I’ve been running into a bug, and I’m posting this to see if anyone else has.
If I make a comment that is larger than the comment box, the “post comment” button vanishes, so the only way I can make the comment is to cut it, post the beginning only, then edit it to add in the rest. Has anyone else run into that when posting long comments? It doesn’t seem to happen all the time, and I haven’t figured out what conditions cause it. Most likely, there is a really obvious thing I’m missing, but if anyone has any ideas, let me know.
Let me tell you a story. The individual family farmer, because of his precarious position in capitalist society, will of necessity develop a very careful attitude toward money—those who fail to develop this attitude don’t last long as farmers. This attitude easily becomes part of the farmer’s character, with the result that, often, they are relatively poor tippers. No one who understands their conditions can blame them for this, but, justified or not, it becomes an assumption. Back when I was working at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, it was simply accepted wisdom, and, because performers often survive on tips, farmers were generally spoken of scornfully.
One day, sitting around with a few people, a band-mate made an insulting remark about farmers, and my friend Maria promptly said, “Just don’t say that with food in your mouth.” Zing.
Now I’m going to change the subject.
40 years ago, a conversation like this was not uncommon:
“Yes, I’m prejudiced against black men. I’m a white woman, and if you’d been harassed by black men as often as I have, you’d be prejudiced too.”
Or perhaps you’d have heard this:
“Mexicans are lazy. You can argue as much as you want, but I’ve worked with them, and I know.”
Or maybe this:
“You just can’t count on women in high-pressure jobs. They get emotional and make bad decisions. I’m basing this on my own experience.”
Today, hearing things like that makes the bile rise in our throats. We understand, at least more than we did, the way personal experience can be warped by confirmation bias, by prejudice picked up from media and popular culture, and perhaps we even understand how statements like that both reflect and sustain ignorance and bigotry and oppression. Anyone saying those things today would be liable to get, at a minimum, a cold glare by most of us. And rightly so.
“Blue collar workers are bigots and sexists. I know, I’ve worked with them.”
When I’ve seen the above statement on social media, it has generally gone by without a challenge. Think about that for a minute. If you pat yourself on the back for “calling out” racism and sexism, but either say or permit statements like the above, think about whose work you’re doing by accepting and perpetuating these stereotypes. Ever seen “All In The Family?” It was one of the first efforts in popular culture to create this image of the working class, and it was a lie then, and it is a lie now, and when that show came out it was never challenged by liberalism, because it fit in with their agenda. Workers are stupid and bigoted, so it is perfectly okay to continue rising in society by stepping on them, and we can also cheerfully mock them as their living standards are slashed and their children are sent off to die in imperialist wars.
But if you really do have to make an insulting and degrading remark about workers, just don’t do so while you’re using anything that was created by human labor.
My House is distinguished by its informal dining atmosphere.
In general, I think “informal” best describes the atmosphere of this establishment. In going for the relaxed, comfortable feel, the proprietor fully succeeded, but perhaps went too far. No one greeted me when I arrived, and when I shouted “Hello,” the only response was a shout from another room saying hello back (although the person returning my shout did appear to know my name, which I thought was a nice touch). While I’m not about to set the health department on the place (everything seemed clean enough in general), I must add that there was a cat wandering casually around, and at one point, even a dog came up to me as if it expected me to share my meal! The result is a pretty “homey” atmosphere, enhanced (for me, though I realize not for many of you) by the fact that I was actually able to smoke between courses.
I started with a cocktail, a simple Irish whiskey, served neat, that of course was perfectly satisfactory. The liquor selection is small, yet, remarkably, well supplied with items that I like. They even had my preferred hard cider, Angry Orchard, although I didn’t have one on this occasion.
The appetizer I selected was the “Olives and Cheese Plate,” which proved to be garlic stuffed olives and Cahill’s Irish cheddar cheese with porter. An unusual combination, to be sure (feta is more typical), yet I found it worked rather well.
The salad was exactly the sort I like: Iceberg lettuce (yes, iceberg lettuce—don’t judge me) with red onion, scallions, cucumber slices, radishes, and red bell pepper, served with balsamic vinaigrette dressing that was distinguished by a truly remarkable olive oil called Arouri. If I had to complain about anything, I’d say that the balsamic vinegar was a bit cheap, and the salad could have used cauliflower and red cabbage, but all in all it was quite good.
For the entree I went with the chuck roast. It was thinly sliced, and had been slow roasted over low heat in a mixture of olives, garlic, onion, tomato juice, cumin, and balsamic vinegar. It was tender, and the flavor was most satisfactory, especially when accompanied by a sauce that was, I was told, simply the roasting mixture reduced and pureed. To go with it were roasted baby red potatoes served with salt, pepper, butter, paprika, and sour cream. For wine, I selected an Egri Bikaver. On reflection, I think a pinot noir or a Burgundy would have done better with the roast, but I can hardly blame the establishment for my choice of wine!
Dessert was a fruit salad, surprising in its simplicity: grapes, orange slices, and strawberries, mixed with whipped cream and a dash of Cointreau.
My biggest criticism has to be the service: It varied between abysmal and non-existent. In the end, I was required to fetch all of my own food from the kitchen, which was extremely annoying, and to return the empty plates. (I also had to do the dishes, but as that was in lieu of payment, I’m not complaining about it.)
In summary, I was not dissatisfied, and I intend to return soon and try the sukiyaki.
I love a character who’s badass enough to take on two, three, four enemies at once. And writing that sort of scene is really fun. There are all sorts of ways to make it believable, and lots of places to turn to for how it works. But I want to make one suggestion.
You know what the most unrealistic thing in most war movies is? The wounded to kill ratio. It’s like, every time the hero shoots a bad guy, the bad buy dies. That’s never been accurate. Even in the ancient world, where the lack of medical knowledge drastically increased mortality rates, you hardly ever hear of a battle where the wounded to killed ratio is lower than 3:1. In modern warfare the ratio is significantly higher. So the next time you’ve got your protagonist surrounded by bad guys, why not disable all or most of them instead of killing them? A sword-thrust through the upper thigh, a broken arm, a sharp rap to the head, a punch to the solar plexus. Not only will it feel more believable, but by reducing the body count, you make it more powerful when you actually do kill someone. And more powerful is more gooderful, right?
Sometime in the early 70s there was a wonderful political cartoon in the Bulletin, the newspaper precursor of the World Socialist Web Site. It depicted a locomotive labeled “AFL-CIO” on a collision course with a little handcart holding Richard Nixon. George Meany (AFL-CIO president) was in the cab of the locomotive, yelling, “I can’t shut the damn thing off!” When I see the support gathering around Bernie Sanders, I keep thinking of that cartoon.
What brought this to mind most recently was a complaint on Twitter that many of Sanders’ supporters are refusing to vote “down ticket”—that is, for other “leftist” Democrats. This, in its own way, is as encouraging as the vote itself. Sure, Sanders is nothing more than a New Deal Democrat using populist rhetoric, but those who specifically vote for him and do not vote for other Democrats are most likely consciously voting for socialism.
As capitalism more and more demonstrates that it isn’t capable of solving humanity’s problems, people are turning toward socialism in the hundreds of thousands and millions. Would an actual socialist have gotten that kind of support at this stage? Obviously not. That isn’t the point. The point is the growing recognition by millions that capitalism is bankrupt, and their anger about it, and their search for answers. And however hard he tries, I don’t believe Sanders is going to be capable of herding that recognition, that anger, that search, back into support for the profit system. The locomotive of working class outrage is on a collision course with the handcart of capitalism itself. Sanders no more created the outrage than George Meany created the AFL-CIO, he just happens to be its figurehead at the moment. And he can’t shut the damn thing off.
