a vegan cupcake recipe tomorrow night and that won't even work since it has flour (wheat). I didn't know you could get harder than vegan!
What are these breastfeeding restrictions for, if I might ask? Are they causing problems for the baby or has all of the OMG! YOU CAN'T EAT ANY OF THESE 100,000 THINGS WHILE PREGNANT OR YOUR CHILD WILL BE DOOOOOMED!!1! parental-shaming advice really been extended all the way through breastfeeding and made that strict?
Yeah, I'd just be wary about trying a recipe out that called for wheat flour with non-wheat flour for the first time on a special occasion.
65- yes, it's pretty hard. Rice and potatoes and eggs, plus fruits and vegetables -- that's pretty much it. Was just hoping someone has an especially romantic way to stir those things together.
Did you look at the Adas Polow recipe, Brock? It's good without chicken.
It's easier if you don't restrict yourself to European culinary traditions. Any Indian cookbook will have several options.
67- he was having a lot of problems with food allergies (through her milk). She cut out pretty much everything (and lived on pototo chips for a few weeks) and has been adding items back in one at a time for months now.
It would be a lot easier if she ate meat, but it is what it is.
Here's an epicurious search page for vegetarian, no dairy, no nuts recipes. You could see if anything there looked appealing.
72 - Thanks. Just curious if it was based on actual problems (which it sounds like it is) or if the "just in case!" advice given to nursing mothers is becoming as extreme as the advice given to pregnant women.
Iranian food is often made with rose petals. Rose petals! I don't see how you can get more romantic than that.
70- that sounds delicious; I didn't realize that was a recipe the first time through. But you only linked to a recipe you described as shitty - do I have to buy the book to get the good recipe?
Well, I've found Madhur Jaffrey's mango curry recipe to be a great romantic dish; fairly easy to pull off and quick to prepare, too. It potentially falls foul of two of your restrictions, though, because it involves natural yoghurt and coconut (the soy restriction makes substituting hard).
73 is very helpful. I'm sure I can come up with something amidst all these suggestions. Thank you Mineshaft!
(Not trying to cut off conversation -- it's just that I have to go write a memo now or I'm never going to get leave here to go home and cook this dinner. Feel free to keep the wonderful suggestions coming -- I'll check back and spend some time deciding later.)
74: There certainly can be actual problems like the ones Brock Jr. is having, but the OMG!!!1!1!! advice happens for breastfeeding as well. Sensitivity to what the mother is eating through breastmilk is nothing like universal (my two had no visible reaction to anything), but you'll read a fair amount of advice suggesting that everyone should worry about all sorts of ordinary foods, even before the kid shows up with problems. Feh, I say.
I can't give you recipes, but I can give you suggestions for a pseudo- Indian dinner sans the verboten ingredients, and I'm sure you can find recipes online. . . Saffron rice is pretty romantic, I think. Find a fried rice recipe---you just have to fry the rice in olive oil and add the saffron and spices and vegetables (carrots, peas, tomatoe, green beans, chard instead of peppers) before adding the water and letting it cook. It goes well with eggplant and potatoes--cube the eggplants and potatoes, sautee them with garlic/hing and the like (sorry, I can't recall, but I'm sure you can find a recipe online), don't add too much water. Or aloo gobi---again, basically sautee cauliflower and potatoes in oil with gingner and garlic/hing and cumin&fennel&mustard&blackcumin seeds, then add powdered cumin and turmeric and salt. Find a recipe for a tomato rasam to compliment the dry vegetables with the wet; if you can find a recipe for pakora batter (it uses gram flour, not soy, which I assume is safe?), you can make squash pakoras, they're easy and tasty and deep-fried. For desert try a less sweet fruit, like apples, baked with a little cinnamon and topped with a sweeter fruit-based sweetener or honey or agave. (They'll have this in the crazy sugar aisle of a health food store.) For romance--JM is right, you can't go wrong with rose petals. If you can find organic ones, get some rosewater and make a sweet rosewater drink and top it off with petals. Nasturtiums are also edible. Good luck!
(I'm in a suddenly good-for-Valentine' Day mood b/c my cynical IT guy got all the ladies in the office lilies. Too sweet.)
And just so no one's worried, we're told that there's an extraordinarily high likelihood that whatever's bothering him now will clear up as his immune/digestive system develops, and that he probably won't have food allergies as a child/adult. Or at least is no more likely to than anyone else.
Thanks again Becks.
76.---Hm, that is a problem. I've wanted many times to post recipes from that book (since my honey and I share a copy and it's never where I need it to be), but I would feel kind of bad doing so. You should buy it! It's a great book.
You know what's romantic and vegetarian? Avocadoes, if you can find good ones. They've got that lush richness that you'd normally get in a Valentines Day meal from a filet mignon. Make guacamole, or a nice avocado salad or something.
83- understood. Cookbook is now bought. Won't help me tonight, but maybe next year!
I apparently would get very bitchy as an infant if my mother ate spicy foods.
I seventeenth the recommendation for Indian cuisine. And go buy your wife some flowers.
Yes, we've been eating lots and lots and lots of avocados. NTTAWWT, or that we won't again tonight. I love avocadoes.
Now I really need to go write a memo!
They've got that lush richness that you'd normally get in a Valentines Day meal from a filet mignon.
I have to say that this comparison has never occurred to me.
In East Asia dog meat isn't exactly regarded as romantic, but it's thought of as having a viagra-like effect.
if he's having allergy problems maybe you should ditch the flowers. . .
oh oh oh! Can you get mangoes?? Moby has a great mango/avacado/beet salad with blood orange dressing that is beautiful and sweet and romantic. it has walnuts but totally not necessary. It's in Moby's TeaNY book. . .
Avocados are brilliant!
Here's a salad with avocados and strawberries, which are also romanticy. This doesn't look as romantic but sounds yummy nevertheless.
BAM! The recipe Saheli talks about in 91.
I feel a little bad that I apparently bullied Brock into spending money. Sorry, Brock.
I second the recommendation for beets, though I don't care about all of that other stuff Saheli's recipe contains. Man, I love beets.
If someone promised me a Valentine's Day dinner of filet mignon and served me guacamole, I'd probably disappointed.
I'm making spaghetti for our Valentine's Day dinner, which sounds un-romantic and boring unless you know that, sadly, "spaghetti with red sauce" is my wife's favorite food.
JM: heard Lawrence O'Donnell on Franken's "penultimate" show yesterday, about Romney, and all I can say is brace yourself to defend the fundamental Christianity of the LDS to many, many liberals whose cluelessness is disheartening (that word again). And this from a guy who plays a Mormon, albeit a polygamist, on TV.
Why liberals? Wouldn't we be more likely to, regardless of how ignorant we were about Mormons, not give a damn as to whether they were Christian?
99:You're right, it won't matter to many, but a part of me still wants "liberal" to be synonymous with well-informed, worldly, respectful and tolerant.
It would be nice if liberals would hold their fire for a while, but the other Republican candidates look so bad that people are warming up their anti-Romney jokes.
Yeah, it's not so much that liberals are more likely to display this sort of cluelessness as that it's more disheartening when they do.
Mormons are very far out on the heresy curve, though. It's not just liberals who deny that they're Christian. Back before the ecumenical religious political right, rejection of Mormons was across the board.
Well, of course we're heretics. Mormons deny the trinity. It's not a nice thing to say, though.
This sort of issue makes me all weird. I'm perfectly happy calling any religion whatever they'd like to be called, given that I don't really care much about any of them. But the competing claims to respectful treatment that Mormons have in not being called heretics because it's not nice, and that trinitarian Christians have in being able to call Mormons heretics because by their lights Mormons are heretics, make my head hurt. Can't we all just not give a damn?
Brock: a couple of thoughts.
Indian works very, very well but to do very tasty ones can require some harder-to-find ingredients and probably works better the second time you've tried. That being said, if you are interested I have some simple recipies around.
I managed a last minute veggie recipie a while ago that went over very well .... based around some very good asparagus & several types mushrooms I happened to have. THis was very quick too, mushroom omlette (in this case topped with cheese sauce, but you could improvise something non-dairy or leave it). Plus slightly caramelized asparagus drizzled with an olive oil & herb thing, plus new potatoes sauted with time and sea salt.
Took about 15 minutes. You could steam asparagus to make it more straightforward.
I'll try and thing of options if you are still looking..... I'm not near any of my recipies at the moment though.
What about Unitarian Universalists? Didn't they used to be called Anti-Trinitarians?
Yes. And many harder-core Christians consider them to be basically atheists. They've been around for long enough to be more respectable than Mormons, though.
Catholics don't call Mormons Christians because they deny the special divinity of Jesus, and they believe in the eternality of the soul (as opposed to it having a creation.) There's probably some other things, too, but those are the biggies.
But that said, it doesn't mean all that much to say the Mormons aren't Christian, from a Catholic perspective: it just means that if Jackmormon here decides she really needs a religion with a bureaucracy, she has to get baptized first. A regular ol' Protestant wouldn't need to be baptized ("one baptism for the forgiveness of sins"), but just confirmed. And it would mean, if Jackmormon married a Catholic, that her husband would need a different dispensation, and if they divorced, he'd invoke a different privilege to get the thing annulled.
I don't know what it's like for other less bureaucratic religions, but for Catholics it doesn't mean Mormons are in any sort of special trouble.
That's just for nerdy interest: the answer in politics should be "who cares?"
Speaking of cooking for your sweetie, there is a bizzare Valentine's day article in the Times about abusive spouses and cooking. At least that's my read on it.
Also, JM is at extreme risk of cooking in hell for all eternity.
I'm tempted by the PZ Myers plan of voting for the least religious, and boycotting Mormons in the same group as the orthodox.
Jesus was specially divine for this world, though. The Jesuses of other worlds are special for those other people!
Really, though, all these heresy talk is such a relic of the Established Church. That's probably what gets Mormons' back up about it. Brigham wanted a theocracy, but you all were all "noooo, we divide church and state in this country" and now you all want to pretend like you own Jesus or something. What-evah, man. That's cold.
111.---Oh, sure. I probably wouldn't vote for a devout Mormon.
Also, JM is at extreme risk of cooking in hell for all eternity.
I wonder if she'll be allowed to cook with dairy.
110: That is really weird. shivbunny and I both like to run things in the kitchen, but we're not mean about it.
So when he wants to cook for me, I'm banished from the kitchen and told to have a glass of wine because otherwise I get underfoot.
(When I cook, he gets to do the chopping of vegetables. Because man, chopping vegetables is boring.)
110 is indeed a bizarre article.
"Couples cooking together is probably the second leading cause of divorce next to home renovations."
This may be true among couples who are incredibly fortunate and have nothing to legitimately worry about but need a pretext for divorce because they don't like each other.
Isn't that the main reason for divorce? Regardless of the precipitating event "Just don't want to be married to this person anymore" on at least one side seems to explain most of the ones I've seen.
I guess it isn't such a dumb statement if you replace "cause of divorce" with "pretext for inevitable divorce".
The implication that disagreeing with each other in the kitchen could be serious enough to break up a marriage is pretty trivializing and annoying.
Hey Brock, you can make a really tasty stew like this: fry a bunch of salted chopped onions and garlic in a fair amount of olive oil or butter (maybe 2T.) over medium heat in a stock pot. Add chopped carrots and celery, and chopped potatoes and/or sweet potatoes. When everythings getting nice and sweaty, turn up the heat and as it starts to sizzle, add some white wine and/or stock, maybe about 1/2c. Cover, reduce heat and allow to steam. After a little while, add: vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower; something meaty -- I usually use meat but fried eggplant would be good, or portobello mushrooms. By this time the potatoes should be getting soft, so you can just let it cook a little while to blend all the flavors. I don't know how romantic this is but maybe you could serve it with candlelight and music.
Mormons are very far out on the heresy curve, though. It's not just liberals who deny that they're Christian. Back before the ecumenical religious political right, rejection of Mormons was across the board.
It always surprises me when I hear this. I do not remember ever hearing this when I was younger, and seeing that I attended a Mormon church for a while and then switched to other churches, you would think someone would have mentioned it. What is with all the Mormon hating, anyway?
Brock, fwiw, my nephew had the same kind of allergies when he was breastfeeding (my poor sister-in-law) and now, at 5? I think, he's outgrown all of them, though they still avoid nuts just in case.
The whole Jesus as one of the equally divine persons that make up God thing is pretty central, doctrinally, to trinitarian Christians, which includes most of the sects conventionally thought of as Christian in the US. It's not really Mormon-hating to point out that they're about as far doctrinally from most other Christians as Muslims are.
For me, instinctively, it's the "extra book" thing. (In point of fact, I shouldn't care, on account of no longer having a dog in that fight, but old habits etc.) Let's see, extra book, monotheists, off in the mountains where no one will bother them... if they believed in reincarnation, they'd basically be Druze only without the yerba mate.
It's not really Mormon-hating to point out that they're about as far doctrinally from most other Christians as Muslims are.
It is not necessarily Mormon-hating to point out the differences, I will grant you that. I do not think the differences are nearly as great as you argue--this feels like an exercise in over-emphasizing the differences and ignoring the great commonality. Maybe I did not pay enough attention, but most of the stuff I heard at the Mormon church I went to sounded like the stuff I heard at the Presbyterian, Methodist and others I forget churches I went to.
I find it incredibly pleasing that this thread somehow went from everybody not quite understanding the conversion of light into matter to everybody not quite understanding the mystery of the trinity.
To be clear, most people aren't knowledgeable enough (this just means they're not theology nerds) about LDS to explain the doctrinal differences: going to bet that 90% of the time, it's "don't they secretly believe in polygamy?!" motivating the bashing.
Come to think of it, you know what annoys me about this really? It's the same thing as the "Oh, it's so unjust to maltreat these women, because they're not really fat. Of course, abusing actual fatsos is AOK!" argument.
(I am now going to address a bad argument that no one has actually made, I just suspect that it is hanging in the air in an inchoate fashion on this issue. I may be totally off base in thinking that it's what's really going on.) There are social/political advantages to being a Christian in the US -- it's the normal, ordinary thing to be, and it means you're a traditional, decent person with family values. I think this kind of sucks. I'd like to live in a society without pressure to conform religiously, and so I'm all hardline about the separation of church and state because I don't want any additional pressure to conform religiously to come from the government.
The sense I get from the way the issue of whether Mormons are Christian gets raised is that there's a feeling that it's unjust to exclude Mormons from the privileged position of being normal decent Christian folk on narrow doctrinal grounds. And this kind of burns me: anyone who's annoyed that they aren't regarded as entitled to the privilege extended to Christians in our society should be arguing that no one should get that privilege, not trying to pass as a member of the privileged category so that they can then piss out of the tent on the atheists and Wiccans.
It's not really Mormon-hating to point out that they're about as far doctrinally from most other Christians as Muslims are.
That's not how it feels to Mormons, though. Just to warn you. They point, with some justification, to their belief in Jesus's sacrifice as the act of redemption for humankind as being proof enough that they are Christians, not Muslims.
(The other planets' Jesuses do the same for their populations.)
I think you should smack 127 on the front page.
Basically there's a lot of doctrine that Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant all share, though they disagree about a lot, and Mormons don't share all of that. Mormons also have certain unique beliefs shared with no other church, as well as a lot of standard heresies long condemned by the aforenamed churches.
Catholics and Mormons have a mutual hatred. Fundamentalists condemn each other often enough, but agree in condemning Mormons even more.
Mainline churches tend to be wimpy and I suppose they don't condemn Mormons, but if they condemned anyone, Mormons would be included.
There are a fair number of equally-heretical churches (or almost): Christian Science, Jehovah Witness, 7th Day Adventist, Unitarians, Moonies, and maybe Quakers.
You think? I'll have to dig up a Romney link to anchor it.
There are social/political advantages to being a Christian in the US -- it's the normal, ordinary thing to be, and it means you're a traditional, decent person with family values. I think this kind of sucks. I'd like to live in a society without pressure to conform religiously, and so I'm all hardline about the separation of church and state because I don't want any additional pressure to conform religiously to come from the government.
That's mighty white of you, LB.
re: 127
Without in any way trying to deny that your experience is what you say it is, I have been an atheist for almost as long as you have been alive and I cannot remember anyone ever being mean to me or otherwise oppressing me about being an atheist. And I have spent a lot of my life in the company of the dreaded right-wing Christians who are supposed to be doing all the oppressing. I think YMMV on this issue.
I dunno, 134. I am absolutley closeted about being an atheist unless I'm around close friends or family.
You could use this Sausagely post as an anchor.
And as a priest, that means I have to maintain quite an airtight front.
127, 134: Who needs to be mean to you? You're going to Hell; that seems more than mean enough.
Jehovah's Witness is a really strange religion.
127
On the other hand I think Mormons historically have been disproportionately victims of religious prejudice arguably making tolerance towards them more important.
It seems to me that the Rastafarians deserve more respect. we **are** sittin here in limbo, after all.
129: I frontpaged it.
134: Oh, no one's mean to me about it -- I live in New York City. But if you look at polls, your or my chances of being elected to public office, if we don't lie about our religious beliefs, are basically zero. I'm not happy about that.
126 gets it. Mormonism has the misfortune of making for an easy target from any number of vantage points; it's not only or even primarily the theological and doctrinal stuff. Objections touch on everything from the supposedly dubious literary virtues of the Book of Mormon through Joseph Smith's biography and into issues like polygamy and racism.
A lot of those objections seem to me to conveniently forget the historical sins of various other religions and ignore the evolution of real-life Mormonism. Some present tougher hurdles, though; aboriginal people tend to be offended by Mormonism's take on North American prehistory, for instance, and it's hard to find a really good answer to that beyond "let's just agree not to talk about it." (Although maybe there's a better LDS response that I don't know about or haven't heard yet.) The formal exclusion of blacks from Mormon revelation may have been rescinded decades ago, but a few decades isn't all that long and from some perspectives it still casts a pall of suspicion (as it did for me, for a long time).
142
But don't those polls also show atheists running well behind Jews in electability so it is not simply Christian vrs not Christian?
127:134; I've remarked on this before as well. I'm a idol-worshipping heathen, and these days I get a lot more grief from my Atheist friends than I do from my conservative Christian acquaintances. Actually, it's not even grief so much as passive annoyance--people usually forget that I am religious b/c I am so very liberal and pro-Atheist and non-Christian so they think they can harsh up all religious people in front of me and I'll just agree. The tolerance tables definitely vary greatly by context and density. If you get enough Atheists together some of them can be just as groupthinkily cliquish and contemptuous and blindly mean as the next dogmatic tribe.
145: That's one of the depressing things about humanity. It's pretty much contemptuous dogmatic tribes all the way down.
If you get enough Atheists together some of them can be just as groupthinkily cliquish and contemptuous and blindly mean as the next dogmatic tribe.
Atheists who feel the need to self-identify as Atheist annoy me. Atheism can only ever be a component of a larger worldview; if people feel the need to make it their primary touchstone of belief, there are often other issues going on.
There are a fair number of equally-heretical churches (or almost): Christian Science, Jehovah Witness, 7th Day Adventist, Unitarians, Moonies, and maybe Quakers.
This is an important point. I doubt theology is doing most of the work when it comes to anti-Mormonism.
Brock, my sympathies -- my sister is going through the same thing right now. No dairy of any kind because it makes the three-month-old VERY unhappy.
Anyway, I skimmed the thread but don't think anyone posted this yet -- a coconut rice pudding recipe that I like a lot. If, like my sis, your wife doesn't like coconut, she may still like this, because it doesn't have the distinctive texture of coconut -- it's only made with the milk.
1/2 c. white long-grain rice
put in saucepan, add water to cover, put on pot cover and cook until water is more or less absorbed (takes 15 min or so - don't forget about it!)
Add:
1-1/2 c. coconut milk (can buy a can at most good-size grocery stores - may have to look in the "ethnic" food section, either Hispanic or Asian)
1 stick cinnamon, or 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
about 1/4 cup brown sugar (to taste)
Cook over very low heat for 20-30 min; serve hot.
Enjoy!
148: On the other hand, those religions don't have the same "we are Borg" thing going. Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses try, but they're not very good at it.
Like I said, not primarily theological.
146: True. But it's also kindness and delight all the way down too; I openly admire the conviction and self-knowledge of heartfelt Atheism---theologically, even!
Basically the world is full of families of world views and self-identities that aren't going away any time soon. If writers and thinkers can articulate in the language of each broad class of identity a specific, "local" worldview that is capable of looking out onto the world and seeing the rest harmoniously and tolerantly, there is actual hope for pluralism. Then people can have some tolerant world view option which is still familiar to them, and still accessible to their life.
151: Yeah, I realized after I posted that I was agreeing with you and should have phrased differently.
152: Amen. It's just that somehow it tends to be easier to wind people up about tribal identity than pluralism.
148: I think that at the Presidential level, members of none of those churches could be elected, and certainly not as Republicans. JWs would refuse to run. We have had Quaker and Unitarian Presidents, but that was then.
Actually, Friends Church Quakers are pretty normal Protestants. Meeting Quakers are the weird ones, and not so much doctrinally as in practice.
Probably too late now for Valentine's Day offerings, but I'm going to share a few recipes that would suit the diet in question, anyhow, since hey, they might come in handy later.
First: sweet potatoes with garlic and cilantro
2 medium sweet potatoes
4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
4 or more cloves garlic
1/3 bunch cilantro
juice of 1 lime
Put a heavy-duty baking sheet in the oven and preheat both the oven and the baking sheet to 450 degrees. Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes, cut them in half lengthwise, and then into slices about 1/2-inch thick. Put them in a big bowl, add the olive oil and coat well. Season with salt and toss again.
Now take the hot hot baking sheet out of the oven. Pour the potatoes in, and spread them out into a single layer. Put them back into the oven and set a timer for 10 minutes. Don't wash the bowl.
Now mince your garlic and chop your cilantro, leaves only. Put the garlic, cilantro, and lime juice into the oily bowl. When the timer goes off, check to see if the sweet potatoes are browned on the bottom. If they are, turn them over. If they're not, put them back in for 5 more minutes, and then flip 'em. After you've flipped them, put them back in to brown on the other side, which should take a little less time. When they're done, tip them into the waiting bowl and toss them together with the cilantro, garlic, and lime. The heat from the potatoes will heat the garlic through, which is all the cooking it needs. Add a little more salt if you need it.
These go nicely with black bean dishes, and/or greens.
Amartya Sen claims that Atheism is just a branch of Hinduism.
They'd be more in the "not very good at it" category too, I suppose.
Second: black beans!
1 onion, chopped fairly fine
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
Tabasco or other hot sauce to taste (or not at all, if you prefer)
2 16-oz (or so) cans of black beans
1/2 c vegetable broth
Salt and pepper
Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium-low heat. You want a pan that will hold the beans, eventually. Add the onions and cook slooooowly and patiently until they start to turn gold. This will take longer than you think, probably: up to half an hour. Be patient.
Meanwhile, dump the beans into a colander and rinse them well.
When the onions are soft and turning a nice warm color, add the garlic, cumin, and hot sauce and cook for just a minute more. Add the beans and broth, plus a little salt. Raise the heat and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cook, stirring, until the beans get thick instead of liquidy. Taste for salt.
You can eat these with rice, or greens, or those sweet potatoes, or whatever, or you can turn them into black bean croquettes, which are also a good use for leftovers. That recipe up next.
Third: black bean croquettes
A cup or two of those black beans
Half a cup or so of leftover rice or other grains
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Olive oil
Heat the oven to a keep-warm temperature like 200 degrees. Put a plate in there, lined with a couple of layers of paper towel.
Mix the beans, the rice, and the eggs together to make a thick lumpy batter. Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in a seasoned cast iron or nonstick pan, over medium heat. Drop heaping spoonfuls (I use the soup spoons, or "table spoons" from our ordinary flatware) of batter into the pan, leaving space between them. They will make little mounds, rather than flat pancakes. Cook about 4 minutes per side, letting them sit undisturbed until it's time to flip them.
When the first batch is done, transfer them to the plate in the oven and start another batch, until your batter is used up. Add more oil to the pan as needed.
I really like these -- they have a nice way of feeling like a substantial anchor for a meal, rather than just another side dish.
One thing about hijacking a thread is that sometimes a rehijack occurs.
If any of us could focus worth a shit we'd spend all our time doing what we're paid to do.
I don't see how that follows. Also: I envy rfts's husband (snarkout, right?) his access to tasty-sounding black bean crocquettes.
Good name for a McDonald's-themed band: Ray Kroc and the Krocquettes.
We had 'em tonight and you are right to envy.
rfts and snarkout are married? Huh. I must have missed that. Congratulations.
I should update, since you were all so nice: thank you all again for your very helpful and thoughtful suggestions. Unfortunately I left work late enough that I didn't really have time to make a nice dinner (which is partly your collective fault, which mitigates some of my thanks). But what I did instead was make 93, which was a BIG HIT, so thanks, plus I picked up some indian take-out, which was also a very good idea.
But since she lives with these restrictions every day, at least in the short term, all these other recipes and ideas have been duly noted, and many or perhaps most will be tried in the coming weeks. Thanks everyone. ps- 149 and all the rfts recipes sound especially delicious.
Yay! That salad does sound delicious.
Hey RFTS, thanks so much for reminding me about cooking onions slowly -- over the years I have slipped into cooking them over medium heat and quickly. Tonight I prepared some leftover chicken by cooking onions very slowly in butter, then adding some chopped carrots and leftover chicken. Came out very tasty.
(For a minute I thought your initials were RTFS, and trying to figure out what the "S" would stand for -- "Read the Fucking Schedule"? "Read the Fucking Story"?...
I slip sometimes, too, but it is amazing the difference it makes. Marcella Hazan has a nice bit on it in one of her books.
Read the Fucking SnarkoutBoysandtheAvocadoofDeath?
Here is a nice article about cookbooks.
Today, I was given a pizza with tomatillos on it. I recommend putting tomatillos on pizza.
I've been wondering about tomatillos. Are the pineapple-flavored ones the norm? What are the other ones like?
I have a hard time imagining how one would pineapple-flavor a tomatillo.
I mean they naturally taste like pineapple. Those are the only tomatillos I've ever had, being from a suburb of a declining coal town and all.
At a farmer's market last year my friend Jonathan said "You know what's cool? These tomatillos. They look like little orange tomatos in a paper husk. But they taste like pineapple! They do!" And I bought a bunch of them, and they did taste like pineapple, and were good.
I was just wondering whether that was the normal tomatillo, or if that is some sort of bastardized knockoff and when people say "tomatillos" they mean something else.
Tomatillos are generally green. I've never thought they tasted like pineapple; the ones you had were probably a different variety. So no, not the norm, as far as I know.
Non-pineapple-tasting tomatillos, these were.
Could you have been eating ground cherries? They're a tomatillo relative (same papery husk) that I could see as describing as pineapple-flavored.