There were 2 things about Obama's speech here in Tucson the other night that I wanted to discuss. Before I start I should say that for the most part I was impressed and satisfied with his performance. Indeed it was one of the best speeches he's ever delivered, I think, and it was, realistically, about the best thing anyone could have wanted.
But one thing really struck me the moment he said it, and another thing he said got me thinking about it a day later. The first was also wisely noticed and commented on yesterday by Michael Chabon in The Atlantic:

as he moved from an invocation of the innocence and immanence of the dead little girl to a call, part admission, part admonishment, part fatherly exhortation, for Americans "to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations," the speech found its true importance, its profundity. To attempt to live up to your children's expectations—to hew to the ideals you espouse and the morals that you lay down for them—is to guarantee a life of constant failure....

When I heard Obama give that part of the speech I was almost outraged Read more>>>

cider experiment tonite: I wanted to solve the problem of how to get hard cider that's not too dry - it's too dry because the yeast eats up pretty much all the sugar and turns it to alcohol, right? My theory is, what if I stop the fermentation early by heating the stuff, hot enough to kill the yeast, but not hot enough to boil off the ethanol (boiling point 178 degrees F). So I tried it. I kept aside about a cup of yeasty cider. heated the rest to about 135 for 30 minutes. let it cool down, then before bottling i mixed it back in with the cup of yeasty stuff so that when i bottled, there'd still be a little fermenting to provide carbonation. but hopefully not *too* much, resulting in exploding bottles... i'll let you know what happens... Read more>>>

As Steinbeck wrote: “How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only
in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children?
You can’t scare him—he has known a fear beyond every other.”

From an article in a recent issue of The Economist about immigration. This is why undocumented migrants will keep coming, no matter how high the walls are. The author makes a skillful comparison between the Okies in "Grapes of Wrath" and the latin american immigrants who risk everything to make it the U.S.

Along the same lines, a newish documentary called The Other Side of Immigration that also looks at particular and personal close-ups of people immigrating and why seems to be something I want to watch and encourage.  These kinds of explanations of individual experience and motivation are what need to be seen by as many gringos as possible. Read more>>>

author: Jeffrey Moore

name: Steev

average rating: 3.66

book published: 2004

rating: 4

read at: 2008/01/30

date added: 2011/01/01

shelves: novels