more heat than light

The Reality of Farming

2010-06-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

He came in the night
masked, like a thief
and his grasping black hands
pulled her out of her sister's warm embrace
We heard her cry, once
and with flashlights we came to find her door wide open
and I caught him in the light, by the cellar door
frozen for one moment, before he disappeared
and then I saw her
in a heap of crumpled feathers
still gasping, but not moving
and I had to finish her myself
with the hedge clippers

and this morning, we heard her sister call to her, over and over
and masses of rust and black feathers swirled over the dead grass and under the trees

and today, I will bury her
under the apple tree
and it would probably make real farmers laugh
to know that I've been crying over a chicken

About Labor and Delivery... Kind of

2010-03-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

So, I realize I have neglected posting about the chickens. We added a third to the flock. We started off with D'Brickashaw and Tony Romo. They did not get along with the new girl, and Romo was especially mean, so eventually we named her Jessica Simpson. And for a while, all was well in the back yard. My regular computer's fan has died, so there will be no pictures of the following, I'll try to do what I can.

At first, I just thought they couldn't share the nest box. Jessica was clucking around the porch, looking in little spaces, so I figured she needed a place to lay. I noticed her foot was bleeding, and it's because she kept trying to get in the nest with Tony Romo, who was making crazy noises and pecking her every time she tried it.

The next day, I saw her happily snuggling with Romo in the box, and thought, "Oh, how nice, they're getting along!" When Romo was through laying, he popped out and Jessica started cooing and stretched herself out over the eggs. I went inside to have some breakfast. And when I came out, I busted her in the nest box with egg on her face and everything. What I thought were maternal noises was actually a nom nom song. I had to clean out the whole coop so it won't smell like rotten egg.

So today I've been reading a lot about what you can do when this happens, and a lot of people seem to think it's incurable. They say it's time for a chicken dinner, but I can't do that with something I've given first aid to. When the other chickens pecked the crap out of her feet, I caught her and washed them and sprayed her toes with Neosporin.

Anyway, what you can do is get golf balls and put them in the nest, so when the offender tries to peck them, she gets nothing. We tried that this morning, and D'Brickashaw wouldn't go in the nest... just kept making this noise that sounded like the aliens from Sesame Street (nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope).

So I captured Simpson and stuck her back in the run and pulled the golf balls back out, and then Romo would lay, but D'Brickashaw just kept trying to make a nest on the bag of pine shavings we keep on the porch. And I'm thinking I really didn't want to clean up a broken egg on the porch, so I just dumped the shavings out for her. She was wailing and making all this noise, but she calmed down right away once she had a nest. I wound up with two eggs, put the golf balls back in the nest and let Jessica back out, who went directly into the nest box for snacks. And she pecked all the golf balls (yes, they are really that dumb). The moral of the story is, Tony Romo was right.

In closing, I feel fortunate that this is one thing I don't have to worry about. I'm pretty sure no one is going to sneak into labor and delivery to try to eat my baby. But I might bring a doll just in case.

A Pregnant Pause

2010-02-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

Hello blog. It's been a while, hasn't it? But this time I have a really good excuse. Mr. Strangely and I are expecting a little Strangelet this fall. It's our first. And this experience has already been exciting and wonderful and totally weird. I had kind of planned on writing an expose or something, but, for one thing, I already read an awesome post about "What Pregnant Women Won't Tell You", and I really don't think I can top it. And for another thing, I'm really not far enough along yet to have anything really exciting to share. I was fortunate not to get very much morning sickness (please don't hit me if you did!)... and really I just feel like I'm fighting off the flu all the time.

So, hopefully I'll be more productive in the second trimester. That's apparently when you become manic. I can't wait.

What I can say so far, is that I don't think there is any other time in your life when everything you do is so wrong. I don't mean objectively wrong, I mean met with criticism. There are lists of foods I'm not supposed to eat or drink, and there are a hundred women online who are waiting to treat you like an idiot for believing those guidelines. There are a wealth of medical treatments that we can enjoy in the 21st century and a thousand more women who will make you feel like a weakling for not giving birth the natural way. Mr. Strangely's mom gave us a book about pregnancy, and it says that DHA supplements are "ZOMG THE MOST IMPORTANT THING A MOTHER CAN DO FOR HER BABY!!!1!" and my ob told me to quit taking the ones I'd bought because of mercury concerns. She didn't tell me to get another brand or DHA from another source, she just told me to quit taking them and asked me if I was getting enough calcium. One can only come to the conclusion that we just still don't know all that much about prenatal health. We don't know what causes morning sickness or what purpose it serves. Looking over the last century you can see that women who smoked and drank gave birth to totally healthy children. So, I'll try my darnedest not to be judgmental about anybody else's choices during their pregnancy. Especially not while my junk is all swollen and I'm being kicked in the cervix.

It's Been a Tough Couple of Weeks

2009-12-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

We've got an ill relative. A seriously ill one. Keep us in your thoughts and in the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy this new toy I found. I've used photobucket for years for random things when I first needed an image hoster. I wandered back and found they'd added some bells and whistles. It's just what I needed to cheer myself up a little bit and I thought I'd share some highlights...

Black... Saturday and Sunday Brunch!

2009-11-29T14:03:00.001-08:00

Surely you didn't think I was out of leftovers?

Sunny Side Up Crabwiches for Two

Slice one purple onion and toss it into a frying pan with melted butter. Let them caramelize a little bit, then add about a cup of crab meat to the pan. Saute a minute longer, then remove from pan and reserve. Take 2 pull apart rolls and slice them lengthwise. Turn on broiler. Wipe out frying pan and fry eggs sunny side up. Toast the roll halves under the broiler. To assemble, place two roll halves on plate, mound a quarter of the onion/crab mixture on each and top with fried egg. I liked this with salsa, and Mr. Strangely thoroughly liked his before I even got the salsa out of the refrigerator.

Sweet Potato Bread Pudding with Sauce

Take that extra package of rolls you had laying around, and pull them all apart into pieces. Lay these pieces in a buttered casserole (I had enough for a pie pan) and leave them out overnight. In the morning, take the last little bits of your leftover sweet potatoes, which by now are all soft from being reheated so much and the maple syrup and brown sugar crust have evolved into toffee... and tuck them all around inside this pile of bread. Press down on top so the potatoes and bread get all smashed together. It should look a little something like this:

Now, beat three eggs (if you're using jumbo eggs from the store, you'll probably only need 2) and combine them with a cup and a half of milk. Add a capful of vanilla and about a half cup of brown sugar. There are many recipes for sweet potato bread pudding, the ones that call for naked sweet potatoes use about a cup of sugar. Be sure to adjust for the sweetness of the leftovers you are using. Take this mixture and pour it slowly and carefully into your dish of bread and sweet potatoes. Let it soak in a bit as you pour so you get the whole thing nice and saturated. When you've poured all your liquid in, press again gently on the bread to help the custard penetrate. If you can't see the custard creeping up the edges of the pan, add a little milk. Let this sit for about 30 minutes while you preheat your oven and enjoy a nice cup of coffee. When you're both ready, plop it in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes, turning once so it gets evenly browned.

Meanwhile, start your brown butter. Take about 6 tablespoons of butter and let it melt in a saucepan at medium low heat. Watch it carefully, stirring every now and then. Over time, it should get nice and dark, the color of an old penny.

Now carefully add up to a half cup of brown sugar, she guessed. I am still working out this sauce, and I used a quarter cup with a lot of butter leftover at the end. Let us know if you wind up using more and how it works out! Turn the heat up a little bit and stir the brown sugar until it melts/dissolves. Be careful not to burn the butter at this point... smell it from time to time and make sure it never goes from "nutty" to "ugh". It will still be all clumpy and nasty looking as it mixes with the butter solids. Now, turn off the heat. Pour in about 3 tablespoons of milk. Beat it quickly though it's hissing at you. Something magic happened at this point... the weird chunky sugar mixture at the bottom of the pan became a beautiful brown sauce with melted butter floating on top.

I poured this into the stock separator we got as a wedding gift. This let me pour the sauce out from under the butter and drizzle it artfully over my beautiful bread pudding...

Yum.

Black Friday Brunch

2009-11-27T16:09:00.000-08:00

If you're like I am, you watch all the ads for Black Friday sales and wonder what is wrong with the people they're aimed at. And after you've thoroughly stuffed yourself on Thursday, you go to bed and blissfully sleep through all those alarms you were supposed to set, and you're not even camped out in front of Macy's or Best Buy. You arise at the stroke of 11:30 and liberate your chickens. And when food finally sounds good again, you conduct experiments on your spouse with leftovers.

Thanksgiving will probably always be a little poignant for me. I grew up in the house that hosted everyone, and so I remember having leftovers and abandoned side-dishes and desserts for about a week afterward. And now, we leave a dish of sweet potatoes for Mr. Strangely's grandmother and take the rest, and nothing else. No turkey or mashed potatoes, no stuffing. Not even any rolls. So this year, I made a pre-emptive strike. I haven't got a turkey yet, but I've got plenty of sweet potatoes, two packages of rolls I accidentally bought because last year we were supposed to, and something much more lavish and brunchy than turkey: fresh crab.

My husband's family traditionally has crab on Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Eve, so it really is a holiday food, I promise. Crab season starts after Halloween. And the store I ran in to on Wednesday to stock up had set them out on sale, already cracked and waiting. Who could resist that?

Baked Eggs Over Crab

Stellaa was the one who turned me on to baked eggs (thanks, Stellaa!!), so I feel like this barely counts as a recipe for me at all. And I could twitter it, it's so easy. "Ramekins butter crab egg cream water bath 350 30 minutes" (only 56 characters!). Serve with leftover rolls to adhere to criteria for Salon's recipe contest~

Sweet Potato Breakfast Blinis

I got my sweet potato recipe from my mother. Then it somehow mutated under my care. Now I make a combination recipe... it starts off like my mother's, boiling the sweet potatoes until soft, and slipping them out of their skins to rest in a buttered casserole. Then it incorporates shades of this recipe, though I've never used the nuts. The result is a lovely sweet but not too sweet dish of potatoes, with a crispy, buttery topping. And this is what I started with to make my blinis. You could probably use most any sweet potato recipe to do this, adding flour or milk to achieve the right kind of consistency. Take a few of these leftover potatoes, and mash them in a bowl with one egg. The dough should be like a squishy cookie dough.

Drop tablespoons of this into a sea of melted butter in a skillet over medium/low heat. Then smash with the back of your spoon into a pancake shape.

Allow this to cook for a few minutes, and watch it carefully, turning the heat down if it seems to be burning. You want these to cook slowly. They're a little fragile in the beginning. You want to flip them when they start to firm up a bit. Then press again with the spatula. It doesn't hurt to turn these a few times, pressing to get a nice dense cake. Remove these from the pan and drain on paper towels. Dress them in pretty proscuitto slices... tiny mozzarella cheeses you bought for appetizers and forgot and crispy little apple slices... Imagine the poor suckers going shopping in the nasty rain... Enjoy by computer, to obtain perfect stream of conscious dialogue...

Duck Season!

2009-11-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

I saw this story on Digg today:

"A mother whose daughter was murdered is suing American Life Assurance of Columbus (AFLAC) because it has refused to pay the death benefit on life insurance the daughter applied for shortly before her death."
http://digg.com/d31AEoR

I don't know how often AFLAC refuses to pay claims for unsolved murders. The longer I am involved in the health care battle, the less I trust these large entities. There are no requirements for them to file reports on how they maintain their profits, no surveys on how long it takes to pay claims... it can make a person profoundly depressed about their chances to be treated fairly.

But, today at least, there is a fun way to try to fight back. There aren't any bills to reform the life insurance industry in Congress, so put down those picket signs. Instead, purchase one of these little guys:

http://aflacholidayduck.com/purchase.html

Then murder him spectacularly, and upload the video to Youtube or Google video or whatever your preferred host is. Be sure to disguise your identity. Remember, 100% of the money goes to children's hospitals, even if they cannot solve the case! Here's some inspiring footage to get you started...

The Second Best Breakfast Spot In California

2009-11-09T10:41:00.000-08:00

Is at my house. It's the one with the lovely, lovely fresh laid eggs. People are always saying how great fresh eggs are, so Mr. Strangely and I tried to conduct an experiment.

As you can see, the eggs we get are varied in size. Most are not as large as a "large" egg you'd get at the grocery store... the grocery store egg is the white one in the carton dwarfing the others. We have gotten one or two eggs that are bigger than store ones, but they're rare. When we make scrambled eggs, we're using 7 eggs for the two of us rather than 5.

When we ate the fried eggs, the difference was obvious but hard to describe. The white was more tender and not as chewy. You can see that it held together more, instead of spreading across the pan like the store egg. The yolk was very different... the store egg wasn't bad, but it was decidedly pasty in contrast to the creamy fresh yolk. Scrambled eggs were a revelation. The flavor is totally different. When I was young, my dad would sometimes comment about how different food tasted to him as a child. And as a child, I thought he was crazy, but I wonder now. What else am I missing out on? Why are they different? Is it just the freshness or is there something else? I've read that farmers can feed marigolds to hens to get the yolk color deeper. Personally, we don't feel like we're doing anything special. It's almost like magic. Our chicken magicians make em out of weeds and our kitchen scraps.

Ta-dah!

The Best Breakfast Spot In California

2009-11-08T19:55:00.001-08:00

It's not anywhere you'd expect. For the last two years though, we've made a pilgrimage to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, for the annual donor breakfast. They open the aquarium two hours early and you get all the docents and tanks to yourselves, to enjoy with coffee, fruit and a surprisingly good variety of scones and pastries. It's one of my favorite things, and I took some video this morning, so I can enjoy it again and again. Hope you enjoy it too...

My Election Rejection

2009-11-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Last year I witnessed the birth of a wonderful use for the creative force of the internet. During the presidential election, a page called Design for Obama emerged. You could participate as a designer or a user. Designers uploaded poster after poster for the Obama campaign, then, they and the users voted on them and downloaded them for use at campaign events and house parties. It had nothing to do with the DNC or Obama's campaign or staff, it was just a mass of people feeding off each other's inspiration. It was such a neat experience. I uploaded a couple posters, got involved in the election locally, and promptly forgot. Until April, when I got an email. It said that a big publisher was going to be releasing a collection of works from the website, in honor of the election, on the anniversary. And it said one of my posters had been selected. It had some instructions for how to transmit my file and a release, and when I went searching for information I found others who had gotten the same email. We congratulated each other and I was thrilled to be participating. I was also relieved that there was no further culling process, according to both the bloggers I found and my own queries to the publisher representative. We could start bragging immediately to our friends.

I submitted my file on time, as directed. We only had a few days to get our paperwork together before their deadline, but for an opportunity like that, I really would have done anything they asked. That's why, a week later, when they told me there were problems opening my file, I leaped into action. Even though I was on vacation with my parents in New York. My dad helped me out a lot. A few files flew back and forth, and eventually, they had a file they could use. I double-checked to make sure.

That is why I was so surprised to get this email a couple of months later:

"Thank you very much for contributing your poster design to Design For Obama, the book from *. Unfortunately, I must inform you that, due to insufficient print quality, your poster was one of several not able to be included in the book."

I wouldn't have been nearly as angry if I hadn't emailed over and over, "Are you sure this will work? Please let me know so I can supply a file you can use!" I've tried to remember who I told about this, so I can let them know it fell through, but I'm sure I'll still get a note or two wondering and that will still be painful.

Now, the reason I bring this up is to highlight a particular quirk in our copyright system. I had wanted to use the design in question for food drives with my MoveOn council, but they had balked, fearing copyright claims from... I don't know, but at any rate, they wouldn't touch this piece. So, you can imagine how tickled I was when a major publisher had decided to include it in a book that would actually be for sale. If anyone would check the legality or illegality of this work, it would be someone like that, right? Corporations don't just adopt works without checking for license snafus, right? Well, maybe they do, but they said my piece was rejected for quality reasons. And it's a shame that they never asked for a higher quality work. I still don't know what was wrong with it. One fundamental truth of working with volunteers is that they take exclusion extra hard, because the reward is serving the cause. It's not like they also got paid for their time and labor. At least a little feedback would have been nice.

At any rate, I am still proud of the piece, and obviously someone, somewhere wanted it in this book, right? So, here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43103096@N00/3003609570/

Feel free to download it and staple it into your copy, should you elect to seek one out. No hard feelings, but this is why I give my work away before anyone toys with my emotions like this. I would rather just see it out there, and that means I can't wait for large entities to show interest. It was a nice compliment, but it also confirmed that we've set up a very bad system for artists to inhabit. I would also like to point out the comment I got on one of the other designs I submitted:

"Just wanted you to be aware of someone trying to profit from your art. Did you give this person permission to sell your image? http://www.zazzle.com/weoffermore/gifts?cg=196918861616767696&pg=9"

If you ever see someone wearing this shirt or bag or whatever, PLEASE send me a picture. And for your enjoyment (one of these appearing for the first time ever (because I found DFO a little squirrelly)) here are a few more pieces of election art I did last year. And if you add any of these to any books you happen to buy... or anywhere else... I'd be thrilled to know. Permission is nice, but for the work, there is really no greater compliment than imitation and proliferation.

This Is What It Sounds Like

2009-10-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

When chickens purr.

It's hard to hear, but she's just purring her little head off.

It's a partly beautiful day today. Mostly sunny with some light rain. And the chickens are sitting on the back porch purring.

Enter the Chickens

2009-10-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time, garden blog, hasn't it? It's my fault, really. It was just kind of painful to think about gardening, without thinking of all that I had lost. My giant pine cross section and the neat old tractor couldn't come with when we moved, so they were left behind, along with the bench and the catpost (buried for everyone's protection). I needed some time not to think about it all, and if nothing else, the heat of the summer gave me a good excuse not to do any gardening. We moved a few survivors into the new ground, and for a few months, there wasn't too much to write about.

But fall has finally come to California. The wind comes tearing through the yard and we've even had a storm or two. And it's time to start a really great garden. I've got a ton of notes and ideas to sort through, but I'm most excited about the fact that we're chicken farmers. More to follow soon, but in the meantime, enjoy the pictures ~

What To Do With Leftovers...

2009-09-15T23:04:00.000-07:00

Leftover Rice:
Glo's Sausage Fried Rice

Leftover Reality Tv:

Leftover Tomato Cages:

Comfort Food

2009-09-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend with my sister. We went to all those spots you need an excuse to see when you live here on the bay peninsula. We went to an art fair in San Jose and to Golden Gate Park. We had tea in the garden there and saw geese and gophers and hummingbirds. We had dinner at my three favorite restaurants. And this morning, before we drove to the airport, I invented a recipe for her.

Almond Butter Breakfast Cupcakes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup almond butter
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup chocolate covered almonds + 1/4 cup
3 tablespoons butter

Combine flour, the baking powder, baking soda and a pinch of salt and set aside. Cream together the brown sugar, the almond butter, and the butter. Add the vegetable oil and beat in the egg and the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the yogurt, beating well after each addition, and stir in 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips. Wrap the almonds in a kitchen towel and crush with a pan or kitchen mallet. Add 1/2 cup to batter. Divide the batter among 12 paper-lined 1/2-cup muffin tins and bake the cupcakes in the middle of a preheated 350°F. oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Turn the cupcakes out onto a rack and let them cool completely.

In another bowl combine the remaining 3/4 cup chocolate chips and the butter and microwave for 20 second intervals, stirring until melted and smooth. Wrap the 1/4 cup of almonds in a kitchen towel and crush with a pan or kitchen mallet. When cupcakes are cool, dip tops in melted chocolate and roll in crushed almonds.

Share them with someone you love.

Caught By the Copyright Fuzz

2009-08-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

Today, as I was nonchalantly wandering the interwebs, I happened to click on a link to a Youtube video. And instead of going to the video, I was confronted with a weird, red page.

If you're having a hard time making that out, it says:

We have received copyright complaint(s) regarding material you posted, as follows:

from Sony Music Entertainment about Bill O'Reilly and the Fetal Position: Subtitled Version - craftyactivist
Video ID: Tq9PSHf_XK0

Please Note: Accounts determined to be repeat infringers will be terminated. Please delete any videos for which you do not own the necessary rights, and refrain from uploading infringing videos.

The odd thing here is, that I have two copies of that video uploaded. The one removed was the subtitled version. I don't know if that was a choice or an accident, but so far, they have not disabled the non-subtitled version. If you look at the blog where I first posted these videos, you'll see that only one is still playable. The videos are identical except for the addition of subtitles and a subtitle key.

And now I'm at a loss. Both videos were initially flagged, but only one has been removed. Am I supposed to just delete the other one? When I was first aware that Sony had made a claim on my videos, I disputed both claims, and now I can't figure out what additional steps to take to figure out how to follow YouTube's Terms of Service.

The thing that concerns me most, is that I don't have any idea what steps to take to prevent this from happening in the future. To date, I've made and uploaded about 10 videos. This is not the first time the content matching system has picked up on my work: I posted a video just about a year ago that featured content from National Geographic's special, The Human Footprint. I was delighted when they decided they would advertise on that channel. The music that accompanies it is originally by Nine Inch Nails, but I used a remix that was created by a remixer in Germany, TweakerRay.

He commented on my video and actually keeps a collection of videos featuring his work on his channel. We could be creating a community that rewards artists for trading and re-contextualizing content. I wasn't secretive about the song I chose to accompany the video. I specifically chose Alice In Chains and the song Rotten Apple as a metaphor, highlighting the way some pregnant women have been forced to give up their bodily sovereignty. Some people commenting on the videos have asked what album it was on, presumably so they can purchase it. I highly doubt anyone wants to listen to the song with O'Reilly screaming over it.

Unfortunately, that is not the direction that music companies have decided to go in. Earlier this year, the EFF was soliciting test cases to fight Warner Brothers as they used automatic content matching software to disable videos. That seems to be what happened in my case, though I can't be certain. I do know that the one they chose to remove was the one that appeared in the responses to the YoungTurk's video analyzing the same Bill O'Reilly show. So was I punished for trying to participate in the larger conversation?

Or for being nice enough to type out the lyrics for deaf viewers?

For those of you who haven't seen it, you can still watch the video in question. I would love to talk to anyone who has successfully fought one of these takedown notices. I also would like to get people's opinions on whether or not my work qualifies as fair use:

And for the curious, here's TweakerRay's playlist, "Cool Videos with my Nine Inch Nails ReMixes". Give that man a hand for being so talented and so nice about sharing his work, would you?

Conspicuous Absence

2009-08-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, the Board of Supervisors in Santa Clara County met, and national health care reform was on the agenda. Loins were girded. Songs were composed. We even brought notes that said "Talk, don't Shout", so we could confront any angry people who might have attended gracefully.

And there were none.

And that is why there was no mention of that
meeting in the news whatsoever.

We must start thinking about the reality of this debate. If you are willing to scream and threaten people, you are rewarded with national and local news coverage. Even if you say stuff that makes no sense, you will have the ear of the nation.

If you wait your turn and speak in a civilized manner... you are easy to ignore.

I wish I could make some other conclusions. But in the meantime, I think that fact explains much about our national discourse.

But! I have some encouraging news to report. I went to a book signing yesterday afternoon for Barbara Boxer, because I had heard that there would be another Tea Party. I'd also gotten an invitation from MoveOn, who were (for some reason that escapes me) encouraging support of green jobs and clean energy. And sure enough, when I pulled into the parking lot at Barnes and Noble, the sidewalk was already lined with a sea of grey hair and Gadsden flags. And unlike the last time we crossed paths, everybody was pretty civil. Someone must have given the tpers a stern talkin' to, because absolutely no one threatened to shoot me this time.

And I have to say, I love these things. I really dig most any protest, but the Tea Partiers have really started to indulge their artistic sides. They're like arts and crafts extravaganzas. With a smattering of uh... Hitler.

Unfortunately, I still wasn't able to get many of them to talk to me. A few did, and I would like to sincerely thank all of the people who are willing to share their views with their fellow citizens. Just holding up a sign has never been enough to enact change. You have to be willing to generate support for your ideas and explain them as many times as it takes. You have to rally the majority to your side. That stuff is boring and far less satisfying than wielding a colorful sign and screaming into traffic with some friends.

At least, that's my hope. If our country actually reacts to the whims of tiny, yet vocal and scary minorities, then we're really not much of a democracy. I was struck on Thursday by the fearfulness I saw in the board of supervisors. You could sense their relief when they realized no one was there to yell at them. But, there were few there in the hall with us that day, to hear the various reasons and statistics that were presented in favor of health care reform. At Boxer's book signing, many people complained about feeling ignored by the Senator. One woman told me despairingly about how she was frustrated by being unable to meet the Senator, face to face, to tell her how she felt. When I pointed out that I bought a book, only so Barnes and Noble would let me in to meet her in the store, she seemed offended by the suggestion. Shoot, I'd buy Ann Coulter's book just for the sheer joy of telling her what a destructive bitch I think she is. Then I'd relish shredding it page by page. You can't be choosy about these opportunities if you truly want to be heard.

That's why I keep going to these things. I try to keep abreast of all the facts and "facts" that might come up at these things, but that is a very tall order. At this particular event, I met a man who volunteered at the Ted Talks, but still worried that the country was screwed. He was worried that the government was being too intrusive and controlling with health care reform... but was basically comfortable with the notion that we could hold people with no charges and torture them for years. One guy just kept calling me stupid, and a very chivalrous teenage boy tried to rescue me. Another man was really intent on discussing evolution and "the myth of peak oil". He wrote some resources on the back of my sign for my education, and it will be interesting to see if we can continue the conversation.

But I have to confess, my favorite moment from yesterday, was when I waited at a crosswalk with a man who had plenty of tea bags dangling off a cowboy hat. We commented together on how comparatively few people were willing to come out and try to make themselves heard on a hot Saturday afternoon in the baking sun. And he hung some teabags on my Woodstock. And for just a few hours yesterday, it was kind of nice to be among people who while not exactly like-minded, were at least likable.

Veni Vidi Lebowski

2009-07-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Our first Lebowskifest was a blast. I had a hard time trying to come up with a costume, and so I popped the movie in on Friday to try to find some last minute inspiration.

And I did.

beaver picture courtesy of krrrista

I wasn't brave enough to wear Maude's outfit, but this awesome girl was! Here she is posing with her trophy as "Best Maude" with the Best Dude and Best Jesus.

I'm not much of a golfer, so I was happy to give up my turns as I wandered around asking people if they wanted to be in my beaver picture.

Bunny said she'd have to check with her agent before she could be in my beaver picture.

Liam not only agreed to be in my beaver picture... he turned around to show off to his friends! (This is where I regret not painting the other side of the bags...)

It was awesome. It was silly and surreal and at times, oddly reverent. If it lasts a hundred years, will it become a bona fide holiday?

I Got Me A New Cameraaa!

2009-07-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

The Face of California's Budget Cuts

2009-07-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

On June 23rd, activists blocked traffic in front of Schwarzennegger's office in San Francisco.

Your browser is not able to display this multimedia content.

This is the cost of our choices. How much does it cost to book a man instead of caring for him?

How much to imprison him instead of aiding him?

How many other people are struggling, but too weak to make a stand?

What kind of nation would you stand for?

I do not know who these people are, or how to contact them. I don't know why our media covers the dead while we fail to care for the people who still live. But I thought everyone needed to see this.

Duck Redux

2009-06-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

I know I must not be a proper hippie, because I get too excited about the new smokehouse addition to Whole Food's butcher shop. Yes. I know my friends who eschew even leather shoes would be horrified, but I can't help myself. They have a triangle to ring when they set out free samples, and I think is must be awakening some deep-seated, Pavlovian reflex we Southerners possess.

One day, the free samples were entire ribs. They're training me. And I like it.

Anyway, I did a double-take as I passed this display on Friday. Hanging in the case was an entire smoked duck. And I thought the tag said they were $9.99 each. What a deal!

I hassled the first man who came to help me about where the ducks were from, and as he went to check, another came to wrap up the duck for me. I'm not up on my duck's rights arguments, and this is how I tried to silence the little voice that jumped up to make me feel guilty. Thankfully, the young man came back at about this time to show me the packaged ducks so I could read the label: Pitman Farms.

It was also about this time that it dawned on me that the little sign really said the ducks were $9.99 per pound. So much for frugality!

But really, when you think about it, that's really not so much. The whole duck cost $28, and we ate it all weekend. Six meals so far have managed to squeeze inside that $28, and I know six meals based off duck would never be that cheap in a restaurant. I recently had Peking duck in a restaurant in Manhattan, and it was $50 or so for the three of us. And yes, I thought that was reasonable. I love duck.

But wait, there's more. We've only managed to scratch the surface of the duckly goodness. I carved a little bit into tacos. I rendered the skin in a frying pan for some fantastic duck fat infused Yukon Gold fries. And then I broke down the carcass and the rest of the meat for cassoulet. I'm guessing that total, we'll squeeze another four dinners out of the little guy.

So, if you too noticed the ducks hanging at Whole Foods, or if you're lucky enough to live in Chinatown... Here's what to do with duck.

Duck Tacos for Two
4 tortillas
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 sweet potato
2 apricots
1 cup cooked duck meat
1 cup mache
sriracha

Turn on your broiler and set up a tray about 3 inches from the heat source. Dice the potato and slice the apricot thinly. If your apricots are sour, sprinkle with a little sugar. Toss potato and apricots together with vegetable oil, and spread on your baking sheet. Broil for about 3 to 4 minutes, or until the diced sweet potato is cooked through. You might need to turn once, depending on your oven. Meanwhile, heat your duck meat up on a plate with the tortillas laying on top. This will also serve to warm and soften the tortillas. To assemble, layer mache leaves, duck meat and warm apricot/sweet potato relish in the tortilla, and serve with sriracha to taste.

More Duck Tacos for Two
4 tortillas
1 sweet potato
1 red onion
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 tbs butter
1/2 cup fresh salsa (by this I mean a salsa that isn't cooked before being packaged, like Pace... cooked salsas tend to have a vinegary flavor to me. The fresh salsas are generally found in the refrigerated part of the store...)
1/4 cup beer
duck meat
mache

Again, preheat broiler and set tray near heat source. This time, quarter your potato and thinly slice the quarters longways. Quarter and thinly slice your red onion. Toss red onion and potato slices with vegetable oil and broil for about 3 minutes, until the potatoes are done and the onion looks a bit charred. Meanwhile, take a small pan and melt the little pat of butter in it. When the foam subsides, add your salsa and cook for about five minutes. You will smell a difference as you cook your salsa down a little: it will lose a little bit of the tang from the fresh tomatoes. Add your beer and turn up the heat a little to reduce a bit. This is one of my favorite ways to use up old salsas, and the result is reminiscent of ranchero sauce.

Again, heat your duck meat in the microwave with the tortillas. To assemble, layer your mache and duck with the sliced potatos and onion, and then top with the sauce you made. Serve remaining potatoes and onion as a side dish with more sauce and cheese if you like.

Duck Hash

1 cup worth of fatty bits from your duck
6 yukon gold potatoes
1 red onion

Set your frying pan on the stove at medium, and allow it to preheat. Add duck bits and stir until the fat is rendered. Scoop out the bits with a spoon and reserve (you're basically making duck-pork rinds, which may sound either appealing or disgusting to you, but they are DELICIOUS). Slice your potatoes into a convenient shape for frying and let them get nice and crispy and brown in your rendered duck fat. Swoon. Remove potatoes and drain on paper towels, then add the red onion, which you will have sliced thinly. Once your onions get a touch caramelized, drain off the fat and toss the potatoes and crispy bits back in the pan to rewarm. This was fantastic with a fried egg on top. Do not tell your cardiologist.

Utterly Inauthentic Cassoulet
(But it could be quick, if you used a purchased and substituted chicken stock... that's the time consuming part)

for the stock:
1 meaty duck carcass, skin removed
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp peppercorns
water to cover (about 10 cups I would say)

Place everything in a stockpot and add water to cover. Bring it to just about a boil, then crank the heat down to simmer, skimming the top from time to time. Allow this to cook for two or three hours, and I personally don't cover my stock and then reduce it... I let it simmer uncovered because I am lazy.

1 sweet potato, diced
2 sticks celery, diced
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 cup sopprasetta, diced
1 can cannellini beans, drained & rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained & rinsed
3 pork sausages, casings removed and broken up
2 cups duck meat
1.5 cups duck stock
1 cup beer
1-2 cups coarse breadcrumbs
1 can diced tomatoes, drained

Saute the potato, celery, onion and garlic until translucent, then add sopprasetta. Cook until the vegetables and sausage are starting to brown. Remove from the pan and reserve. Add your beans to this mixture and stir to combine. Add your crumbled sausage to the pan and allow it to brown. Deglaze your pan with the beer, then add tomatoes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of a deep casserole dish (I used two, a 9-inch square and a round 8 inches in diameter), and spread a layer of the bean mixture across the bottom. layer duck meat on top, and then use a spoon to remove the sausage and tomatoes from the pan, adding that on top. Repeat layers, then top with bread crumbs. Bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour. This is wonderful over rice, with crusty bread.

Smooth Criminal Mindreaders

2009-06-27T00:49:00.001-07:00

Let me first state, I am not a huge Michael Jackson fan. I was a deprived child in the 80s, and my parents told us we couldn't afford cable. As evidence, for years, I thought Torture was a Michael Jackson video. I was watching it on a 13 inch screen, what the hell did I know?

But I'm not really here to write about how lame I was. No. I wanted to write about a peculiar article here that was posted on the occasion of Michael Jackson's death. JimGalt wrote a post titled, Death of a Child Molester. I'm not linking it here, so that link goes to a post where he ponders self-deletion.

If you choose to read his post, please enjoy this fine tune as an accompaniment:

But if you stay, let me just say, that the title really says it all. If you need more, I'm pretty sure this is him on Yahoo Answers. And I commented because I used to feel similarly, until I read this article from GQ. And he wrote back, and we had a very disturbing conversation with several other voices, all of whom had decided that Michael Jackson was a pedophile, based on the fact that a court had acquitted him of all the charges he'd faced. Now, I don't for one moment believe that our system is perfect. OJ Simpson even wrote an ill-advised book to rub our faces in how poorly it can work. But I was surprised by how bothered I was by the way they had decided that Michael Jackson had to be guilty, based on the words of children, and the fact that he was a goofy bastard.

Now, don't get me wrong. Child abuse and molestation really happens, and by no means am I encouraging parents to ignore their kids when they tell them that they've been touched inappropriately. That's not what this is about. I'm more concerned about the way we have accepted the notion that people who have been accused of something must be guilty of it, when there is no evidence. Perhaps I saw this relationship most clearly yesterday, because earlier I'd been at the march the San Jose Peace and Justice Center organized. We rallied in front of Jeppesen's headquarters to protest against their participation in the extraordinary rendition program, organized by the CIA. It astounds me that this country I love has become so fearful and paranoid that it will ignore the very reasons it was formed, Fedexing people to be tortured. When our founding fathers rebelled against England, it was in protest of the monolithic brutalizing force of that state. They rejected taxation without representation. They rejected the notion of presumed guilt. And they rejected the idea of law implemented capriciously, to punish the poor, the misunderstood or the powerless.

We inherited a country with those values, though we've often failed to uphold them. And now we are a country where the President can simply shove people in a hole, because of a case of mistaken identity. Now, we are a county where demagogues rouse us to violence because they grow impatient with the law and its workings. And finally, now we are a country where once a man has died, we remember what his accusers have said, instead of what was proven in a court of law.

I'm sure this always happened. Rumors proliferate because they are so much more colorful and satisfyingly spiced than truth. But we have means of finding what is true and what isn't these days, ways our ancestors lacked. Yet still, the messages that find their way into my inbox are unbelievably silly. I can disprove them in a heartbeat, the way I disproved the claim in the comments somewhere around here, that Timothy McVeigh only had one book, written by Al Gore.

And that's why I wanted to say something about JimGalt's post, even though it seems to have disappeared. It's a symptom of this paranoia we're infected with, that teaches us to fear each other and erodes our communities. His post is like a boil, erupting on the skin, where all the fear can bubble up. Where people slap each other on the back for indicting men who don't seem to have any genuine crimes to their name, besides maybe a freaky appearance and a penchant for dressing weirdly.

I was so fascinated trying to find out how he was so certain about this, when the police weren't, and then he closed the comments. And when I sent him that GQ article, he said I was stalking him. So that's why I posted this. If you can't even stand to read about what might exonerate this person you've decided is a monster, then I only feel it's right to demonstrate why that's so frightening to someone who values freedom and the rule of law. Yes, men can be monsters. And so can children. The Salem Witch Trials ran on the words of children. In LA in the 1980s, a DA went on a crusade against child molesters, getting statements from children who took the stand as witnesses.

And now, years later, we know those children were intimidated into lying. And that means that all those people went to jail, based on hysteria. That means the children who testified against them grew up with the horrible knowledge that you could be sent to jail on a lie. One man wouldn't even bathe his own baby girl because he was so fearful about what someone might say about it.

I can't imagine what it could be like for someone who has truly experienced the horror of being molested. I don't know what those memories would feel like, or what brings the bile up in the back of your throat. But I do know that innocent people are accused of crimes. Our system is slow and reliant on process because often, the truth is not obvious. But that slowness is a feature, not a bug. When it runs off those ponderous tracks, we get more horrible realities than those we thought we were correcting. And please, don't take my word for it:

"It screwed me up; the guilt of thinking I put my mom in prison for the worst offense possible," Donald Grafton says in an interview. He claims he was forced to falsely testify that his own mother had sex with him as a child. His mother, Margie, endured hellish treatment from other inmates. "Mom got black widow bites and they pushed her hands into machinery and busted them up because she was a child molester. It was directly on me because I lied and put her there."

When it runs off the tracks and we convict people based on patterns of behavior rather than evidence of a crime, we put innocent people in prison. That's what happened to the people in Kern County. That's what is happening to the people it Guantanamo Bay. And that's how JimGalt believes justice should work. For him, it's enough to just have the patterns of activity. Two people accused Jackson of molesting them, 10 years apart. Repetition equals guilt.

But he doesn't seem to consider it significant that the first molestation case was in all the papers, because of course Michael Jackson is a celebrity. That can't possibly have anything to do with people who came to accuse Jackson later.

And several times, he thought it was significant that La Toya had accused her brother of being a pedophile. And it doesn't matter that she recanted... that's when she's crazy apparently.

And what few in the comments seemed willing to acknowledge, was the pain of the children who are involved in this whole thing. What does it do to you, when one of your parents drugs you, and then puts you in a courtroom? What must it be like for Jackson's real children, who are getting to be old enough to google him, and who will inevitably find these things?

I can't know, and I won't guess. I only find it sad, that this is what followed Jackson to his grave, when the man left us with so much more.

Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal
Uploaded by melkor75. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

I've Been Cheating On You

2009-06-25T10:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry. It was just a little bit! I worry occasionally that my gardenblog is infested with politics (like the post I just published)... and that's probably annoying for the people who just want to see the purty flowers. I can't really put up a wall of separation, but I decided I needed another outlet. So, if you enjoy stories about my activism, you are cordially invited to read my blog here on Open Salon. Many pieces will be cross-posted, but some are unique. Bill O'Reilly is probably happier there, where liberals can gnash their teeth at him. And some pieces belong in both blogs, like this haiku I'm sharing with you...

anonymous sex

a little pornography

for giant voyeurs

Open Source, Open Democracy

2009-06-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

I've been following the news in Iran, as I'm sure all of you have. And this may surprise you, but I've been reticent to take a stand on whether or not their election was corrupt. How can you tell if an election is flawed from the outside? If their system is like ours, it relies on the secret ballot, which theoretically protects individual voters from being punished for exercising their right. If you vote for the loser, there is no list that publishes that data so you can be jailed by the dude that won. When you approach the ballot box there are no guards to "help" you fill in the forms correctly: it's just you and the ballot. And that's why I am so fascinated watching all the unrest and the conjecturing about whether or not Ahmadinejad or others altered the totals when the Iranian ballots were counted: there is really no way to know. Unless you have a system that checks the results and somehow verifies votes with the person who cast them, it would be impossible to know after the results are in.

Unfortunately, this is the same situation we're in in the United States. I'm not denigrating the secret ballot, but if you are going to have such a feature in a voting system, the chain of custody for the ballots becomes the most important check on malfeasance. And there are huge, documented problems with our chain of custody. I'm not talking about Acorn registering Superman and the Dallas Cowboys to vote... I'm talking about the 2000 and 2004 elections, which many people were very concerned about here. We just weren't concerned enough to riot, the way the Iranians are doing. If you google for stories about stolen elections though, there's a lot to be worried about.

That is why I wanted to pass on this note from my friend, Alan Dechert. If you cannot check the results with any certainty, then the system must be transparent enough for us to keep track of the ballots after they're cast. He's invented such a system and it was tested last year at LinuxWorld.

And it works. The difference between the Open Voting Consortium's system and the systems we usually use for electronic voting, is that we're all entitled to see how that system works. The typical electronic voting machine will let you cast your vote, and then it sends your choices off into the ether somewhere. Often you will get an opportunity to check the ballot on the screen and make changes, but how do you know that what you selected is what is getting sent?

The short answer is, you can't. That ballot only exists digitally. There isn't a record of it that you could ever expect to find. Like grains of sand, these things just accumulate somewhere to be counted, and who knows if any of them reflect your choices? You're not even entitled to see the code that runs on the machine to see if it adds or removes data.

The OVC's machine in contrast, isn't a machine at all. It's just code on a disk. You're free to look through it line by line, and if you pop it into a computer, your computer becomes a voting machine. All it can do is present you with a ballot for you to fill out. Once you've made your choices, it prints out a hard copy, so you can verify that your vote says exactly what you wanted. And then, you place it in the box. There is absolutely no trust required for using that machine. You can watch it in action here:

And did I mention its price tag is a fraction of the machines we use now? How many times have you waited to vote because there weren't enough ballots or machines for your precinct? How much easier would it be to print your ballots as you need them, instead of ordering expensive, preprinted ballots? Imagine how much more easily you could add new nominees and propositions.

This is why I'm passing along this note from my friend, Mr. Dechert. He's been working on this system for years. He can't do this alone. This is our country, and our responsibility. This morning, he asked me for help. So now, I'm asking you. The Iranian election should be a wake up call for all of us who wondered if Bush really won those elections in 2000 and 2004. We don't have to be trusting when we can be smart.

Dear Friends of Open Voting:

I need your help today. As you may recall, US Representative Rush Holt has introduced several badly flawed voting reform bills in the past few years. We have opposed them for a variety of reasons.

Last week, Holt introduced his new one: The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009 (HR 2894)
http://holt.house.gov/voting.shtml

In general, the bill is not as bad as the previous. Some provisions are good. Ban DREs, ban wireless, provide some funding for voting software that would be publicly available. However, overall, the bill is still bad. The deep flaw with this bill, generally speaking, remains the same: it would put the federal government too much into running the voting system. Holt is trying to do too much and making a mess of it.

Parts of it are outrageously bad. The main offending part for me is where they say the machine for individuals with disabilities must allow the voter to "independently verify and cast the permanent paper ballot without requiring the voter to manually handle the paper ballot;" No machine has this capability currently, and such a machine would be many times more expensive than necessary. Potential solutions would solve one almost non-existent problem and create several others -- besides the expense.

It's the same mentality that led to adding the expensive printing mechanism to the DRE voting machines. Vendors didn't mind doing it as long as the government was paying for it. Guess what? Government paid for it. No wait, YOU paid for it. Now those machines are getting junked. So, tax-payers underwrote stupid voting architecture. Diebold et al got paid to develop it and sell it. Now the stupid machines go in the trash and Diebold keeps the money.

If we can't get this changed, the bill must be killed. Other parts of the bill should just be removed rather than fixed. We might support it if chunks of it were simply removed.

SEC. 102. ACCESSIBILITY AND BALLOT VERIFICATION FOR
INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES.
...

(II) allows the voter to privately and
independently verify and cast the permanent
paper ballot without requiring the
voter to manually handle the paper ballot;

I need your help contacting Congress in opposition to this bill.

I also need your financial support so OVC can continue to develop and demonstrate sensible open source voting technology, and defeat crappy legislation like this.

PLEASE DONATE NOW
----------------------------------
The PayPal button on our web site http://openvoting.org is probably the quickest and easiest. This is the address for PayPal: donation@openvotingconsortium.org

If by check, please send to:
Open Voting Consortium
4941 Forest Creek Way
Granite Bay, CA 95746

Thank you again for helping OVC to continue progressing toward the establishment of OPEN VOTING.

Alan Dechert
President, Open Voting Consortium
http://openvoting.org
alan@openvoting.org

What a Difference 6 Miles Makes

2009-06-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

An Important Announcement From Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger:

We moved. We were evicted... sort of. So if the garden looks a little different, there's a good reason for it. Some of the cast remains. Some were, by necessity, abandoned. But we're happy with the change. Sometimes you need to be pried out of your cave, just to see how dark it was in there. And in those cases, it's nice when someone provides a soft landing, in a sunny spot, where you can just be.

I'll be back with a more detailed post soon, but in the meantime, I am posting links for both of us, to remind me what I'm not missing:
my neighbor takes a page from monsanto
a garden plot
cold feet and warm hearts
absent
nerds
prayer for a potted tree in a storm
promoted
ouch
welcome, students
varmint update
i wish i had raccoons

And because I am a sucker for forcing meaning into my life, I feel it's only fitting, to end with this comment, from the wise Mr. Brown Thumb.

"Sorry you are having trouble with the neighbor but one day you may be able to look back on this and laugh."

That day is not today, but I can feel it coming soon. Absence might get all the credit, but distance also makes the heart grow fonder.

Tea Party Post Part Two

2009-04-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

I survived!

I'm getting to be a regular feature in downtown San Jose. I got to the tea party close to the end. My husband was all freaked out by the rhetoric on Fox News and online, so I did not wear any costume. But I needn't have worried... There were much more interesting people there to yell at. I belong to all the peacenik mailing lists, so I wasn't surprised to see a counter protest in full swing: I'd gotten invitations for it.

I didn't join it, because that wasn't why I came. I thought a lot about whether I really wanted to come and if I'd be able to talk to anybody productively or just piss people off. But upon reflecting on my own experience at these kinds of things, I remembered how I had always hoped that the other side would show up, ready to join my cause, or at least hear what I had to say.

I wanted to be that person, so I didn't bring any signs or anything. Just me and my camera. I arrived to see two groups held apart by police. As I watched though, the battle lines eroded, and the cops started to leave.

And eventually, it was just a few heated discussions. And though I was apprehensive about going, I'm glad I went. We could use these moments to rekindle something of the spirit this country was founded in. We could stop letting the parties play on our emotions, deploying us against each other, instead of rallying together to improve our government and our communities. Maybe we will someday. That really would be a new way forward, wouldn't it?

My favorite moment was watching this gentlemen explaining the origin of his flag to a young'n. For another perspective on the San Jose event, click here.