thinking, thinking ....

It's been a busy few weeks with work intruding on personal life, and little spectacles like the Olympics and the national political conventions demanding what scarce concentration I have at the moment. But as a result of a lot of work and political issues, I've been forced to think some deep thoughts about how increasingly martial our government has become. I'll be writing more about this, but let me leave you with this: the Department of Homeland Security has alluded to monitoring all domestic public Internet traffic in a public forum.

Chew on that one.

I'll be back with more.

Beeee-yotch Slap

There are so many things wrong with the New York Times editorial pages these days. I could abide William Safire as the Time's example of a conservative. But John Tierney? William Kristol? Please. Spare me the odious claptrap that flowed from their pens. Don't let me start on Tom "The World is Flat" Friedman, because whatever I will say will be misconstrued as being biased against free trade and capitalism.

Sure, Krugman's there, and Bob Herbert, and I enjoy and respect both. Except for them, the pages have become as bad as the Wall Street Journal.

But one stain more than any other violates the pages: Maureen Dowd. And James Wolcott delivers one of his patented ripostes to her latest emission.

To which I say: Bravo, Wolcott, bravo!

Led Zeppelin Live

If for some reason you never saw The Who, Cassandra Wilson, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Kiri te Kanawa, Roxy Music, George Clinton, Ella Fitzgerald, Queen, Placido Domingo, or Luciano Pavarotti, leave this here website thingy immediately and go here. Then buy tickets. And see one of the most talented performers I've ever been priveledged to see. Cee Lo is amazing, and the band performs like the the Stones, Zeppelin, or the Who at their peak. Stunning.

Myth Busted

One of the benefits of reading broadly the world press is sometimes something really extraordinary will present itself. This article is one such thing.

I'm a huge fan of the do-it-yourself philosophy, and I tremendously admire the women's dogged efforts to reproduce the flavor of Coca-Cola. While I don't think I'll be trying the recipe any time soon, the idea of getting non-high fructose corn syrup based Coke in the States again is tremendously appealing.

It's also interesting to note that the bits of food chemistry that that are the basis for molecular gastronomy restaurants such as the Fat Duck, el Bulli, and Minibar are seeping into craft cooking.