Nineteen days.

Egyptian red lentil soup.

Skeeter and I made spicy Egyptian lentils for lunch.

Oh, Americans.

Grateful for a few minutes before eating ourselves into stupors one day. Waking up in the middle of the night to be the first to nab a deeply discounted gadget in a fit of wild unchecked consumerism the next.

Bookend the day.

Furthermore, overspending, the left-wing media, tax cuts, class warfare, Muslims, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi...

The Loss of Russ Feingold
It was Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who for the last 17 years has been the conscience of the Senate, one of the few public servants at so high a level of government to embody consistent integrity, thoughtfulness and principle. And for his nearly two decades of unwaveringly exemplary service, Wisconsin voters replaced him yesterday with a man named Ron Johnson, who, among other things, defended BP from the “all-out assault” President Obama had “launched” on the corporation, later to disclose that he owned more than $100,000 in BP stock.

All it would take to make an informed electorate would be a little interest and a society that encourages a culture of the mind rather than a culture of the gut. Even the stupid are entitled to their opinions and their votes, but if they want to show themselves worthy of the democracy they enjoy, a democracy that many people died and killed for in our war for independence, they are not entitled to their stupidity. It makes one recall the words of John Stuart Mill (from Considerations on Representative Government, 1861):
Thus a people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it.

In Defense of Elitism
The more the rest of the media abandons the field, the more important NPR’s foreign reporting becomes. Yes, there are now websites overflowing with information about everything in the world, but very few have the resources and expertise to do the kind of reporting NPR does. And since America is increasingly buffeted by decisions made in other countries, our national ignorance is becoming a threat to our national security. Once upon a time, there was a wing of American conservatism that recognized that there were public goods and cultural standards that needed to be insulated from the whims of the market. Today, that’s considered elitist. Flagrant ignorance, by contrast, especially about the rest of the world, is a sign of populism, a sign that you don’t think you’re better than anyone else. On the right today, Sarah Palin isn’t adored in spite of her parochialism; she’s adored because of it.

New York Times' "profile" of Julian Assange
Apparently, faced with hundreds of thousands of documents vividly highlighting stomach-turning war crimes and abuses -- death squads and widespread torture and civilian slaughter all as part of a war he admired for years and which his newspaper did more than any other single media outlet to enable -- John Burns and his NYT editors decided that the most pressing question from this leak is this: what's Julian Assange really like?

Today's terror plot on ForeignPolicy.com
The bad news: Today, law enforcement agencies in several countries were put on high alert, two global corporations -- FedEx and UPS -- had to disrupt services and inspect dozens of packages around the world, Canadian fighter jets were mobilized, passengers on board a completely innocent commercial flight were scared out of their wits, the president of the United States made a statement on TV, the American Jewish community feels increasingly vulnerable, new security measures will be put in place for international shipments for at least a few weeks if not indefinitely, and the U.S. media will spend the next few days talking about the threat from al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.
So for the price of two small improvised explosive devices, which I'm guessing is not all that high in Yemen, plus UPS shipping fees, AQIM, or whoever is behind this, probably cost the governments of the United States, Canada, Britain, and the UAE millions of dollars and bought themselves weeks of free publicity.


Jon Stewart’s media critique annoys media on Salon
The media is how people learn about the nation, even if it's passively and without paying much attention, so a media that doesn't police lying and misinformation -- and a media that constantly fear-mongers or that presents every single issue as an intractable argument between two immovable forces -- certainly does hurt us all.

Married to Distraction on NPR
"Closeness depends upon this rapidly disappearing phenomenon of undivided attention spread over time," says Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist and co-author of Married to Distraction…
"What you give up at work is depth. And what you give up in relationships is intimacy," Hallowell says.

My Opponent Knows Where Washington is on a Map; I don’t and I never will by “Ron Johnson” for The Onion
What we don't need is Russ Feingold, who is a Democrat capable of conjugating verbs and composing thoughts in sentence form. I'll be honest, I have absolutely no clue what I've been saying here this entire time. What is time? Where am I? Who are you? How do telescopes work, and why am I writing this right now? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
Because I am an outsider and Russ Feingold is a man with dark hair.
Furthermore, overspending, the left-wing media, tax cuts, class warfare, Muslims, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi, corporate giveaways, socialism, Nancy Pelosi. Washington, D.C.


Germany’s Age of Anxiety on Foreign Policy
"The crimes of the Nazi era," he told the cheering crowd, "are not an excuse for you to refuse to fight for your own identity. Your only responsibility is to avoid the mistakes of the past." The cardinal error of the interwar years, according to Wilders, was the failure to identify gathering threats against democracy. In his analogy, it was the Muslims who were the Nazis. The audience rose to its feet to applaud him. It was the first time in decades of reporting from Germany that I witnessed a passionate response to a passionately delivered political speech.

Skeeter study.

Keira Knightley.

Aftermath of Bernd's 25th birthday party - one tired cat lying on top of beer-soaked Apples to Apples cards.

But we also need.

It is ironic that the more affluent we become, the less hospitable we are. We're always so busy. And we don't think we can entertain unless we have everything in order.

Books and magazine articles about hospitality and etiquette abound in North America. People remodel their homes and refurbish their kitchens to make more room for entertaining. But are we really more hospitable for all the entertaining ideas we clip from magazines, and all the resources and energy we devote to creating entertaining spaces in our homes?

EXTENDING THE TABLE: A WORLD COMMUNITY COOKBOOK.



My goal for the moment isn't occupational or academic - it's to develop hospitality, to continue to grorw a circle of friends and a home that's welcoming, if imperfect.



We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.

WENDELL BERRY.

Halloween.