What We Ate Part 2

I've just about got Plantboy talked into the garden blog. I think the goal is to begin January first and work through the year. This has been another wonderful week for eating what we grow. The menu changes a lot from early summer to late. Here is the last few days, and the next few:


Tacos: Standard fair, really, but this week with the addition of some awesome guacamole containing tomatoes, peppers and onions from our garden. The cilantro came from a friend's garden.

Red Curry: Had peppers, green beans, carrots, zucchini and onions from the garden. Tried to put it in the crock-pot this time was a bit of a fail, particularly in the case of my poor green beans. Stir fry is far superior.

Pasta Bake and Salad: Nothing fancy in the pasta, but the salad had loads of fresh garden tomatoes. Pasta bake night was also the night of my book group and I made my annual razzleberry pies. They turned out so beautiful. The strawberries and some of the blueberries were ours. We picked the raspberries at a local farm (ours aren't producing well enough to use yet), and the blackberries came from an obliging field just down the street.

Asian Salad: I went to the farmers market for some help with red peppers, pea pods and lettuce.

Plantboy went fishing today and caught a salmon that is probably about 25 pounds. The boys are grossing out in the backyard right now watching him gut the thing. Of course, nobody is forcing them to watch, but I find they quite enjoy gross things. My sweetheart is probably giving them a biology lesson at the same time. It is a good life.

So here is what will come this week:

Salmon: With a side of caprese salad using our basil and Roma tomatoes. I am also going to do an angel hair pasta tossed with tomatoes, basil and peppers. A little olive oil and lemon juice should be adequate sauce with so many other delightful flavors going on. I'm growing an interesting lemon-basil that will be just the thing. I think I will put in some lemon rosemary bread tonight also.

Chicken Pot pie: I have a leftover pie crust from my razzleberry pie for this. It will have carrots and peas and onions from the garden and a mashed potato base--we still have a few mounds that need digging up. A side of green beans and/or a salad. Tomatoes, of course, in the salad.

Shepherd's Pie: I am going to make this because Plantboy grows this funny, stubby little carrots called Tom Thumb carrots that are adorable in stew, and rather too much work (they are hard to cut) for anything else. Onions and garlic from the garden in the gravy. More frozen peas. Mashed potatoes on the top. When the beef is in the crockpot I will do a bouquet garni out of garden herbs to steam with it--basil, rosemary and oregano.


Hungry for the week to begin. If the last two dishes seem a bit heavy, well, it is not even eight o'clock yet and my kids have their jackets on outside. Fall might just be in the air!

Bad Things Don't Happen in Threes

They happen in fours.

So I quit my job.

ONE: Just before vacation the dryer broke.

TWO: Then on vacation I backed into a pole and mangled the passenger door to my van.

THREE: Five days later I got a ticket. (Quite a story, but, some other time.)

UPDATE ON ONE: After vacation the guy installed the broken electrical panel in the dryer which shorted out a second one, probably worth more than what the dryer is worth. Waiting to find out. Been line drying for over a month now.

FOUR: The garage door sounded like it was trying to give birth to another garage door when Plantboy opened it the other night. It is broken. It might take two bolts to fix it . . . or it might need replaced.


Good times at case de sciencio mama.

Job Creators

So we can't have higher taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans because they are the job creators. America has listened. This class enjoys the lowest tax rate EVER. And all this during a lousy economy and a war.

So create some jobs already.

This same group continues to blame the current administration for the poor economy. But it doesn't take a genius to realize that the economy is primarily poor because people are employed. Yes, yes you can argue that other causes started the downward cycle, but the main issue now is just that too many people aren't working, spending, paying taxes, etc.

The self-proclaimed "job creators" can't have it both ways. Either they can create jobs with that huge pile of cash they are sitting on and/or sharing on bonuses and take all the credit, or they cannot actually create jobs and therefore blame Obama for the bad economy. Since the most vocal choose to blame the Administration, then is the other also true? That they actually cannot create jobs? And if they can't, then why should they get extra breaks?

They might sign the paycheck at the end of the day, but roads and buses take those people to work. Public schools and colleges educate their workers. Fire fighters and police ensure their safety. Enormous tax breaks are given when they actually DO hire.

I'm not without humor. A comedian on Jon Stewart some months ago said, "Republicans are job creationists. We know the rich create jobs. Democrats just believe that jobs evolve from millions of years of stimulus packages." I want to vote for a politician who knows that the path forward is neither road . . . it is the middle road. This is increasingly the road less taken.

The Collective

Let's talk about Ayn Rand today, shall we?

Her's is a name we hear sometimes, often associated with her two most famous works "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." It is a name that might come up occasionally in the next few months, as Paul Ryan (VP candidate) has sometimes said he is an ardent supporter. He has dramatically changed his tune in the last few months, citing his reported support of her philosophy as an "urban legend." However, in remarks made a few years ago to a society dedicated to her teachings he is on record as saying, "I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. It has inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and staff . . . ." (It isn't clear which novel/pamphlet he is referencing there) ". . . . The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."  

So why is it important now that he distance himself? After all, what he said there merely points to an over-riding philosophy of individual rights versus collective good--the very debate many politicians wish to frame right now. (Aside: the weird thing is, of course, that which side a politician is on depends on the issue. Democrats want individual rights when it comes to marriage, reproduction, privacy, and actual, you know, individuals, etc. Republicans want individual rights when it comes wealth, business practice and, you know, corporations recognized as individuals, etc. So neither side really has a very good claim to individualism vs. collectivism. End aside.) Why is he so antsy?

Well, quite simply, Ayn Rand's fundamental philosophy, without apology, is anti-Christ. She rejected Communist economic theory wholly and completely when she immigrated to the United States (with childhood scars over her parents' crushed entrepreneurial hopes). What she did not reject, however, was the Marxist assertion that "religion was the opiate of the people." But whereas Marx believed that perfect, collective government control was the antidote to religion, Rand asserted that the real antidote was pure, unbridled capitalism where self-interest was the most important value.

Lest you fear my own progressive tendencies have caused me to misread Ms. Rand, here are a few more famous quotes/anecdotes.plots:

Her first novel was quite widely-read, though very controversial, and made into a movie. She was very angry when the following line was cut from the climax scene, because she found it the most important line her protagonist had to say, "I wish to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others." 

"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."

"From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man--the function of the reasoning mind."

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."

She condemned much of our great and classic Western literature and proved herself to be rather poorly read, much more interested in movies than books. She descried Anna Karenina as the most "evil book in serious literature." 

One of her novels refers to people outside free-market entrepreneurs as "moochers," "looters," and "college-infected parasites." 

Her first novel is about a man who is uninterested in money, only in preserving the integrity of his ideas. She drops this pretense by the second novel and casts millionaires, barons and tycoons as her protagonists, portraying them as the true oppressed minority.

It seems she followed her philosophy of self-interest to the end: she lived in an open marriage (with a long and well-known affair with one of her many acolytes who headed up what he ironically called a "collective" of her worshipers), isolated herself from anyone who bothered or disagreed with her, cut-off relationship after relationship with those who might have helped her. What she never did was start a business. Hmmm.

Am I cherry-picking? Of course. I am making a point. Liberals have sometimes quoted her too when it comes to individual rights and choice and privacy. She is the mother of Libertarianism, and in times past, libertarians were as likely to vote Democratic as Republican. Part of the difficulty in the Republican party of late is the very real distance between pure Libertarians and the Christian right. One side would legislate nothing, the other side would legislate nothing but morality. 

So what is the point? I think Rand's overriding philosophy is inherently dangerous and at odds with true Christianity. Has she said some good things? Certainly. In thousands of written (rambling) pages even somebody like Rand might stumble on some truth. My deep dislike of her philosophy is personal too. I must admit to carrying deep resentment of anybody who says that somebody is "too smart to be a Christian." It is at that moment I need to repeat the mantra: charity never judgeth, charity never judgeth . . . .

To conclude I'd like to contrast two quotes. The first is from Rand who said this, "It only stands to reason that when there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there is service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the masters." Rand was speaking of both government and God. Don't get me wrong, I have no delusions that the government has as much right as God to demand sacrifice. My argument is that any philosophy that leads us to believe that all forms of sacrifice (yes, even taxes) are wrong, eventually will lead us away from God too. When we are led away from God, we cease to love our fellow man. Here is the second quote, from Joseph Smith, " a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." 

When Plantboy and I were married, we were told that marriage over the altar symbolized the need to lay all we are on the altar of sacrifice for the good of our partner and our family. Rand's philosophy would have us take and take and take and find all our happiness in serving only our own self-interest. To use our agency to glorify only ourselves. Christ taught the opposite: to give and give and give and find all our happiness in service to God by serving others. To give our agency back to God and glorify Him.

I'm not saying I have arrived there by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I have a clear idea which direction I would like to be headed. And in the short term, that most decidedly means NOT voting for a candidate who EVER said his philosophy was primarily influenced by Rand. To now say otherwise is a flip-flop that should make even Romney blush.

Home

With the stomach flu. Possibly. I would be the third to fall. Traveling on your own is awesome with sick kids. Just awesome.

And Paul Ryan? Seriously?

Olympics!

Loving Olympics. Loving vacation. Loving the late sleep-ins. Loving a lot right now.

A couple of reflections: Really feeling for the US gymnast who didn't get the gold on the vault. My dad put it really well, however, "If the whole thing could be decided on paper they wouldn't need to compete." Ninety-nine times out of a hundred,Maroney might have beaten all of those girls--but it is the Olympics and if you fall on your butt you just don't get the gold medal. I'm sure there is a lesson in all that. No matter how awesome the resume is, can you actually DO the job you've been hired to do? What are your thoughts?

I also liked what this commentator had to say, "Perhaps McKayla Maroney tasted Olympic gold before it was actually hers – leading her to rush through the very moment in which she needed to seize it - and perhaps we were guilty of the same. Many fans will take disappointment away from this Olympic vault final, knowing that the gymnast who is widely considered the greatest female vaulter of all time failed to get her due on the Olympic stage. But Maroney’s shocking silver medal serves as a reminder that the Olympics have nothing to do with a “prewritten script.” The Olympics are about athletes seizing opportunities and creating those special moments that we never forget – however unexpected they may be."

I was less than impressed with the frown she wore on the medal stand. Maybe a silver medal was just what she needed . . .

Today in Sunday school the teacher was talking about watching the Olympics. He said I would bet that most of us could name some gold medalists, but none of us could name an 8th placer. And yet, those folks are 8th in the whole world. They are great too. No doubt they have practiced as much as the first placers. In some cases, more, for they might lack that genetic gift of two more inches or more fast twitch muscles or larger feet or natural muscle tone and on and on and on. He then asked if we sometimes feel like that 8th place Olympian. Working hard. Struggling. Committed. Sacrificing. And yet, nobody knows our name.

He reminded us that Somebody does know our name. Somebody very important. That even the most obscure among us are not unknown to the Lord and that He knows of our sacrifice and struggle. In this Olympic season I'm grateful for scriptures that remind me it isn't requisite to win the prize, only to run the race.