Tasty Tidbits 7/21/11

[Errata: This post originally went out with “7/20/11” in the title.]

1. Bleak Midwinter meets sweltering Summer.
2. RIP Borders and condolences to those who especially grieve its demise.
3. Point, counterpoint, east coast, west coast, etc.
4. Outhumaning the humans.
5. Brilliant, or just my kind of idiot?
6. Some are “makin’ ’em like they used to,” Oink! Oink!
7. But you don’t want to go there.

1

The earth was green, the sky was blue:
I saw and heard one sunny morn
A skylark hang between the two,
A singing speck above the corn;

A stage below, in gay accord,
White butterflies danced on the wing,
And still the singing skylark soared,
And silent sank and soared to sing.

The cornfield stretched a tender green
To right and left beside my walks;
I knew he had a nest unseen
Somewhere among the million stalks.

And as I paused to hear his song
While swift the sunny moments slid,
Perhaps his mate sat listening long,
And listened longer than I did.

“A Green Cornfield” by Christina Rossetti. Public domain. (HT Writer’s Almanac)

Rossetti is probably best known for the poem that became the lovely a Christmas song, In the Bleak Midwinter. We could do with a bit of that in the midwest just now.

She apparently was acquainted with other seasons, too.

2

There are many reasons why Borders failed, but I hadn’t thought about what it means to small magazines.

3

From the very au courant Department of Magazines I Wish Were Smaller then Small, accidental point-counterpoint from the coasts:

• Why We Need the Tabloids from the New York Times
• Tabloids don’t deserve the 1st Amendment from the Los Angeles Times.

The New York Times author went to school in the west coast. The LA Times author worked for a Tabloid (on the east coast?).

Is there a message here …

4

… or am I showing signs of autism?

The public radio program formerly known as Speaking of Faith (now “On Being”) has a very interesting program on Autism and Humanity. F’rinstance, did you know that engineering types are way likelier to have an autistic family member than the average person?

I’m kind of keen on this topic from some personal experience. I do believe that the autism spectrum could be viewed as longer than convention presently has it, and that the opposite end of the autism spectrum is not Aspergers but, maybe, science and engineering — or those legal concentrations that put a premium on digging in the toolbox and engineering a unique solution to a unique situation, as opposed to efficiently cranking out cookie-cutter solutions for run-of-the-mill problems, or charming juries.

And I believe these propensities runs in families, as probably do spectra of other propensities, the extreme expression of which is classed mental illness or the like.

Maybe the most arresting thought was this. All kinds of species are social. Nothing special there. But abstract logic is uniquely human. So maybe the autistic alarm us because they’re Outhumaning the Humans.

5

Ron Paul was interviewed on the News Hour Wednesday night about his Presidential ambitions. My only disagreement was that he allowed the interviewer to pass off Michelle Bachmann as a “conservative” in the course of asking why he thought he was better qualified.

Bachmann is not unequivocally conservative and certainly is not conservative in the same sense as Ron Paul. Indeed, I think she falls in the category of “conservative liberal,” meaning these days a classical liberal who supports war and crony capitalism while opposing some aspects of the sexual revolution.

Paul hit the right notes on abandoning Empire (he didn’t call it that), and on how regulatory programs typically end up serving corporate interests and the Überwealthy.

Because his campaigns have been so quixotic in the past, I tend to overlook Paul. He has force me, once again, to admit error: the whole GOP field is not idiots, just the vast majority.

Or he’s my kind of idiot. Same difference to me. I think I could easily vote for him if no more appropriate third party candidate appears.

6

New York Times chef and food columnist Mark Bittman visits Iowa and finds, in additional to 4000 acre farms growing Monsaton seed, a young man who’s organically raising real pigs again. I had forgotten the taste of real pork, having become accustomed to “the other white meat” kind, until I encountered it in June at some foody places in the Traverse City environs. (See item 7, too)

Somewhere between mass starvation in the world and daily rations of soylent green (with royalties to its politically-connected patent-holders, no doubt — probably Monsaton again) there should be a sweet spot. In fact, I’m not convinced that what has become “conventional agriculture” can keep the promise of feeding the world (Imagine that! A promise from the state capitalist sphere that cannot be kept!), while others who are farming on a smaller, or a large but self-consciously sustainable program, think they can.

7

Traverse City area has done it again with very nice, on-point praise from Mario Batali in Bon Appetit.

I have duly noted one of his Traverse City favorites that, sonofagun, I’ve never tried. And I concur with his praise of the progress in winemaking in the region.

I’ve learned a lot about wine since we started going up there, and apart from rotgut nightcaps, half or more of the wines we drink are bought in the region and brought back (weighed down my Jetta a bit too much, actually). The vintners turned the corner when they grudgingly admitted that curmudgeonly Bernie Rink, of Boskydel, was right: in effect, “This isn’t a California climate and you shouldn’t try to grow California style grapes. Think Germany, you idiots.” Once they heeded such thinking, the wines improved, Mario suggests, 1000%.

But you don’t want to go there. Really. Not until I’ve bought my summer place, anyway.

Bon appetit!