Someone emailed me about my experiences with Arraiolos kits. There’s been a wool problem with the kit I got a while back, and I really ought to chase down the company about it.
I probably should have gotten a kit from Serranofil or, even better, Rosários. I can’t tell whether they sell yarn alone - when I have time, I’ll look at the Portuguese version of the Rosários site and report back.
Here are a few fun links on media bias:
Cheese link of the day: Guard Your Cheese
On June 22nd, 1940, the French surrendered to the Nazis. The newly-formed Vichy governmend asked for an armistice, the terms of which were signed in the same railway car as the armistice of November 1918. The car was then destroyed.
Ace of Spades asked whether conservatives volunteer the liberal-bashing as much as liberals spread the Bush-hatred:
Let me tell you what liberals in New York are like. They have absolutely no hesitation about injecting stridently liberal politics into conversations with perfect strangers they only just met. They have no sense that perhaps they ought not to be insulting those with different beliefs.
The vast majority of commentors agreed, and one linked Larry Elder (part 1 and part 2) on the same topic.
Why do the “decent, tolerant and open-minded” people throw social caution to the wind while denouncing President Bush? […] Bush’s critics call the president “arrogant.” But there’s a special type of arrogance that assumes any fair and open-minded person must think as I do.
He seemed to think it was simple anti-Bush media bias that made Bush-haters so forthcoming - if the press can say it, so can the average man. I didn’t find his explanation convincing. Ace’s commentors leaned towards the religion theory - liberalism is one of those religions that requires constant proselytization. A Christian will slip praise of Christ into casual conversation - he’ll risk alienating listeners for the chance to keep the message front and center. Likewise, a liberal will bash Bush, and when he finds out you voted for him he’ll try to save you from your political sins.
It’s an interesting theory, but I’m not sure I buy it. So if you’re one of those people who feels free to bash Bush in the course of casual conversation, maybe you can tell me why. The comments are open.
Classical Values has a fun list of Google results, showing that the spammers are now bigger than Satan, and as John Lennon once said, the Beatles are bigger than Christ.
Quote of the day: Antes com Deus contra os homens do que com os homens contra Deus. –Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches died 50 years ago in April, but commemorative services are being held on or around the 17th of June at synagogues and churches around the world. Those of my readers who are not Portuguese are probably asking themselves one of two questions: Who was he? or, if you happen to know who he was, then Why June 17th instead of April 3rd?
The long answer is here, but the short answer to the first question is that de Sousa Mendes was the Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux in 1940, and probably the single individual who saved the most Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Although the Salazar government had forbidden granting visas to Jews (explicitly) and displaced persons (in general), thousands of refugees beseiged the consulate begging for help as France was falling to the Nazi onslaught.
Aristides de Sousa Mendes decided to help them. Beginning on June 17th, 1940, he issued at least 30,000 hand-written visas allowing refugees - among them the Habsburgs - to cross the Pyrennees into neutral (or non-belligerent) Spain. A third of the visas went to Jewish families (not necessarily to individuals), and Mendes also issued passports and helped people across the border, so the actual number of people he saved is unknown but much larger than 30,000. He was recalled to Portugal a week later as the Wehrmacht were occupying Bordeaux, but he did not obey orders for two more weeks.
After his return to Lisbon, Salazar took credit for de Sousa Mendes’ humanitarian efforts, yet stripped him of his honors, barred him from his profession, and refused him his pension. He and his large family became as refugees in their own land. He died unnoted, in poverty, in 1954. Though he was posthumously recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile (ironically so - he was proud of his Jewish ancestry), and even partly rehabilitated recently by the state, his story remains a uniquely Portuguese tragedy. Que a sua alma descanse em paz.
On June 14th, 1940, Paris fell to the Nazis.
It’s politics as usual for people to see two Bushes - conservatives see Good!Bush and liberals Evil!Bush - but with President Bush the judgment of history is not yet in. Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, yet we’re still seeing double with Ronald Reagan.
Charlie Stross remembers him as the man who nearly killed us all. I also remember living in the shadow of nuclear war twenty years ago - it was a fear not peculiar to those trapped between two superpowers. Natan Sharansky remembers the man who spoke truth to evil, and no one has a better right to testify in the case than the victims. But the question remains: did Ronald Reagan bring down the Evil Empire or merely bait the bear?
Since we’re all still here and the Soviet Union is gone, we’ll never know whether a different foreign policy in the 80’s would have wiped out mankind or brought on that still-elusive Golden Age. It’s not that hindsight is 20/20, but that nothing succeeds like success. To the dead we can only give the benefit of the doubt: he was an optimist and his glass is now forever half-full.
On this day in 1940, Norway surrendered to Germany. France had already been invaded, as well as swamped by refugees from Belgium, which surrendered on May 28th. Hoping to grab a chunk of France, Italy chose today to declare war on both her and Britain.
D-Day won’t come around for another four years. If you haven’t seen these already, I highly recommend the Beebvision reports at Silent Running (the blog with the cute no-tree-hugging icon). See how today’s BBC would report on the Allied invasion. The category is in reverse chronological order, so it may be simpler to wait for the PDF version.
Despite my fears, Seema has not been squished by the Red Line during her visit to Boston. She’s alive and well and wandering the mean streets of Central Square. Planning With Seema involves a lot of wandering. I tried unsuccessfully to involve the decisive Dr. Deb, but without her we were doomed to the fate of laid-back people: strolling around Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge, trying to resist the allure of used bookstores and candy shops with bins.
In the midst of our laid-back fun, Seema did get to Meet the Mac, experience the Joy of Newsreaders, and try out the rice pie. If anyone else wants to try the rice pie, here’s the recipe:
Italian Rice Pie
Filling (makes 2 large pies):
Pie crust:
You can’t actually criss-cross the top for this recipe because the filling is too liquid. The crust is from another rice pie recipe that’s more solid before cooking, but involves scary pineapple. And I have a third recipe from my grandmother - both require milk and more rice.
I stole the yolk for the crust from the filling. I put some allspice in the filling because I like it, and skipped the grated peels because I had none to grate. I used Arborio rice, though that’s not necessary (and perhaps even counterindicated). I also used a 10″ quiche pan, and refrigerated the second half of the crust and filling until the first pie had been consumed and the quiche pan was free again. The filling is very liquid, but it won’t boil over - the main danger is sloshing on the way into the oven. It should be solid enough to turn (carefully) after half an hour.
Besides the milk and scary pineapple linked above, I’ve seen recipes with
cream or raisins (which is getting a little too far into rice pudding territory for my tastes). The rum and citron version sounds interesting, though the jimmies are a bit much IMHO.
Enjoy!