Really current affaire

C-Span 3 is streaming the Bolton debate.

Sen Allen is saying Bolton needs to be confirmed to he can "reform" the UN. He argues the UN is "in a crisis" because it lets tyrants and dictators and human rights abusers to take part.

Draw your own conclusions, though he did make reference to "oil for food", and the "extroadinary and deep corruption" in the UN, saying this made, "Many people, around the world" wonder if it has any relevance.

C-Span 3

Edited:

"We don't need someone to be impressed with flowering langauge and drink tea with his pinkie up"

"We don't need to someone to be coddling dictators"

The mind reels.

Moral courage...?

W. David Hager, author of such books as Stress and the Woman's Body and As Jesus Cared for Women, appointee by the president to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration got some attention when that appointment was announced.

There were allegations that, for reasons not clear, his letter to the FDA seems to have caused it to reject his committees reccomendation on it's approval. Hager was against such approval, and it seems his, minority view, managed to carry the day. Such reversals of committee reccomendations are rare.

So allegations, just surfaced, that he, this man who portrays himself as a paragon of the Biblically loving husband not only engaged in semi-consensual sex with his wife (she charging him money to allow acts she didn't care for, or, "accidentally" switched from vaginal to anal penetration (he is said to have claimed he slipped, and "couldn't tell the difference") are somewhat appalling.

That he may have engaged in spousal rape, taking advantage of her narcolepsy to get the anal sex she had taken to denying him (after she decided she wouldn't engage in marital prostitution any longer) that moves to disgusting.

But that isn't what I want to talk about.

I wan't to talk about her moral values. Forget the sordid aspects of their marriage. She divorced him.

And she waited until now to mention his failings. No minor failings these, when he is speaking to the president, and helping to set national policy on women's health issues. She didn't speak up when he was appointed (not that there was anyone, save the president to persuade, the apppointment given to Hagel is purely within the office of the president, though one might wonder if a great hue and cry would have kept him out). She hasn't spoken out as his various pronouncements gain greater currency because of that appointment.

So why didn't she? She wanted to spare her, adult, children the pain of hearing such things about their father.

Ok, it isn't, to my mind, the best of motives (the kids' ages were 23, 25, and 27, I think they could have handled it, but that's just me, and she knows them, so perhaps they were too fragile to learn the truth), but it's not beyond the absolute pale.

Skip forward three years, to the present, when she did decide to come forward, what changed?

He, "lied by the sin of ommission" according to her, because of how he preached a sermon she was at.

He said he was the Lord's instrument, and he didn't say the end of his marriage was any fault of his, but the fault of his doing God's work so diligently (one wonders at a God who demands such attentions to other people's business that He allows a marriage to fall apart, but that's a different issue altogether).

So she came forth, not because he was doing harm to women, or because he was otherwise unfit for the job he is doing; garnering the notice he has, but because he offended her, because she was in the audience to hear him say, "In early 2002 my world fell apart.... After thirty-two years of marriage, I was suddenly alone in a new home that we had built as our dream home. Time spent 'doing God's will' had kept me from spending the time I needed to nourish my marriage."

That is the grave sin she feels merits his being exposed. Not what he did, not what he is doing, but rather how he cast himself in the time of his divorce. It isn't about other women, it's about her, and if he'd not offended her sensibilities, in addition to the other offenses he committed against her, she'd still be holding her peace.

For more details, The Nation is where I found all this.

Surf and turf.

Yesterday I got up, and the first thing I did, after I put on PJs (I schlumpf about unless I have to go someplace... loose flannel trousers, in Black Watch plaid, bought at an outlet store when akirlu and libertango were helping me buy clothes after I got out of Walter Reed) and a selection of long tops, are the order of the day) was to work.

A roll of film's worth of digital shots of poppies, and I came back in to check the sourdough sponge from then night before. It was fine. Scalped a cup to go back in the fridge, fed the beast a bit more and went back outside.

The jonquils needed to be tied up. One of the disadvantages of beach living is the wind. It had shoved the poor flower stalk over, until it was flush with the ground, which seemed to defeat the purpose.

Jonquils are amazing flowers. I bought the bulbs (not trivial, even at CostCo. Not to break the bank, but four of them cost more than a dozen glads) because of jonquil. I can see some resemblance. They are white, with traces of yellow, and hints of green. Simple, yet very busy. And sudden. The don't (so it seems) slowly open. Nope, one goes inside to eat a piece of toast, and when one comes out the long yellow bud has popped open, a tangle of white streamers and a deep cup with feathered edges. Amazing.

The poppies are going gangbusters, still. The annuals are starting to bloom, and the perennials are stil ablaze. Each one is a different shade of golden orange. The super saturated one I like best (which is in the worst place for some of the sorts of photos I want to take), the bi-colored yellow and orange, the less saturated variations, all in filigrees of green.

The onions are starting to bloom. White balls of fuzz on green stalks. Some are just phallic promises of blooms to come. Unlike the little stars of the native wild onions, these have no scent, just clusters of florets. The leeks have sent up the long, narrow stalks of their blooms (which heliotrope all day, on sinous cylinders (now I feel like Swinbourne). and a chive has thrust an imminent purple flower up. All I need to make the Alia complete is for the garlic and the shallots to bloom.

Maia bought four more half barrels. The barrel place has responded to public pressure and is cutting them higher now, so one now gets either a 3/5ths, or a 2/5ths, cut. A bit of screen to mask the bung, and I can add four more inches of dirt. Tomatoes go into pots next week, as well as the chardonnay.

Spent time this evening, after the farmers market (more strawberry jam to make on the morrow) mixing soil in the hole I dug to plant the Ancho. They came free of the potting mix in the six pack very nicely, so I ought to see some fruit on them in a week or so (they all have buds, and a couple have blossoms.

The only other news of note, on the growing things list, is in the kitchen.

Maia got some of her mother's starter. I may have mentioned it before. This is the "Starter Which Will Not Die". Her mother excercizes it, at most, once; or twice, a year. It doesn't care. She gave some to Barry, his fridge got really cold, cold enough to put ice crystals in the starter. It didn't care.

So we have some. I decided I wanted to make a dry starter from it, because there is some indication this makes for a more sour flavor. So we fed it, split off a second starter, and put them both in the fridge.

Where they sat for three, maybe four, months, unused.

On Tuesday night I took my version out, and fed it, made bread with it.

This morning I had some for breakfast. It wasn't as sour as I wanted. So I am trying something. I took a teaspoon from the mother I worked on Tues., and added it to some flour and water. This I put in a cool place (a cupboard in the garage) so it could slowly grow. It's bubbling. Not much, but there wasn't all that much to start with. I'll look in on it before I retire, and then in the morning. If it's zipping along by then, I may make bread with it tomorrow. Otherwise I'll bring it into the kitchen, take the saran wrap off and let the local air settle on it.

I've been baking enough that I ought to have a favorable kitchen (it's said that regular baking makes the environment more conducive to breadmaking, because there is more airborne yeast). If this works I may make a new starter, perhaps (if it works) with a bit of pate fermente from the coming experiment with yeast from live bottled beer.

I fear I may be starting to obsess. I bought some vital gluten today, in the hope of being able to get a more lofty crumb.

Just for levity's sake ( What_State_I_am )