Serfin' U-S-A: Voluntary Culinary Peasant Edition

You can wrap it up in a big red earth-consciousness locavore bow, but corporatocracy's triumph via our demise is creating voluntary premature peasants; those people who are adjusting to the fall of the Empire well in advance, becoming unplugged by eating cheap food, same food, jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, never jam today, because it's always cabbage soup.

For breakfast, it's cold porridge. For lunch, it's cabbage soup. Every day. For dinner, its lentils and rice. Why it's just like a third world country! I've been saying that for years. Really, I have. Lentils and rice? It's dhal-bat. The national dish of Nepal. A very poor country.

Coming your way.

So pass the daily borscht. I mean, the cabbage soup. Every day. Every day. Every day. Pass the dhal-bat. Pass the fish-heads and rice. Please pass the yuca.


Try to make a virtue out of less is more.

But, hey.

Less is less.

Really.


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Primary source:
The 10 in 10 Diet is a total system that makes it easy to transition off meat and cook healthy food conveniently while keeping your grocery bill under $150 a month per person, and reducing our contribution to climate change – with a goal in mind of 10% reduction of CO2 in 2010. It's a way to fast track to a simpler, more peaceful life. It's totally possible to really enjoy food while eating more like the majority of people in the world.


THE CLIMATE CHANGE DIET
Eating a diet for climate change doesn't mean you have to become a stick-in-the-mud vegetarian who won't take a little piece of turkey at Christmas dinner at your mother's. In order to make a difference in global warming, we need a wave of change in eating patterns across populations, enough to affect agribusiness and shipping traffic. So, here I am, jumping in with both feet to help people stop hemming and hawing in the grocery aisles and get set up to be clear and consistent with lowering the environmental impact of what they eat by eating no meat on a day-to-day basis and very little dairy. The climate change diet begins with a classic breakfast.


Breakfast
Daily:
Oatmeal Porridge with raisins, honey and apples [THINK: PLEASE PASS THE GRUEL]

Occasionally:
Buttermilk pancakes with a fried egg on top

Lunch

Daily:
Cabbage soup
Peanut butter sandwich
Hot drink
1/2 cup fruit
1/2 cup plain yogurt

Occasionally:
Miso soup with kale and carrots
Egg salad sandwich
Hot drink
1/2 cup fruit
1/2 cup plain yogurt


Supper

Big batches to freeze in single servings:
1. Black bean soup with either polenta or quick baking powder biscuits
2. Pinto beans
a) refried (mashed) served with salsa in corn tortillas
b) served over rice with salsa
Both ways can be garnished with a little grated cheddar cheese, or not.
3. Beet & Bean Stew - a kind of hearty beet borscht
4. Squash soup with hummus on bread or biscuits
5. Chili served with a dollop of kasha

Cook tonight in 45 minutes (2 or 3 servings) and have some leftovers

6. Black & Orange – black lentil stew and mashed rutabaga and sweet potatoes
7. Curried red lentils and veggies served on rice
8. Ratatouille, rice and lentils

Cook quickly tonight with one hour's notice

9. Falafel served either in pita with sprouts & yogurt or with quinoa or millet, gravy, and veggies

Make ahead to share for summer picnics, pot lucks or to pack a cold supper.

9. Quinoa salad Everyone likes this moist, yummy salad made with a fluffy ancient grain instead of rice. You can vary the cold veggies and nuts. Great to take to pot lucks

A New Understanding of the Nature of Emptiness.

Stirling Newberry at Corrente: Sorry, People, the Government Can Run Out of Money, and In Fact it Already Has.

Things that make you go "Hmm . . ."

So an idea popped into my head. What would it be like if BP is, technically, unable to stop its well from gushing oil?

What if they're not just lying because they want to find a way to save their oil and save their well?

What if the whole thing is totally, technically, out of control?

What is to be done if there is nothing that can be done?





Lambert Strether at Corrente: Are oil leaks really down hole?

Geologist Chris Landau. Wearing tin hat abiotic oil theory, but the other stuff seems ok.

What He Said

Stirling Newberry: Chelsea Dagger Drops Point First

Counterpunch, Arthur Silber on Helen Thomas

What he said.

What he said.

What he said

Stirling Newberry via Corrente.





(NBFH seems like it's morphing into minimalism. I'm busier. I have less to say that hasn't already been said. So. We'll see what happens.)

The Oil Drum

Something to keep your mind off the endless misery of samsara?

Nope.

The Oil Drum.

Topkill Fails

BP announces the failure of its "topkill" plan to plug the Oilmaggedon leak.

BP began a risky operation known as "top kill" on Wednesday. The procedure involves pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well in a bid to stop the oil. It's never been tried in 5,000 feet of water.

The oil spill began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded last month, killing 11 people. It's the worst spill in U.S. history, dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf.

Um, This Is Fun

VastLeft dialogue with Lotus at whoviating.

Smearing Elena Kagan: Grey Lady Smear-Sandwich Edition

I read the NYT this AM and realized that I was actually reading the National Enquirer.

No, really.

On the front page, to which I shall not link, is a charming piece smearing Kagan with the "A" word -- gentle readers, you must know what that one is, the thing that uppity women must not be -- (whispers) ambitiouss -- ooooooooooooo so scarey --- and on the inside back page, NYT features comments on Kagan's views of executive powers as parsed by --- insert drum roll here --- pro-torturer-in-chief John Yoo.

Oh, my. Who thought that one up? The Heathers? ("Hey, whatcha say we ask John Yoo what he thinks about Kagan's views on executive power?" [Crowd chortles, all dig elbows into one another's ribs.] "Hyuk, hyuk!" "Do it! Do it!")

Really I do get sick of this sh*t.

But -- why am I so alone?

So lucky that early adopter Goldman-Sachs-slayer Obama Afghanistan-surge non-supporter public optionist Martha Coakley didn't win over uber-charmer Scott Brown, isn't it?

Brown? Coakley? [Insert The Big Shrug.]

It really doesn't make any difference, does it? It's all hopeless, so who cares?

And then we have a wonderful blogger to whom I shall not link who's very generally wonderful save for relatively rare spasms of bad madness who's spending his precious time on earth helpfully calling Hillary Clinton a war criminal.


Jeez, people.

Wake the f*ck up.

Domestic Violence Homicides Up, Way Up, in MA

Interesting story, save for the unbelievable blame-the-victim-ism.

It's never too late to keep victimizing victims, is it?

I Dunno About All This

I love the Daily Howler.

But I don't love this.


The Kagan pie-fight has nothing to do with Kagan any more, it's a pie fight about having pie fights, and about having had pie fights, and having lost them.

And about being righteously enraged that liberal-progressive-green-socialdem-whatever you call them, keep on losing the actual serious fights, and not winning even when we should have won, and not winning when we have (supposedly) won.

Beyond the meta-piefight, it's rage about the machine, even about the continuing existence of suffering in samsara. One had been expecting a reprieve, perhaps, had one? Good luck with that.

Uh-oh. It's the Old Tribalism Thing Again. Pile On Kagan NOW, or Or Else!

What can I say?

I'm with Larry Lessig.

Lessig Calls Greenwald's Take on Kagan "Absurd"

Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig took Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald to task for his opposition to Kagan, the current U.S. Solicitor General. Lessig took particular exception to Greenwald's contention that Kagan lacks a clear judicial record.

"The hyperbole in what Glenn is saying here is something we really have to check. He said right at the top of your show that there's a complete blank slate here. That every substantive legal question she has left unanswered," Lessig told Maddow Monday night. "That is just absurd."

And I think those who are getting all hysterical need to recognize their own groupthink hysteria. It's pretty hopey-change, with us or agin' us, rabid mob rule kinda thing.

Not pretty.

Happy Mother's Day, Ladies: Celebrating the Fact That It's Never Too Early to Start Making Fun of a Female's Appearance

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Hey, let's hear it for diversity! Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's taking flak from all sides! And she deserves it! The ever-compassionate HuffPo started it last week, posting arguably the most unattractive pic of Kagan ever. (Not the pic above. It was waaay worse).

BUT--this morning on my local TV that one was topped by an even MORE unattractive pic of Kagan, ever, because she was looking unattractive AND scowling!! Scare-y!

Wow, let's talk about Hillary's thick ankles! Let's talk about Obama saying she was only "likable enough"! Let's talk about Menino not supporting Goldman-Sachs-slayer AG Martha Coakley because "no one" (meaning Menino) likes her"?

Yes, Virginia, girls R fair game!

We smear them on their girly appearances and likeability and scariness/non-scariness factor -- because that's just how it is! And because -- we can!



.
Note non-scary pic of Elena Kagan, above, which was not chosen by the bostonchannel.com

AG Martha Coakley Expands Jobs Programs for Youth

Thinking outside the box, AG Coakley expands jobs for youth program with monies from her successful suits against Big Pharma and Big "Health."

Shame on us for failing to elect her to the US Senate.

-----
From the Boston Globe:

"With the economic crunch squeezing the number of jobs available for young people, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced yesterday that her office would devote another $100,000 to employment programs, creating 64 more positions for at-risk youths in programs across Massachusetts.

The funding — which came from settlements of cases against health care and pharmaceutical companies — will boost the $1.5 million the attorney general’s office already committed to 16 programs through Project YES, or Youth Employment Solutions. The grants were open to municipalities, public school districts, and nonprofit groups that serve low-income or at-risk youth and include physical fitness in their programs.

With yesterday’s announcement, the program is now expected to create a total of 225 jobs.

“It’s not enough. But it’s a good start,’’ Coakley told about 100 teenagers assembled in the gym at the Catholic Charities Teen Center at St. Peter in Dorchester, where she was joined by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley and Mayor Thomas M. Menino. . . "

Considering how he backstabbed her in the election by failing to turn out his machine on her behalf, it must be challenging to share a stage with Menino.

Talibangelical Anti-Homosexual Evangelist Snagged Hiring Hired Hand at Rentboy.com

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Swiftingboating Martha Coakley

Using Twitter.

And let's keep in mind that Attorney General Coakley's going after Goldman Sachs pretty much right after her 2007 election as AG had absolutely nothing to do with [insert special interest here] needing her to be smeared into defeat in 2010. That was just because she spent too much time with her family and didn't know the name of a conservative Republican baseball player and was both too feeble and too ambitious. Ok?

Death of Alice Miller, Brilliant Defender of Children.

Hat-tip to fellow Miller enthusiast Arthur Silber.

Yes, I know, I'm still behind.

So read Arthur Silber.

And Corrente.

And Jesus' General.

And Reclusive Leftist.

Love that Dirty Water

Love that dirty water

Cardinal Calls Priestly Pedophilia Plague: "Petty Gossip"

Why?
Because they still don't get it.

Except for those who do get it, because they do it, and want to keep on keeping on.

Feh.

Catholic Cardinal rejects sex abuse 'gossip'
A senior cardinal has said the Roman Catholic faithful will not be swayed by "petty gossip" about child sex-abuse allegations.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, made the remark in an unusual message of support to Pope Benedict XVI during Easter Mass.

"For every 10 people you hear saying they were abused, 10,000 have kept silent.

Empire Stated

Empire stated

$250 Million Dollars of Our Tax Dollars Wasted On Cost-Free Message: "Just Say No"

What a scandal.

Health bill restores $250 million in abstinence-education funds


"A little-noticed provision of the health legislation has rescued federal support for a controversial form of sex education: teaching youths to remain virgins until marriage.

The bill restores $250 million over five years for states to sponsor programs aimed at preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by focusing exclusively on encouraging children and adolescents. . ."

not to have sex.

Full story here.

OK, Where were we?

Sorry about the hiatus. I am, anyhow. Been working on a play. Been working on it for three years. (That's quick playwriting for me -- got another I've been working on for decades.)

So anyway, let's catch up.

Most fun piece today:

Noam Chomsky Supports Health Care Bill.


Second most fun piece, as Dems throw half the population under the bus, again:

Democrats Woo Foes of Abortion.

Because why bother supporting a woman's right to choose? Why bother, when you can support rightwing fetus-firsters instead, and get away with it?

Speaking of which, I bet you've been wondering, "Hmm, what does become of all those unwanted feti once they're post-born into families who wish they had never been born?"

We turn to Parents Behaving Badly, which features the things actual parents/step-parents actually do to their actual kids.

Scroll down to my favorite so far:

7-year-old Beaten To Death By Father on Father's Day.

What's yours?

Yuh, read this.

Ethics.


And from commenter, Kia:

Let me put my answer in the form of a question: what does civilization, or society, provide for us? The low-wage workers in this story face the choice between working for starvation wages and simply starving. In what possible sense can this be described as freedom? How does it differ from the freedom that a pirate offers me to give him all I have or get killed? Isn't society supposed to protect us from piracy and brigandage?

I thought the whole point was that we would not have to prey on one another.