Conservatives must be reeling a little bit today after reading a front page story in The Denver Post with the headline, "Economy making a strong '10 finish." Factories are getting busy again. The Dow is up more than 2 percent. Factory output, led by our bailed out auto industry, has grown for the sixteenth straight month. All regions of the country, except St. Louis and Philadelphia, are growing economically. Private employment has enjoyed the highest monthly increase since November of 2007.
This all sounds like a republican nightmare. The last thing the republican party wants is for something, anything, good to happen to the country because that might hurt their chances to make Obama a one-termer.
I'm sure the republican spin machine is whirring full speed to dismiss this news and reassure the faithful that things are still terrible in the USA and getting worse. And I'm sure all those Tea Partiers out there, the ones who still believe that Obama is not a citizen, but is instead a Manchurian candidate from Kenya bound and determined to turn our exceptional country into a socialist state, can't wait to gobble up the good/bad news that they want to hear from Rush and Glen and Sarah and the rest.
For example, consider the ad hominem spin Denver Post columnist and Mike Rosen wannabe David Harsanyi used a few weeks ago to put the kebosh on the reported resurgence of General Motors ("GM plan the Cadillac of failed ideas," The Denver Post, November 19).
After all the newspapers reported the surprising success of GM's initial IPO after their near collapse, Harsanyi rushed to convince himself and his readers that this was just so much political spin and nothing to brag about.
"Oh, good, the Obama administration has another imaginary victory for taxpayers to celebrate," he sneers in his first sentence, thus setting the tone for the rest of his rant.
He rips Obama's statement that GM "took another step to becoming a success story" with the scornful rejoinder, "Not 'survival,' but success. Taxpayers are going to make a profit even!"
He dismissively admits that GM has paid back in full the approximately $15 billion it borrowed from the government, but then reminds us that the approximately $43 billion taxpayers invested in GM stock remains a losing proposition and will never be recouped because, according to Harsanyi and the "many analysts" he cherry picks, GM will never again flourish.
This seems to fly in the face of GM's recent IPO. According to Politico's Morning Money (By the way, anyone who is now saying to themselves that Politico is just another liberal news outlet hasn't been paying attention, or is seriously reading challenged.), GM's IPO closed at 3.6. percent over the initial price, adding up to a $4 billion profit on the $36 billion the Obama administration put into GM.
"The $40.1 billion in repayments would mean the Obama administration has more than recouped its $36.1 billion. . .and the federal government would recover all but approximately $9.4 billion of its original $49.4 billion overall investment in GM ($13.4 billion of which came under the Bush administration)."
I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds better than Harsanyi would like us to believe.
But he uses other rhetorical devices to fire up the vitriol in his readers. He calls the money we invested in GM a "blank check." How so? From this casual observer's vantage point it seems that GM paid a heavy price for taxpayer's help.
He suggests that the recent safety recalls by Toyota and Honda are simply trumped up scare tactics by the Department of Transportation designed to give GM an advantage. Tell that to the Toyota owners who plowed into things when their gas peddles stuck.
Next he gets mad because companies like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, those of the bail out, will make a fortune on GM's IPO. It is unfair, he says, to the taxpayers who financed the bailout. So, what exactly is his point? Has anyone in the Obama administration ever said that the bailout was fair? Of course it wasn't fair; it was just necessary. And now we are seeing that it just might be successful.
He then goes on to explain how GM's payback of the initial loan is an illusion because it used TARP money. So what? It was GM's money and they obviously had achieved the liquidity they needed to use it.
He laments the poor share holders who lost money over GM's potential collapse and the government directed bailout by saying "Confiscating the property of investors for the common good isn't generally conducive to a healthy business environment." I understand Harsanyi's effort to lay down a sarcastic salvo got in the way of fairness, but he makes a non-point. Of course the method chosen to save GM wasn't "generally conducive to a healthy business environment," but this was not a normal situation and the business environment GM found itself in at the time was anything but healthy.
Finally, we get to Harsanyi's, and I'm beginning to suspect all conservatives', real complaint about the whole GM thing. Investors, he says, may want to "ask why GM is making ideologically motivated money-losers like the Volt. . . What happens when taxpayers divest themselves from GM's social engineering projects?"
His point is clear that the GM bailout and its movement toward environmentally sensitive automobiles is just another facet of Obama's socialist agenda, like having school children eat healthy food, or having bicycles available in metropolitan areas. IT IS ALL AL GORE'S FAULT FOR TRUMPING UP ALL THIS GLOBAL WARMING BULLSHIT.
Harsanyi just doesn't get it. GM's offering is continuing to grow. The taxpayers are continuing to get a return on their investment. Interest in cars like the Volt is high. All the naysaying in the world will not change that.
Of course the whole situation is unfair. Of course we have a rough road ahead. But I don't see the benefit of commentators like Harsanyi continually making good the enemy of perfect just to score partisan points.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The difference between The American President and the American President
I love how wonderfully simplistic The American President, a movie by Rob Reiner, is. Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) is a first term widowed president who is trying to get a crime bill that has been watered down by compromises with the loyal opposition through congress before his third state of the union address. His poll numbers are high and he and his staff are gearing up for his second term election in a little less than a year. They don't want to lay an egg by not getting the crime bill passed.
This is all complicated by Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Benning), an environmental lobbyist with whom President Shepherd falls in love. Presidential advisor Lewis Fairchild (Michael J. Fox) and press secretary McCall (Anna Deveare Smith) understand that this little romance could spell trouble with the electorate, especially when the press catches President Shepherd spending the night with Miss Wade in the White House just down the hall from Lucy Shepherd, the President's ten year old, trombone playing daughter. But the President stands his ground. He maintains that his love life is none of the voters' business and directs his staff to respond to the inevitable prying questions with a "no comment."
Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss), President Shepherd's political nemesis and the certain presidential nominee of the other party, latches onto this romantic development and starts questioning Shepherd's character at every opportunity. He can smell blood on the water. Sure enough, the President's poll numbers start dropping.
All of this comes to a head when Shepherd has to make an odious deal screwing Sydney Ellen Wade's environmental initiative in order to muster enough votes to get his crime bill passed. There is a big confrontation in the President's bedroom with Miss Wade (She apparently can come and go as she pleases in The White House.) and she storms out, leaving President Shepherd to walk the halls reevaluating his job performance of late.
The movie ends with the President popping into a televised White House press conference where he finally attacks Bob Rumson's characater, professes his love for Sydney, drops the compromised crime bill, and sends Miss Wade's ground breaking environmental legislation to the hill. Everyone loves Shepherd's new found gutsiness and his total legislative about face. If there was a chart nearby we could see Shepherd's poll numbers rise even as he walks out of the press room. His aides are happy. Miss Wade takes him back and he ends up walking triumphantly into the house chambers to deliver his state of the union. We don't have to be told that he will win the upcoming election by a landslide. Bob Rumson is no where to be found.
In real life the President's reversal would have been way too late. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin would have already fixed it in the American mind that Andrew Shepherd was an adulterous Nazi. Afer all, when Adolph Hitler was in power he thought about crime all the time and, just like Andrew Shepherd, had a mistress. Coincidence? I think not!
Shepherd's pronouncement that you can't stop crime without getting rid of assault weapons would automatically lose him all white, male voters who would be reminded hourly by Limbaugh and tearfully by Beck that their basic constitutional liberties were being threatened by Andrew Shepherd's socialist agenda.
Global Warming skeptics from Maine to Alaska would see the end of capitalism in Shepherd's call for a twenty percent reduction in emissions in the next ten years.
And of course, Lucy Shepherd's plaintive trombone playing in the White House residence would serve as a potent reminder of the President's failure as a devoted father.
Bob Rumson would win the next election in a walk.
This is all complicated by Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Benning), an environmental lobbyist with whom President Shepherd falls in love. Presidential advisor Lewis Fairchild (Michael J. Fox) and press secretary McCall (Anna Deveare Smith) understand that this little romance could spell trouble with the electorate, especially when the press catches President Shepherd spending the night with Miss Wade in the White House just down the hall from Lucy Shepherd, the President's ten year old, trombone playing daughter. But the President stands his ground. He maintains that his love life is none of the voters' business and directs his staff to respond to the inevitable prying questions with a "no comment."
Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss), President Shepherd's political nemesis and the certain presidential nominee of the other party, latches onto this romantic development and starts questioning Shepherd's character at every opportunity. He can smell blood on the water. Sure enough, the President's poll numbers start dropping.
All of this comes to a head when Shepherd has to make an odious deal screwing Sydney Ellen Wade's environmental initiative in order to muster enough votes to get his crime bill passed. There is a big confrontation in the President's bedroom with Miss Wade (She apparently can come and go as she pleases in The White House.) and she storms out, leaving President Shepherd to walk the halls reevaluating his job performance of late.
The movie ends with the President popping into a televised White House press conference where he finally attacks Bob Rumson's characater, professes his love for Sydney, drops the compromised crime bill, and sends Miss Wade's ground breaking environmental legislation to the hill. Everyone loves Shepherd's new found gutsiness and his total legislative about face. If there was a chart nearby we could see Shepherd's poll numbers rise even as he walks out of the press room. His aides are happy. Miss Wade takes him back and he ends up walking triumphantly into the house chambers to deliver his state of the union. We don't have to be told that he will win the upcoming election by a landslide. Bob Rumson is no where to be found.
In real life the President's reversal would have been way too late. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin would have already fixed it in the American mind that Andrew Shepherd was an adulterous Nazi. Afer all, when Adolph Hitler was in power he thought about crime all the time and, just like Andrew Shepherd, had a mistress. Coincidence? I think not!
Shepherd's pronouncement that you can't stop crime without getting rid of assault weapons would automatically lose him all white, male voters who would be reminded hourly by Limbaugh and tearfully by Beck that their basic constitutional liberties were being threatened by Andrew Shepherd's socialist agenda.
Global Warming skeptics from Maine to Alaska would see the end of capitalism in Shepherd's call for a twenty percent reduction in emissions in the next ten years.
And of course, Lucy Shepherd's plaintive trombone playing in the White House residence would serve as a potent reminder of the President's failure as a devoted father.
Bob Rumson would win the next election in a walk.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
My Favorite Things - III
Last night after the final bows for White Christmas at the Town Hall Arts Center in Littleton, Katherine and I waited in the reception room for Christian to emerge from the dressing room. There was a table in the center of the room filled with platters from Whole Foods. I picked up one roundish thing with a toothpick sticking out of it that I took for a fancily peeled radish. It turned out to be a ball of inedible goat cheese that I discreetly disgorged into a napkin and placed in the trash. There was another table in the corner with a volunteer selling wine, beer, and the like. For those of us either too cheap or too impatient to wait in line for the drinks there was also a punch bowl filled with a rusty colored liquid. I filled a plastic cup and took a sip. Sure enough, it was a perfect pairing for the cheese ball I rid myself of a few minutes before.
The cast slowly filtered out to the hugs of friends and family waiting to congratulate them. We kept saying "good job" or "you were great" as certain recognizable players filed by and they kept answering "Thank you. Thank you very much." Have you ever noticed that performers almost always give you that "Thank you. Thank you very much" response when congratulated. They must teach that in beginning acting classes.
We congratulated the guy who played Bob Wallace and gave him a "great job", even though I would rather have heard Chris sing those songs. (That's the only thing that ever goes wrong when I watch Chris do a show. I always think the show would be better if he did every song. I'm sure the parents of the Bob Wallace portrayer felt the same way, but they probably aren't as objective as I am.)
Th female leads came out looking smaller in real life than they did on stage. I wanted to tell Ellie Schwartz, the little girl who played Susan Waverly, how impressed I was by her. She wasn't just cute; she was an actress.
There was a black guy in the ensemble who moved wonderfully. I saw him come out of the doors, but I didn't feel like breaking through the mobs of well wishers to give him a personal thumbs up.
Chris finally came out. Just a few minutes before he had been dressed as Santa Claus for the final rendition of "White Chritmas." Now he was his usual self in jeans, sweatshirt, and a turned around baseball cap. All the other cast members were still a little on stage--in character--when they emerged, with maybe traces of make-up here or there. Chris looked and acted like he had been there before, like a receiver who simply hands the ball to the referee whenever he gets into the endzone.
We hugged and gave him a quick review: "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" and "I Love a Piano" were the two best numbers in the show; he was the best one in his row; the female voices were a little weak, but they were great on stage; etc., etc..
It was all so familiar.
We've been waiting for Chris to "come out from backstage" ever since he was in junior high. We've waited for him after a performance of Pirates of Penzance at Deer Creek. We waited for him after performances at the old Bonfils Theater (now the Tattered Cover) in the Lyric Opera Society's productions of Gilbert and Sullivan. We've waited for him at Disney and at Elitches
We have also waited for Nate after performances at Elitches, or The Comedy Sports, or the PIT in Manhattan, or MGM Studios at Disney.
We've waited for Franny after her starring role as Miss Mary in Green Mountain Elementary's end of the year pageant. We've waited for her after a drama camp in Grand Lake. And we've waited for her every night of her performance as Polly in Crazy for You.
I was reminded last night that waiting to congratulate my kids after a performance is one of my favorite things. I can't think of anything that has given me more pleasure than reveling in their performances. I mean, going out for a drink with Chris after his performance in I Love a Piano at DCTC remains one of the great moments of my life.
I especially loved the wait at Green Mountain before they remodeled the school. Family and friends would congregate in the cafeteria under the fish wall and wait for that evening's cast to come out the door by the old tech arts department. There was plenty of room to hang out in comfort and plenty of time to go through joyous post mortems with everyone involved. (That comfortable waiting ambiance came to a crashing halt after they remodeled the school. Now, everyone waits in the hall leading from the theater entrance past the administration offices. It is too crowded and hectic. We always beat a fast retreat after shows done in the new theater.)
I remember after opening night of South Pacific how Sybil took Nate by his lapels and pushed him up against the wall. "WHY DIDN'T YOU DO IT THAT WAY AT DRESS?" she yelled. That was Sybil's way of giving high praise.
I remember the pride I felt every night after You Can't Take It With You because both Chris and Nate were brilliant.
My most memorable waiting took place after seeing Christian in Wind in the Willows, his first show at Mesa. Franny and Kathie and I kept looking at each other throughout the entire show with the same things on our minds: "God, he is as good as we thought he was all along!" It was a great moment.
Last night in downtown Littleton brought all that back. White Christmas is a good show with some genuinely funny moments: the train ride rendition of "Snow" stopped the show. It runs through Christmas (the theater is dark Monday through Wednesday).
The cast slowly filtered out to the hugs of friends and family waiting to congratulate them. We kept saying "good job" or "you were great" as certain recognizable players filed by and they kept answering "Thank you. Thank you very much." Have you ever noticed that performers almost always give you that "Thank you. Thank you very much" response when congratulated. They must teach that in beginning acting classes.
We congratulated the guy who played Bob Wallace and gave him a "great job", even though I would rather have heard Chris sing those songs. (That's the only thing that ever goes wrong when I watch Chris do a show. I always think the show would be better if he did every song. I'm sure the parents of the Bob Wallace portrayer felt the same way, but they probably aren't as objective as I am.)
Th female leads came out looking smaller in real life than they did on stage. I wanted to tell Ellie Schwartz, the little girl who played Susan Waverly, how impressed I was by her. She wasn't just cute; she was an actress.
There was a black guy in the ensemble who moved wonderfully. I saw him come out of the doors, but I didn't feel like breaking through the mobs of well wishers to give him a personal thumbs up.
Chris finally came out. Just a few minutes before he had been dressed as Santa Claus for the final rendition of "White Chritmas." Now he was his usual self in jeans, sweatshirt, and a turned around baseball cap. All the other cast members were still a little on stage--in character--when they emerged, with maybe traces of make-up here or there. Chris looked and acted like he had been there before, like a receiver who simply hands the ball to the referee whenever he gets into the endzone.
We hugged and gave him a quick review: "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" and "I Love a Piano" were the two best numbers in the show; he was the best one in his row; the female voices were a little weak, but they were great on stage; etc., etc..
It was all so familiar.
We've been waiting for Chris to "come out from backstage" ever since he was in junior high. We've waited for him after a performance of Pirates of Penzance at Deer Creek. We waited for him after performances at the old Bonfils Theater (now the Tattered Cover) in the Lyric Opera Society's productions of Gilbert and Sullivan. We've waited for him at Disney and at Elitches
We have also waited for Nate after performances at Elitches, or The Comedy Sports, or the PIT in Manhattan, or MGM Studios at Disney.
We've waited for Franny after her starring role as Miss Mary in Green Mountain Elementary's end of the year pageant. We've waited for her after a drama camp in Grand Lake. And we've waited for her every night of her performance as Polly in Crazy for You.
I was reminded last night that waiting to congratulate my kids after a performance is one of my favorite things. I can't think of anything that has given me more pleasure than reveling in their performances. I mean, going out for a drink with Chris after his performance in I Love a Piano at DCTC remains one of the great moments of my life.
I especially loved the wait at Green Mountain before they remodeled the school. Family and friends would congregate in the cafeteria under the fish wall and wait for that evening's cast to come out the door by the old tech arts department. There was plenty of room to hang out in comfort and plenty of time to go through joyous post mortems with everyone involved. (That comfortable waiting ambiance came to a crashing halt after they remodeled the school. Now, everyone waits in the hall leading from the theater entrance past the administration offices. It is too crowded and hectic. We always beat a fast retreat after shows done in the new theater.)
I remember after opening night of South Pacific how Sybil took Nate by his lapels and pushed him up against the wall. "WHY DIDN'T YOU DO IT THAT WAY AT DRESS?" she yelled. That was Sybil's way of giving high praise.
I remember the pride I felt every night after You Can't Take It With You because both Chris and Nate were brilliant.
My most memorable waiting took place after seeing Christian in Wind in the Willows, his first show at Mesa. Franny and Kathie and I kept looking at each other throughout the entire show with the same things on our minds: "God, he is as good as we thought he was all along!" It was a great moment.
Last night in downtown Littleton brought all that back. White Christmas is a good show with some genuinely funny moments: the train ride rendition of "Snow" stopped the show. It runs through Christmas (the theater is dark Monday through Wednesday).
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Postmortem: The Midterms
I've been doing a lot of thinking since the so called referendum on Obama's performance a few weeks ago and I've made myself a few promises that I am planning to keep. First, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was pretty convinced that Reid would lose in Nevada and with that loss I was reconciled to the republicans taking over both the house and the senate, but that didn't happen.
I ended up being proud of Colorado. I was worried Bennet would lose to Buck even though Bennet's voting record in the past two years has been exemplary. In my lowest moments I thought it possible that Tancredo could end up being our next governor, thereby ranking Colorado right up there with Minnesota and Illinois as states who need to duck their collective heads when gubernatorial discussions commence, but Colorado didn't fall prey to Tancredo's One Trick Pony campaign. I guess the state's electorate agreed that illegal immigration is not the only vital issue facing Colorado as Tancredo's ads proclaimed. And if Tancredo won that would have meant that ballot initiatives 60, 61, and 101 would have probably won as well. But my fellow Coloradans wisely voted down all of those issues by huge margins. Not only that, but more school bond issues passed than failed. So, even though the economy is everyone's main issue and distrust of government is on everyone's minds, we managed to vote reasonably in the midst of a nation wide electorate who, if television pundits were correct (have you noticed that they almost never are), cast its vote based on nothing more than a knee jerk reaction.
Second, I promised myself that I would not get angry about things. I remember a little dialogue I had two years ago with one of the conservative minions who haunt the Y during the morning hours.
During the past two years that gentleman, who is actually quite likable if you can manage to confine the discussion to the weather and good places to go for green chili, and all of his like minded friends took delight in any failure that team Obama suffered. The fact that those failures, few though they were, also meant that the country as a whole suffered was and continues to be lost on those folks.
So, I promised myself that in addition to not getting angry I would also be happy about any successes the republican controlled house might achieve. I think it would be great if somehow all of our economic problems got solved through the bi-partisan action of the newly empowered republicans in the house and the new chastened administration.
I even promised myself to look at the next two years with interest to see how everything was going to work itself out. In order to fulfill that promise I have to do a few things. I have to NEVER look at cable news, whether that be Fox or MSNBC. I have to NEVER listen to talk radio. If I read a newspaper, I must NEVER turn to the op-ed pages. No more Frank Rich. No more Tom Friedman. No more Paul Krugman. I must confine myself to those articles in The New Yorker about ballet and movies and developments in third world countries. No more economic analyses. No more inside scoops on Washington infighting. I have to confine myself to reading fiction. No more political treatises. If I go to a party I have to be careful to stick to small talk. You know, gossip about people who are not in attendance. Clever quips about obscure news items. Concern over how drug violence in Mexico might interrupt my travel plans. Stuff like that. It is going to be a dreary two years, but at least I will remain sane.
I mean if I really dwelled on Mitch McConnel's professed goal of the republican party, to make sure Obama was a one-termer, I might get a little upset. It seems to me that a good republican goal would be to make the country a better place, but then I realize that if any of the country's problems were solved while Obama was still in the White House the republican plan to unseat him would be compromised. It is clear that the worst thing that could happen in the next two years to the republican party would be if Health Care actually made people's lives better, or if the economy sprang back to life and people were getting hired right and left. That is a continuing republican nightmare.
I've promised myself to stop being a smart-ass if I somehow get involved in a political discussion, but instead just ask polite questions. For instance, I would like to know how my republican friends can reconcile their repeated calls for a balanced budget with their refusal to even consider letting the Bush tax cuts expire on those making more than $250,000 a year. I would have a bunch of questions for them:
Shift gears.
If I were a democratic strategist (god, there is a horrible thought), I would shamelessly borrow the following idea from Gary Hart. A couple of weeks ago in his blog (A Matter of Principle)he cited the Esquire Commission to Balance the Federal Budget. A group of former legislators got together and devised a plan to balance the budget by 2020. Mr. Hart suggested that it would be pretty cool, not to mention telling, if the recommendations of the commission were put before congress with an up or down vote just to see how serious everyone really was about balancing the budget. I would actually be willing to watch CSPAN for such an occasion.
In order to help myself remember the commission's proposals I will briefly enumerate them here.
Let us have an up or down vote on that and see where everyone stands. You have to agree that there are things for everyone to like about this report and things for everyone to hate. It is kind of like life.
I ended up being proud of Colorado. I was worried Bennet would lose to Buck even though Bennet's voting record in the past two years has been exemplary. In my lowest moments I thought it possible that Tancredo could end up being our next governor, thereby ranking Colorado right up there with Minnesota and Illinois as states who need to duck their collective heads when gubernatorial discussions commence, but Colorado didn't fall prey to Tancredo's One Trick Pony campaign. I guess the state's electorate agreed that illegal immigration is not the only vital issue facing Colorado as Tancredo's ads proclaimed. And if Tancredo won that would have meant that ballot initiatives 60, 61, and 101 would have probably won as well. But my fellow Coloradans wisely voted down all of those issues by huge margins. Not only that, but more school bond issues passed than failed. So, even though the economy is everyone's main issue and distrust of government is on everyone's minds, we managed to vote reasonably in the midst of a nation wide electorate who, if television pundits were correct (have you noticed that they almost never are), cast its vote based on nothing more than a knee jerk reaction.
Second, I promised myself that I would not get angry about things. I remember a little dialogue I had two years ago with one of the conservative minions who haunt the Y during the morning hours.
"You're one of those liberals who believe everything Obama says, aren't you?" he asserted.
"No, but unlike my republican friends, I don't think that everything he says is a lie," I responded.
During the past two years that gentleman, who is actually quite likable if you can manage to confine the discussion to the weather and good places to go for green chili, and all of his like minded friends took delight in any failure that team Obama suffered. The fact that those failures, few though they were, also meant that the country as a whole suffered was and continues to be lost on those folks.
So, I promised myself that in addition to not getting angry I would also be happy about any successes the republican controlled house might achieve. I think it would be great if somehow all of our economic problems got solved through the bi-partisan action of the newly empowered republicans in the house and the new chastened administration.
I even promised myself to look at the next two years with interest to see how everything was going to work itself out. In order to fulfill that promise I have to do a few things. I have to NEVER look at cable news, whether that be Fox or MSNBC. I have to NEVER listen to talk radio. If I read a newspaper, I must NEVER turn to the op-ed pages. No more Frank Rich. No more Tom Friedman. No more Paul Krugman. I must confine myself to those articles in The New Yorker about ballet and movies and developments in third world countries. No more economic analyses. No more inside scoops on Washington infighting. I have to confine myself to reading fiction. No more political treatises. If I go to a party I have to be careful to stick to small talk. You know, gossip about people who are not in attendance. Clever quips about obscure news items. Concern over how drug violence in Mexico might interrupt my travel plans. Stuff like that. It is going to be a dreary two years, but at least I will remain sane.
I mean if I really dwelled on Mitch McConnel's professed goal of the republican party, to make sure Obama was a one-termer, I might get a little upset. It seems to me that a good republican goal would be to make the country a better place, but then I realize that if any of the country's problems were solved while Obama was still in the White House the republican plan to unseat him would be compromised. It is clear that the worst thing that could happen in the next two years to the republican party would be if Health Care actually made people's lives better, or if the economy sprang back to life and people were getting hired right and left. That is a continuing republican nightmare.
I've promised myself to stop being a smart-ass if I somehow get involved in a political discussion, but instead just ask polite questions. For instance, I would like to know how my republican friends can reconcile their repeated calls for a balanced budget with their refusal to even consider letting the Bush tax cuts expire on those making more than $250,000 a year. I would have a bunch of questions for them:
1. Since you refuse to extend unemployment benefits without demanding that the administration and the democrats account for every penny of the cost with a corresponding budget cut, would you be willing to do the same accounting with the $700,000,000,000 it would cost to keep the tax cuts?
2. Since Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense spending account for more than 85% of the federal budget, exactly what are you willing to cut to make up for the $700,000,000,000 the tax cuts would cost?
3. If your response is to simply pare back Medicaid and Medicare, what do you plan to do with the proliferation of homeless sick people that would result? I mean wouldn't it cost big bucks to build a nation wide system of poor houses and debtor prisons? Or are we just going to let these people get sick and die on the streets? I mean homeless people already constitute a blight on the urban landscape. Wouldn't the 2% of the population with their tax cuts firmly in place be even more upset by sickly homeless people. If we are going to have the poor with us always, shouldn't we at least do something to make them look good as they congregate around super highway underpasses? Otherwise, it could get downright depressing. I mean look what happened to Sandra Bullock when she was confronted by only one pretty healthy homeless kid in The Blind Side. She had to stop going to lunch at swanky places with her tax sheltered friends. Wouldn't that just about devastate the economy?
Shift gears.
If I were a democratic strategist (god, there is a horrible thought), I would shamelessly borrow the following idea from Gary Hart. A couple of weeks ago in his blog (A Matter of Principle)he cited the Esquire Commission to Balance the Federal Budget. A group of former legislators got together and devised a plan to balance the budget by 2020. Mr. Hart suggested that it would be pretty cool, not to mention telling, if the recommendations of the commission were put before congress with an up or down vote just to see how serious everyone really was about balancing the budget. I would actually be willing to watch CSPAN for such an occasion.
In order to help myself remember the commission's proposals I will briefly enumerate them here.
Social Security
-Gradually raise the retirement age to 70 with allowances made for those people with the kind of manual labor jobs that would constitute a disability if they worked that long.
-Use a different, more realistic method, to figure cost of living (COLA) adjustments.
-Increase the number of years used to figure the monthly benefit.
Projected Savings: $86 billion
Defense
-Enact the administration's proposed weapons systems cuts.
-Reverse the "Grow the Army" initiative.
-Restructure the military so as to more accurately reflect the changing reality of conflicts.
-Assume the cost of Afghanistan and Iraq will decline.
Projected Savings: $309 billion
Health Care
-Institue medical malpractice reforme through the establishment of medical courts.
-Assume the recent Health Care Reform will stay pretty much in tact because when it gets right down to it most of the provisions when they are explained sans spin make sense.
-Change from a fee-for-service system to a pay-for-performance system (this is where Obama's health care initiative started before being watered down by special interests).
Projected Savings: $10 billion
Other Spending
-Enact the president's proposed spending program terminations as detailed in his 2011 budget.
-Cut the federal work force by 5%.
-Delay future NASA missions to the moon and Mars.
-Reform (read: get rid of) farm subsidies.
-Eliminate all earmarks.
-As with Social Security, use a more realistic and accurate method to figure COLA for military pensions and veterans' retirement benefits.
Projected Savings: $71 billion
Total Projected Savings from all areas: $476 billion
Total Debt Service Projected Savings (servicing the debt will obviously decrease given all of the projected savings): $142 billion
Grand Total of Projected Savings: $618 billion
New Revenue Proposals
-Repeal health-care tax exclusion; offer a refundable health-care tax credit.
Projected Revenue: $63 billion
-Increase gasoline tax by $1 per gallon.
Projected Revenue: $130 billion
-Limit itemized deductions for high earners (this is different from letting the Bush tax cuts expire).
Projected Revenue: $57 billion
-Keep tax rates low for the next decade for everyone.
Projected Revenue: -$273 billion
-Curtail state and local sales-tax deduction that tax payers are allowed on their federal taxes.
Projected Revenue: $12 billion
-Eliminate subsidies for biofuels.
Projected Revenue: $16 billion
-Include all new state and local government workers in Social Security (goodbye PERA)
Projected Revenue: $21 billion
Total Projected Revenue Increase $26 billion
Final Numbers
Total Projected Revenues in 2020: $4.693 trillion (20.8% of GDP)
Total Projected Spending in 2020: $4.681 trillion (20.8% of GDP)
Total Projected Surplus in 2020: $12 billion
Projected Debt-to-GDP ratio in 2020: 52% (currently that ratio is significantly higher than 60%)
Let us have an up or down vote on that and see where everyone stands. You have to agree that there are things for everyone to like about this report and things for everyone to hate. It is kind of like life.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Father Steele
Tom Steele S.J. died of natural causes last week. He was seventy-six. I saw the obituary notice Friday morning before I went off to meet Bud for some serious handy-manning. Over coffee and oatmeal I cried.
I first encountered Father Steele in an American lit class the second semester of my sophomore year at Regis College. He introduced me to Spiller's The Cycle of American Literature, a book that fueled many a lesson plan in my career as a public high school teacher. I loved the symmetry of Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis as explained in that work and ended up applying that thinking to almost everything I ever taught whether there was a connection or not.
He was only in his mid thirties and freshly armed with a doctorate from the University of New Mexico and I was immediately taken by his quiet integrity. I actually went to the library sometime during that semester and read his dissertation. Sure enough, it was a scholarly exploration of the Frontier Thesis and its manifestation in the works of James Fennimore Cooper. Natty Bumpo would have been surprised at how erudite his living at the edge of the wilderness was.
I think Father Steele was the first professor who actually saw through my horrible studenting to the smart but lazy little boy I was. Always in search of a father figure, I sought him out after class with sophomoric questions and comments, all of which he patiently listened to and then politely answered or explained how they missed the mark by just a tad. He liked my voice on paper even as he was dismissive of my lack of scholarship and kindly gave me a string of B's on my last minute essays written in my messy room the morning they were due.
We became friends through chance encounters in the snack bar where we would sit until the wee hours of the morning smoking Lucky Strikes and drinking pots of coffee while we talked about everything from Viet Nam to Jacobean poetry. I loved John Donne and Father Steele kindly helped me figure out Donne's increasingly elaborate conceits. As I took more classes from him my junior and senior years our after hours encounters moved to Ernie's, a funky little bar on the corner of 44th and Federal. Father Steele drank beer with scotch chasers, just like my grandmother, and I used my masterfully doctored fake i.d. to drink right along with him. Jesuits don't spend too much time fretting over minor sins involving good liquor.
I was a frequent guest in his tiny room at Carrol Hall where he would show me his impressive collection of Santos from New Mexico that he collected while working on his highly regarded book, Santos and Saints. I think he had one of the largest personal collection of Santos in the world. He ended up donating his entire collection to Regis so as not to violate his vow of poverty. The collection now held by Regis University is as impressive as any museum collection in the country.
Father Steele baptized my son Christian. He was a frequent visitor to my home and livened up many a party with his wry sense of humor. He, as much as anyone in my life, can be held accountable for the way I think, value, argue, and love. Even though I had lost track of him over the years, his death has reminded me of so much that I treasure. I miss him more than I can say.
I first encountered Father Steele in an American lit class the second semester of my sophomore year at Regis College. He introduced me to Spiller's The Cycle of American Literature, a book that fueled many a lesson plan in my career as a public high school teacher. I loved the symmetry of Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis as explained in that work and ended up applying that thinking to almost everything I ever taught whether there was a connection or not.
He was only in his mid thirties and freshly armed with a doctorate from the University of New Mexico and I was immediately taken by his quiet integrity. I actually went to the library sometime during that semester and read his dissertation. Sure enough, it was a scholarly exploration of the Frontier Thesis and its manifestation in the works of James Fennimore Cooper. Natty Bumpo would have been surprised at how erudite his living at the edge of the wilderness was.
I think Father Steele was the first professor who actually saw through my horrible studenting to the smart but lazy little boy I was. Always in search of a father figure, I sought him out after class with sophomoric questions and comments, all of which he patiently listened to and then politely answered or explained how they missed the mark by just a tad. He liked my voice on paper even as he was dismissive of my lack of scholarship and kindly gave me a string of B's on my last minute essays written in my messy room the morning they were due.
We became friends through chance encounters in the snack bar where we would sit until the wee hours of the morning smoking Lucky Strikes and drinking pots of coffee while we talked about everything from Viet Nam to Jacobean poetry. I loved John Donne and Father Steele kindly helped me figure out Donne's increasingly elaborate conceits. As I took more classes from him my junior and senior years our after hours encounters moved to Ernie's, a funky little bar on the corner of 44th and Federal. Father Steele drank beer with scotch chasers, just like my grandmother, and I used my masterfully doctored fake i.d. to drink right along with him. Jesuits don't spend too much time fretting over minor sins involving good liquor.
I was a frequent guest in his tiny room at Carrol Hall where he would show me his impressive collection of Santos from New Mexico that he collected while working on his highly regarded book, Santos and Saints. I think he had one of the largest personal collection of Santos in the world. He ended up donating his entire collection to Regis so as not to violate his vow of poverty. The collection now held by Regis University is as impressive as any museum collection in the country.
Father Steele baptized my son Christian. He was a frequent visitor to my home and livened up many a party with his wry sense of humor. He, as much as anyone in my life, can be held accountable for the way I think, value, argue, and love. Even though I had lost track of him over the years, his death has reminded me of so much that I treasure. I miss him more than I can say.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Foodies' Getaway
Katherine was taken by thoughts of gardens and gardening on our recent trip to Justin and Aubra's wedding in Berkeley. I was more taken by the end results of that gardening: the restaurants.
You have to understand that any trip we take is mainly an excuse to go out to great restaurants. Going to New York City is about seeing Nate and Ashley, but it is also about eating at Babbo, or following Nate for a food tour of the lower east side. It was wonderful spending time with Ken and Franny in Kauai, but the tasting menu at the St. Regis and tapas at Bar Acuda added a lot to the experience. So yes, we were in northern California to celebrate a wedding and rejoice in the beautiful ceremony, but before we left we made sure to score dinner reservations at some memorable places.
Before we leave for a trip we like to go out to some nifty place in Denver in order to make the evening before the plane ride an easy one. This time we had an early dinner at Z Cuisine in the Highlands area. Z Cuisine is a small french bistro occupying a tiny space on 30th, so you have to get there early since they don't take reservations. Katherine specifically wanted to go there because we had lunch reservations at Bouchon, Thomas Keller's version of a bistro in Napa, and she wanted to compare their respective onion soups. Yes, that is the kind of thing we think about when traveling.
(I have to insert here that I despise reading food critics for the most part because they labor to come up with new verb choices in their effort to relate every nuance of every dish. Things are always getting slathered, drizzled, adorned, ornamented, topped-off, etc. I don't care about stuff like that. I just want to know what the place feels like.)
I am happy to report that Z Cuisine feels great. The evening's offerings are always written in someone's gloriously ornate handwriting on a large chalkboard. The tables are small, but well spaced. There is an inviting bar with five or six stools and there is a wine bar next door while you wait for your table. Like at all good restaurants (Z Cuisine is good, not great) the waitstaff exhibits great pride in the food and drink they bring and delight in filling you in on the particulars of the evening's fare. There are suitably frenchlike posters and knick knacks on the wall and the uni-sex restroom, even though it opens out brazenly into the middle of the room, is tastefully appointed, rising above the obsolete plumbing that defines places like this. By the way, Katherine's onion soup was quite good with the bowl crusted over with the melted cheese that ran over the top, just right for nibbling. My lamb was huge and just okay and the wine by the glass menu was well-priced and adequate. This was a nice way to start our trip.
After arriving in San Francisco and somehow getting over the Golden Gate Bridge, we stopped off in Sausalito on our way to visit Ken's family in Santa Rosa. We stopped off at a sea food restaurant right on the harbor aptly named Fish.
(Don't you love the new trend of naming restaurants exactly what they are. There is Toast in downtown Littleton serving breakfast. The Kitchen in Boulder serving, you guessed it, food out of a kitchen. Tyler Florence has a place in Manhattan called The Cafeteria. There is probably a cafe some place called Meat and Vegetables, another one tersely called Food, although there might be a copyright on that one. If I ever opened a restaurant I would like to specialize in organ meats just so I could call it Offal. I think it would be a sensation.)
Anyway, Fish was the perfect place to recuperate from the drive through the maze of San Francisco. You order your food at a counter that doubles as a fish market. The "catch of the day" is clearly indicated and the choices are huge and tempting. I had three huge fish tacos and Katherine had a hearty clam chowder. Our only regret was that we didn't order the french fries as we saw one heaping serving after another go by to the crowd of diners on the deck overlooking the impressive array of yachts and fishing vessels.
We had a great visit in Santa Rosa which Katherine has already elaborated on in the previous post. The tour at Kenwood will become a permanent memory. I'm still trying to get my head around the volume of wine produced by less than an acre of pinot noir: 56,000 bottles! Multiply that by the tens of thousands of acres in cultivation and one wonders how people could consume that much wine. We certainly try to do our part.
The highlight of our foodie tour of northern California was Saturday night at Chez Panisse. Chez Panisse is a kind of culinary shrine for people who care about such things. Started by Alice Waters after she toured France as a young woman, it is the first restaurant that emphasized locally grown, sustainable product, and thus it started what has become known as California Cuisine. When I was a kid, I remember my uncle Carl taking us out to dinner at Gartner Haus in Estes Park, the fanciest restaurant in town. There we would have prime rib, baked potatoes, and the adults would splurge and order a bottle of Lancers. Oh yes, and we all had the shrimp cocktail to begin the meal, except Carl: he had the marinated herring. That was fine dining in the early sixties.
Alice Waters and her funky little restaurant changed all that. Today most good and great restaurants proudly tell you where each item of food originated. They give you the names of the farms and tell you on what the cows grazed. There are fast food joints that tell you where the day's french fries originated. All of that, like it or not, started with Chez Panisse.
As opposed to The French Laundry, another culinary shrine in St. Helena, Chez Panisse serves five straight forward courses in a fixed price menu that changes every day, depending on what product looks best on any given day. The French Laundry is all about presentation; Chez Panisse lets the food talk for itself. We started with a glass of champagne from Rheims, the only thing on our menu that was not locally sourced, moved to crostinis with halibut, incredible heirloom tomatoes, and chicken liver. Next came a raviolini (I call them tortellini) in brodo (little raviolis in brown chicken stock). Then came a spit roasted pork loin on locally farmed beans that might be the greatest thing I have ever tasted. Finally a dessert that was good but still just a dessert. I'm not much into dessert. We had two bottles of the same champagne and Alice Waters personally comped our first bottle. It pays to hang out with a White House staffer who has made friends with the first lady's personal chef.
If you ever find yourself in the bay area, try to score a reservation at Chez Panisse.
The next morning, before the wedding ceremony, we drove over to Fisherman's Wharf with Franny and Ken and browsed around the markets at the Ferry Building. See the photo above. Mushrooms I've never seen, nor heard of. Great oysters. A cheese shop that we are going to start shopping at on line. Ditto a store that serves any kind of pork preparation you can think of and some you can't. If the Ferry Building were in Denver I would want to sell my house and move to some place within walking distance.
After the wedding Franny and Ken went back to the east coast and Katherine and I headed up to St. Helena in Napa. On the way we stopped at Bouchon where we had one o'clock reservations for lunch. This is one of the great restaurants of the world, at least in my experience. It is another french bistro kind of place with the freshest oysters I've ever had--even better than the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. I ordered steak frites which might be the best meal I had, excluding Chez Panisse, on the trip. Katherine had the onion soup. It was on a completely different plane than the onion soup a few nights earlier at Z Cuisine.
Then it was on to Meadowood where we intended to park the car and spend the next two days and three nights playing tennis, dabbling at croquet, and eating every meal on site. Meadowood has the highest Michelin rating of any restaurant in Napa Valley and for good reason. The room is incredibly sophisticated, the wine list is alarmingly huge, and the service is impeccable. Not only do they bring you a new napkin every time you leave the table, but on the way back the hostess greets you with a "Welcome back" and ushers you back to your table. Of course, the food is beautifully presented and ingenious. On our last night there the general manager of the place gave us a beautifully wrapped bottle of Roederer champagne (crisp, clean, and characterized by the tiny bubbles that shout "THIS IS A GREAT BOTTLE OF WINE").
The next day we somehow crossed the bay bridge during rush hour and made it to the airport with time to spare. The ride home was mercifully short. That night, after unpacking, we went to Tres Potrillos and had margaritas, Negra Modelo, and wonderfully greasy enchiladas. That menu always gets our digestive systems back on track.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Garden Thoughts, California, Justin's Wedding, and Hamlet
Katherine today.
I've had gardens on my mind for a while. I like them.
We were in California for a week to see Justin Garland get married. It was wonderful and gardens certainly were pivotal in the event. We were touring gardens with Franny and Ken's family around Santa Rosa before we made it to the wedding with all of its garden connections. After the wedding we headed up to a resort in St. Helena in the heart of more gardens. I can't imagine someone having lived our week in California without coming home and yearning to become a bigger and better gardener.
We started our week in garden-land in Santa Rosa at a BBQ hosted by Ken's eccentric cousin Steve. He has a big room off his kitchen that is totally papered in photographs of his favorite memories and postcards that connect to artwork he is passionate about--artists like Frida. I noticed her stuff a lot because I'm currently intrigued by her work. I was sad there was never the right moment in the crowd of folks to ask Steve about the Frida postcards placed throughout the photographs.
This same room is bordered in all directions by multi-colored Christmas lights and 1950's furniture and Mexican pottery and dishes. This is an eclectic place. It moves all over the place. So does Steve.
You leave this room and enter a garden designed and tended by the lady Steve shares his life with--LaVonne. It is a glorious garden. Herbs and lilies mingle together and there was a rosemary bush I envied tremendously because the scent was so powerful and good. There were vegetables and medicinal plants and all varieties living in some sort of perfectly ordered harmony that might make sense only to its creator.
The room was so Steve and the garden so LaVonne. I was glad we were included in the family reunion orchestrated because Franny and Ken were in town.
The next day we went to a redwood forest named for a General. My past experience tells me there are lots of individual redwood trees named for generals. This time the whole grove was named for General Armstrong. It's a California state park. It's lovely.
We walked amongst the trees and ultimately all of us--Ken's mom and brother, Franny and Ken, Jim and I--were in a quiet amphitheater surrounded by the redwoods and it was ever so slowly raining golden leaves down. Nobody said anything. A really nice garden moment.
We had a quick lunch at a great deli at Korbel and did a tasting of several champagnes. There were gardens, but LaVonne had called and we needed to meet her at Kenwood to see a full "crush" of some grapes just being delivered.
LaVonne works for the Korbel group of vineyards and got us in at Kenwood to see the grapes arrive in giant steel trucks and then watch them dump them into a crusher vat where a nasty looking coil churned the grapes around and turned them into mush and juice. We tasted the grapes--so sweet and the juice from the first pressing was sweet too. The best grape juice I've ever tasted. We wandered amongst tanks and watched a guy happily stirring a tub of yeasty water with his bare hands. We learned how the bees that arrive with the grapes get filtered out of the wines (a great relief at the time). We learned that folks who had been working with the harvest were really happy people. I really do think gardens help people be happy.
The next evening we ate dinner with Franny and Ken at Chez Panisse in Berkeley where the whole locally grown movement began. Alice Waters began a whole movement with this one beautifully simple restaurant in a simple house. We had a wonderful mean based on what was fresh in Ms. Water's garden. We got to tour the kitchen. Ahhhhhh.
Sunday was Justin's wedding. It was the first Jewish ceremony we ever witnessed and it was beautiful. The blessings made my heart sing. The ceremony took place in a redwood grove that is part of Berkeley's botanic gardens--very holy and quiet and just enough breeze to have leaves fall on the knitted covering for the wedding space that Cindy had created. The design of the covering was based on garden images as well. There are correct and sacred words for the covering C. made and for the space the ceremony took place and I've forgotten those words already. It was a perfect place in spirit and in aesthetics. I never saw C. that I didn't cry for the happiness of it all.
The reception was at a very "green" place with very hard floors, but the food came straight from gardens and the folks who attended certainly all believed in fruits and vegetables and food. It was a good time.
On Monday we headed up to the Napa Valley to "camp" alone at Meadowood. We found it years ago when we first looked into that book about all the places you are supposed to go before you die. We were doing pretty well (we knocked off four anyway) when we discovered we liked some places so much we needed to go back. Meadowood is one of those places. Anyway, Meadowood is a definite splurge and we stayed two days.
We played tennis surrounded by vines that grow on the fences while we listened to woodland creatures moving around in crisp, fallen leaves. We played croquet in the officially required white and/or khaki clothing while we bemoaned the fact that our croquet game was off because some leaves and pine needles had fallen on our otherwise perfectly groomed croquet playing field. We ate at The Restaurant and The Grill where all the fruits and vegetables are grown on farms on the property. We sat on our porch and watched ferns under old oak trees and wondered how the management got the pretty little stag with his pretty little antlers to walk by us on our first evening there. Gardens everywhere.
I'm home now. My garden is dead and yesterday I made dinner out of its last production--harvested just before we left. I'll miss my garden.
Hamlet compares Denmark to an unweeded garden and notes that rank and gross things possess it. That's the charm. You have to look at your garden all the time and you have to tend it and get rid of weeds and rank and gross things like slugs and aphids, and you have to love your garden and notice if it's feeling perky or blue and you have to worry about bugs and critters that want to eat what you've grown and you have to look with joy at the flowers and blooms and fruits and vegetables you've managed to get to your table for viewing or eating. Hamlet doesn't tend his garden and his Denmark garden just plain sucks. If I pay attention to my garden, it thrives. I have no clue what I'm doing, but I know if I just pay attention I manage to grow stuff and it is a happy thing. Hamlet just needed to be a better gardener.
I've had gardens on my mind for a while. I like them.
We were in California for a week to see Justin Garland get married. It was wonderful and gardens certainly were pivotal in the event. We were touring gardens with Franny and Ken's family around Santa Rosa before we made it to the wedding with all of its garden connections. After the wedding we headed up to a resort in St. Helena in the heart of more gardens. I can't imagine someone having lived our week in California without coming home and yearning to become a bigger and better gardener.
We started our week in garden-land in Santa Rosa at a BBQ hosted by Ken's eccentric cousin Steve. He has a big room off his kitchen that is totally papered in photographs of his favorite memories and postcards that connect to artwork he is passionate about--artists like Frida. I noticed her stuff a lot because I'm currently intrigued by her work. I was sad there was never the right moment in the crowd of folks to ask Steve about the Frida postcards placed throughout the photographs.
This same room is bordered in all directions by multi-colored Christmas lights and 1950's furniture and Mexican pottery and dishes. This is an eclectic place. It moves all over the place. So does Steve.
You leave this room and enter a garden designed and tended by the lady Steve shares his life with--LaVonne. It is a glorious garden. Herbs and lilies mingle together and there was a rosemary bush I envied tremendously because the scent was so powerful and good. There were vegetables and medicinal plants and all varieties living in some sort of perfectly ordered harmony that might make sense only to its creator.
The room was so Steve and the garden so LaVonne. I was glad we were included in the family reunion orchestrated because Franny and Ken were in town.
The next day we went to a redwood forest named for a General. My past experience tells me there are lots of individual redwood trees named for generals. This time the whole grove was named for General Armstrong. It's a California state park. It's lovely.
We walked amongst the trees and ultimately all of us--Ken's mom and brother, Franny and Ken, Jim and I--were in a quiet amphitheater surrounded by the redwoods and it was ever so slowly raining golden leaves down. Nobody said anything. A really nice garden moment.
We had a quick lunch at a great deli at Korbel and did a tasting of several champagnes. There were gardens, but LaVonne had called and we needed to meet her at Kenwood to see a full "crush" of some grapes just being delivered.
LaVonne works for the Korbel group of vineyards and got us in at Kenwood to see the grapes arrive in giant steel trucks and then watch them dump them into a crusher vat where a nasty looking coil churned the grapes around and turned them into mush and juice. We tasted the grapes--so sweet and the juice from the first pressing was sweet too. The best grape juice I've ever tasted. We wandered amongst tanks and watched a guy happily stirring a tub of yeasty water with his bare hands. We learned how the bees that arrive with the grapes get filtered out of the wines (a great relief at the time). We learned that folks who had been working with the harvest were really happy people. I really do think gardens help people be happy.
The next evening we ate dinner with Franny and Ken at Chez Panisse in Berkeley where the whole locally grown movement began. Alice Waters began a whole movement with this one beautifully simple restaurant in a simple house. We had a wonderful mean based on what was fresh in Ms. Water's garden. We got to tour the kitchen. Ahhhhhh.
Sunday was Justin's wedding. It was the first Jewish ceremony we ever witnessed and it was beautiful. The blessings made my heart sing. The ceremony took place in a redwood grove that is part of Berkeley's botanic gardens--very holy and quiet and just enough breeze to have leaves fall on the knitted covering for the wedding space that Cindy had created. The design of the covering was based on garden images as well. There are correct and sacred words for the covering C. made and for the space the ceremony took place and I've forgotten those words already. It was a perfect place in spirit and in aesthetics. I never saw C. that I didn't cry for the happiness of it all.
The reception was at a very "green" place with very hard floors, but the food came straight from gardens and the folks who attended certainly all believed in fruits and vegetables and food. It was a good time.
On Monday we headed up to the Napa Valley to "camp" alone at Meadowood. We found it years ago when we first looked into that book about all the places you are supposed to go before you die. We were doing pretty well (we knocked off four anyway) when we discovered we liked some places so much we needed to go back. Meadowood is one of those places. Anyway, Meadowood is a definite splurge and we stayed two days.
We played tennis surrounded by vines that grow on the fences while we listened to woodland creatures moving around in crisp, fallen leaves. We played croquet in the officially required white and/or khaki clothing while we bemoaned the fact that our croquet game was off because some leaves and pine needles had fallen on our otherwise perfectly groomed croquet playing field. We ate at The Restaurant and The Grill where all the fruits and vegetables are grown on farms on the property. We sat on our porch and watched ferns under old oak trees and wondered how the management got the pretty little stag with his pretty little antlers to walk by us on our first evening there. Gardens everywhere.
I'm home now. My garden is dead and yesterday I made dinner out of its last production--harvested just before we left. I'll miss my garden.
Hamlet compares Denmark to an unweeded garden and notes that rank and gross things possess it. That's the charm. You have to look at your garden all the time and you have to tend it and get rid of weeds and rank and gross things like slugs and aphids, and you have to love your garden and notice if it's feeling perky or blue and you have to worry about bugs and critters that want to eat what you've grown and you have to look with joy at the flowers and blooms and fruits and vegetables you've managed to get to your table for viewing or eating. Hamlet doesn't tend his garden and his Denmark garden just plain sucks. If I pay attention to my garden, it thrives. I have no clue what I'm doing, but I know if I just pay attention I manage to grow stuff and it is a happy thing. Hamlet just needed to be a better gardener.
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