Yeah, well, April 15th is comin' right up and I was going to do TurboTax...but?

A Tale Of Fish And Bells.....

In France, there is a story told to children about why the church bells do not ring from 3 pm Good Friday until Easter Morning. You see, they all fly away to Rome and then return on Easter filled with chocolate eggs and even more bizarrely, chocolate imitation sea food. The chocolate eggs and shells are filled with praline..usually made with hazelnuts and various flavored truffle fillings. I have been trying to find a real explanation of the reason why these little chocolates are shaped like shells, shrimp and fish. The best reason I have found is that traditionally, unless you live near the ocean, shell fish and shrimp were a real luxury. They represent wealth and good fortune. Of course, the real reason for chocolate fish is whimsy, which if you ever have a chance to see the window display of a great chocolatier, you will be blown away by the sheer artistry. The first of April is called Le Poisson d'Avril...The French version of April Fools Day. The traditional prank for kids is to make a paper fish and hang it from the back of an unsuspecting victim, making him the fool. But I have done a bit of research and I think I understand the significance of the Fish Prank!

Here's two of my prize chocolate fish molds

Apparently theories abound, but no one is absolutely sure of the origin of this custom. Some say it dates back to the 1500's when the King of France (the Edict of Roussillon in 1564) changed New Year's Day from April 1st to January 1st. (Raise your hand if you knew this calendar factoid; I didn't). According to this theory, it took quite awhile for news of the change to reach the provinces. Those still celebrating the 'old' New Year's Day on April 1st were called poissons d'avril and became the butt of jokes.

hmm...a lotta fish around here....

Other theories relate to April being a good fishing period in France. Then there is the springtime connection: l'amour... l'amour. The French word for mackerel (the fish) is un maquereau which is also argot for a pimp. Another speculation is that it relates to the end of Lent, generally around April 1st. Many used to forego meat during Lent, substituting fish. One supposition goes back to Ancient Greece where they celebrated the god of laughter on April 1st. But I am weak on the subject of Greek mythology and never heard of a god of laughter. I also know little about astrology other than my birth sign and can't evaluate the premise that poisson d'avril is somehow connected to Pisces and the movement of the sun or moon in the zodiac cosmology. That is when you start to see chocolate fish in the windows! So, I have been finding the traditional molds that were used to make the bells and fish as well. Easter, or Paques, as it is known here is a time for chocolate. We have bunnies and hens and eggs, but the real super stars of the chocolatiers trade are the big bells (Cloche) and fish. I have a few bell molds and some fish molds...this year I wanted to actually make a chocolate bell. You cast the two halves, fill it with chocolate pieces , then heat the edges of the chocolate halves and fit them together. It seems simple, I got 500 grams of Lindt dark chocolate. I lightly oiled the molds, then carefully melted the chocolate in a copper pan over another pan of hot water. 

 Another one of my fishy chocolate molds

one of the bell molds

My plan was to un mold the bell halves, Heat a teflon cutting board over hot water, fill the half bell with the coquillage chocolate pieces, then take the top piece and soften the edges on the hot cutting board and then carefully fit them together. Well, the board was too hot, then as I tried to put the top piece on, I seriously deformed it. I have to practice this deft manoeuvre. So, I went to plan B....I got one of the fish molds, remelted the chocolate and made my life much simpler by casting a half fish, and then filling it with the rescued coquillage! So, here is the Easter fish filled with chocolate faux sea food and eggs ready to be presented today!

The finished fish! Joyeux Paques tout le monde!

A little Microdot magic! It's easier than it looks!

You Betcha!

The true genius of conservative politics is summed up by the simple observation of trying to get a dog to look where you are pointing. No matter how you try to communicate where you want them to look, they look at the finger. Am I insulting the electorate by comparing them with dogs? No, not really, a simple observation of the success of diverting attention. Confucious said that if you pointed at the moon and told people to look, most people would only look at your finger. That might go a long way to explain the serial fails of Progressives to promote ideas and programs. We try to explain things. We try to define programs and accurately label concepts. So in this world of doggie brain finger think, Affordable Health Care becomes Obama Care and Death Panels. Don't look at where we are pointing! Look At My Finger! Dammit! Bad Doggie!
One of the biggest problems Progressives face in the messaging wars that Conservatives have been waging for more than 30 years, is the fact that we are always playing defense. Republicans ascribe a label to us and we quickly scramble to explain how that label isn't true and why. But as we all know, our message gets lost in the middle of the rebuttal.
Why can't we learn how to play this game? We have to learn how to put Conservatives on the defense for a change.  Democrats need to start calling Republicans out for who they are and what they stand for politically. To do that, we'll need both new terminology and the ability to turn their own memes back on them.
Here are my three proposals in that direction: 

1. Conservatives are legislating a Daddy State.

Republicans across the country are using their state legislatures to reach into every aspect of our lives; from restricting our access to basic health care, giving our employers the right to pry into our personal medical needs and refuse us insurance coverage they "morally" object to, and forcing women to endure invasive and unnecessary medical procedures against their wills. Republicans are legislating government control of women's health care all across this nation. And Democrats see this as a gross violation of the freedoms and liberties that we love about living in America. (Adapted from words used by Rep Steve King re the Patient Protection Act.)

The Republican Party would love nothing more than to turn this great country into a Daddy State, where "the man of the family" not only gets to set the rules, but they get to punish us when we're "bad" in their eyes.

It's that "Strict Father" mindset that radical conservative regressives use to shape their own families. And they want to bring that structure to America as a whole, by implementing what George Lakoff calls The Santorum Strategy.

Well we've got news for them, right, Dems? They aren't our Daddies and we aren't going to let them act like it, either!

2. Republicans are the Party of Gut and Spend.

Republicans continually gut services to the poor and needy to spend on the wealthy elite with tax breaks for their gambling losses; unemployment benefits going to millionaires; and reimbursements for property damage on estates that should have been covered by insurance, that the wealthy could afford but chose not to carry. (Source for millionaire handouts: Subsidies for the Rich & Famous by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) pdf.)

Gut and Spend takes money out of the pockets of hard-working families in America and gives it away to the rich and powerful. Gut and Spend policies have decimated the middle class, leaving a bigger and bigger gap between the used-to-haves and the have-more-than-the-99-percent-put-togethers.

House Republicans passed a Gut and Spend budget that made deep cuts predominantly on low-income families at a time when millions are still out of work and have to rely on their earned benefits to survive, while not eliminating a dime of entitlements that are handed out to the wealthiest among us, and at the same time lowering their burden of taxes to its lowest level since Herbert Hoover.

The Republicans' Gut and Spend policy is a Path to Poverty and bad for America. 

3. Republicans are the Party of Large Corporate Government.

Republicans don't want smaller government, they want an Unelected Corporate Government that they can collude with outside the system of fair elections. The more successful they are at continuing to build this Large Corporate Government, the less voters will have a say in how schools are run, how prisons are run, or even how our most precious asset — our military — is run. Now Paul Ryan is conditioning America to believe that our Generals are lying to us! What better reason to replace them with the contractors of the Republican Party's choosing once they're in a position of power to hire them? We must prevent this from happening at all costs. Turning our government over to Unelected Corporations is anti-Democratic and un-American.

Easy isn't it? Once you get the hang of it. Now all you have to do is learn how to chew gum and wink knowingly at the camera at the same time. Now look at my finger.....You Betcha!

Mina amici parla Occitan!

Constipation Blues

My buddy Clement posted this and I just have to share it with everyone.

Two of the greatest monsters to walk the earth, Screamin Jay Hawkins and 

Serge Gainsbourg....

Max Ernst, Ein Kupferblech (collage/aquarelle)
 1919
Max would have been 121 today.

Let's Get Medieval

Propaganda woodcut illustration from 1468 depicting
the supposed ritual murder of Simon Unverdorven by the
Ashkenazi Jews of Trent. The Jews are wearing the traditional stars they were
required to wear to identify them.

Last year, after the attempted assassination fo Gabby Gifford, when the remarks by Sarah Palin were pointed out about putting liberal legislators in “cross hairs”, Palin lashed out and used the term Blood Libel to smear her critics. Did she understand the true meaning or moral equivalency she was making? I don’t think she really thought about those things, as if she really thought about what she used as a reply at all, as if anything she says that has any historical or supposed intellectual context is not the product of her think tank of trained attack monkeys. 

Of course, blood libel was such a wrong analogy because of the history of the term. It was used as the basis for centuries of hysterical persecution of the Jewish population of Europe dating back to the lying propaganda of Flaccus, the Roman military ruler of Alexandria at the time of Caligula. For political reasons, he propagated the lie by a Greek/Egyptian writer, Apion that the Jews ritually killed Christian children to use their body parts and blood in their arcane rituals. This of course was not true, it was utter vicious propaganda designed to incite violence against the Jewish population of Alexandria and it worked horribly and kept working up until this very day!

The concept of blood libel was revived again in medieval Europe with the anti Jew hysteria that resulted in a bloddy pogrom against the Jewish communities in the low countries. In 1475, Bernadino de Feitre, a fiery orator priest incited the population of Trent to massacre and expel the Jewish money lenders by creating the myth of the murder of a boy named Simon Unverdorven. Simon was supposedly murdered by the Ashenazi Jews of Trent in a ritual murder to use his blood in the manufacture of Passover matzohs.

There are quite a few variations of the story. Simon was ordained as a child martyr saint by Pope Sixtus VI in 1568. Unfortunately, Simon probably never really existed. But, the myth, the lie, the propaganda created a hysteria which we live with up to today. In spite of the fact that the Vatican II Council demissioned Saint Simon of Trent and officially denied the story. The blood libel against the Jews has been the basis of much of the violent historical persecution against them. Millions of lives have been violently destroyed because of this lie.

This is a classic example of the role of religion in the emotional manipulation in controlling populations by a manipulative ruling class.

Today, in Oklahoma, a bill has been introduced into their legislature which I think much more accurately could be termed as blood libel in the medieval sense. Republican State Senator, Ralph Shortey, wants to pass a law banning “the sale or manufacture of food products which contain aborted human fetuses”

Was there ever an issue with human fetuses ending up in food products? No and there never has been.

But what does this seemingly insane legislation hope to accomplish?

It plants the seed of a folk legend, a seed of irrational hate which will lead to more violence and murders against doctors, nurses and women. It doesn’t have to be true, like Apions lie about ritual religious murder of children for the idiots to believe it.

This time, it really is a case of Blood Libel in the most accurate medieval sense.

 Buster Keaton, what a heroic ham!
I want to do this when I grow up!

did y'all hear sumthin? whaa?

A Few Reasonable Questions

I have tried not to comment too much on this case. I made fun of Geraldo Rivera for his ridiculous comments trying to justify the actions of George Zimmerman on the basis of Trayvon Martins' hooded sweatshirt. I will readily admit that I do not trust the Sanford Police Department. I find the fact that there  has been no formal legal action against Zimmerman very suspect. Everyday gives him, the police and the media and the attorneys more leeway to create a smokescreen to obscure the foresnic evidence.

I also find the prevailing attitude in the conservative press and opinion so overwhelmingly anti factual. They seem to be intent on quashing any attempt to really get answers. They seem to be afraid of a real investigation because of the inherent racist nature of the alleged actions of Zimmerman, the potentially damning fallout to the position of gun right advocates. They seem to be grasping at any straw to obscure the search for facts. After reading of and viewing the video footage released by ABC News

last night, of  George Zimmerman arriving at the police station, I felt it was time to discuss the real facts of the case. I am truly attempting to stay away from letting my emotion sway me. The video depicts a cleanly-shaven man who “shows no blood or bruises” on his body. The claim of Zimmerman of being assaulted by Martin as the basis for his shooting of Martin has yet to be confirmed by any official medical report and certainly seems to be negated visually by this video. Every day that Zimmerman is allowed to claim he is hiding in fear of retaliation and protected by the local officials will make the ability to verify his claims more difficult while they build their character assassination of Martin in the Publics Opinion.

While media coverage of the case has been intense, there are several key questions that have yet to be answered about the case. Here are five of the most important:

1. What was the purported “conflict” that required the initial prosecutor to step down? On March 22 — after several weeks on the job — state attorney Norm Wolfinger stepped down from his role as prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case. Wolfinger relinquished his post after meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi. He said it was necessary for him to step aside to preserve “the integrity of this investigation,” adding he wanted to avoid “the appearance of a conflict of interest.” He did not explain why his continued involvement would damage the integrity of the case or explain the potential conflict he was seeking to avoid. Did anyone at the prosecutor’s office know Zimmerman or his family? [Orlando Sentinel]

2. Why did the prosecutor ignore the recommendations of the lead homicide investigator? ABC News reported that Chris Serino, the lead homicide investigator on the Trayvon Martin case, recommended that Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter on the night of the shooting. Serino filed an affidavit that night stating “he was unconvinced Zimmerman’s version of events.” As the lead homicide investigator, Serino was: 1. In the best position to evaluate Zimmerman’s credibility, and 2. Intimately familiar with Florida law. Why was he ignored? [ABC News]

3. Why did then-Police Chief Bill Lee make public statements directly contradicting the official recommendations of the police department? On the day the Sanford Police concluded their investigation and handed over the case to the prosecutor, then-Police Chief Bill Lee stated publicly that there was no “probable cause” to arrest or charge Zimmerman. (Lee has subsequently “temporarily” stepped down from his post.) But the Miami Herald reports that on the same day the Sanford Police formally requested that the prosecutor charge Zimmerman, something known as a “capias” request. [ThinkProgress]

4. Who leaked Trayvon Martin’s school records? As public outrage increased, Zimmerman’s sympathizers launched a smear campaign against Trayvon Martin. This included details of several occasions where Martin was suspended for minor infractions (defacing a locker, possessing an empty “marijuana baggie.”) None of the information seemed to have any particular relevance to the night Trayvon Martin was shot to death. Was this a ham-handed attempt by the police or the prosecutor to defend their lack of action against Zimmerman? The Sanford City Manager announced he would launch an independent investigation into the source of the leak. [Miami Herald; NBC12]

5. Why was Trayvon Martin’s body tagged as a John Doe? The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart notes a police report “that was completed at 3:07 a.m. on Feb. 27 lists Trayvon’s full name, city of birth, address and phone number.” But yet, Trayvon’s body was reportedly “tagged as a John Doe” and his father wasn’t informed of his death until after he filed a missing person report later on the 27th. Why weren’t Trayvon Martin’s parents contacted immediately after the police confirmed his identity? [Washington Post]

Special prosecutor Angela Corey has promised to release additional information about the case once she makes a decision about whether to charge Zimmerman, something that could happen at any time.

Ground Speed.....

Earl Scruggs, "y'all come back now, hear?"

La Bonne Etoile

My buddy, Clement, just started a pretty cool blog about music. Musicoldnews. It's in French, but Clement writes and speaks english better than he thinks he does. I'm sure if you commented in english, he would be very pleased. So far it is a very eclectic and very interesting mix of old and new music which relate. One of the first posts is about Icelandic Pop. It exists you know...where do you think Bjork comes from? I saw the band she was in during the 80's, The SugarCubes, in New York at CBGB.

He did a post on guitarists and one of the guitarists he featured was Mathieu Chedid, or the artist formerly known as M...Mathieu has been one of my favorite French artists for years. When he first started to perform, he created a fantasy persona, M. He seemed to think that he needed to become a super hero on stage to over come his shyness...In the last few years, he has shed the M persona and has actually acknowledged his cultural roots. He is of Lebanese origin and his father is the French Pop composer and performer, Louis Chedid. His grandmother was the Egyptian/Lebanese writer,  Andree Chedid.

As M, Mathieu developed into a very interesting guitarist and singer. He developed a teasing falsetto style and ceaselessly experimented musically. He has collaborated with many French artists. Recently with Vanessa Paradis and actually wrote and produced much of Johnny Hallydays last record. He collaborated with Sean Lennon on Seans upcoming musical project as well as recording and performing with him.

This is a live 2007 performance of his piece La bonne etoile and he collaborates with the cellist Vincent Segal.

Segal is one of the most eclectic cellists around. He is presently performing and recording incredible music with the Malian kora master, Ballake Sissoko, which I featured on this blog last year.....actually, it was 2 years ago, April 2010!

Geraldo's Hoodies

Oh the cruel godless hate of the liberals....why can't they just leave Geraldo alone? He apologized, (well, sort of) Now look what the hateful liberal blogging peoples has done...an entire blog filled with images and what these twisted hate filled liberal minds consider  "humor" of Geraldo Rivera wearing his FOX NEWS Hoodie, which, I still can't order! I want one of these bad boys soo bay-adddddd!
(I'm sure they'll be back in the FOXNEWS ONLINE STORE again soon, after all Geraldo did apologize and they've got a warehouse full of these truly stylin made in China FOX NEWS HOODIES stashed in a warehouse somewhere and their marketing people say they just gotta move 'em)

The French Taunting

If You Wanna Be A Player....

Then you better learn how to play the game.

It looks like Little Mr. Cranky Pants must have missed his nappy nap again.