Link: Invasion? Have a beer!

James Gurney has an interesting little post over at his blog:

Gurney Journey: Invasion? Have a beer!: Invasion? Air raids? Cities bombed? Have a beer! This illustration by Harry Anderson appeared in a magazine ad in 1941....

If' you're not familiar with his work, you should be. He wrote and illustrated the lovely Dinotopia, as well as some sequels that are just as beautiful but a little less interesting.  Here's a sample of some of his illlustrations:

In case you can't tell, there's a guy flying a pterodactyl down in the bottom corner. I've wanted to do that ever since I saw this picture ... maybe in the Resurrection.

He's not just good with grand vistas - he's also good with the more intimate, up-close work;

On Aging and Medicine

"The job of any doctor, Bludau later told me, is to support quality of life, by which he meant two things: as much freedom from the ravages of disease as possible, and the retention of enough function for active engagement in the world. Most doctors treat disease, and figure that the rest will take care of itself. And if it doesn’t—if a patient is becoming infirm and heading toward a nursing home—well, that isn’t really a medical problem, is it?

"...In the story of Jean Gavrilles and her geriatrician, there’s a lesson about frailty. Decline remains our fate; death will come. But, until that last backup system inside each of us fails, decline can occur in two ways. One is early and precipitately, with an old age of enfeeblement and dependence, sustained primarily by nursing homes and hospitals. The other way is more gradual, preserving, for as long as possible, your ability to control your own life.

"Good medical care can influence which direction a person’s old age will take. Most of us in medicine, however, don’t know how to think about decline. We’re good at addressing specific, individual problems: colon cancer, high blood pressure, arthritic knees. Give us a disease, and we can do something about it. But give us an elderly woman with colon cancer, high blood pressure, arthritic knees, and various other ailments besides—an elderly woman at risk of losing the life she enjoys—and we are not sure what to do."

The Way We Age Now
Atul Gawande, for The New Yorker

I like the balance here, between science-y statistics and personal descriptions. My own family's story bears out his analysis: doctors who treat the elderly need to refocus their treatment less on curing specific diseases and more on managing the decline. In our experience, the only people capable of managing treatment have been the folks in the Hospice program - a system usually reserved for those with less than six months to live - which is why my grandmother has been put on Hospice care four times in the last year and a half. 

A Conversation?

Two guys having a ... conversation. Of sorts. Brought to you by the guy who did the terrific "It's not about the nail" video.

Self Esteem

I think that this statement:

Is refuted by this one:

 (the backstory is incredible. Read it)

3.14

Otherwise known as Pi(e) Day.

In honor of the occasion, I made two pies (the first two pies of my life that did not involve store-bought graham-cracker crusts and tubs of cool-whip):

Steak and Ale Pie from Cookstr.com

In a bowl, combine:

1½ lb beef chuck, trimmed and cut into ¾ in pieces

salt and freshly ground black pepper

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

Shake the excess flour off the beef. Heat 2T vegetable oil in a non-stick skillet, and brown the meat in batches. Set aside. Add:

1 T. vegetable oil

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

and saute until soft. Add:

4 oz. mushrooms, sliced (the original recipe called for white, but I used crimini)

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 shallot, chopped (not in the original, but I can't imagine a dish like this without shallots)

Combine everything in a saucepan, and add:

¾ cup beef stock

¾ cup dark ale (I used an oatmeal stout; seemed fine to me)

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp tomato paste (didn't have this, so I left it out and compensated with some extra W. sauce; would probably be a good addition, though)

½ tsp dried thyme

1 bay leaf

Simmer for an hour or so, until the beef is tender. Pour into a 9" pie plate. Place a pastry lid on the pie plate, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 350, until the crust is golden brown.

At this point, the recipe called for frozen puff pastry. I don't keep puff pastry on hand, so I just used a regular pie crust. It worked -- really well, actually. If you want to do it the 'right' way, click on the link and read their instructions (the 'right' way also involves reserving some of the gravy, which I forgot to do).

Verdict: VERY tasty.

*****

Vinegar Pie from Gourmet.com via TheKitchn.com

Par-bake a pie crust. I think that's what you call it. You make your piecrust and pre-bake it; this way the crust doesn't go all mushy on you when you put the custard in. I cooked mine for too long, so it came out a little crunchy under the filling.

Whisk together in a mixing bowl:

2 large eggs

1/4 C. sugar

In a saucepan, combine:

3/4 C. sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 cup cold water

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

Heat until the sugar is dissolved. Add to the egg mixture in a slow stream (from a great height, if possible -- it's more impressive that way), whisking constantly.

At this point, you can do what I did and pour it straight into the pie crust. Or you can do what the folks at Gourmet Magazine say to do, and cook it for 12 minutes first. It seemed to come out fine without the pre-cooking.

However you decide to proceed, bake it for 20 minutes at 350, 0r until the mixture is set. Dust evenly with cinnamon before serving.

Verdict: Good, but not stellar. On the other hand, I hate to criticize a recipe when I didn't follow it exactly, so we may give this one another try sometime in the future.

End-of-week wrapup

Yes, folks, it's the end of the week for me. I only have internet access when I'm at work (thanks to a dead power cord and my penchant for taking things apart, I don't have a laptop anymore) and I'm only at work until 2pm today. So here's some fun to keep you going: 1 video, 1 article, and 1 blog to follow. If you ration yourself, this should last all weekend.

The video:

A russian version of Winnie the Pooh. No, not Disney with Russian dub or subtitles. A Russian version, which is ever so much cuter than the other ones.

The article:

Tom Wright has a terrific piece on the recent antics by American Episcopalians. (HT The Gadfly). You should read the whole thing for yourself, but here are a few of the gems:

The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.

Contrary to some who have recently adopted the phrase, there is already a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”. It is called the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is now distancing itself from that fellowship

The blog to follow: How Books Got Their Titles.

For example, under "While England Slept by Winston Churchill" you will discover that

Churchill suggested The Years of the Locust, but the cable operator garbled the message and it arrived as The Years of the Lotus. Putnam’s were puzzled. They knew that the lotus was a plant famous for its soporific properties, and, in an attempt to give a sense of this, settled on While England Slept.

Dorothy Sayers on so-called "Women's Work"

Just finished two essays by Dorothy Sayers, collected in the little volume "Are Women Human?" No real response yet, other than to say I liked this line of argument :

Let us accept the idea that women should stick to their own jobs -- the jobs they did so well in the good old days before they started talking about votes and women's rights. Let us return to the Middle Ages and ask what we should get then in return for certain political and educational privileges which we should have to abandon.

It is a formidable list of jobs: the whole of the spinning industry, the whole of the dyeing industry, the whole of the weaving industry. The whole catering industry and -- which would not please Lady Astor, perhaps -- the whole of the nation's brewing and distilling. All the preserving, pickling, and bottling industry, all the bacon-curing. And (since in those days a man was often absent from home for months together on war or business) a very large share in the management of landed estates. Here are the women's jobs -- and what has become of them? They are all being handled by men. It is all very well to say that woman's place is the home -- but modern civilization has taken all these pleasant and profitable activities out of the home, where the women looked after them, and handed them over to big industry, to be directed and organised by men at the head of large factories. Even the dairy-maid in her simple bonnet has gone, to be replaced by a male mechanic in charge of a mechanical milking plant.

. . .

I am not complaining that the brewing and baking were taken over by the men. If they can brew and bake as well as women or better, then by all means let them do it. But they cannot have it both ways. If they are going to adopt the very sound principle that the job should be done by the person who does it best, then that rule must be applied universally. If the women make better office-workers than men, they must have the office work. If any individual women is able to make a first-class lawyer, doctor, architect, or engineer, then she must be allowed to try her hand at it. Once lay down the rule that the job comes first and you throw that job open to every individual, man or woman, fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or beautiful, who is able to do that job better than the rest of the world.

Pop v. Coke

Someone did an informal study showing the geographic distribution of generic names for soft drinks (pop, coke, soda), broken down by county. Here are the results:

Two interesting notes: 1) There are a handful of counties where "other" predominates. Who calls soda "other"? Actually, if you to know the specific answers, just go to www.popvsoda.com and look at the individual state results. It's only slightly more edifying that reading YouTube comments. 2) The most colorful want (i.e conflicted) states appear to be Nevada and South Carolina, with New Mexico running third. Nevada and New Mexico make sense ... western states are more likely to have an amalgam of cultures, and so differences will about. But S. Carolina? Apparently, it's the convergence point of New Englander "Soda," Southern "Coke," and Yankee "Pop." The real mind boggler is Missouri. What's with that pocket of "Soda" speakers on the Mississipi river?

In a age of free, what can you sell?

People have been making a big fuss about Chris Anderson's new book, Free. Malcolm Gladwell thinks it's bunk. Chris Anderson, understandably, likes it. My friends have been cheerfully exchanging links on the issue, and I found this one from KK particularly interesting. (HT David Hoos)

The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. . . . The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.

When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can't be copied?

KK goes on to list 8 "generatives" that can't be sold, including Immediacy, Personalization, Authenticity, and Findablity. My personal favorite, though, given my philosophical leanings, was Embodiment.

At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you'd like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good. What about dwelling in your favorite (free) game with 35 others in the same room? There is no end to greater embodiment. Sure, the hi-res of today -- which may draw ticket holders to a big theater -- may migrate to your home theater tomorrow, but there will always be new insanely great display technology that consumers won't have. Laser projection, holographic display, the holodeck itself! And nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive.

I buy my cd's used, or I get online versions of music from Lala.com. On the other hand, I paid $65 a ticket to go stand in line all day in Vancouver so that I can stand in a crowd of sweaty people all evening listening to U2 play in concert. He's right -- the live performance, with me standing less that 20 yards from The Edge himself, is that for which I'm willing to shell out REAL money.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I borrowed a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, from Claire, and read it in the two days before she heads back to Canada. Here are a couple of quick thoughts:

It's about as true to the original Pride and Prejudice as the Bollywood production Bride and Prejudice, and should be taken in approximately the same spirit. That is, you don't read it because it's a classic. Really, it's just rather pulpy summer fiction, dressed in regency garments and fighting ninjas.

I almost didn't finish it because of a couple instances of very graphic violence. I'm actually better able to accept violence in a movie than in a book, because a movie doesn't involve me as personally or actively in creating the image. A movie does all the work for me of picturing the carnage; but a book requires me to create the image myself. As Emerson Cod once said, "When you say 'monkey in a bellhop suit driving a delivery truck, I have to SEE a monkey in a bellhop suit driving a delivery truck."

It's most entertaining to see how Seth Grahame-Smith is able to insert small tweaks that change the meaning of the whole dialogue: the best example is during Elizabeth's visit to Lady Catherine, when she is talking to Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy. In the original, she is playign the piano, and says something like "my fingers await your command." In the Zombies edition, she is practicing handstands on her fingertips, but the original dialogue remains exactly the same.


Overall, an entertaining read, but I probably won't bother buying it. See if your local library has a copy.

No Line On The Horizon - U2

Listen to the whole album here. It's fantastic.
(review possibly coming at a future time)

Copiousness

co·pi·ous \kō-pē-əs\: adjective
1a: yielding something abundantly b: plentiful in number 2a: full of thought, information, or matter b: profuse or exuberant in words, expression, or style 3: present in large quantity: taking place on a large scale

To fill yourself with matter, to provide the substance which may in future be yielded abundantly, may I suggest the following website: www.veryshortlist.com.

Every weekday, a 300-word-max email will be delivered to your inbox enlightening you on some aspect of our life, or bringing some obscure piece of art to light. My favorite so far: this page of paper cut-out models.

On Parables

Dr. Leithart's exhortation this morning was amazing:

As much as pragmatic Americans might wish it to be otherwise, the Bible is not an answer-book. It includes advice, and laws, and rules, but a lot of it consists of puzzling prophecy, ancient history, obscure parables and apparently abstract theology. What are we supposed to get from that? We ask for an answer key, and God gives us poetry. Can’t we just skip the story and get to the moral?

No we can’t.

God gave us the Bible to guide us, but also – more fundamentally – to form us. By studying the Bible, hearing it, reading it, learning from it, we are being remade.

One of the ways the Bible remakes us is by giving us clues about God’s character and work. Parables aren’t moralistic tales. They’re allegories of God’s work in the world, the mysteries of His kingdom. By learning the parables, we learn to anticipate God’s next move.

We anticipate that when wheat is sown, weeds will be sown as well. We anticipate that we’ll have to wait for harvest for everything to be sorted out. We learn that the tree that counts doesn’t even look like a tree, but more like a bush, or a cross. We learn that God’s kingdom moves ahead through agents that we recoil from – prostitutes, tax-gatherers, sinners – as God sanctifies the world using the unclean.

But by learning the parables, living in the parables, and living out the parables, we come to know the ways of God. God is the choreographer and lead partner of our history and of our lives, and by learning the rhythm of the parables, we learn to keep in step with our dance partner.

Airborne to Refund Consumers

According to this ABC news article,

People who have taken the herbal formula Airborne with the hope of curing or fending off the common cold are eligible for refunds from the company.

Airborne will pay $23.3. million to settle a class action lawsuit over false advertising. Legal battles beginning in 2006 called into question the product's claims as a "miracle cold buster.

You can file a claim here.

Heavenly Reality

To celebrate my birthday (a couple days early), I went to lunch at West of Paris today with a few friends. I never cease to be astonished by the results of fine food, classic atmosphere and good company.

When you step in the front door, you forget that you are in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. The dirty slush on the concrete sidewalks outside become just a bad dream. Time stops.

Abby and I shared a cheese plate to start, which was incredible. Chef Foucachon came out and told us all about the cheeses, cut them for us, and told us in what order we should eat them. It went from a soft goat cheese through something I can't remember and a Gruyere to an amazingly creamy and tangy cheese with a layer of ash in the middle (not a typo: ash), and finished up with Boursin and Roquefort.* The only two I didn't care for very much were the first and the last. I've just never liked blue cheese. I freely confess that it is my fault, that I ought to develop a taste for it sometime in the future, but I still don't like it. The goat cheese, on the other hand, was very mild and creamy and not what I expected at all.

Then we split a chicken-curry crepe (I didn't have my camera to take pictures, so you'll have to use your imagination). I love curry, I love crepes, and so it was a perfect marriage of flavors. We each had a Turinois for desert -- a chestnut-Grand Marnier-hazelnut-chocolate mousse dessert with a sauce of crushed raspberries. Have I ever mentioned that my favorite fruit in the world is raspberry? It is.

The capstone of the whole meal, however, actually arrived right after we placed our order. I had no clue what kind of wine would be best with the cheese and crepe, but I knew that I had to get a glass of wine with my meal. It's not a celebration otherwise, and if one is at a French restaurant (which will certainly have the best wines) one must have wine. So I asked for a glass of whatever wine the Chef recommended, and he came out with a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. Apparently they don't normally sell it by the glass, but he said that they would open it for us.

I remember reading some article about Beaujolais Nouveau last year, so I was quite excited to try it. It was delicious! I'm not a wine-expert, by any means, but I knew it was good. I can say that it was very light and almost crisp, but at the same time a very (how-do-you-say?) real wine. It didn't taste thin at all, which is what I usually dislike in chilled wines. Along with the cheese, it made my afternoon.

When we stepped back out into the Moscow afternoon air, it was like stepping off a cloud and plummeting back to earth. We had enjoyed a dose of un-reality (or heavenly reality, I wonder?), and had to go back to the business of everyday life. But it was fun while it lasted.

*I don't know if correct grammar allows for the capitalization of cheese names, but it should.

The Battle of Franklin, told by Ambrose Bierce

George Grant, in the post shared in the box over to your right, links to this story by Ambrose Bierce. It recounts his view of the Civil War battle of Franklin (which may be of interest to some of you out there).

As a member of Colonel Post's staff, I was naturally favored with a good view of the performance. We formed in line of battle at a distance of perhaps a half-mile from the bridge-head, but that unending column of gray and steel gave us no more attention than if we had been a crowd of farmer-folk. Why should it? It had only to face to the left to be itself a line of battle. Meantime it had more urgent business on hand than brushing away a small brigade whose only offense was curiosity; it was making for Spring Hill with all its legs and wheels. Hour after hour we watched that unceasing flow of infantry and artillery toward the rear of our army. It was an unnerving spectacle, yet we never for a moment doubted that, acting on the intelligence supplied by our succession of couriers, our entire force was moving rapidly to the point of contact. The battle of Spring Hill was obviously decreed.

Notice the South's tendency to name battles after nearby towns (Franklin), while the North reckoned their battles by landmarks (Spring Hill).