Hawleyblog

A Food and Drinks Post With Even More Sweets Than Usual

Last weekend I made Red Velvet Cupcakes as a trial run in anticipation of my sister's birthday, which is coming up on Tuesday. I promised in this post that I would make some kind of cupcake for her birthday and I know that red velvet is one of her favorite cakes, so I decided to give RV cupcakes a whirl.

I looked through a bunch of my cookbooks and searched on the Internet to see what I could find in the way of red velvetiness. I was disappointed not to find an RV recipe in The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock. I figured if anyone would have a definitive guide to red velvet, it'd be them.

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, which I mentioned here and here, had an RVC recipe that looked quite good. The only issues I had were that it called for 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, which didn't seem like something I'd necessarily want in my RVC batter, and it offered no advice on how to convert the cake into cupcakes. The book doesn't have any cupcake recipes at all, which is suprising to me since cupcakes are a mainstay at the Sweet Melissa bakery. Maybe Melissa is keeping them in reserve for baking book No. 2.

Anyhow, I found an RVC recipe at Epicurious that had both layer cake and cupcake variations. It's from New York's Magnolia Bakery.* Since this recipe made a cake using three 9-inch-by-2-inch circular pans and produced 24 cupcakes, I figured Sweet Melissa's would produce 16 cupcakes since it made a two-layer cake using 9x2 pans.

I was pleased with how the cupcakes turned out, and my co-workers liked them. I was mysteriously able to make 24, with some batter left over for eating right out of the bowl. And I even filled the cupcake liners almost to the tippy top. *shrugs*

Next time, when I make them for Tracey, I'll do three things differently: First, I'll leave out the cinnamon. I don't think it's found in traditional red velvets and, as Joyce and I discussed, it may have masked some of the chocolate flavor. SM's recipe has more cocoa than most of the others I considered—3 tablespoons versus as little as a teaspoon—and I want to be able to taste it. SM has a habit of doing things just a little bit different—using orange instead of the more common lemon in a poppy seed cake, for example—and I'm usually all for that. But in this case, I say nay.

I'll also allow plenty of time for the icing ingredients to soften. You whip in the butter and vanilla for less than a minute after combining the cream cheese and powdered sugar for a much longer time. My butter wasn't as soft as it should have been and so it didn't get incorporated into the icing as thoroughly as I'd wanted it to. And I was afraid of whipping it too much because the recipe specifically says "Do not overbeat."

Finally, I'll use the icing gun Tracey gave me and try to make 'em look all purty instead of taking the quick and easy route and smearing the frosting on with a knife.

***

Speaking of cupcakes, the other day I tried a Grasshopper-flavored one from Crumbs Bake Shop,** which just opened an outpost near my office. It was big enough and sweet enough that I didn't feel like I could—or even wanted to—eat it all at one sitting. I dug it—it was chocolaty and minty after all—but it maybe had too much of an industrial-bakery taste and look that prevented me from going completely ape shit; it didn't give off even a trace of made-with-love-from-scratch vibe. I'm sure I'll go back at some point to try the Cappuccino flavor, though. I'm only human.

***

It's time to leave cupcakes behind and focus on a bigger passion of mine: bar cookies. I've been thinking about going to Baked for a while now. I was aware of their presence in Brooklyn through some combination of media exposure; they get tons of publicity. And when I visited Pat in New Hope before Ken and Karen's wedding, I saw the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking cookbook in the kitchen-stuff room at Heart of the Home, one of my favorite stores in town. I almost bought the book because so many recipes in it looked fantastic, but I figured I should try Baked's wares first. Then, a couple of weeks ago at work, Joyce and I were talking about Baked, among other bakeries, because she was picking out a place to make a cake for a baby shower she was throwing. I looked at Baked's Web site and was especially chubbed up about the Brownies & Bars page. Sweet Jesus on a sheet cake!

On Friday afternoon, I took the B77 bus out to Red Hook and got off when I could tell from my trusty iPhone Map application that I was only a couple blocks away from the store. I almost always feel all dorky and uncertain on buses, mostly because I rarely take them and, on the rare occasions when I do, I'm typically going to a place I've never been before. But also because I have a tendency to be dorky and uncertain. I usually don't know where the bus is going to stop next, and I worry that it'll go past my destination and then I'll feel even dorkier.

Before placing my order, I snapped a photo of the display case of bar-cookie magnificence. I think the ones in the upper-right corner were Linzer tortish. But I had no use for them. Not when there were Lemonlime, Coffee Crisp, and Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars to be had. I got two of each, and Bob, Judy, Anna, and I devoured all but a few bites of them Friday night after pizza. They were $2.50 apiece, which I didn't think was outrageous.

On my next excursion to Baked, I'll probably try the prewrapped brownies, including, oh-so-predictably, the peppermint. Or maybe their nonbar cookies or ooh! a Tollhouse Mini Pie.

***

I've been eating a lot of oven fries lately, and I'm still working out the best method for baking them so they're neither too greasy nor inclined to stick to the pan. I hit upon the idea of starting them out on parchment paper and then removing the paper when they're ready to be flipped, which I've decided should be once I start smelling them. One constant is chives: dried for now but fresh from the farmers market in the coming months. The fries need nothing else except for a liberal shaking of salt and a dash of black pepper.***

***

A while back, I wrote that I wanted to try making my own version of Stonyfield Farm's Vanilla Chai Ice Cream. Well, today was the day, baby.

I don't often like to go the easy route, so I couldn't just throw some chai tea bags into a pot of half-and-half along with some vanilla beans. I figured it'd be more fun to buy the individual whole spices at D'Vine Taste, which has some big fans on Yelp. (Note to self: gotta try the chicken pot pie sometime. And note to the fourth commenter, Tam: you gotta get a grip, honey.)

I did have a box of Tazo Organic Chai tea bags on hand, which told me all of the spices that go into chai seasoning: ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom, cloves, and star anise. D'Vine Taste didn't have star anise, so I substituted anise seed instead. And even though I had some fresh ginger root in the freezer, I decided to go with the dried ginger root at the store because it might be easier to figure out guess at the correct amounts of each spice to use if they were all dried.

I ended up using 4 cinnamon sticks; 4 pieces of ginger, which I broke up into halves or thirds; 1/2 teaspoon of black peppercorns, which was the spice I was most worried about taking over; 1/2 teaspoon of anise, which is the flavor I'm least fond of; a heaping 3/4 teaspoon of cloves, which I really like; and 1 tablespoon of cardamom, which, ARROHK, I adore. (And besides, cardamom is the queen of spices. Except for when it's, er, turmeric.) I also used two vanilla beans and four English Breakfast tea bags, which the manufacturer, Classic English Tea Merchants Harrisons & Crosfield, points out on the box contained 2.5 grams of tea whereas most U.S. tea bags contain only 2 grams, at most. And since I made a double batch of ice cream, all of them were infused into 3 pints of half-and-half.

The ice cream isn't completely frozen yet, but the spoonfuls I scraped from the ice-cream-maker cannisters were very good. I think the flavors melded beautifully with no single thing coming across too strongly. 

*Here's a link to a fascinating New York magazine article from 2005 about the cupcake craze that started at Magnolia in the late '90s and the incestuous web of bakeries in the city that produce the little buggers. Several former Magnolia employees have opened spinoff businesses, including one of the original partners, Jennifer Appel, who sued a former manager of her spinoff bakery, Buttercup Bake Shop, after he opened a cupcake bakery in Bay Ridge. Wikipedia says Magnolia's other original partner, Allysa Torey, sold the business in 2007, after this article was published. (Wikipedia says Appel split from Magnolia in 2000; New York says it was in '99.) Billy's, which I mentioned in the first "here"-linked post above and which is one of only two bakeries mentioned in the magazine article that I've actually eaten something from, was opened by a former manager of Magnolia.

**If there's any connection between the people behind Crumbs and anyone in the Magnolia family tree of bakeries, this New York Times article from 2003 doesn't make it known. The woman named as a co-owner then isn't mentioned on Crumbs' Web site now. The article also credits the Cupcake Cafe with leading "the cupcake resurgence" back in 1988.

***If I had more pep and at least another hour before bedtime, I'd write at length about the crazy woman in Connecticut who first got me making these fries, with chives and red pepper flakes. She had an organic farm that I agreed to apprentice on before I ended up on Guy Jones's farm instead. Because I'd left her farm once it became apparent she was waaay out there. She was convinced the Chinese controlled our weather and that the slaves had to have been happy because, otherwise, how could they have sung such beautiful spirtuals? Gah! There was more, much much more, but that'll have to wait for another day.

A Current Affairs Post in Which There Are Lots of "Moderates" Who Need to Be Told "Fuck You"

One-Stop Shopping for Stories of Financial Shenanigans

Before we get to those moderates, you have to read this post by Glenn Greenwald. It's got all of the latest outrages being perpetrated by Tim Geithner and his friends at the bailed-out banks. It starts out with a supersmart comparison by a former IMF official who says America is more like Russia under the oligarchs than it is Japan in the '90s.

Then it touches on the fact that Obama wants to name a former investment banker from, of course, Goldman Fucking Sachs to run the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, even though the man in question played a huge role in deregulating the financial sector.

Then, linking to naked capitalism, which links to an article from the goddamn New York Post, of all places,* Greenwald writes that banks that received TARP funding are buying MORE OF THE SAME SHITTY ASSETS that fucked them up so royally because they know us taxpaying sheep are going to be paying too much to take them off their greedy motherfucking hands, thanks to their best buddy, Tim "Should Be Tarred and Feathered" Geithner. The nerve of those sons of bitches! Citigroup and Bank of America bankers, meet the business end of a pitchfork!

Next, he writes about the meme running rampant among the media elites about how the little people need to sacrifice at this time of economic calamity. We're already bailing out your rich goddamn friends, Chuck Todd! What more do you fucking want? Eat my shit!

And finally, there's a reminder that even as America has become a "nation of jailers," the rich and privileged need not fear for their crimes—not even those who've destroyed our way of life with their unbridled greed and arrogance.

Oh and then, in the updates, he's got a preview of what Todd and his ilk are gunning for: the dismantling of government health care programs and Social Security as a necessary step to "save" the country in this troubled time. The little people must sacrifice even as the bankers take and take and take some more. Fuck no! And now for the "Fuck you"s. ...

***

Fuck You, Arlen!

Is there a more craven politician in Washington than Arlen Specter? He now says he'll support a filibuster of the Employee Free Choice Act, apparently because the Republican National Committee has been threatening him with backing a right-wing primary challanger. Like John Aravosis says in the post linked to above, the Dems should be haranguing the Republicans nonstop for threatening to filibuster pretty much everything. And the people of Pennsylvania need to wake up to the fact that Specter is constantly willing to cave in on his supposed principles to appease his party's ultraright base.

And Fuck You, Joe!

And speaking of so-called moderates who are anything but, Joe Lieberman's trip to meet with a like-named and like-minded warmongering Israeli politician last month should have been huge news. But it wasn't because the asshole-enabling Democrats won't call Lieberman out on his bullshit and because the media finds controversy in overseas trips (like Nancy Pelosi's to Syria while Chimpy was president) only when Matt Drudge says they should.

And Don't Forget Evan. Fuck Him Too!

Evan Bayh says the group of "moderates" he's starting in the Senate "has no agenda." But the Wall Street Journal claims the group's "stated goal" is to "protect business interests."

And Finally, Fuck You, Kent!

Being a moderate also means standing in the way of combating global warming. We sure need more reasonable moderates like Kent Conrad in the Senate.

***

The Best Explanation of How We Got to Where We Are

Matt Taibi's Rolling Stone article about the economic crisis, "The Big Takeover," is another must-read.

Dean Baker Answered Any and All Questions on the Bailout

With Jane Hamsher over at firedoglake

The Economic Geniuses Who Missed the $8 Trillion Housing Bubble Still Haven't Noticed It

That's what Baker says over at his own blog.

1980s Texas S&Ls

That's what the Krugster says the Treasury Department is willfully creating.

Chimpy Is Almost Never Brought Up When the MSM Is Talking About Our Economic Destruction

I've been very critical of Geithner and Obama, but the media's disappearance of the Bushies from the equation is outrageous.

And Finally, on a Noneconomic Note: John Yoo's Memos That Allowed Bush to Effectively Become a Dictator Were Treasonous

That's what Constitutional scholar Michael Ratner tells Naomi Wolf. "This would be the president making war against the institutions of the United States," he says.

*When the very conservative Post feels a need to point out that you're buying troubled assets instead of lending, you know you're an evil piece of shit. (Even though the article doesn't quite go so far as to say that the banks are doing so because they're playing us for fools.)

A Touch-of-Spring Flowers Post

Dutch irises in a nearby yard

I asked Will to help me identify this bush I saw here in Park Slope. His first guess was Pieris japonica, which I think looks to be correct. I have to link to this page too but only because I'm getting a kick out of the phrase "hanging or semi-erect panicles."

Lots of panicles, in close-up

Crocuses that are almost ready to burst open

A Current Events Post in Which Geithner Has Got to Go

Every Week Is Be Kind to Bankers Week at Treasury

Geithner "seems unable to imagine a banking system not run by its current leaders or owned by its current shareholders or engaged in the same arcane securitization practices that led to its collapse," Harold Meyerson writes in The Washington Post. That's why he wants to give "huge taxpayer subsidies to hedge funds, investment banks and private equity companies to buy the banks' toxic assets without really having to assume the risk." Geithner's plan is nothing but more giveaways to the stupid, corrupt greedheads who got us into this mess in the first place. Geithner's got to go. (Hat tip to Atrios) 

Next, We'll Learn That We Have to Give Our First-Born Children to AIG

I would hope Obama would learn from this AIG-bonus debacle that maybe it's better to hire noncrooked liberals for economic positions in the government and risk being tagged as a *gasp* liberal than it is to go with the same old "centrist" assholes who started this whole mess. Ooh, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, and loads of cable-news pundits would have wrung their hands and tsked-tsked if Obama had picked Nouriel Roubini to be head of the Treasury. Mustn't allow that to happen. Must go with that supposedly reliable centrist egghead Geithner. Obama deserves every bit of crap he gets about this. And hopefully there'll be more coming. And not just from progressives like Glenn Greenwald. The thing that disgusted me the most about how the Obamans have handled things so far is that his press secretary tried to pin the whole thing on Chris Dodd, a pretty reasonable Democrat who may face a tough re-election next cycle. And, more importantly, who actually tried to get the Obamans to put tough strictures on bonuses that they rejected and pressured him to give up on! Republicans are being incredibly hypocritical on this issue, as you'd expect, but the administration is giving them a run for their money as to who can be the most deceitful. And everyone arguing that AIG's bonus contracts are iron-clad wants us to forget how easily the employment contracts that had been negotiated with the United Auto Workers were ripped apart.

AIG's Reinsurance Unit May Be Nothing But One Huge Fraud

"I'm developing an increasingly gloomy belief that every single one of these bonuses—the AIGFP ones we're all talking about, but also the 4,500 bonuses to people in the so-called 'healthy' insurance side—are tied to an amazing financial fraud," firedoglake's indispensible Marcy Wheeler writes. "And we, the taxpayers, are bribing these people to stick around their fraud long enough to try to undo it." In this post, Wheeler writes more about AIG's "retention" bonuses for people who were already fired, including the person most responsible for all of the shenanigans at AIG Financial Products: Joseph Cassano.

And Let's Not Forget That AIGFP Still Has $1.6 TRILLION of Bets That Need to Be Sorted Out

Holy shit! These people were gambling with unbelievable stakes, clearly enough to bring the entire global economy down. That mission has already been accomplished, and there's still $1.6 trillion unresolved. And those people need to be handed tons of money because they're the ones who can fix things? No, they need to be killed. Or be forced to work at Wal-Mart for minimum wage for the rest of their lives. Which would probably be worse than death for them.

From Chief Citigroup Economist to Counselor to the Treasury Secretary

It's a natural job progression nowadays because, as Atrios says, the more wrong you've been, the more employable you are in Geithner's world.

Chuck Schumer Is Still a Neocon on Foreign Policy

At least when it comes to Israel.

Southern Oligarchy and the Labor Unions

Joseph B. Atkins of The Progressive Populist argues that cheap labor, even more than racism,* is "the thread that connects all of Southern history."

"Fox Facts" on Labor Unions

They're not the same thing as actual facts.

Socialism Without a Soul

Like all of the other oligarchs, Newt Gingrich sees the evil specter of socialism only when it helps the little people.

Neither the President nor the MSM Wants a Single-Payer Health Care System on the Table

Obama supported the idea when he was in Chicago, Truthdig's Amy Goodman writes. She also points out that major media outlets rarely give single-payer advocates a chance to make their case.

The Only Commentary on the Breakup of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston You'll Ever Need to Read

And, naturally, it was written by a supersmart feminist: Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte.

Rush Limbaugh Doesn't Have Anywhere Near 50 Million Listeners

But Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post wants us to believe he does. And Kurtz refused to acknowledge he was spreading misinformation even when his own paper showed he was.

Atrios Called Ari Fleischer the "Worst Person in the World"

For this performance on Hardball. Chris Matthews nailed him this time, but that doesn't make up for the fact that when Bush was in power, Matthews had no problem with evil sons of bitches like Fleischer telling lies on his show to prop up the most diabolical administration ever. Matthews refused to speak truth to the powerful when they had power. And that ties in with my last item:

The Mission of the Beltway Journalist

It's to protect and reinforce the establishment, Glennzilla writes.

*He says "race," but I think it's fair to say that he mainly means "racism."

A Filmtastic Saturday With Tracey and the Boys

Tracey, the boys, and Molly—the best female basset hound ever—came to visit me on Saturday. I'd gotten us tickets to see the New York International Children's Film Festival's Short Films Two presentation at the Scholastic Theater in Soho. Amazingly to me, the festival's Web site no longer has a link to this event that happened only two days ago, so I can't link to the Short Films Two page.

I'd planned for us to have brunch at Balthazar before the show, but when I called to make a reservation after the Gerbers got here, I was told the restaurant was booked solid for its entire brunch service. The night before, while over to the Schultieses for our regular pizza dinner, Judy told me I should call Balthazar right then to make a reservation. I called but got a message that told me to call another number, or something, and I didn't pursue it further until the next morning. Balthazar has a separate bakery counter that I suggested we could get breakfast treats from, but Tracey said she was in the mood for something more substantial. We ended up at Spring Street Natural Restaurant instead, and we all enjoyed our meals there. I'd eaten at SSNR with Pat around my birthday three years ago, and I met someone there on a date once in the interim.

While the boys and I were using the men's room before the movies started, Tracey pointed out to the usher on our side of the theater that the ballots she'd been given didn't match the movies that were in the program. The usher had to take everyone's ballot back and give out the correct one. Us Hawleys have to fix everything! :-)

Our slate of 12 films was aimed at kids 8–14. Here's my marked ballot. My favorite, Post!—a cartoon from Germany about a mailman who burns people's mail and substitutes his own, funnier letters—was Mike and Matt's least favorite, and Tracey didn't think much of it either. We all agreed that Lapsus, an animated short from Argentina about a freaking-out nun, was very funny. My other favorites were Mommy, I Love You; Zoologic; Fuggy Fuggy; and Lifeline.

Back at my apartment, Emme put herself on everyone's least-favorite list by attacking Miss Molly just seconds after I'd gone into the bathroom. I rushed out and threw her in her crate, where she stayed until the Gerbers left.

After Tracey and I took the bassets for a walk (I'd taken Emme out before the incident with Molly), the four of us went to dinner for Sicilian pizza at La Villa. T, M & M really enjoyed the pizza, but they weren't prepared to say it was the best ever. We'll have to work on that. Tracey said she thinks Brooklyn Pizza in Ridgewood has better pizza, but she said she's never tried BP's Sicilian.

Today, I got an e-mail from the NYICFF with the list of award winners. Fuggy Fuggy won the Audience Award for ages 8–14. New Boy, which I think Tracey put down as her favorite, won the Parents Award. And Don't Let It All Unravel, which I put down as a "liked it," won the Environmental Film Award. That film's director, Sarah Cox, spoke at a Q&A session after the movies were shown. She explained that she made the movie by unraveling knit objects—such as polar bears and leaves—one loop at a time and capturing each pulled stitch on film.

Here are a few pictures of our day:

Matt with a piece of pepperoni

Tracey and Michael, also at La Villa

Me, in extreme close-up, at Spring Street Natural

And the boys acting all gangsta on the 7th Avenue subway platform

UPDATE on March 17: I didn't have the time or energy last week to make the cupcakes I alluded to here. But when I visit the Gerbers next, for Tracey's birthday, there will be cupcakes. Oh, yes, there will be cupcakes.

In place of the cupcakes, I bought some peanut butter chocolate chip goat ice milk from Patches of Star Dairy. My two favorite POSD flavors in one, and it's fantastic! But none of the Gerbers wanted to try it. *sigh*

The 39 Steps

I saw The 39 Steps Thursday night with my theater buddies Joyce, Missy, and Nate. I enjoyed the show quite a bit. There were many laugh-out-loud moments, and the four performers—Arnie Burton, Francesca Faridany, Jeffrey Kuhn, and Sean Mahon—are all very gifted physical comedians.

M&N had already seen T39S, but they were eager to see it again. And I knew it'd gotten great reviews. Missy went to the TKTS Discount Booth in Times Square to pick up our tickets while Joyce and I surfed the Net worked our butts off back at the office. Our backup shows included Billy Elliot (which was more of a pipe dream really; it hasn't gone half price yet because it's still drawing a gazillion people who are willing to pay full price) and The Third Story, which has gotten mixed reviews but I thought might be worth seeing because it co-stars Kathleen Turner, whom I'd love to see live on stage. And I like Charles Busch, too. I enjoyed Die, Mommie, Die! And not only because it starred delicious Jason Priestley, although that certainly didn't hurt.

Before the show, we had dinner at Pongsri. I liked my appetizer, Golden Triangle, which was like a Thai version of an Indian samosa, only instead of one big, triangular-shaped, potato-filled, curry-spiced fried pastry, there were several, smaller triangles. And they contained chicken instead of peas. I was disappointed with my entree, Bangkok Chicken. I'd asked for it to be "hot & spicy," but it was salty and otherwise bland instead. Joyce picked out a highly enjoyable wine, the 2006 Banyan Riesling. The listing in the menu spoke of flavors of peach and apricot, and I could totally taste them. It also spoke of "petrol"! Thankfully, I couldn't taste gasoline. Or benzene. Or any other petroleum product. I think Dad and Jean would enjoy the Banyan—and the show, too.

During dinner, I accused Nate of not being a true nerd because he's never seen The Fisher King. Joyce shot down my theory because TFK's fantasy elements are Arthurian rather than Dungeons & Dragons-esque. We also talked about two classic husband-and-wife entertainment teams from the '70s that I Googled on my trusty iPhone to see whether they were still married: Shields and Yarnell (divorced in 1986) and Captain & Tennille (love is keeping them together). Coincidentally, in both cases, the woman was/is the older half of the couple.

And now, here are some YouTube clippages for your entertainment pleasure: Captain & Tennille performing their biggest hit and Shields and Yarnell acting as puppeteers and their marionettes.

A Current Affairs Post in Which There's More Than Enough to Be Angry About

It's All Ultimately About AIG

Their credit-default swaps are what's truly bringing everything down around us. See here and here. And what can we do about Hank Greenberg? He helped ruin not just his own goddamn company but also the GLOBAL ECONOMY and the piece of shit is still bitching on (where else?) CNBC that it's everyone else's fault but his. That goddamn dinosaur needs to die already.

And Speaking of People Who Need to Die ...

Former executives of Countrywide, who also helped destroy the economy through their abusive and/or condition-free lending, are now profiting from that destruction by buying up distressed loans so cheaply from the government that they can't help but make a large profit from them. And the piece-of-shit Times, right from the start, has to halfway let them off the hook. "Fairly or not"? As if there's any doubt Countrywide played a part in the ruination of our financial system.

The Last Administration Was a Regime of Secret Laws That Made Bush a Dictator

John Yoo, who needs to be brought to trial along with Chimpy and Dr. Evil, said our stupidest president ever could disregard the 1st and 4th amendments of the Constitution.

Judd Gregg Is for Fiscal "Irresponsibility" That Benefits Him and His Relatives

Never listen to a Republican on any moral issue. You can be sure that if he's railing against bestiality, he's going to run right home to shtup the chickens.

Zach Wamp Has the Right to Shut the Fuck Up. And I'd Enjoy the Privilege of Punching Him in the Face

The Republican U.S. representative from Tennessee says access to health care is a privilege, not a right.

The General Praises an Anti-Gay Gay Republican

For focusing on all of the things that are more important than the gay.

***

Here Are Some Older Must-Post Items That I Meant to Include in a Current-Affairs Post Sooner Than This:

He Could Have Been out on the Sea Enjoying His Yacht, But He Decided to Fight the Unions Instead

Home Depot's Bernie Marcus and his fat-cat friends are really to blame for the demise of civilization. He's not "an elder statesman." He's an angry old man who sees power flowing to the common man and woman as the worst thing that could ever happen. He should take many tranquilizers. All at once. And Bank of America can blow me.

The Mormons Lied. To Save Marriage From the Bad People

Go, Fred Karger and Californians Against Hate!

You Couldn't Make Up This Kind of Stupid

David Broder thinks that because the Republicans' previous tax cut failed to save the economy, we needed more Republican input on the stimulus. Broder is going to be 80 this year. I think it's well past time he retired. Or died.

Only Four

That's how many Republican senators voted against making the entire stimulus bill tax cuts.

Health Insurers Cheated Taxpayers out of About $4.4 Billion in 2006

They overcharged for prescription drugs, McClatchy's David Goldstein writes.

Bob Dole's Perfect Description of How Washington Works

Glennzilla: If Bob Dole and Tom Daschle have enough friends in the Senate between them to pass or kill legislation, their lobbying firm wins. And Bob Dole thinks that's just great.

The "Pedophile's Paradise"

Pedophile priests were sent to work with Native Alaskans because their rapes and molestations would be less likely to become public knowledge up there. This article by The Stranger's Brendan Kiley would be shocking if we didn't already know so much about the Catholic Church's massive coverup of sexual abuse by priests. One thing in the story that I found surprising but really shouldn't have was this: Joseph Ratzinger—aka the Pope—asked the Bush "Justice" Department for immunity from prosecution in U.S. sex abuse cases. He got it.

The U.K. Went Along With Torture So the U.S. Wouldn't Refuse to Share Terrorism Information

Yup, that sure sounds like something that would have happened during the Bush administration.

KBR Still Getting Electrical Contracts

Even though 18 soldiers may have been killed as a result of the company's shoddy work.

"Some Hack Carrying Water for Wall Street"

That's how Truthdig's Robert Scheer described Obama after Tim Geithner's first stab at a bank bailout plan. And Atrios noted on Friday in a series of posts that Geithner's subsequent stabs have been only slight variations of the first. 

The Bushes Have Always Been Lying, Thieving Bastards

As part of the punative damages, I think Geronimo's ancestors should seek to dig up Prescott Bush's remains and piss all over them.

And Speaking of Lying, Thieving Bastards ...

The FBI has known that mortgage fraud was rampant since 2004. And it says "lenders initiated 80% of these frauds," William K. Black writes for Huffington Post.

***

Here's an Antidote to Much of What Has Preceded It

Jon Stewart hilariously takes down the fuckwits at CNBC.

A Superquick Dog Post

I took Emme to see Dr. Silverman on Friday. She was due for her rabies and kennel cough vaccinations. He said she's in great shape for a dog who's 13. And who will be 14 next month. He asked me about her hearing, and I said she seemed to be losing it. Sometimes I catch her off guard in the morning because she hasn't heard me get up. He said he has a dog who is at least 15 years old who is completely deaf. I guess hearing loss is to be expected once dogs reach a certain age.

***

This morning, while I was walking the dogs, one of two guys walking near us said of Rudy, "I can see him sitting at the bar." I've thought about taking Rudy to Excelsior on a weekday night, when it's not crowded. He'd get lots of attention. And that might help me in turn get something else. Laid.

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Corgi-tossing fun! And recipes too. That blog has everything. :-)

***

Rudy has to meet Oliver, who's owned by some angry bloggers in Park Slope. I enjoyed the comment about napkin-folding dogs. (And thanks to Eugene for the link.)

***

I couldn't have a dog post, even a superquick one, without at least one picture of each of my woofers.

Emme atop a mound of blankets. And looking like she's about to get swept away by the broom I use to clear the snow off my steps.

Rudy chillin' on the love seat

AN EVEN QUICKER UPDATE later on March 8:

When Rudy shakes his head, as he's wont to do, drool often hits him on the nose.

But one time it landed on his back.

And now for a couple of photos that don't involve saliva:

"I'll get up soon. Give me just 10 more minutes, Dad."

Emme in Gran's kitchen, back in early December

Ken and Karen Got Married, Part II

On Saturday morning, Pat and I allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to Seaside Park. There's nothing worse than feeling rushed when you're driving to an unfamiliar place.

Before we left, we had some morning rolls from Patisserie Colson that I'd brought for Pat to try. If you know me and I haven't yet given you a morning roll, be patient. Your time will come. :-)

At one point, the directions we got from Yahoo! Maps told us to get off Rte. 37 by bearing right onto Whittier Avenue. Then we were told to turn left onto Washington Street. And then to bear right ONTO RTE. 37! *sigh*

Even with that little glitch, we still arrived in plenty of time. We were hoping to find a place open nearby where we could grab a cup of coffee. Or maybe some milk with the same brand name as a popular type of cigarette beloved by manly men everywhere.

Alas, the bakery we could see in front of us from our parking spot and the general store on the opposite side of the street that featured the poorly placed signs shown above were both closed for the season. So I made Pat walk down by the water and freeze her ass off while we took pictures of each other with my iPhone.

The ceremony got started a little late. Pat and I got to meet Ken's father, and we caught up with Chris and Stacey, who'd lived down the street from the farm. Chris also, coincidentally, covered the same beat as I did at the same crappy Princeton newspaper where I used to work. Ken also worked at that same crappy paper, and his tenure overlapped both mine and Chris's, which is how he got to know Chris. C&S have three kids now: Marcus, whom I hadn't met yet, will be in kindergarten next school year. Barlow is in third grade, and Christopher is in first grade. Chris is a stay-at-home dad, and every so often, he'd bring Barlow into the office where Ken and I were working at our new, post-crappy-newspaper jobs and have lunch with us. I told Barlow that I remembered her Dad calling her "Short Pants"; that was Chris's nickname for her back then. His nickname for everyone else, including sometimes Stacey, was "Dude."

Here are some shots I took at the church with my actual camera:

Ken and his best man, his brother Jim, waiting for the ladies to walk down the aisle

Karen's older daughter, Andra

Karen's younger daughter, Dakota, dropping rose petals

Karen and her father, Gunther

"Do you take ...?"

The smooch

"Now let's party!"

The reception was a few blocks away, at the Atlantic Bar & Grill. You had to wear a shirt and shoes, which totally screwed up my plan to get plastered and dance in only my boxers. (I once went to a wedding where one of the groomsmen took off his clothes down to his underwear at the reception. I unfortunately only heard about it after the fact. I think I was outside when it happened inside.) I was really digging the fish logo, so I asked Pat to take my picture in front of another one of the fishes, near the entrance, while I inadvertently had my tie all askew.

I really liked the room, with its large windows with an ocean view. When we first got there, you could see a surfer in his wetsuit catching waves offshore. He's a black spot within the middle window in the picture below. (Click on it to enlarge it.)

At the reception, Pat and I met Ken's mother, Mary, and his sister, Cathy. Just before Cathy and Ken's other brother, Matt, aka Booty, walked down the aisle at the church after the ceremony, they gave each other a fist bump, which I thought was cool. I told Cathy at the end of the day that I thought she and her mother looked great and that, even though I'm on the other team, I have impeccable taste.

Speaking of taste, the food was all good. And the entertainment was outstanding: Ken's cousin Don and a backup band he apparently hadn't really played with before, though you certainly wouldn't know that from listening to them. Years ago, guitarist/singer Don and drummer Ken formed a group called Red-Headed Boogie Child that had a rotating cast of other players, including a singer/percussionist/flutist named Karen. Yeah, that Karen! :-)

Here are some shots I took at the reception:

Karen's sister, Kim, gives her toast. That's Cathy to her right. Booty is all the way to Ken's left.

Don Lee and the band

Max, the son of one of Ken's cousins. He'd told Ken that he had a "funky outfit" to wear to the wedding. I'm diggin' it. He sang "Hey, Jude" with Don later in the afternoon.

That's Ken's Mom in the middle of the dancing. The song was "Play That Funky Music." Which us white people enjoy because we're like, "Yes, we can indeed be funky even though we're white."

More dancing. That's Stacey and Chris to the left of Ken. Barlow is between them, and Marcus is in the striped sweater.

The cutting of the cake

Karen sang and Ken hopped on the drum kit for a couple of songs.

After the reception was over, I was going to have Pat drop me off at the station in Bay Head, but there wasn't going to be another train departing for quite a while, so I told Pat I'd give her some company for the ride west if she'd drop me off at the station in Trenton. I thought about calling Dan and Paul to see if they wanted to hang out for a little while, but I didn't because I was tired and just wanted to get home.

The Trenton station has been undergoing a big renovation, and there's some cool tilework on the walls that I will post photos of to wrap up this here KKGM II post.

Nothing says Trenton quite like mother-and-baby possums in a rowboat. :-)

In the summer of 2005, a beluga whale named Helis was spotted swimming in the Delaware River near Trenton. The Trenton Makes Bridge is probably the most famous landmark in the city. Unfortunately, the world doesn't take any products made in Trenton anymore.

And finally, some purty butterflies with the capitol dome in the background

Ken and Karen Got Married, Part I

My longtime friend Ken, whom you may have read about here, here, here, or here, among other posts on this blog (but not here because those are different Kens), and his girlfriend, Karen, got married on Saturday down the shore. I'm very happy for them both and especially excited that Ken is going to be a father for the first time in a few months.*

The ceremony was to start at 10, in Seaside Park, New Jersey. I had planned to take a New Jersey Transit train to the closest station, which would be Bay Head, where Pat, who was driving out from New Hope, would pick me up. But I'd had to have caught a 7:07 train at Penn Station, and I'd have had only one chance to make a connection in Long Branch to get to Bay Head on time. I would have been sweating bullets the whole time, and since I'd already planned to take the day before off, I asked Pat whether I could crash with her on Friday night and ride out with her on Saturday morning.

Pat was dogsitting in Lambertville Friday night, so I was initially going to stay at her apartment without her. But she asked the couple, whom she'd dogsat for before, whether I could stay in their home, too, and they said I was welcome to do so. That was so sweet of them.

I dropped my dogs off at the kennel on Friday morning and caught a 1 o'clock bus at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I got off in Lambertville and walked over the bridge to the Free Library of New Hope and Solebury, where, ARROHK,** Pat works. On the way, while still in L'ville, I snapped a photo of a cute corgi that was waiting for its owner, who was inside a store.

At the library, Pat and I looked on MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps to figure out the best route to take to Seaside Park. Then I walked around town a little.

Like Cape May, New Hope is being destroyed by condo development. They're letting the evil goddamn developers knock down what's special about the town and put up more and more places for rich out-of-towners to live in for maybe two weeks out of the year. Or for rich locals, who no doubt suck and who clearly have no fucking taste.

While I was browsing in Night Bird, a vintage clothing store, a song came on the oldies satellite-radio station that transported me back to the late '70s, when my sister would play her Shaun Cassidy album on Granny and Pop Pop's record player. She had such a crush on him. And I see on that Wikipedia page that he is married to someone named Tracey. But not Tracey Hawley Gerber Cassidy.*** :-) The woman who was working in the store was neither getting down nor getting with it; she switched stations about three-quarters of the way through the song.

Back at the library, I saw a book called Designer Dogs: Portraits and Profiles of Popular New Crossbreeds on the returned-books cart. The dog on the cover is a puggle, which, coincidentally, is the kind of dog Pat was taking care of. Inside, I found the awesome bagle hound, a combination of a basset hound and a beagle. The one pictured in the book, at right, has the delightful jowls of a basset with the unwrinkled forehead of a beagle. The accompanying essay suggests that the basset hound's slothfulness has a tendency to override the beagle's greater energy level.

After Pat was done work, we went to Lambertville to look in on her client, who was delighted to see a new person to get to know. And lick on.

For dinner, Pat and I went to DeAnna's Restaurant, the Italian place I'd wanted to go to back in November with Pat, Dad, and Jean. Pat and I both enjoyed the food and wine a great deal. We started out with a bottle of 2006 Dolcetto D'Alba, which was marked in the wine list as one of DeAnna's favorites. The wines are helpfully categorized by style, such as "Robust and Spicy." I asked Pat to select the category of wine she was in the mood for. She chose "Medium-Bodied and Elegant." Thank goodness she didn't choose "Full-Bodied and Rich" because if she had, I no doubt would have felt a need to put in some lame joke here along the lines of "That's how I like my men. Only replace 'Bodied' with 'Panted.'" So we dodged that bullet. :-) The only glitch of the night was when a guy who was not our waiter brought us the wrong bottle of wine and said he thought they didn't offer the Dolcetto anymore but he would check on that. He was wrong, of course.

I had only my iPhone camera on me—and not my camera camera—and the interior of the restaurant was pretty dimly lit, so I got only weak photos of the room and only semi-decent photos of the food. The decor was reminiscent of DeAnna's old space: cozy seating with lots of pillows. The glowing butterfly on the wall was maybe a tad bit much in an otherwise charming space.

Pat and I both got the house salad, which was perfectly dressed with balsamic vinaigrette. And we shared the wonderful garlic bread that we ordered in lieu of the complimentary plain bread; actually, I ate the bulk of it. For our entrees, Pat selected the meat loaf special—the meat was laced with provolone cheese, spinach, and black olives—and I got Pasta with Sauteed Chicken and Escarole in Marinara Sauce, one of DeAnna's usual pasta offerings. For dessert, we both decided we needed the Belgian Chocolate Cupcake With Mascarpone Frosting to go along with our coffee. And we did need them. We really did!

*I mean that in a few months, he'll be a father for the first time. Not that it's only been a few months since the last time he was a father. ;-)

**As regular readers of Hawleyblog know.

***Coincidentally, Karen's last name is Cassidy.