European ministers in Brussels have agreed to provide data to American authorities about international money transfers by account holders in Europe.
This is not unusual, or in fact new. There are limitations to the agreement, and it involves only transactions and accounts that fit certain criteria.
Think in terms of law-enforcement efforts.
A news article about the deal in one of Holland's biggest dailies provoked a veritable storm of rhetoric among the readers - who as of this writing have left several hundred comments.
VS krijgen toegang bankgegevens EU
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5454820/__Inzage_in_bankgegevens_EU__.html?p=32,1
[The article is in Dutch - I shan't bother translating it, as it leaves out crucial facts and merely serves to rile up the readers, most of whom prove themselves incapable of comprehension, many of whom are also unable to think straight, and quite a number of whom are so paranoid or schizo as to convince one that the Dutch are congenitally defective, zotsed to the gills on drugs, and all-round dangerous. Being largely of Dutch ancestry myself, this is NOT the impression I wish to give - so I've even omitted any quotes.]
Of course most of the comments are anti-American - what did you expect?
Like a lot of Europeans, the Dutch are not fond of us. Many (almost all) of them despise us with a passion, consider themselves vastly superior, and insist that there is nothing we have in common.
[A majority of Europeans believe us inbred retrogrades, genetically prone to vice and violence, and they rather thoroughly loathe us. There are parts of Europe where being an American is considered degeneracy that justifiably leads to fists or phlegm.]
I have no problem with that. I don't really care what the average European thinks.
I have a problem with letting those scum buckets enter the United States.
Most European visitors to the United States sneer at our society, find fault with nearly everything, and so far as possible avoid dealing with the natives. The average European tourist in San Francisco has probably spent three weeks visiting national parks, but a scant three days in the cities (one day each in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco).
They love the outdoors here, but deeply regret that much of this country is filled with us instead of bears and Indians.
If it weren't for the wilderness, most Europeans would not even think of visiting.
Europeans who travel do so primarily as either sex-tourists or booze-tourists. The Germans are known for visiting third world countries to slake their lusts on juveniles, the British go abroad primarily to drink themselves into a stupor, puke in public, and pick fights.
DUTCH SCUM
The Dutch combine the worst of both English and German characteristics, being simultaneously phenomenal alcoholics and completely amoral sexually.
Last week two lads from Drenthe spent three hours at one of the local bars trying to get into the panties of one of the other people there, who was drinking by herself. The process was quite 'interesting' - their remarks to each other in Dutch were so vile and repulsive that I regretted ever having learned their language. American women, in their world, were nothing more than creatures to be exploited and discarded. Their sole disappointment was that this was hard to do - they had expected American girls to be looser than Dutch teenagers, and it had been a difficult three weeks for them.
They were not unusual.
This past year Dutch tourists have been in the bar several times.
Tim, who takes keen delight in my discomfiture around my distant kin, makes sure to let them know that I speak Dutch. Then walks away smiling in anticipation of my ranting furiously after the poxy bastards finally leave.
Once the Dutch tourists tell me that they cannot understand how I can stand to live in this horrible place - implying that I am a liar and that I must be severely defective or a wanted criminal for not returning to civilization - conversations invariably revolve around the same rhetorical points: terrible coffee, bad beer, stupid American sports, and women who won't jump at the opportunity to get banged by a European why not how are the girls in San Francisco they're effing desperate and do I know any sluts?
Well now.
The coffee suits the locals fine, most Americans like mild beer, if you don't know how football or baseball are played you really should shut your trap about those games, and seeing as you lot are arrogant, crude, uncircumcised, and don't wash nearly often enough, why would the women get anywhere near you?
Yes, we know about your coffee and beer - you just won't shut up about them.
As for soccer, we realize that you are incredibly proud of the game and the attendant violence, we've seen videos of the riots.
Regarding your animalistic urges, it's a pity that you are such sexual predators that you can't keep your gropy hands to yourselves, you swine.
Of course, I never say any of this - unlike Europeans, we do not consider it polite to rile-up people we don't know. Especially if they are visiting.
We aren't like them, thank God.
One the whole, it would be a good thing if we let far fewer Europeans into our country. I won't miss them. Neither will you.
---------------------------------------------
AFTERWORD: DUTCH SEX PREDATORS
Not a week goes by without a news report of a Dutch childmolester or drug-rapist being arrested overseas, scarcely a month in which several suspects aren't apprehended for producing and distributing child-pornography or snuff films.
As is well-known, Rotterdam is the epicenter of human-trafficking, and many Dutch youth are accustomed to cap off their weekend of binge-drinking by sexually brutalizing the young foreign women who have been sold into Dutch brothels.
Lest you think, however, that the Dutch are bigots who regard foreign females as throw-away objects, I hasten to add that this is not so.
As another article in DeTelegraaf makes clear:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/vrouw/psyche_relatie/5455682/__Kwart_jonge_vrouwen_slachtoffer_seksueel_geweld__.html?p=23,2
Kwart jonge vrouwen slachtoffer seksueel geweld - Bijna een kwart van de meisjes en vrouwen tussen de 15 en 25 jaar heeft ooit te maken gehad met seksueel geweld.
[Translation: Quarter of young women victim of sexual violence - nearly a quarter of the girls and women between fifteen and twenty five years of age has been subjected to sexual violence.]
The Dutch sexual violence detailed in the article, which quotes a government report, includes rape, forced disrobing, groping, and forcible oral sex.
The Dutch do not regard foreign women as throw-away objects, they regard ALL women as such. It's normal over there.
Drugs, rape, and bestiality are almost national passions.
Banning the Dutch permanently from entering the United States would be of great benefit to the United States.
I for one would wholeheartedly support such an idea.
==============================================
==============================================
UPDATE
GRATUITOUS LAGNIAPPE: EVEN MORE DUTCH DEGENERACY
12/03/2009
This article (in Dutch) casts light on the unpleasant sexual subculture in Den Helder:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5477856/__Meisjes_laten_zich_aftuigen__.html?p=38,1
In short: fourteen and fifteen year-old Dutch girls enthusiastically seek out abusive ethnic boyfriends, and consider being beaten up, raped, and getting pregnant at a young age, absolutely normal.
Which, in Den Helder, it probably is.
Here's a news item about a Dutch pervert who photographed thousands of little girls while employed as a swimming instructor in Den Bosch:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5480882/__60_slachtoffertjes_Benno_L._bekend__.html?p=33,1
He is suspected of having committed indecent acts with a few dozen victims, but as yet there is no conclusive proof, according to his lawyer.
The case came to light last year.
This piece discusses a dangerous Dutch 'pedosexual' whom the city of Utrecht wishes to keep out:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5484191/__Stadsverbod_pedo_ongeldig__.html?p=24,1
Sytze van der Velde was convicted three times of unlawful sex with young boys. He is well-known to authorities and among fellow-paedophiles in the Netherlands, and has been active in his chosen perversion for well over three decades.
NOTE: All three articles cited are from today's edition of 'De Telegraaf'. It seems like every day there are juicy bits about rapists, pedophiles, and practitioners of bestiality in the Netherlands. Either they're very bored over there, or the heat and humidity are getting to them. It has a bad effect on the temperament.
==============================================
==============================================
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
DEATH IN MINDANAO - CONVENIENT MUSLIM CADAVERS
Yesterday forty six people were slaughtered in Maguindanao. The news is reporting it as a feud between two datu clans among the Moros. Blood feuds among politically important clans in the Philippines are not uncommon, and the rivalry of the two Mindanawan families involved (Mangudadatu and Ampatuan) is well known.
Further, Maguindanao is underdeveloped, there are unexploited resources in Maguindanao, and there are shifting appreciations of ancestral claims to status.
[Mangudadatu and Ampatuan are both powerful in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, and both originate from Dumatu lineages in the Maguindanao area. The Dumatu class claim descent from a pre-Islamic noble (Tabunaway) who acknowledged the sovereignty of Sharif Kabungsuwan in the fifteen hundreds, being granted hereditary privileges and exemptions in return. The word 'dumatu' indicates one who is of chiefly (datu) rank without necessarily being a chief - chiefly by inherited status rather than by position or appointment. They are neither "datu" (rulers, chiefs) nor "tau ma'indatu" (the ruled, the subject populace). The Dumatus were politically important in the sultanate. No leader could become sultan without Dumatu backing. Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat are both Muslim areas in Mindanao, most of which has been Christianised by land theft and ethnocide throughout the American period and Philippine independence, shockingly so during the Marcos years.]
DEATH TOLL RISES TO 46 FOR PHILIPPINES KILLINGS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8375588.stm
[And also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8374507.stm]
The explanation of a political blood feud is too easy, and given the murderous involvement of Christians in Mindanao, not believable.
It is not that long ago that Ferdinand Marcos caused Muslims to fight each other, and the memory of the death-squads (ilaga) employed by Christian industrialists and entrepreneurs to eradicate whole villages in the hinterlands is still fresh - the empty eye sockets of dead Muslims still ooze blood in the memories of their kinfolk. And if the Marcos goons and Illustrado death-squads weren't enough to cast suspicion on impugned motives and glib explanations for mass death in Mindanao, the record of the Philippine Constabulary (Hukbo'ng Pamayapa nang Pilipinas) in the south speaks for itself. The PC depopulated where it could not conquer, raped and enslaved among brutalized Moros when convenient, and engaged in wholesale torture, brigandage, and corruption where-ever the Christian Philippinos wished Muslims disinherited or driven from the land. Marcos sent them to Mindanao to suppress a revolt which he had engineered, and multitudes of rapacious opportunists followed them into the south to expropriate land and exploit resources. The Philippine timber industry was built on the theft of Muslim property.
A large bunch of dead Muslim Philippinos is just too convenient.
Every Philippine president since the fifties has claimed violence in Mindanao as an excuse to pull a staggering bit of chicanery in Luzon.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo may be the ultimate beneficiary of these murders - she's capable, she's cunning, and she's well-connected. And certainly, manipulation, treachery, and political warfare are all hers by both nature and nurture, given that she is a member of the Philippine ruling elite.
Ms. Arroyo has a well-known personal connection to Mindanao, and is herself a member of a powerful dynasty - her father (Diosdado P. Macapagal) was president of the Philippines in the early sixties.
Even if she herself has clean hands, her cronies most certainly do not.
There have been numerous allegations of corruption, illegal detentions, torture, and political murder against her regime.
It will be interesting to see what develops.
Further, Maguindanao is underdeveloped, there are unexploited resources in Maguindanao, and there are shifting appreciations of ancestral claims to status.
[Mangudadatu and Ampatuan are both powerful in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, and both originate from Dumatu lineages in the Maguindanao area. The Dumatu class claim descent from a pre-Islamic noble (Tabunaway) who acknowledged the sovereignty of Sharif Kabungsuwan in the fifteen hundreds, being granted hereditary privileges and exemptions in return. The word 'dumatu' indicates one who is of chiefly (datu) rank without necessarily being a chief - chiefly by inherited status rather than by position or appointment. They are neither "datu" (rulers, chiefs) nor "tau ma'indatu" (the ruled, the subject populace). The Dumatus were politically important in the sultanate. No leader could become sultan without Dumatu backing. Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat are both Muslim areas in Mindanao, most of which has been Christianised by land theft and ethnocide throughout the American period and Philippine independence, shockingly so during the Marcos years.]
DEATH TOLL RISES TO 46 FOR PHILIPPINES KILLINGS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8375588.stm
[And also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8374507.stm]
The explanation of a political blood feud is too easy, and given the murderous involvement of Christians in Mindanao, not believable.
It is not that long ago that Ferdinand Marcos caused Muslims to fight each other, and the memory of the death-squads (ilaga) employed by Christian industrialists and entrepreneurs to eradicate whole villages in the hinterlands is still fresh - the empty eye sockets of dead Muslims still ooze blood in the memories of their kinfolk. And if the Marcos goons and Illustrado death-squads weren't enough to cast suspicion on impugned motives and glib explanations for mass death in Mindanao, the record of the Philippine Constabulary (Hukbo'ng Pamayapa nang Pilipinas) in the south speaks for itself. The PC depopulated where it could not conquer, raped and enslaved among brutalized Moros when convenient, and engaged in wholesale torture, brigandage, and corruption where-ever the Christian Philippinos wished Muslims disinherited or driven from the land. Marcos sent them to Mindanao to suppress a revolt which he had engineered, and multitudes of rapacious opportunists followed them into the south to expropriate land and exploit resources. The Philippine timber industry was built on the theft of Muslim property.
A large bunch of dead Muslim Philippinos is just too convenient.
Every Philippine president since the fifties has claimed violence in Mindanao as an excuse to pull a staggering bit of chicanery in Luzon.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo may be the ultimate beneficiary of these murders - she's capable, she's cunning, and she's well-connected. And certainly, manipulation, treachery, and political warfare are all hers by both nature and nurture, given that she is a member of the Philippine ruling elite.
Ms. Arroyo has a well-known personal connection to Mindanao, and is herself a member of a powerful dynasty - her father (Diosdado P. Macapagal) was president of the Philippines in the early sixties.
Even if she herself has clean hands, her cronies most certainly do not.
There have been numerous allegations of corruption, illegal detentions, torture, and political murder against her regime.
It will be interesting to see what develops.
SM, BEAUTY QUEEN, BUSH
Sometimes the readers of Dovbear's blog go off-topic in their feedback. And sometimes that is a very good thing. I probably need not mention that I enjoy comment mining, yes?
In the reactions underneath a posting about eight steamy sextapes by some woman named Prejean, regular reader SM posted a doozy.
In reaction to the question "why is a hypocrite the WORST THING A PERSON CAN BE?" he wrote:
Oh, it isn't. You could be a moronic, aggressive know-all who only accepts the 'advice' you want to hear. Like Bush.
Or you could be a corrupt, grasping, avaricious torturer who ensures his friends benefit from you holding high office. Like Cheney.
Or you could be a vacuous, unread lightweight who runs out on responsibility and exploits their own family. Like Palin.
Hope that helps adjust your mindset and ease your worries.
[SM 11.24.09 - 3:14 am ]
--- --- ---
SOURCE:http://www.haloscan.com/comments/dovbear/4566218363177038963/?src=hsn
POST UNDER WHICH APPENDED:http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2009/11/carrie-prejean.html
Apparently ms. Carrie Prejean is a beauty queen. Big frikkin' whoop. That usually guarantees spam and cottonwool between the ears, and a very high degree of slut-whore-tramp morality. Unfortunately, it does NOT guarantee scandals sufficiently juicy to really peek my interest, nor amateurish sex-tapes of compellingly high quality.
Life is far too short to watch bad porn.
Prolonged interest in beauty queens does actually equal the effect of a lobotomy.
Interacting with them is like two lobotomies, one of which done with a rusty icepick wielded by a drunk - more is not always a good thing.
Like self-gratification with straps and sharp objects, the less pageant-veteran beauty-queen there is in your life, the better. Also avoid street-drugs, as these too damage the brain.
In the reactions underneath a posting about eight steamy sextapes by some woman named Prejean, regular reader SM posted a doozy.
In reaction to the question "why is a hypocrite the WORST THING A PERSON CAN BE?" he wrote:
Oh, it isn't. You could be a moronic, aggressive know-all who only accepts the 'advice' you want to hear. Like Bush.
Or you could be a corrupt, grasping, avaricious torturer who ensures his friends benefit from you holding high office. Like Cheney.
Or you could be a vacuous, unread lightweight who runs out on responsibility and exploits their own family. Like Palin.
Hope that helps adjust your mindset and ease your worries.
[SM 11.24.09 - 3:14 am ]
--- --- ---
SOURCE:http://www.haloscan.com/comments/dovbear/4566218363177038963/?src=hsn
POST UNDER WHICH APPENDED:http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2009/11/carrie-prejean.html
Apparently ms. Carrie Prejean is a beauty queen. Big frikkin' whoop. That usually guarantees spam and cottonwool between the ears, and a very high degree of slut-whore-tramp morality. Unfortunately, it does NOT guarantee scandals sufficiently juicy to really peek my interest, nor amateurish sex-tapes of compellingly high quality.
Life is far too short to watch bad porn.
Prolonged interest in beauty queens does actually equal the effect of a lobotomy.
Interacting with them is like two lobotomies, one of which done with a rusty icepick wielded by a drunk - more is not always a good thing.
Like self-gratification with straps and sharp objects, the less pageant-veteran beauty-queen there is in your life, the better. Also avoid street-drugs, as these too damage the brain.
Monday, November 23, 2009
LOVE IN A TIME OF GOUT
Often Savage Kitten says things that really encapsulate our relationship. As some of you know, she is Cantonese-American, I am white. So aside from a height difference (she's fine-boned, I am normal), there are also "cultural" differences.
What comes out of her mouth reflects exactly how different Cantonese people are from all the rest of us.
INSTRUCTIVE EXAMPLES
ME: 'I'm going to the store, hon, you need anything?"
HER: "A lobster!"
This is an example of optimistic Cantonese tunnel-vision. Eventually I must bring back a lobster from the corner store - logic takes a backseat to a positive attitude.
If you wish it, it has got to happen.
HER: "I know, you could go visit my mom, I'll stay home. Just tell her you're me."
ME: 'She'd spot the difference immediately'.
HER: "Not if you don't say anything."
Her mom does not know Savage Kitten is living with me, and thinks she's an old maid living with a classmate from college, another old maid. And, seeing as all of us white people look alike, surely mom won't notice a thing provided I keep my mouth shout. Savage Kitten knows I can do that, and therefore she has complete confidence in the workability of her idea.
ME: 'I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in here!'
HER: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaauugh!!!!!"
ME: 'I just heard the tank running, I had no idea you ......'
HER: "Nasty Old Toad!"
ME: 'Look, I'm really sorry, it's just that the water....'
HER: "You should've stayed in here then and waited for it to finish!"
ME: 'Well, now I know.'
HER: "I have no heartbeat. It's stopped, I'm turning blue, it's all over. Cold, so cold.... What are you going to tell my family?"
ME: 'Nonsense, I can feel it beating.'
HER: "If our landlords ask about the screaming, the toilet scared you."
Our landlords are also Cantonese. All Cantonese KNOW that Caucasians are irrational and easily startled.
And only a middle-aged white man would scream like a girl in the middle of the night.
HER: "Silly Toad, why didn't you tell me you had gout, letting me order all those oysters!"ME: 'Well, you wanted oysters and you were so happy....'
HER: "But if I had known, I would've bitten the bullet - I would've eaten all of them myself."
True love. Note the element of selflessness and sacrifice. All couples should be so compatible.
In another month we will have been together for twenty years.
=========================================================
AFTERWORD
Savage Kitten left a message for me on my office answering machine. We are having "White Person's Duck" for Thanksgiving!
See, we always do duck for holidays - a turkey is just too much for two people. But yesterday the May Wah Market was entirely sold out of duck (we may not be the only people in SF to prefer roast duck to dry monster bird), as were all the other meat markets in San Wah Fao. Not a Chinese Duck to be had. Today she found a duck nearer home, at one of those pretentious food stores that cater to snobby white folks into granola, wheat germ, and tofu. This duck was all macrobiotic veggie fed, free range, no antibiotics. In her words, "It's a healthyass duck". Probably a little lean, and may require some extra grease. White People. And their ducks.
What comes out of her mouth reflects exactly how different Cantonese people are from all the rest of us.
INSTRUCTIVE EXAMPLES
ME: 'I'm going to the store, hon, you need anything?"
HER: "A lobster!"
This is an example of optimistic Cantonese tunnel-vision. Eventually I must bring back a lobster from the corner store - logic takes a backseat to a positive attitude.
If you wish it, it has got to happen.
HER: "I know, you could go visit my mom, I'll stay home. Just tell her you're me."
ME: 'She'd spot the difference immediately'.
HER: "Not if you don't say anything."
Her mom does not know Savage Kitten is living with me, and thinks she's an old maid living with a classmate from college, another old maid. And, seeing as all of us white people look alike, surely mom won't notice a thing provided I keep my mouth shout. Savage Kitten knows I can do that, and therefore she has complete confidence in the workability of her idea.
ME: 'I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in here!'
HER: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaauugh!!!!!"
ME: 'I just heard the tank running, I had no idea you ......'
HER: "Nasty Old Toad!"
ME: 'Look, I'm really sorry, it's just that the water....'
HER: "You should've stayed in here then and waited for it to finish!"
ME: 'Well, now I know.'
HER: "I have no heartbeat. It's stopped, I'm turning blue, it's all over. Cold, so cold.... What are you going to tell my family?"
ME: 'Nonsense, I can feel it beating.'
HER: "If our landlords ask about the screaming, the toilet scared you."
Our landlords are also Cantonese. All Cantonese KNOW that Caucasians are irrational and easily startled.
And only a middle-aged white man would scream like a girl in the middle of the night.
HER: "Silly Toad, why didn't you tell me you had gout, letting me order all those oysters!"ME: 'Well, you wanted oysters and you were so happy....'
HER: "But if I had known, I would've bitten the bullet - I would've eaten all of them myself."
True love. Note the element of selflessness and sacrifice. All couples should be so compatible.
In another month we will have been together for twenty years.
=========================================================
AFTERWORD
Savage Kitten left a message for me on my office answering machine. We are having "White Person's Duck" for Thanksgiving!
See, we always do duck for holidays - a turkey is just too much for two people. But yesterday the May Wah Market was entirely sold out of duck (we may not be the only people in SF to prefer roast duck to dry monster bird), as were all the other meat markets in San Wah Fao. Not a Chinese Duck to be had. Today she found a duck nearer home, at one of those pretentious food stores that cater to snobby white folks into granola, wheat germ, and tofu. This duck was all macrobiotic veggie fed, free range, no antibiotics. In her words, "It's a healthyass duck". Probably a little lean, and may require some extra grease. White People. And their ducks.
PATHAN DANCE FURY
Hot dance rhythms, copious liquor, and a society fighting a slow-burn civil war.
The result is this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qn0mYIUczU&feature=player_embedded
It is good to see that despite their country going to blazes between warring fundamentalists, corrupt politicians, incompetent baboo bureaucrats, litigious vakils, and just general opportunism and mayhem, there are still Pakistanis who focus on the important stuff.
DANCING, MUSIC.
M. Ali Sheray, Naveed, Najeeb, Ihsan Ali, Raheel Zeb, Shafi Jan, Sayed Ali Shah, Rafi Jan, Shahzaf Ayan, and Zahoor Ahmad. Azhgar Ali, Amjid Khan, Sohail Ahmad, Mohsin Ali, Javed Banghash, and the creator of the short: M. Ismail Khan.
Here's some more partying with full benefit of booze and a rythm section.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Fulldrunker
Looks like a blast. Makes me wish I were there. Dur ke dhol suhav'ne.
Party on, dudes. Bismillah.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM
Discovered these videos by cruising into Mathew's facebook page. Thanks, Matt. Good stuff.
All videos and more available at fulldrunker's youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/Fulldrunker#p/u
Good stuff. Think of it as a window into another world.
The result is this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qn0mYIUczU&feature=player_embedded
It is good to see that despite their country going to blazes between warring fundamentalists, corrupt politicians, incompetent baboo bureaucrats, litigious vakils, and just general opportunism and mayhem, there are still Pakistanis who focus on the important stuff.
DANCING, MUSIC.
M. Ali Sheray, Naveed, Najeeb, Ihsan Ali, Raheel Zeb, Shafi Jan, Sayed Ali Shah, Rafi Jan, Shahzaf Ayan, and Zahoor Ahmad. Azhgar Ali, Amjid Khan, Sohail Ahmad, Mohsin Ali, Javed Banghash, and the creator of the short: M. Ismail Khan.
Here's some more partying with full benefit of booze and a rythm section.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Fulldrunker
Looks like a blast. Makes me wish I were there. Dur ke dhol suhav'ne.
Party on, dudes. Bismillah.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM
Discovered these videos by cruising into Mathew's facebook page. Thanks, Matt. Good stuff.
All videos and more available at fulldrunker's youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/Fulldrunker#p/u
Good stuff. Think of it as a window into another world.
Friday, November 20, 2009
SMILING FISHILY AT CHILDREN
Years ago in a bar down on Market Street a bright-faced woman came up to me and said "smile".
"What?"
"SMILE!"
I made the mistake of asking why. She punished me with a long and incredibly inane lecture about positivism and happy faces, spreading sunshine and light, and crap about dolphins, beauty, and nature.
Since then, whenever some cluckhead tells me to smile, I usually snarl back "I am smiling, bitch!"
Or something to that effect.
Yesterday I was at a bar when a woman put her hand on my arm and said "if it all gets to be too much, think of the children".
"IF IT ALL GETS TO BE TOO MUCH, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"
"What?"
"Think of the children! If it all gets too much, think of the children!"
"Why?"
"They're innocent, the children."
"So why do I have to think of them? If it's about innocence, why can't I think of fish?"
"Errrm, the children...... "
"No no no, fish! Not the children, fish. Fish are innocent. Children only SEEM innocent, because in comparison to us they have the intelligence of a boiled potato. But fish are truly stupid. No brain at all. They're fish. Totally innocent fish. "
"But fish have no personalities, and aren't happy!"
"Firstly, how do you know they aren't happy, and secondly, they do so have personality. Lots of personality, with a little soy and vinegar. Steamed or fried, TONS of sweetly innocent personality. Not like children."
"For GOD's sake, they aren't people!!!! You gotta think about people!!!! People are beautiful!!!" Think of the children!!!!"
"Lady, you're losing track of what I'm trying to say here. Fish have plenty of personality if you just cook 'em right, which you can't do to kids. And they're innocent as all git-out, what with having no intelligence. Yeah, kids ARE beautiful, especially teenage girls - yowza hot! Smoking!
But if I start thinking that way, I'll get in trouble with the law.
So I'll just think of fish, thank you very much."
"Stop being so obtuse!"
OH MY UNCLE!
To drive my point home, I told her all about uncle Gerry, who said that his greatest aim in life was to die in bed with two naked girls, one on each side, and a big sloppy grin all over his face. A wonderful fantasy, and I must assume that at least part of it came true, seeing as he's quite dead now. Must have been good, I can almost see the devilish gleam in his eyes as he croaked. Probably left a mess, what with two shapely nude witnesses and the divorced wife fighting over the money, and the cops wondering what the heck had gone on there. I can just imagine the coroner's report. How did the two bucknaked teenagers figure into the official file?
Juicy I bet - especially if there were photos of them in bed next to the corpse. Colour photos.
See, that's what happens when you think of children. You die happy. And because I would rather not snuff it at this point, instead of thinking about children, I will think of fish.
Fish are good.
She looked like she was about to cry right about then, so I tried to comfort her - "okay, if you insist, I'll think of the children"
I may have ruined it by clarifying "the naked teenage children, with smooth skin, like eels."
She stomped off angry. I think I heard her mumbling about a sickass bastard as she left.
Such a terrible attitude, poor woman.
See, she needs to think of the children. What will all the kids think if she pouts so? It's a lousy example to any attractive teenage daughters she might have.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
"What?"
"SMILE!"
I made the mistake of asking why. She punished me with a long and incredibly inane lecture about positivism and happy faces, spreading sunshine and light, and crap about dolphins, beauty, and nature.
Since then, whenever some cluckhead tells me to smile, I usually snarl back "I am smiling, bitch!"
Or something to that effect.
Yesterday I was at a bar when a woman put her hand on my arm and said "if it all gets to be too much, think of the children".
"IF IT ALL GETS TO BE TOO MUCH, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"
"What?"
"Think of the children! If it all gets too much, think of the children!"
"Why?"
"They're innocent, the children."
"So why do I have to think of them? If it's about innocence, why can't I think of fish?"
"Errrm, the children...... "
"No no no, fish! Not the children, fish. Fish are innocent. Children only SEEM innocent, because in comparison to us they have the intelligence of a boiled potato. But fish are truly stupid. No brain at all. They're fish. Totally innocent fish. "
"But fish have no personalities, and aren't happy!"
"Firstly, how do you know they aren't happy, and secondly, they do so have personality. Lots of personality, with a little soy and vinegar. Steamed or fried, TONS of sweetly innocent personality. Not like children."
"For GOD's sake, they aren't people!!!! You gotta think about people!!!! People are beautiful!!!" Think of the children!!!!"
"Lady, you're losing track of what I'm trying to say here. Fish have plenty of personality if you just cook 'em right, which you can't do to kids. And they're innocent as all git-out, what with having no intelligence. Yeah, kids ARE beautiful, especially teenage girls - yowza hot! Smoking!
But if I start thinking that way, I'll get in trouble with the law.
So I'll just think of fish, thank you very much."
"Stop being so obtuse!"
OH MY UNCLE!
To drive my point home, I told her all about uncle Gerry, who said that his greatest aim in life was to die in bed with two naked girls, one on each side, and a big sloppy grin all over his face. A wonderful fantasy, and I must assume that at least part of it came true, seeing as he's quite dead now. Must have been good, I can almost see the devilish gleam in his eyes as he croaked. Probably left a mess, what with two shapely nude witnesses and the divorced wife fighting over the money, and the cops wondering what the heck had gone on there. I can just imagine the coroner's report. How did the two bucknaked teenagers figure into the official file?
Juicy I bet - especially if there were photos of them in bed next to the corpse. Colour photos.
See, that's what happens when you think of children. You die happy. And because I would rather not snuff it at this point, instead of thinking about children, I will think of fish.
Fish are good.
She looked like she was about to cry right about then, so I tried to comfort her - "okay, if you insist, I'll think of the children"
I may have ruined it by clarifying "the naked teenage children, with smooth skin, like eels."
She stomped off angry. I think I heard her mumbling about a sickass bastard as she left.
Such a terrible attitude, poor woman.
See, she needs to think of the children. What will all the kids think if she pouts so? It's a lousy example to any attractive teenage daughters she might have.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, November 19, 2009
SIZE SIX BURKA, STILL MOIST
There's a huge discussion over on Dovbear's blog about tzenua (modesty). Apparently someone out there believes that female blogging is untzniusdik (immodest). Women should discretely stay out of sight, even on the internet, and not remind men of their gender, or that they even exist.
I have to agree!
You see, I am a tall Black amazon, early twenties, with large nicely shaped breasts and a statuesque figure. Curves in all the right places, narrow waisted.
I just pretend to be a pudgy middle-aged white male pipe smoker so that my target audience (glandularly stressed fifteen year old boys) does not go into hormonal angst while reading my blog.
[Teenage girls obviously do not read blogs, least of all mine. They are at home tzniusly cooking and cleaning and caring for the younger children. When not making themselves as sexless and unattractive as possible.]
It's a question of covering up anything that might excite the fragile male fancy - men are easily distracted, their kavana and kedusha vanish at a mere hint of femininity. So, dark long skirts, and long-sleeved shirts underneath baggy sweaters. A tichel at all times.
Plus baggy mittens. Because, of course, my elegant silky smooth-skinned hands with the long long tapered fingers (so soft, so soft!) are also sensual.
Even the polished fingernails are ... sensual.
Which, if you are a male between fifteen and seventy, ALWAYS means 'sexual'.
Mittens.
One of my mittens is missing in action. Maybe I accidentally left it somewhere?
Some pervert must have stolen it, and even as we speak! is putting it to his nose and inhaling the feminine aroma left behind. His knees are quivering, he trembles, fever develops. In a frenzy, with repeated deep sniffs at the wrist-opening, he is getting light headed, his knees give way, and barely resisting! he slips moistly to the floor. Blood trickles from his nose, his clothing is drenched.
Oh, it is good. Oh!
I'm certain that my landlord is raiding my sock drawer.
My feet, as you can guess, are attached to the rest of me, and thus serve to remind him of my tall statuesque high pert fully rounded early twenties black breasts. Everything twixt toes and tits.
He's just a normal man - how can he resist?
Snnnffff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If men get any more excited, I may have to wear a burka. Full body sack.
Heaven forfend I should accidentally leave that burka behind anywhere.
What if the mitten-pervert has an older brother?
I have to agree!
You see, I am a tall Black amazon, early twenties, with large nicely shaped breasts and a statuesque figure. Curves in all the right places, narrow waisted.
I just pretend to be a pudgy middle-aged white male pipe smoker so that my target audience (glandularly stressed fifteen year old boys) does not go into hormonal angst while reading my blog.
[Teenage girls obviously do not read blogs, least of all mine. They are at home tzniusly cooking and cleaning and caring for the younger children. When not making themselves as sexless and unattractive as possible.]
It's a question of covering up anything that might excite the fragile male fancy - men are easily distracted, their kavana and kedusha vanish at a mere hint of femininity. So, dark long skirts, and long-sleeved shirts underneath baggy sweaters. A tichel at all times.
Plus baggy mittens. Because, of course, my elegant silky smooth-skinned hands with the long long tapered fingers (so soft, so soft!) are also sensual.
Even the polished fingernails are ... sensual.
Which, if you are a male between fifteen and seventy, ALWAYS means 'sexual'.
Mittens.
One of my mittens is missing in action. Maybe I accidentally left it somewhere?
Some pervert must have stolen it, and even as we speak! is putting it to his nose and inhaling the feminine aroma left behind. His knees are quivering, he trembles, fever develops. In a frenzy, with repeated deep sniffs at the wrist-opening, he is getting light headed, his knees give way, and barely resisting! he slips moistly to the floor. Blood trickles from his nose, his clothing is drenched.
Oh, it is good. Oh!
I'm certain that my landlord is raiding my sock drawer.
My feet, as you can guess, are attached to the rest of me, and thus serve to remind him of my tall statuesque high pert fully rounded early twenties black breasts. Everything twixt toes and tits.
He's just a normal man - how can he resist?
Snnnffff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If men get any more excited, I may have to wear a burka. Full body sack.
Heaven forfend I should accidentally leave that burka behind anywhere.
What if the mitten-pervert has an older brother?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
BAD NEWS FROM FRANCE
Today I received an extremely disturbing e-mail about anti-Semitism in France.
This is what it says:
"I AM A JEW -- therefore I am forwarding this to everyone on all my e-mail lists.
I will not sit back and do nothing. Nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in France. In Lyon , a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles; so was a Jewish school in Creteil - all recently.. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words 'Dirty Jew' were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months. According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days. Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming 'Jews to the gas chambers' and 'Death to the Jews.' A gunman opened fire on a kosher butcher's shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse, France. A Jewish couple in their 20's were beaten up by five men in Villeurbanne, France (the woman was pregnant). A Jewish school was broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles, France. This was just in the past week."
"So I call on you, whether you are a fellow Jew, a friend, or merely a person with the capacity and desire to distinguish decency from depravity, to do - at least - these three simple things:
First, care enough to stay informed. Don't ever let yourself become deluded into thinking that this is not your fight. I remind you of what Pastor Neimoller said in World War II: 'First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.'
Second, boycott France and French products. Only the Arab countries are more toxically anti-Semitic and, unlike them, France exports more than just oil and hatred. So boycott their wines and their perfumes. Boycott their clothes and their foodstuffs. Boycott their movies. Definitely boycott their shores. If we are resolved, we can exert amazing pressure and, whatever else we may know about the French, we most certainly know that they are like a cobweb in a hurricane in the face of well-directed pressure.
Third, send this along to your family, your friends, and your co-workers. Think of all of the people of good conscience that you
know and let them know that you - and the people that you care - about need their help. The number one bestselling book in France is....'September 11: The Frightening Fraud' which argues that no plane ever hit the Pentagon! Please Pass This On, Let's not let history repeat itself, thank-you for your time and consideration."
Well, that is just awful , isn't it?
Problem is, it's an absolute crock. Total bushwa. Complete and utter nonsense.
Balderdash, claptrap, and fiddlesticks.
ELSEWHERE MENTIONS
I first saw that e-mail over a year ago. A quick search of the internet yielded several dozen mentions of the letter, many of them foreworded or afterworded in apocalyptic terms, many not dated or sourced in any way, spread out over the last seven years.
1. A posting on April 4, 2009:
http://listserv.tau.ac.il/cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind0904&L=iirs-asmi&P=7680&E=1&B=--Boundary_%28ID_tZ5L779zgrwJ2oR5N21JbQ%29&T=text%2Fhtml
2. An earlier appearance of the letter, on July 12, 2008:
http://www.2rbetter.org/archives/2008.07.12%20-%20French%20Jews
3. Another posting on March 7, 2007:
http://jewalaska.blogspot.com/2007/03/anti-semitism-in-france.html
4. A previous posting on October 21, 2006:
http://analogkid12.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/it-is-the-time-of-kristalnacht-again/
5. Oooooooooh, here's a good one! December 8, 2003:
http://www.jpfo.org/alerts/alert20031208.htm
6. This writer gives a date as early as April 4, 2002:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/591082-more-countries-have-partisan-media-bad.html
HOAX! HOAX! HOAX! HOAX! HOAX! HOAX!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: As of this writing (January 4th 2012) the hoax e-mail is still circulating. Once these things are launched, there is no ending them.
And it is still as false as it ever was, not made any more reliable by further dissemination.
It was forwarded to me twice in the past several months, prefaced by outrage that the world was ignoring the situation, the media not reporting, the American government studiously obfuscating………..
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2011/06/attention-bad-news-from-france-e-mail.html
A newsletter I regularly receive also cited the damned thing. This despite the editor being told two years ago (and three years ago) that it was nonsense.
Irritating me'od.
-----ATBOTH
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
This is what it says:
"I AM A JEW -- therefore I am forwarding this to everyone on all my e-mail lists.
I will not sit back and do nothing. Nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in France. In Lyon , a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles; so was a Jewish school in Creteil - all recently.. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words 'Dirty Jew' were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months. According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days. Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming 'Jews to the gas chambers' and 'Death to the Jews.' A gunman opened fire on a kosher butcher's shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse, France. A Jewish couple in their 20's were beaten up by five men in Villeurbanne, France (the woman was pregnant). A Jewish school was broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles, France. This was just in the past week."
"So I call on you, whether you are a fellow Jew, a friend, or merely a person with the capacity and desire to distinguish decency from depravity, to do - at least - these three simple things:
First, care enough to stay informed. Don't ever let yourself become deluded into thinking that this is not your fight. I remind you of what Pastor Neimoller said in World War II: 'First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.'
Second, boycott France and French products. Only the Arab countries are more toxically anti-Semitic and, unlike them, France exports more than just oil and hatred. So boycott their wines and their perfumes. Boycott their clothes and their foodstuffs. Boycott their movies. Definitely boycott their shores. If we are resolved, we can exert amazing pressure and, whatever else we may know about the French, we most certainly know that they are like a cobweb in a hurricane in the face of well-directed pressure.
Third, send this along to your family, your friends, and your co-workers. Think of all of the people of good conscience that you
know and let them know that you - and the people that you care - about need their help. The number one bestselling book in France is....'September 11: The Frightening Fraud' which argues that no plane ever hit the Pentagon! Please Pass This On, Let's not let history repeat itself, thank-you for your time and consideration."
Well, that is just awful , isn't it?
Problem is, it's an absolute crock. Total bushwa. Complete and utter nonsense.
Balderdash, claptrap, and fiddlesticks.
ELSEWHERE MENTIONS
I first saw that e-mail over a year ago. A quick search of the internet yielded several dozen mentions of the letter, many of them foreworded or afterworded in apocalyptic terms, many not dated or sourced in any way, spread out over the last seven years.
1. A posting on April 4, 2009:
http://listserv.tau.ac.il/cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind0904&L=iirs-asmi&P=7680&E=1&B=--Boundary_%28ID_tZ5L779zgrwJ2oR5N21JbQ%29&T=text%2Fhtml
2. An earlier appearance of the letter, on July 12, 2008:
http://www.2rbetter.org/archives/2008.07.12%20-%20French%20Jews
3. Another posting on March 7, 2007:
http://jewalaska.blogspot.com/2007/03/anti-semitism-in-france.html
4. A previous posting on October 21, 2006:
http://analogkid12.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/it-is-the-time-of-kristalnacht-again/
5. Oooooooooh, here's a good one! December 8, 2003:
http://www.jpfo.org/alerts/alert20031208.htm
6. This writer gives a date as early as April 4, 2002:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/591082-more-countries-have-partisan-media-bad.html
HOAX! HOAX! HOAX! HOAX! HOAX! HOAX!
But, of course, the main place you need to go for the letter is here:
http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000267.html
QUOTE:
"In fact, this quote is taken from an article by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe, dated April 28, 2002!. The anonymous French Jew who supposedly sent an e-mail turns out to be an American Jew living in Boston. The period in question was the height of the Intifada in Israel, and the height of the hysteria about the supposed Jenin "massacre."
END QUOTE.
Ami Isseroff goes into detail about the letter, and brings up cogent points.
QUOTE:
Before circulating such letters please check and consider -
* Is there a stated author and a URL?
* Is the source reliable?
* Check a part of the text in a search engine to see if it was reported as a hoax (add the word "hoax" to the search query) and if there is a reliable source listed for it.
* Check in search engines and with friends to verify the news.
* If there is a policy recommendation or action item in the letter, does it make sense?
* If the item is a hoax, inform the people who mailed it to you.
END QUOTE.
I shall not question the sincerity of the people who forward such bogus letters. But I do question their brains, and their sanity. Despite being inundated with texts and newsletters about Israel, Palestine, Jews, and Jihadis, I can still remember reading that letter before. Over one year earlier.
And I knew at that time it was a load of horsepuckey.
Please stop forwarding lariekoek like this. You do not do your cause any favours by disseminating such treif.
Thank you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
AFTERTHOUGHT
It seems appropriate to finish with La Marseillaise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K1q9Ntcr5g
Turn up the speakers, because the linked recording above is long, loud, and vibrant. And well worth it.
The French, on the whole, are not a bad lot.
Quite a lot of Jews think so too.
Feel free to forward the link to La Marseillaise to as many people as possible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: As of this writing (January 4th 2012) the hoax e-mail is still circulating. Once these things are launched, there is no ending them.
And it is still as false as it ever was, not made any more reliable by further dissemination.
It was forwarded to me twice in the past several months, prefaced by outrage that the world was ignoring the situation, the media not reporting, the American government studiously obfuscating………..
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2011/06/attention-bad-news-from-france-e-mail.html
A newsletter I regularly receive also cited the damned thing. This despite the editor being told two years ago (and three years ago) that it was nonsense.
Irritating me'od.
-----ATBOTH
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
PER TZIPPORAH, ELEVEN DAYS!
Yesterday I delicately hinted that a mere twenty-four hours seemed stingy for a celebration of 'Dutch-American Heritage', especially when other groups got an entire month.
It was a note of bitterness - why, I seemed to ask, do we only get just one day, one lousy day, one stinking unexciting single cold autumn day, when other groups get an entire month?
An entire month!
What are we, gehakte leber?!?
[Groups like the Jews (all Dutch anyhow), Blacks (neither Jews nor Dutch), Historical Women (who?), the Irish (quite inferior to the Dutch), Sober People (what?), Asian Pacific Islanders (very much appreciated by the Dutch), Confoederates (damned Romans!), Haitians (not Dutch), Halifax Asians (Canadians! 'Nuff said), Jewish-Americans (Dutch, I keep telling you!), Latinos (people from Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao), National Parks (not even people!), Older Americans (crabby, just like the Dutch), People of Restricted Access (whatever that means - not Dutch), Dancing Ukrainians (well, at least they're not killing people - not Dutch at all), Zoos (we Dutch have a zoo too - Artis), Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender people (I got nothing, discuss), Carribeans (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Suriname, and some Dutch-owned boogers on a map), Portuguese, Graeco-Americans, Hispanic-Latinos, Italian Americans, Conscious and Employed Disabled Nationals, Polish Americans, American Indians, Retailers, and Human Rights Shmoes (all of them not Dutch either). All of these get an entire month.]
See this post:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/11/time-for-serious-fun.html
Fellow blogger Tzipporah commented:
"Oops, guess I missed it. Maybe you can stretch it out by questioning the basis of the calendar... ;) "
[Tzipporah blogs here: http://midianitemanna.blogspot.com/]
Guess you missed it? How! Could! You?
Such a gevaldige day. Too.
Sniff.
But her comment was, nevertheless, brilliant.
EPPES BRILLIANT!
In chutz l'aretz, chagim are TWO days. This is based on the communication via signal fires (or telegrams, in our era) from the Amsterdam Beis Din to the yeshives outside the land.
Per the gemara, when the two days of Yom Ha Nirlandim-Amerikani fall immediately prior to Shabbes, the lechem hashakad ("BOTERKOEK") is eaten on the eleventh day after being baked.
[Which, lechatchila AND kal ve chomer, implies an extension of ten days beyond the first day even during times when that is not the case, in order to be mehudar min hamhudar min hamhudar min chol mehadrin (min hamehameha).]
Rashi asks why does the Beraisa say two days of Yom Ha Nirlandim-Amerikani, and not 'two days of yontif sheni shel galuyes'?
Irritatingly, he answers his own question by explaining "in the years of the Boterkoek (in other words, during the Dutch Golden Age), there was no second day of Yontif, nebech".
[But Rashi lived in France - vos sol a farkakte Tzarfiter foon puterkichel oder mandelgebektes veissen? Meh, doch, es macht emmes kein difirentz.]
Good.
So I should be able to drag Dutch-American Heritage Day all the way into Thanksgiving then.
Hah, screw those Puritans, their little dry-birdie feast does not concern me, as I shall be celebrating our 'Dutch-American Heritage'.
Whatever that is.
It was a note of bitterness - why, I seemed to ask, do we only get just one day, one lousy day, one stinking unexciting single cold autumn day, when other groups get an entire month?
An entire month!
What are we, gehakte leber?!?
[Groups like the Jews (all Dutch anyhow), Blacks (neither Jews nor Dutch), Historical Women (who?), the Irish (quite inferior to the Dutch), Sober People (what?), Asian Pacific Islanders (very much appreciated by the Dutch), Confoederates (damned Romans!), Haitians (not Dutch), Halifax Asians (Canadians! 'Nuff said), Jewish-Americans (Dutch, I keep telling you!), Latinos (people from Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao), National Parks (not even people!), Older Americans (crabby, just like the Dutch), People of Restricted Access (whatever that means - not Dutch), Dancing Ukrainians (well, at least they're not killing people - not Dutch at all), Zoos (we Dutch have a zoo too - Artis), Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender people (I got nothing, discuss), Carribeans (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Suriname, and some Dutch-owned boogers on a map), Portuguese, Graeco-Americans, Hispanic-Latinos, Italian Americans, Conscious and Employed Disabled Nationals, Polish Americans, American Indians, Retailers, and Human Rights Shmoes (all of them not Dutch either). All of these get an entire month.]
See this post:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/11/time-for-serious-fun.html
Fellow blogger Tzipporah commented:
"Oops, guess I missed it. Maybe you can stretch it out by questioning the basis of the calendar... ;) "
[Tzipporah blogs here: http://midianitemanna.blogspot.com/]
Guess you missed it? How! Could! You?
Such a gevaldige day. Too.
Sniff.
But her comment was, nevertheless, brilliant.
EPPES BRILLIANT!
In chutz l'aretz, chagim are TWO days. This is based on the communication via signal fires (or telegrams, in our era) from the Amsterdam Beis Din to the yeshives outside the land.
Per the gemara, when the two days of Yom Ha Nirlandim-Amerikani fall immediately prior to Shabbes, the lechem hashakad ("BOTERKOEK") is eaten on the eleventh day after being baked.
[Which, lechatchila AND kal ve chomer, implies an extension of ten days beyond the first day even during times when that is not the case, in order to be mehudar min hamhudar min hamhudar min chol mehadrin (min hamehameha).]
Rashi asks why does the Beraisa say two days of Yom Ha Nirlandim-Amerikani, and not 'two days of yontif sheni shel galuyes'?
Irritatingly, he answers his own question by explaining "in the years of the Boterkoek (in other words, during the Dutch Golden Age), there was no second day of Yontif, nebech".
[But Rashi lived in France - vos sol a farkakte Tzarfiter foon puterkichel oder mandelgebektes veissen? Meh, doch, es macht emmes kein difirentz.]
Good.
So I should be able to drag Dutch-American Heritage Day all the way into Thanksgiving then.
Hah, screw those Puritans, their little dry-birdie feast does not concern me, as I shall be celebrating our 'Dutch-American Heritage'.
Whatever that is.
Monday, November 16, 2009
ASSAULTED BY TEENAGE GIRLS
Balabusta in Blue Jeans writes about having to supervise the girls' locker room. If you ever thought of that as being like a little slice of heaven, you are mistaken.
It is war. Combat duty, and horrors beyond belief.
Plus skin goo.
QUOTE:
"They worry about their arms, and their legs. They have to be completely moisturized at all times..."
END QUOTE.
SOURCE:
http://balabustabluejeans.blogspot.com/2009/11/oceans-of-lotions.html
Okay, that doesn't sound too bad at all.
I'll be the first to admit that high-school girls should, under ideal circumstances, be soft and smooth to the touch.
QUOTE:
"They run around screaming "Does anyone have lotion?"
END QUOTE.
Screaming? Girls do not scream. There's something wrong if they're screaming.
QUOTE:
"Then, just in case they might not smell fruity-floral enough, they pull whole bottles of body spray or cologne out of their lockers, and spritz each other until the whole place smells like Bath and Bodyworks after a bad earthquake."
END QUOTE.
[Read BBJ's blog here: http://balabustabluejeans.blogspot.com/ ]
DAMP AND SWEET-SMELLING!
Good freakin' heavens! When I was a kid, back before Noah set sail on his round-the-world voyage, there were no spritzes and body lotions!
Just stuff in a brown glass bottle from the chemist.
With a squirt-attachment at the top.
This is war, soldier, and don't you forget it!
My dad and I would irritate the spit out of my severe older brother by flamboyantly and extravegantly using a hand-lotion(!) in the middle of winter for our chapped skin. We would squeeze some out, then sensually slide it up and down our fingers, restoring to health the delicate masculine membranes that had been exposed to the harsh Dutch climate, softly and smoothly rubbing it into the cracked and calloused areas. Mmmmmmm!
Hand lotion - it was the ONLY lotion available at the local stores. And it was pink, and faintly perfumed.
VERY FEMMY!
Such unmanly decadence disgusted Tobias.
He cringed at the depravity thus displayed by his father and his effete younger brother.
The local high school girls used no lotions. No lip balm. No spritzed spray. No expensive oils and unguents. No eye liner. No skin creme. No lipstick even, most of the time. Maybe a very subtle touch of eye-shadow if they were feeling daring - after school!
And they looked radiant!
Like bowls overflowing with peaches and cream. Strawberries, apricots, cherries, and tart little apples pearled with dew.
Ashy. Hmmpph!
No one smelled fruity floral then either. Just regular green soap, alleviated perhaps by the refreshing fragrance of dark rolling tobaccos.
Perfume and factory-mades are for losers.
Northern California, such a rotten place.
So self-indulgent, so Roman. Feh!
Noah, saddle up the Ark again - we're leaving!
It is war. Combat duty, and horrors beyond belief.
Plus skin goo.
QUOTE:
"They worry about their arms, and their legs. They have to be completely moisturized at all times..."
END QUOTE.
SOURCE:
http://balabustabluejeans.blogspot.com/2009/11/oceans-of-lotions.html
Okay, that doesn't sound too bad at all.
I'll be the first to admit that high-school girls should, under ideal circumstances, be soft and smooth to the touch.
QUOTE:
"They run around screaming "Does anyone have lotion?"
END QUOTE.
Screaming? Girls do not scream. There's something wrong if they're screaming.
QUOTE:
"Then, just in case they might not smell fruity-floral enough, they pull whole bottles of body spray or cologne out of their lockers, and spritz each other until the whole place smells like Bath and Bodyworks after a bad earthquake."
END QUOTE.
[Read BBJ's blog here: http://balabustabluejeans.blogspot.com/ ]
DAMP AND SWEET-SMELLING!
Good freakin' heavens! When I was a kid, back before Noah set sail on his round-the-world voyage, there were no spritzes and body lotions!
Just stuff in a brown glass bottle from the chemist.
With a squirt-attachment at the top.
This is war, soldier, and don't you forget it!
My dad and I would irritate the spit out of my severe older brother by flamboyantly and extravegantly using a hand-lotion(!) in the middle of winter for our chapped skin. We would squeeze some out, then sensually slide it up and down our fingers, restoring to health the delicate masculine membranes that had been exposed to the harsh Dutch climate, softly and smoothly rubbing it into the cracked and calloused areas. Mmmmmmm!
Hand lotion - it was the ONLY lotion available at the local stores. And it was pink, and faintly perfumed.
VERY FEMMY!
Such unmanly decadence disgusted Tobias.
He cringed at the depravity thus displayed by his father and his effete younger brother.
The local high school girls used no lotions. No lip balm. No spritzed spray. No expensive oils and unguents. No eye liner. No skin creme. No lipstick even, most of the time. Maybe a very subtle touch of eye-shadow if they were feeling daring - after school!
And they looked radiant!
Like bowls overflowing with peaches and cream. Strawberries, apricots, cherries, and tart little apples pearled with dew.
Ashy. Hmmpph!
No one smelled fruity floral then either. Just regular green soap, alleviated perhaps by the refreshing fragrance of dark rolling tobaccos.
Perfume and factory-mades are for losers.
Northern California, such a rotten place.
So self-indulgent, so Roman. Feh!
Noah, saddle up the Ark again - we're leaving!
TIME FOR SERIOUS FUN!
One day. Just ONE measly day. That's all we get. Other groups, far smaller than us, are given way more time.
But apparently we're too whitish, too wasp, too boring and too darn successful at flying in under the radar.
What am I on about?
This:
January: Jewish Heritage Month;
February: Black History Month / African American History Month;
March: National Women's History Month / Irish-American Culture Month / Sobriety Workshops Month;
April: Asian Pacific Islander Month / Confederate Heritage Month;
May: Asian Pacific Heritage Month / Haitian Heritage Month / Halifax Asian Heritage Month / Jewish-American Heritage Month / Latino Heritage Month / National Parks Month / Older Americans Month / Restricted Access Month / Ukrainian Dance Month / Zoological Gardens Month;
June: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Heritage Month / Caribbean Heritage Month / Portuguese Heritage Month / Greco-American Heritage Month;
September - October: National Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15);
October: National Italian American Heritage Month / National Disability Employment Awareness Month / Polish American Heritage Month;
November: National American Indian Heritage Month / National Retail Month;
December: Universal Human Rights Month.
--- --- ---
"DUTCH-AMERICAN HERITAGE DAY"
That's right. TODAY. November sixteenth. Kiss my toe, bitches, it's all about me.
Us.
[One day? That's it?!?! One stinkin' day? Just ONE? One measly darn day in the middle of nothing, just twenty four tiddly hours, not even an extra few days for the hang-over after the parade!!!!! What, no parade either? You gave those drunks their own month to recover all green and pasty-faced, and we've even been here longer than they have too! Only one gloomy buck-autumn day with fog and sleet, no sunshine, no cheer, one short day. Hmmmph! We gave you Humphrey Bogart, Meryl Streep, and Audrey Hepburn! Cheese! Yachts and sloops! Bulwark, boulevard, and several other useful things! Scalping! We taught the natives about scalping! How useful is that?!?
Don't anybody DARE mention Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates - you can take those "silver skates", hammer 'em till there's naught left but sharp corners, and stick 'em in your ear. Yeah, pound some sand after 'em too! One. Freeking. Lousy. Stinking. Autumn. Day. One day. Gee, thanks, dudes. Thanks for remembering. One. Day. One. ]
On the other hand, once you're sick and tired of all those month-long celebrations (four weeks of hotsy totsy - how can you stand it all?!?), Dutch-American Heritage DAY (November 16) must come as a relief.
Clogs and illicit substances - whoopee!
Go ahead and make happy.
But apparently we're too whitish, too wasp, too boring and too darn successful at flying in under the radar.
What am I on about?
This:
January: Jewish Heritage Month;
February: Black History Month / African American History Month;
March: National Women's History Month / Irish-American Culture Month / Sobriety Workshops Month;
April: Asian Pacific Islander Month / Confederate Heritage Month;
May: Asian Pacific Heritage Month / Haitian Heritage Month / Halifax Asian Heritage Month / Jewish-American Heritage Month / Latino Heritage Month / National Parks Month / Older Americans Month / Restricted Access Month / Ukrainian Dance Month / Zoological Gardens Month;
June: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Heritage Month / Caribbean Heritage Month / Portuguese Heritage Month / Greco-American Heritage Month;
September - October: National Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15);
October: National Italian American Heritage Month / National Disability Employment Awareness Month / Polish American Heritage Month;
November: National American Indian Heritage Month / National Retail Month;
December: Universal Human Rights Month.
--- --- ---
"DUTCH-AMERICAN HERITAGE DAY"
That's right. TODAY. November sixteenth. Kiss my toe, bitches, it's all about me.
Us.
[One day? That's it?!?! One stinkin' day? Just ONE? One measly darn day in the middle of nothing, just twenty four tiddly hours, not even an extra few days for the hang-over after the parade!!!!! What, no parade either? You gave those drunks their own month to recover all green and pasty-faced, and we've even been here longer than they have too! Only one gloomy buck-autumn day with fog and sleet, no sunshine, no cheer, one short day. Hmmmph! We gave you Humphrey Bogart, Meryl Streep, and Audrey Hepburn! Cheese! Yachts and sloops! Bulwark, boulevard, and several other useful things! Scalping! We taught the natives about scalping! How useful is that?!?
Don't anybody DARE mention Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates - you can take those "silver skates", hammer 'em till there's naught left but sharp corners, and stick 'em in your ear. Yeah, pound some sand after 'em too! One. Freeking. Lousy. Stinking. Autumn. Day. One day. Gee, thanks, dudes. Thanks for remembering. One. Day. One. ]
On the other hand, once you're sick and tired of all those month-long celebrations (four weeks of hotsy totsy - how can you stand it all?!?), Dutch-American Heritage DAY (November 16) must come as a relief.
Clogs and illicit substances - whoopee!
Go ahead and make happy.
Friday, November 13, 2009
SOME ARE FOR YOU, SOME ARE FOR ME. REMEMBER THAT. MORE. ME.
Years ago at a law office where I worked, management would always append the statement "please print this out for the Luddites" on their company-wide e-mails. There was an entire row of offices on the seventh floor inhabited by crusty old coots who still used typewriters, quill, and ink, and refused to have one of those newfangled capooter things in their office.
Their secretaries were long suffering. But had the clearest handwriting and best printers in the office.
I still blog, which is apparently 'old-fashioned'. I hardly use Facebook, or Hyves (the Dutch equivalent of FB). And I certainly don't tweet. Twittering is for birdies. I am Ludd.
Except that I have just discovered one (1) benefit to Twitter:
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
It's the twitter tweetings (or whatever you call it) of Justin, who is 29 and lives with his 73 year-old dad. Who is awesome. Justin tweets his dad's utterances.
QUOTE:
"I hate paying bills... Son, don't say "me too." I didn't say that looking to relate to you. I said it instead of "go away."
END QUOTE.
I suspect that Justin's dad, Sam Halpern, may be a Luddite. That's not really important. The thing is he expresses himself in a way we would all wish to do when we reach his age. With gusto.
Their secretaries were long suffering. But had the clearest handwriting and best printers in the office.
I still blog, which is apparently 'old-fashioned'. I hardly use Facebook, or Hyves (the Dutch equivalent of FB). And I certainly don't tweet. Twittering is for birdies. I am Ludd.
Except that I have just discovered one (1) benefit to Twitter:
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
It's the twitter tweetings (or whatever you call it) of Justin, who is 29 and lives with his 73 year-old dad. Who is awesome. Justin tweets his dad's utterances.
QUOTE:
"I hate paying bills... Son, don't say "me too." I didn't say that looking to relate to you. I said it instead of "go away."
END QUOTE.
I suspect that Justin's dad, Sam Halpern, may be a Luddite. That's not really important. The thing is he expresses himself in a way we would all wish to do when we reach his age. With gusto.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
FOOD IS ALSO FORTY TWO
One of my readers wishes that I would post more food stuff, as apparently my attempts to provide an answer to life, the universe, and everything, are complicated and too long.
[In case you were wondering, the answer to life, the universe, and everything, is 42. Which is six times nine in base thirteen. Proof positive of a plot. Proof.]
The previous several hundred posts all provided answers to life, the universe, and everything. Or so I have been told. It was boring.
--- --- ---
Very well. Food. Two recipes for fish.
Both are from the Netherlands.
FOREL IN MOSTERD SAUS
Trout in a mustard sauce
A largish trout, gutted and scaled, with the head and tail left on.
A cup of sliced mushrooms.
One or two shallots, sliced.
Chopped parsley.
Salt, pepper, butter and olive oil, good mustard, sherry, lemon juice.
Boiled quartered potatoes.
Flour.
Fry the shallots in a little olive oil and butter, add the mushrooms and gild. Then add more butter, one or two tablespoons of mustard, and stir around about to break up and cook the mustard. Add the sherry and lemon juice. Keep warm.
Dredge the trout, fry golden on both sides. When done place in the centre of a platter rimmed with the cooked potatoes.
Now pour the mustard sauce over the fish and garnish with chopped parsley. Parsley, by the way, is good for the digestion.
PALING OP BIER
Eel in beer
Two pounds cleaned and chunked eel.
Two onions, coarse chopped.
Plenty carrot and celery, ditto.
Two bottles of amber ale or Anchor Steam Beer.
Plenty of chopped parsley.
Salt, pepper.
Butter and olive oil.
Marinate the eel with the onion, carrot, parsley, and celery in the beer for half a day. Sieve, reserving the liquid, vegetables, and fish separately. Gild the vegetable matter in the butter and olive oil. Add the reserved liquid, raise to a boil, simmer for about fifteen to twenty minutes.
In a separate pan seethe the eel in butter and oil till the flesh is opaque. Pour the flavoured beery broth through a sieve over the eel. Simmer for twenty minutes. Garnish with chopped parsley. And serve with new potatoes.
Bon gusto.
MORE FOOD
There are, in mittn drinnen, some recipes that you might like here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/01/treif-in-four-plates-palakpak-panggarap.html
[PALAKPAK: Mixed vegetables cooked soupy with shrimp-paste. PANGGARAP: Mixed vegetables cooked soupy and tangy. MANOK TJEAP KARE / KUI TJEAP KARE: Scant-sauced curried chicken chunks. SU-ONG BA: Simmered fatty pork with mushrooms and tomato.]
There is a nice recipe for chicken here:
Bulelitja
[A whole chicken, pale-cooked for presentation. The coconut broth is barely tinged with turmeric, to the faintest of yellow. Traditional ]
For other recipes, see my other blog: http://cookingwithalizard.blogspot.com/
I haven't updated it in while, but one of these days, one of these days.
[In case you were wondering, the answer to life, the universe, and everything, is 42. Which is six times nine in base thirteen. Proof positive of a plot. Proof.]
The previous several hundred posts all provided answers to life, the universe, and everything. Or so I have been told. It was boring.
--- --- ---
Very well. Food. Two recipes for fish.
Both are from the Netherlands.
FOREL IN MOSTERD SAUS
Trout in a mustard sauce
A largish trout, gutted and scaled, with the head and tail left on.
A cup of sliced mushrooms.
One or two shallots, sliced.
Chopped parsley.
Salt, pepper, butter and olive oil, good mustard, sherry, lemon juice.
Boiled quartered potatoes.
Flour.
Fry the shallots in a little olive oil and butter, add the mushrooms and gild. Then add more butter, one or two tablespoons of mustard, and stir around about to break up and cook the mustard. Add the sherry and lemon juice. Keep warm.
Dredge the trout, fry golden on both sides. When done place in the centre of a platter rimmed with the cooked potatoes.
Now pour the mustard sauce over the fish and garnish with chopped parsley. Parsley, by the way, is good for the digestion.
PALING OP BIER
Eel in beer
Two pounds cleaned and chunked eel.
Two onions, coarse chopped.
Plenty carrot and celery, ditto.
Two bottles of amber ale or Anchor Steam Beer.
Plenty of chopped parsley.
Salt, pepper.
Butter and olive oil.
Marinate the eel with the onion, carrot, parsley, and celery in the beer for half a day. Sieve, reserving the liquid, vegetables, and fish separately. Gild the vegetable matter in the butter and olive oil. Add the reserved liquid, raise to a boil, simmer for about fifteen to twenty minutes.
In a separate pan seethe the eel in butter and oil till the flesh is opaque. Pour the flavoured beery broth through a sieve over the eel. Simmer for twenty minutes. Garnish with chopped parsley. And serve with new potatoes.
Bon gusto.
MORE FOOD
There are, in mittn drinnen, some recipes that you might like here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/01/treif-in-four-plates-palakpak-panggarap.html
[PALAKPAK: Mixed vegetables cooked soupy with shrimp-paste. PANGGARAP: Mixed vegetables cooked soupy and tangy. MANOK TJEAP KARE / KUI TJEAP KARE: Scant-sauced curried chicken chunks. SU-ONG BA: Simmered fatty pork with mushrooms and tomato.]
There is a nice recipe for chicken here:
Bulelitja
[A whole chicken, pale-cooked for presentation. The coconut broth is barely tinged with turmeric, to the faintest of yellow. Traditional ]
For other recipes, see my other blog: http://cookingwithalizard.blogspot.com/
I haven't updated it in while, but one of these days, one of these days.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
KOSHER CHICKEN QUANDARY
A friend often says that there is no such thing as free association, everyone eventually pays.
Truer words were seldom spoken.
If you aren't Jewish, this post will baffle you. If you ARE Jewish, you will probably not be baffled, though you may be baffled - but NOT "baffled" baffled.
If you know what I mean.
In Maseches Shabbos, in the discussion of Eruvim (permitted space that one may utilize on Shabbes), Rav Ashi asks about chickens, citing as example the chicken who crosses the road (being one of four chickens mentioned in the Talmud).
Shammai holds (in Maseches Yuma) that if the chicken forgot to say the appropriate blessing (brocho) and is still within the boundaries of the eruv (in this case the road), he must say the blessing at that moment (and opines that this is a mitzvah she ha zman grama - a blessing with a time component, and hence halachically (according to Talmudic laws) a female chicken does not have to say the blessing).
Rabbi Hillel, however, avers that as long as the chicken is within sight of the road, the blessing must be said, and clarifies that it is sufficient for the chicken to hear the blessing, as an immature or female chicken is not obligated to recite it - the blessing is in the mitzvah and the hearing thereof at the appropriate time, not necessarily the utterance thereof.
Discuss.
------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
RESHUS = Domain, observance, limitation, entity. Distinguish two types: rechus ha yachid (a private domain; yachid = private, unitary, solus) and rechus ha rabim ( a public domain, a street space). An eruv chatzeiros essentially has to be entirely enclosed, and can include either type of space – provided that the space is entirely within the evident bounds of the eruv. The problem arises when an object occupies space that transcends the boundaries (me’reshus l’reshus), such as a broken or rolling egg, which can inadvertently become reshus ha rabim.
KARMELIS = A bog. A damp space without walls, one of the four categories of domain of the Sabbath (private space, public space, bog, emptiness). One may not transfer anything between domains (one is forbidden to carry on the Sabbath), so if the ambulatory chicken has layed an egg, as chickens are wont to do, within the karmelis, it has to be left there until motzei shabbes - one cannot transfer it to the refrigerator (that being a reshus ha barad).
MELACHA = Work, labour - specifically as it relates to activities forbidden on the Sabbath, such as laying an egg, unless it is a case of pikuach nefesh.
If it merely pleases the chicken (meaning, if it brings pleasure, joy, or a sense of relief to the bird), and abstention does not harm her, then, keeping in mind the natural progression within the hen's oviduct of a series of eggs, the extrusion of said egg falls under the issur of borer.
[The eggshell is approximately 95% calcium carbonate crystals, which the protein matrix stabilizes - lacking the protein, the crystal structure would be far too brittle to keep its form. The standard avian eggshell is a porous structure covered on its outer surface with a cuticle which helps the egg retain the water within, and bars bacteria from without. As the eggs develop within the bird's hindmost part, the shell is formed as a liquid mineral layer around the extra-embryonic membranes, bediavad.]
Deriving any benefit from the (shabbes-layed) egg is considered an issur d'rabbanan, whereas actually consuming it is assur mi d'oraiso, IN ADDITION TO THE PROHIBITION OF NOLAD (see Sefer Ha Teruma).
But note, the Mechabar is less stringent than the Rama in this regard, ruling lechatchila.
However, if the egg was layed absent-mindedly ('beshogeig') during twilight on Friday, Rav Meir holds that one may benefit from it on Shabbes, because Chazal did not impose a penalty when the action was beshogeig. According to Rav Yehuda, however, one may not benefit from this egg on Shabbes, except beshas hadechak (in a 'situation of pressure' or even extreme necessity).
The Rif, Rambam, Baal Halachos Gedolos, Sheiltos, Ramban and Rosh all rule in accordance with Rav Yehuda.
Es bleibt a machlokes.
AV MELACHA = Literally, the father of labour. The term means a primary cause or action involved in work, which is forbidden on the Sabbath. Like with Tumah (pollution), one can distinguish between primary melacha, and subsequent melacha (Tolados). Any acts which were performed in laying the egg qualify as av melacha, and are specifically forbidden on shabbes. All tolados which resemble in effect, and derive from, the avos melachos are of course also forbidden. There are 39 avos melachos.
Now note that while LAYING the egg is, clearly, an av melacha, eggs themselves are by their very nature tolados. This is obvious!
PS. Please assume that the chicken will daven with kavanah.
Truer words were seldom spoken.
If you aren't Jewish, this post will baffle you. If you ARE Jewish, you will probably not be baffled, though you may be baffled - but NOT "baffled" baffled.
If you know what I mean.
In Maseches Shabbos, in the discussion of Eruvim (permitted space that one may utilize on Shabbes), Rav Ashi asks about chickens, citing as example the chicken who crosses the road (being one of four chickens mentioned in the Talmud).
Shammai holds (in Maseches Yuma) that if the chicken forgot to say the appropriate blessing (brocho) and is still within the boundaries of the eruv (in this case the road), he must say the blessing at that moment (and opines that this is a mitzvah she ha zman grama - a blessing with a time component, and hence halachically (according to Talmudic laws) a female chicken does not have to say the blessing).
Rabbi Hillel, however, avers that as long as the chicken is within sight of the road, the blessing must be said, and clarifies that it is sufficient for the chicken to hear the blessing, as an immature or female chicken is not obligated to recite it - the blessing is in the mitzvah and the hearing thereof at the appropriate time, not necessarily the utterance thereof.
Discuss.
------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
RESHUS = Domain, observance, limitation, entity. Distinguish two types: rechus ha yachid (a private domain; yachid = private, unitary, solus) and rechus ha rabim ( a public domain, a street space). An eruv chatzeiros essentially has to be entirely enclosed, and can include either type of space – provided that the space is entirely within the evident bounds of the eruv. The problem arises when an object occupies space that transcends the boundaries (me’reshus l’reshus), such as a broken or rolling egg, which can inadvertently become reshus ha rabim.
KARMELIS = A bog. A damp space without walls, one of the four categories of domain of the Sabbath (private space, public space, bog, emptiness). One may not transfer anything between domains (one is forbidden to carry on the Sabbath), so if the ambulatory chicken has layed an egg, as chickens are wont to do, within the karmelis, it has to be left there until motzei shabbes - one cannot transfer it to the refrigerator (that being a reshus ha barad).
MELACHA = Work, labour - specifically as it relates to activities forbidden on the Sabbath, such as laying an egg, unless it is a case of pikuach nefesh.
If it merely pleases the chicken (meaning, if it brings pleasure, joy, or a sense of relief to the bird), and abstention does not harm her, then, keeping in mind the natural progression within the hen's oviduct of a series of eggs, the extrusion of said egg falls under the issur of borer.
[The eggshell is approximately 95% calcium carbonate crystals, which the protein matrix stabilizes - lacking the protein, the crystal structure would be far too brittle to keep its form. The standard avian eggshell is a porous structure covered on its outer surface with a cuticle which helps the egg retain the water within, and bars bacteria from without. As the eggs develop within the bird's hindmost part, the shell is formed as a liquid mineral layer around the extra-embryonic membranes, bediavad.]
Deriving any benefit from the (shabbes-layed) egg is considered an issur d'rabbanan, whereas actually consuming it is assur mi d'oraiso, IN ADDITION TO THE PROHIBITION OF NOLAD (see Sefer Ha Teruma).
But note, the Mechabar is less stringent than the Rama in this regard, ruling lechatchila.
However, if the egg was layed absent-mindedly ('beshogeig') during twilight on Friday, Rav Meir holds that one may benefit from it on Shabbes, because Chazal did not impose a penalty when the action was beshogeig. According to Rav Yehuda, however, one may not benefit from this egg on Shabbes, except beshas hadechak (in a 'situation of pressure' or even extreme necessity).
The Rif, Rambam, Baal Halachos Gedolos, Sheiltos, Ramban and Rosh all rule in accordance with Rav Yehuda.
Es bleibt a machlokes.
AV MELACHA = Literally, the father of labour. The term means a primary cause or action involved in work, which is forbidden on the Sabbath. Like with Tumah (pollution), one can distinguish between primary melacha, and subsequent melacha (Tolados). Any acts which were performed in laying the egg qualify as av melacha, and are specifically forbidden on shabbes. All tolados which resemble in effect, and derive from, the avos melachos are of course also forbidden. There are 39 avos melachos.
Now note that while LAYING the egg is, clearly, an av melacha, eggs themselves are by their very nature tolados. This is obvious!
PS. Please assume that the chicken will daven with kavanah.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
MANFULLY RESISTING TEMPTATION
As usual, the level of stupidity in the comments underneath articles in the Telegraaf has sunk to a low which heretofore I had not thought possible.
But, because my readers have already been exposed to previous examples of Dutch idiocy (it never seems to be the educated classes that comment underneath Dutch newspaper articles), I shall refrain from presenting a selection in translation. Resist the temptation, not give in to provocation.
I shall exercise self-control.
And I shall not yield.
I'll just point you towards the articles that excited the morons.
[Well-educated Dutch have better things to do than comment under newspaper articles in the Telegraaf. That isn't surprising.]
SANCTIONS
This article is about US sanctions against individuals and corporations who are involved in money laundering for two Columbian gangsters:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5291007/__VS-sancties_tegen_NL_bedrijven__.html?p=4,1
There are two Dutch companies mentioned, Colombia Real Estate Development and Arawak Holding.
Consequently, at least nine people (as of this writing) wish to demonstrate that they are half-wits, coke-heads, narco-terrorists, or very typical Dutch unemployables.
As well as being rabidly, insanely anti-American.
COUNTRY BRANDING
In this rather meaningless piece, the results of the Country Brand Index 2009 are detailed - the Netherlands sank to 26th. place, the United States remains in first place.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/reiskrant/5289508/__Reputatie_Nederland_achteruit__.html?p=27,1
Trust me, very many twentysixth-placers are livid.
Gibberingly and ineloquently so.
As well as being rabidly, insanely anti-American.
PRECOCIOUS CHILD
There is ONE article with a comment that is worth translating:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5288527/__Jochie__5__randt_meisjes_aan__.html?p=30,2
The piece reports that a five year-old boy is accused of molesting two classmates at a school in Queensland, Australia.
You know where Australia is, don't you?
It's that big BIG blob to the south-east of Indonesia (which had once been the Dutch East Indies, till August 17, 1945).
Out there in the Pacific. Other side of the world. Directly under the Spice Islands (the 'Moluccas' - a former Dutch possession) and New Guinea (the western half of the island was ruled by the Dutch untill 1962).
Australia is big - you can't miss it. Really big.
I mean really REALLY big.
It's huge.
QUOTE:
Maar dan zou ik ook graag weten wat men hier met aanranden bedoeld. Er is een groot verschil tussen aanranden en verkrachten. Heeft het jongetje misschien onder de rokjes van de meisjes gekeken ? Dan heb je in de USA altijd een reden om een trauma te hebben. Altijd lekker overdrijven daar in Amerika.
Michel, Deventer 15:34 10.11.09
END QUOTE.
Translation: "But I would then also like to know what is meant by 'molestation'. There is a big difference between 'molestation' and 'rape'. Did the little tyke perhaps look under the girls skirts? In that case you will always have a reason in the USA to be traumatized. They always exaggerate things so in America."
The next two dozen commenters were far too busy speculating about child-sex (obviously a juicy subject deeply fascinating to many of them) to even notice that Michel has a major hole in his geographic knowledge.
We in the US know that we are not Australia - but several readers of the Telegraaf, who know everything there is to know about molestation, do not know this.
Either that or they are certain that there is no difference, all of us English speakers are probably alike anyway.
Bah, English speakers! Feh!
You should see some of the venom they write under articles that mention England.
They're not just rabidly, insanely anti-American.
They also furiously despise the English, Scots, Irish, New Zealanders, and Australians.
In addition to Americans.
The only English speakers that ignorant Dutch xenophobes appear not to dislike are Canadians. Oh, and the Welsh - but you'd have a hard time arguing that the Welsh are actually English speakers.
Many Dutch aren't aware of it. And the Dutch, as is well known, are always right.
But, because my readers have already been exposed to previous examples of Dutch idiocy (it never seems to be the educated classes that comment underneath Dutch newspaper articles), I shall refrain from presenting a selection in translation. Resist the temptation, not give in to provocation.
I shall exercise self-control.
And I shall not yield.
I'll just point you towards the articles that excited the morons.
[Well-educated Dutch have better things to do than comment under newspaper articles in the Telegraaf. That isn't surprising.]
SANCTIONS
This article is about US sanctions against individuals and corporations who are involved in money laundering for two Columbian gangsters:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5291007/__VS-sancties_tegen_NL_bedrijven__.html?p=4,1
There are two Dutch companies mentioned, Colombia Real Estate Development and Arawak Holding.
Consequently, at least nine people (as of this writing) wish to demonstrate that they are half-wits, coke-heads, narco-terrorists, or very typical Dutch unemployables.
As well as being rabidly, insanely anti-American.
COUNTRY BRANDING
In this rather meaningless piece, the results of the Country Brand Index 2009 are detailed - the Netherlands sank to 26th. place, the United States remains in first place.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/reiskrant/5289508/__Reputatie_Nederland_achteruit__.html?p=27,1
Trust me, very many twentysixth-placers are livid.
Gibberingly and ineloquently so.
As well as being rabidly, insanely anti-American.
PRECOCIOUS CHILD
There is ONE article with a comment that is worth translating:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5288527/__Jochie__5__randt_meisjes_aan__.html?p=30,2
The piece reports that a five year-old boy is accused of molesting two classmates at a school in Queensland, Australia.
You know where Australia is, don't you?
It's that big BIG blob to the south-east of Indonesia (which had once been the Dutch East Indies, till August 17, 1945).
Out there in the Pacific. Other side of the world. Directly under the Spice Islands (the 'Moluccas' - a former Dutch possession) and New Guinea (the western half of the island was ruled by the Dutch untill 1962).
Australia is big - you can't miss it. Really big.
I mean really REALLY big.
It's huge.
QUOTE:
Maar dan zou ik ook graag weten wat men hier met aanranden bedoeld. Er is een groot verschil tussen aanranden en verkrachten. Heeft het jongetje misschien onder de rokjes van de meisjes gekeken ? Dan heb je in de USA altijd een reden om een trauma te hebben. Altijd lekker overdrijven daar in Amerika.
Michel, Deventer 15:34 10.11.09
END QUOTE.
Translation: "But I would then also like to know what is meant by 'molestation'. There is a big difference between 'molestation' and 'rape'. Did the little tyke perhaps look under the girls skirts? In that case you will always have a reason in the USA to be traumatized. They always exaggerate things so in America."
The next two dozen commenters were far too busy speculating about child-sex (obviously a juicy subject deeply fascinating to many of them) to even notice that Michel has a major hole in his geographic knowledge.
We in the US know that we are not Australia - but several readers of the Telegraaf, who know everything there is to know about molestation, do not know this.
Either that or they are certain that there is no difference, all of us English speakers are probably alike anyway.
Bah, English speakers! Feh!
You should see some of the venom they write under articles that mention England.
They're not just rabidly, insanely anti-American.
They also furiously despise the English, Scots, Irish, New Zealanders, and Australians.
In addition to Americans.
The only English speakers that ignorant Dutch xenophobes appear not to dislike are Canadians. Oh, and the Welsh - but you'd have a hard time arguing that the Welsh are actually English speakers.
Many Dutch aren't aware of it. And the Dutch, as is well known, are always right.
Monday, November 09, 2009
HOT ASIAN BABES AND FOOD!
I may have mentioned this before, but Asian women and food are a wonderful combination. Truly.
Not that I'm suggesting that you go out of your way to mix them, or even put them in the same container.
Last Friday Savage Kitten and I went to dinner at Kim Thang. We usually go there several times a year.
[Kim Thanh Vietnamese Chinese Restaurant: Kam Seng Tsan-teng (Cantonese pronunciation), 金城餐廳 located at 607 Geary Street, at Jones, three blocks West of Union Square.]
My heavens, that woman loves to eat. There's nothing quite like watching a petite Cantonese-American woman tuck into chow. It is a sight to behold.
Except, of course, that eating with her can sometimes be stressful. Especially when she's on a seafood kick.
That is when she will over-order in one category, and seemingly forget that there are also many other things to eat.
I like seafood too, but not quite to that degree. She, being as I mentioned, Cantonese American, can devour half the ocean at one gulp. Swallow the Leviathan, provided it is supremely fresh, and properly prepared.
[I'm guessing leviathan steamed (蒸), with some shredded ginger and a drizzle of dark sesame oil. Salted black beans (dowsee 豆豉) also, if it is a leviathan of several summers.]
She ordered two plates of oysters - one battered and deep-fried (jar ho 炸蠔), one steamed with green chilies, cilantro, scallion, ginger (tsing ho 蒸蠔).
Oysters (ho 蠔) are very good for small women, menstruating women, and women who have given blood recently or will be giving blood soon. Very healthy food.
Oysters are high in iron, yet low in cholesterol and fats. Small women, menstruating women, and women who have given blood recently or will be giving blood soon all need that extra iron.
She is most of those things, I am not a single one of them.
TWO BIG PLATES OF OYSTERS!
I was, naturally, a bit wankel all weekend because of it. Crotchety and goutish on Saturday, which necessitated a visit to an Indian restaurant to recover..... except, of course, that Indian restaurants make everything with ghee.
Did I already mention gout?
Oysters are also good for the sex drive. So I am not, in principle, opposed to two plates of oysters. Common sense will occasionally take a back seat, despite a propensity towards gout.
But that brings up another matter, namely a time several years ago when we were also at Kim Thang.
DREAMY JAPANESE BOMB SHELL
While I cannot remember what we ordered, Savage Kitten remembers it in detail. And she also remembers the young Japanese girl one table over who only ordered the steamed oysters, nothing else.
After the waiter put the large platter with the big, big steamed oysters down in front of her, the Japanese girl languorously picked up her chopsticks, and paused to lovingly stroke the mollusks with her eyes, drinking in the beauty of the pearlescent shell-lining, the glistening custard-like lumps of bivalve, jade green shreds of cilantro and scallion, emerald chili pepper...... her eyes narrowed as she dreamily prepared for that first bite, lifting a quivery morsel to her moistened, gently parting lips.......
Savage Kitten says it was the sexiest thing she has ever seen.
But she probably means the food, not the girl.
I, unfortunately, cannot remember either, as I was stuffing my face at the time. I would have liked to remember both, because Asian women and food are a wonderful combination. But the cooking at Kim Thang is such that it easily distracts me, and when you are already dining with one fabulous babe, it isn't good manners to oogle someone else.
=====================================
NOTE: One of my other favourite Vietnamese Restaurants is My Canh on Broadway, between Grant and Stockton, across the street from what used to be the Hotel Colon (now called the Sam Wong).
[My Canh Vietnamese Cuisine: Mei Cheng Yuet-Nam Tsan Gwun (Cantonese pronunciation) 美景越南餐館 626 Broadway.]
The food is decent though not spectacular, and late at night it is even exciting.
But the best part is the maitresse d'hotel - a woman universally known as 'Crazy Lady', from her devil-may-care attitude towards seating the teenage VietWah gangsters who eat there at three o'clock in the morning with their molls.
Seeing a four and a half foot tall woman cursing at a bunch of strapping young hoodlums, half of whom have warrants out for violent crime, is very entertaining. Especially when they quiveringly obey, and keep nice and quiet while waiting for her to assign them a table - never mind the loss of face in front of a full house, just worry that she might not let you eat!
They also know that Asian women and food are a wonderful combination.
Not that I'm suggesting that you go out of your way to mix them, or even put them in the same container.
Last Friday Savage Kitten and I went to dinner at Kim Thang. We usually go there several times a year.
[Kim Thanh Vietnamese Chinese Restaurant: Kam Seng Tsan-teng (Cantonese pronunciation), 金城餐廳 located at 607 Geary Street, at Jones, three blocks West of Union Square.]
My heavens, that woman loves to eat. There's nothing quite like watching a petite Cantonese-American woman tuck into chow. It is a sight to behold.
Except, of course, that eating with her can sometimes be stressful. Especially when she's on a seafood kick.
That is when she will over-order in one category, and seemingly forget that there are also many other things to eat.
I like seafood too, but not quite to that degree. She, being as I mentioned, Cantonese American, can devour half the ocean at one gulp. Swallow the Leviathan, provided it is supremely fresh, and properly prepared.
[I'm guessing leviathan steamed (蒸), with some shredded ginger and a drizzle of dark sesame oil. Salted black beans (dowsee 豆豉) also, if it is a leviathan of several summers.]
She ordered two plates of oysters - one battered and deep-fried (jar ho 炸蠔), one steamed with green chilies, cilantro, scallion, ginger (tsing ho 蒸蠔).
Oysters (ho 蠔) are very good for small women, menstruating women, and women who have given blood recently or will be giving blood soon. Very healthy food.
Oysters are high in iron, yet low in cholesterol and fats. Small women, menstruating women, and women who have given blood recently or will be giving blood soon all need that extra iron.
She is most of those things, I am not a single one of them.
TWO BIG PLATES OF OYSTERS!
I was, naturally, a bit wankel all weekend because of it. Crotchety and goutish on Saturday, which necessitated a visit to an Indian restaurant to recover..... except, of course, that Indian restaurants make everything with ghee.
Did I already mention gout?
Oysters are also good for the sex drive. So I am not, in principle, opposed to two plates of oysters. Common sense will occasionally take a back seat, despite a propensity towards gout.
But that brings up another matter, namely a time several years ago when we were also at Kim Thang.
DREAMY JAPANESE BOMB SHELL
While I cannot remember what we ordered, Savage Kitten remembers it in detail. And she also remembers the young Japanese girl one table over who only ordered the steamed oysters, nothing else.
After the waiter put the large platter with the big, big steamed oysters down in front of her, the Japanese girl languorously picked up her chopsticks, and paused to lovingly stroke the mollusks with her eyes, drinking in the beauty of the pearlescent shell-lining, the glistening custard-like lumps of bivalve, jade green shreds of cilantro and scallion, emerald chili pepper...... her eyes narrowed as she dreamily prepared for that first bite, lifting a quivery morsel to her moistened, gently parting lips.......
Savage Kitten says it was the sexiest thing she has ever seen.
But she probably means the food, not the girl.
I, unfortunately, cannot remember either, as I was stuffing my face at the time. I would have liked to remember both, because Asian women and food are a wonderful combination. But the cooking at Kim Thang is such that it easily distracts me, and when you are already dining with one fabulous babe, it isn't good manners to oogle someone else.
=====================================
NOTE: One of my other favourite Vietnamese Restaurants is My Canh on Broadway, between Grant and Stockton, across the street from what used to be the Hotel Colon (now called the Sam Wong).
[My Canh Vietnamese Cuisine: Mei Cheng Yuet-Nam Tsan Gwun (Cantonese pronunciation) 美景越南餐館 626 Broadway.]
The food is decent though not spectacular, and late at night it is even exciting.
But the best part is the maitresse d'hotel - a woman universally known as 'Crazy Lady', from her devil-may-care attitude towards seating the teenage VietWah gangsters who eat there at three o'clock in the morning with their molls.
Seeing a four and a half foot tall woman cursing at a bunch of strapping young hoodlums, half of whom have warrants out for violent crime, is very entertaining. Especially when they quiveringly obey, and keep nice and quiet while waiting for her to assign them a table - never mind the loss of face in front of a full house, just worry that she might not let you eat!
They also know that Asian women and food are a wonderful combination.
Friday, November 06, 2009
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
A gentleman recently came into the pipestore to enjoy a quiet smoke.
It was not to be. San Francisco is determined that your personal smoking time be as discordant, nay, disruptive even, as possible. Largely because many of the natives are discordant. And even disruptive.
[If you smoke outside, some yenta will invariably walk past and either loudly exclaim her disgust, or start yelling at you. Someone else will make a wide (and loud) detour. Yet another person will threaten to call the cops, or give you a long lecture about what a horrible degenerate you are. Children will stare at you in wonder - "mommy, that man has a piece of wood in his face!" - "Hush, darling, he's a very BAD man, just IGNORE him!" You will be thanked for ruining someone else's lungs, and a complete stranger will threaten you with a dry-cleaning bill. So you smoke at the tobacco store, or skulk near fast-food joints. Bitches.]
After he had got his pipe lit we exchanged pleasantries. He had been trying to find a substitute for the Saint Bruno Flake, which, if memory serves, was a Virginia style tobacco made from Kentucky leaf. Formerly manufactured by Ogdens. Smelled like shaving soap. Although it has also been likened to old socks and digestive tablets. Spicy and fruity at the same time, due to a top-dressing reminiscent of stale Earl Grey tea.
Not as strong in pong as the Erinmore Flake (Murrays), nor as powerful in flavour (or nicotine kick to the beitsim) as Condor by Gallaher's.
It has its loyal aficionados.
IF THE DEVIL BLENDS TOBACCO, THIS IS IT: DAEMON PUBES
As we talked I remembered the product. Not with any great affection (due to a vomitous experience many years ago), but even so with a straight face. Which was made much harder by the fact that a pilgrim outside the store appeared to be having a fit. A street person with a straw hat had found a notebook lying on the ground near the plate glass, and was happily singing from it. With verve, and what might be talent, he was translating the clearly visible sketched contents into riotous song, veritable paeans of emotion.
"If you like flakes, have you tried..." I would begin, only to discover myself drowned out.
"Eee ah, eeeeeeeh ahhhhhh, my lord, wingggsss!!!" sang the street person. The illustration that he was interpreting showed a tree with birds in it, in smudged charcoal.
"This lovely flake from Cornell and Diehl..."
"These winggggssss of fire, and feathers of flaaaaaaaame" yodeled the minstrel, gesticulating with his straw hat. There was a sail boat on the page that he sang from, no text, no musical notes. He didn't mind.
"...really very nice tobacco, with a touch of Peri......."
"Higher and higher, wings of fayarrrrrrrrrr, yeah clouds, clouds, clouds of glory!!!!!!"
Even from my perch at the back of the shop, I could tell that his teeth needed work. Specks of spittle landed on the plate glass. He was looking at a double spread - a voluptuous nude holding grapes.
His enthusiasm, having reached a very high level, made all talk inside the shop impossible.
In silence, we passed tins back and forth - the tobacconist has a large number of open tins for sampling, including Cornell & Diehl, GLPease, Germains from the Channel Islands, Esoterica, and others.
Every time someone tried to speak, as if by magic (or concentrated evil motives), the squalling from outside would interrupt.
A customer came up to the counter with some cigars from the humidor. Tom at the register tried to ask "did you remember how much these were?"
But what everyone heard (from the now fiercely vibrating songbird) was
"I shall exchange, these cruel chains, for a crimson steeeeeeeeed!!"Tom went into the humidor to note the prices, money changed hands, thank yous were mouthed, and the musical gentleman in front of the store practiced vocalizing - "eeeeh, ah, eeeeeeh, ahhh, eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"
Then he belched. Before continuing.
The other pipesmoker, having finished his bowl of University flake, loaded up on the fine product from Cornell & Diehl.
'EXHAUSTED ROOSTER'
C&D's annual blend for the 2008 Chicago Show. A tasty flake of Virginias, Dark Fired Burley and a dash of Perique.
I hope he enjoys it. Cornell & Diehl make some very good tobaccos. If I see him again, I will have to ask. I didn't stick around to find out.
Having finished my own pipe too, I headed back to the office. I'm not a very social person by any standards, and the operatic performance outside the shop had drained me.
As I turned the corner, I could hear "marble pillars, marble floors, gilded ceilings and oaken doors" floating out over Market Street.
What IS that kind of voice called? Heldentenor? Maybe a tenor buffo, but one with a very rich round sound.
It is very, very annoying.
And I think I've got acid indigestion now.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It was not to be. San Francisco is determined that your personal smoking time be as discordant, nay, disruptive even, as possible. Largely because many of the natives are discordant. And even disruptive.
[If you smoke outside, some yenta will invariably walk past and either loudly exclaim her disgust, or start yelling at you. Someone else will make a wide (and loud) detour. Yet another person will threaten to call the cops, or give you a long lecture about what a horrible degenerate you are. Children will stare at you in wonder - "mommy, that man has a piece of wood in his face!" - "Hush, darling, he's a very BAD man, just IGNORE him!" You will be thanked for ruining someone else's lungs, and a complete stranger will threaten you with a dry-cleaning bill. So you smoke at the tobacco store, or skulk near fast-food joints. Bitches.]
After he had got his pipe lit we exchanged pleasantries. He had been trying to find a substitute for the Saint Bruno Flake, which, if memory serves, was a Virginia style tobacco made from Kentucky leaf. Formerly manufactured by Ogdens. Smelled like shaving soap. Although it has also been likened to old socks and digestive tablets. Spicy and fruity at the same time, due to a top-dressing reminiscent of stale Earl Grey tea.
Not as strong in pong as the Erinmore Flake (Murrays), nor as powerful in flavour (or nicotine kick to the beitsim) as Condor by Gallaher's.
It has its loyal aficionados.
IF THE DEVIL BLENDS TOBACCO, THIS IS IT: DAEMON PUBES
As we talked I remembered the product. Not with any great affection (due to a vomitous experience many years ago), but even so with a straight face. Which was made much harder by the fact that a pilgrim outside the store appeared to be having a fit. A street person with a straw hat had found a notebook lying on the ground near the plate glass, and was happily singing from it. With verve, and what might be talent, he was translating the clearly visible sketched contents into riotous song, veritable paeans of emotion.
"If you like flakes, have you tried..." I would begin, only to discover myself drowned out.
"Eee ah, eeeeeeeh ahhhhhh, my lord, wingggsss!!!" sang the street person. The illustration that he was interpreting showed a tree with birds in it, in smudged charcoal.
"This lovely flake from Cornell and Diehl..."
"These winggggssss of fire, and feathers of flaaaaaaaame" yodeled the minstrel, gesticulating with his straw hat. There was a sail boat on the page that he sang from, no text, no musical notes. He didn't mind.
"...really very nice tobacco, with a touch of Peri......."
"Higher and higher, wings of fayarrrrrrrrrr, yeah clouds, clouds, clouds of glory!!!!!!"
Even from my perch at the back of the shop, I could tell that his teeth needed work. Specks of spittle landed on the plate glass. He was looking at a double spread - a voluptuous nude holding grapes.
His enthusiasm, having reached a very high level, made all talk inside the shop impossible.
In silence, we passed tins back and forth - the tobacconist has a large number of open tins for sampling, including Cornell & Diehl, GLPease, Germains from the Channel Islands, Esoterica, and others.
Every time someone tried to speak, as if by magic (or concentrated evil motives), the squalling from outside would interrupt.
A customer came up to the counter with some cigars from the humidor. Tom at the register tried to ask "did you remember how much these were?"
But what everyone heard (from the now fiercely vibrating songbird) was
"I shall exchange, these cruel chains, for a crimson steeeeeeeeed!!"Tom went into the humidor to note the prices, money changed hands, thank yous were mouthed, and the musical gentleman in front of the store practiced vocalizing - "eeeeh, ah, eeeeeeh, ahhh, eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"
Then he belched. Before continuing.
The other pipesmoker, having finished his bowl of University flake, loaded up on the fine product from Cornell & Diehl.
'EXHAUSTED ROOSTER'
C&D's annual blend for the 2008 Chicago Show. A tasty flake of Virginias, Dark Fired Burley and a dash of Perique.
I hope he enjoys it. Cornell & Diehl make some very good tobaccos. If I see him again, I will have to ask. I didn't stick around to find out.
Having finished my own pipe too, I headed back to the office. I'm not a very social person by any standards, and the operatic performance outside the shop had drained me.
As I turned the corner, I could hear "marble pillars, marble floors, gilded ceilings and oaken doors" floating out over Market Street.
What IS that kind of voice called? Heldentenor? Maybe a tenor buffo, but one with a very rich round sound.
It is very, very annoying.
And I think I've got acid indigestion now.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, November 05, 2009
CASUAL SEX WITH HORSES AND MONKEYS STILL PERMITTED
Just for the hell of it, more comments from the gentlefolk who read Holland's most popular newspaper (De Telegraaf).
I found the following underneath an article about a lawsuit involving a monkey.
"Gelukkig hoeven Amerikanen zelf niet na te denken, zijn ze te dom voor. "
Translation: 'Fortunately Americans do not have to think themselves, they're too dumb for that'.
[Kaatje, Helmond 20:23 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
"Maar ja in Amerika worden meeste mensen rijk door de Staat, City, of enorm grote bedrijven te dagvaarden en dan een enorme grote som geld vragen. Over rechtspraak gesproken in Nederland.....in Amerika is het helemaal niks."
Translation: 'But anyhow, in America most people get rich by suing the Governement, City, or enormously large corporations, and demanding huge amounts of money. Speaking of justice in the Netherlands .... in America it is completely ridiculous.'
[dieren liefhebber, in Nederland 15:29 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
"Typisch Amerikaans, ik doe dom en stel een ander aansprakelijk.....hoe simpel is dat volk eigenlijk??"
Translation: 'Typically American - I'll act stupid and hold someone else responsible..... how dumb is that populace anyway??'
[Thomas, Terneuzen 12:51 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
"Dit is weer zoiets wat mijn hekel aan amerikanen doet groeien, voor zover dat nog kan tenminste."
Translation: 'This is one of those things that increase my loathing for Americans, insofar as that is still possible'.
[Broodje nuchter, Amsterdam 11:17 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
There were tons of other unpleasant reactions underneath the article. Perhaps that is somewhat understandable, as it dealt with a lawsuit.
Lawsuits are not the most loveable aspect of our civilization.
[Two women, a pet chimpanzee, and a fight with both ladies which the chimpanzee won hands down. Whereupon police shot the beast, and one of the women decided to sue the state of Connecticut. ]
On the other hand, the comments underneath an article about Rodell Vereen in South Carolina being sentenced to three years in prison for repeatedly raping a horse were full of praise for the American justice system. The readers were delighted that sex with animals is illegal in the United States and fervently wish that their own government would also outlaw it.
Except, of course, for one person....
"Nou hij is in ieder geval trouw aan zijn vlam."
Translation: 'Well in any case, he's true to his love.'
[Haha, Dixie 18:19 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5254188/__Drie_jaar_cel_voor_seks_met_paard__.html?p=12,1 ]
It should be noted that Rodell Vereen had already gotten into legal trouble for 'courting' the same horse earlier....
AND ON YET THE THIRD HAND...
As regards comparisons of the justice systems in the Netherlands and America, many Dutch look longingly at our rigorous sentencing habits, judging by the comments underneath this article:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5250771/__Nederlanders__rechters__te_soft___.html?p=37,1
There are over 250 comments underneath the piece. Most agree with the premise of the article that Dutch judges are too soft, and the laws not harsh enough.
They hate our justice system...... They passionately admire our justice system.
I never even knew our justice system was capable of arousing such interest.
Except among criminals, of course.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFTERWORD
It should be noted that comments underneath newspaper articles are almost entirely without significance. So I shan't generalize, other than to say that if an article appeals to the America-haters among the Dutch many of the reactions will be venomously bigoted, and if an article criticizes the Dutch government or Dutch society, it will get many more comments...... most of them vehemently agreeing with the criticism.
The only possible conclusion is that many Dutch hate America. And despise their own government and society even more. Much much more.
It's a phenomenon which could be called 'operational schizophrenia' - an essential survival skill in the Netherlands.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM TO THE AFTERWORD
The eye-popping title of this post ('casual sex with horses and monkeys etc.') snarkily refers to the lacuna in Dutch laws as regards intercourse with animals - still legal, despite some notorious recent cases. Apparently the only codes that apply are the ones about cruelty. If the animal evinces pain or discomfort, or will testify that it caused grave psychological problems or mental anguish, then and only then will the Dutch authorities seriously pursue the matter.
Though sometimes they do step in when having sex with the animal can be construed as robbery or a public nuisance.
The title is ALSO a flagrantly opportunistic attempt to draw in readers. You see, the Telegraaf will show links to blogposts that reference their stuff. That also explains why I mention three articles - just spreading the manure in a wider arc, as it were.
A post named 'casual sex with horses and monkeys still permitted' is far more likely to attract flies than something named 'not really relevant observations regarding the readers of some of the articles in a foreign publication', don't you think?
In any case, welcome! Glad you read this far.
No animals were harmed or exploited in the writing of this post.
I found the following underneath an article about a lawsuit involving a monkey.
"Gelukkig hoeven Amerikanen zelf niet na te denken, zijn ze te dom voor. "
Translation: 'Fortunately Americans do not have to think themselves, they're too dumb for that'.
[Kaatje, Helmond 20:23 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
"Maar ja in Amerika worden meeste mensen rijk door de Staat, City, of enorm grote bedrijven te dagvaarden en dan een enorme grote som geld vragen. Over rechtspraak gesproken in Nederland.....in Amerika is het helemaal niks."
Translation: 'But anyhow, in America most people get rich by suing the Governement, City, or enormously large corporations, and demanding huge amounts of money. Speaking of justice in the Netherlands .... in America it is completely ridiculous.'
[dieren liefhebber, in Nederland 15:29 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
"Typisch Amerikaans, ik doe dom en stel een ander aansprakelijk.....hoe simpel is dat volk eigenlijk??"
Translation: 'Typically American - I'll act stupid and hold someone else responsible..... how dumb is that populace anyway??'
[Thomas, Terneuzen 12:51 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
"Dit is weer zoiets wat mijn hekel aan amerikanen doet groeien, voor zover dat nog kan tenminste."
Translation: 'This is one of those things that increase my loathing for Americans, insofar as that is still possible'.
[Broodje nuchter, Amsterdam 11:17 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5249953/__Vrouw_blind_na_aanval_chimpansee__.html?p=31,2 ]
There were tons of other unpleasant reactions underneath the article. Perhaps that is somewhat understandable, as it dealt with a lawsuit.
Lawsuits are not the most loveable aspect of our civilization.
[Two women, a pet chimpanzee, and a fight with both ladies which the chimpanzee won hands down. Whereupon police shot the beast, and one of the women decided to sue the state of Connecticut. ]
On the other hand, the comments underneath an article about Rodell Vereen in South Carolina being sentenced to three years in prison for repeatedly raping a horse were full of praise for the American justice system. The readers were delighted that sex with animals is illegal in the United States and fervently wish that their own government would also outlaw it.
Except, of course, for one person....
"Nou hij is in ieder geval trouw aan zijn vlam."
Translation: 'Well in any case, he's true to his love.'
[Haha, Dixie 18:19 05.11.09
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5254188/__Drie_jaar_cel_voor_seks_met_paard__.html?p=12,1 ]
It should be noted that Rodell Vereen had already gotten into legal trouble for 'courting' the same horse earlier....
AND ON YET THE THIRD HAND...
As regards comparisons of the justice systems in the Netherlands and America, many Dutch look longingly at our rigorous sentencing habits, judging by the comments underneath this article:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5250771/__Nederlanders__rechters__te_soft___.html?p=37,1
There are over 250 comments underneath the piece. Most agree with the premise of the article that Dutch judges are too soft, and the laws not harsh enough.
They hate our justice system...... They passionately admire our justice system.
I never even knew our justice system was capable of arousing such interest.
Except among criminals, of course.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFTERWORD
It should be noted that comments underneath newspaper articles are almost entirely without significance. So I shan't generalize, other than to say that if an article appeals to the America-haters among the Dutch many of the reactions will be venomously bigoted, and if an article criticizes the Dutch government or Dutch society, it will get many more comments...... most of them vehemently agreeing with the criticism.
The only possible conclusion is that many Dutch hate America. And despise their own government and society even more. Much much more.
It's a phenomenon which could be called 'operational schizophrenia' - an essential survival skill in the Netherlands.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM TO THE AFTERWORD
The eye-popping title of this post ('casual sex with horses and monkeys etc.') snarkily refers to the lacuna in Dutch laws as regards intercourse with animals - still legal, despite some notorious recent cases. Apparently the only codes that apply are the ones about cruelty. If the animal evinces pain or discomfort, or will testify that it caused grave psychological problems or mental anguish, then and only then will the Dutch authorities seriously pursue the matter.
Though sometimes they do step in when having sex with the animal can be construed as robbery or a public nuisance.
The title is ALSO a flagrantly opportunistic attempt to draw in readers. You see, the Telegraaf will show links to blogposts that reference their stuff. That also explains why I mention three articles - just spreading the manure in a wider arc, as it were.
A post named 'casual sex with horses and monkeys still permitted' is far more likely to attract flies than something named 'not really relevant observations regarding the readers of some of the articles in a foreign publication', don't you think?
In any case, welcome! Glad you read this far.
No animals were harmed or exploited in the writing of this post.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
THE SMELL OF HEAVEN
Last week I noticed a strange smell in our kitchen. Not one I had made - normally I am the person responsible for odours - but an unknown reek, fruity-funky-rotten, putrid even.
Being a coward, I did not say anything. Savage Kitten would have suggested that I take out the garbage once in while (like "right NOW!") instead of leaving that task to her all the time.
I need not have worried. It was her. She did it.
She had bought a durian to give to a friend the next day.
That was very sweet of her, seeing as she and durian are not simpatico.
[Savage Kitten meets durian, see this post:http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2007/09/biting-delicacies.html
For an in-depth description of durian, see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian ]
After the durian left the building the stink faded.
Which does not mean that the kitchen reverted to smelling new and fresh.
Our kitchen normally is a bit whiff.
For one thing, I smoke in there.
She insists that I not light my pipe or cigars anywhere else, as she does not wish Ms. Bruin (the senior teddy-bear, aka head room-mate, and her oldest friend in the world) to smell like smoke.
I'm usually in there several times a night because of her objection to my strong tobacco.
There always a pongus of Oriental leaf in the kitchen.
For another.......
Earlier last week she walked into the kitchen after I had fixed myself a snack and recoiled, shrieking "good Lord it smells of c*nt in here! Did you fry up a bucket of dead c**tchie?!?"
Even after I clarified that it was merely pork chunks with a little brown sugar, chilies, and garlic, with lime juice and fish sauce (!), to go with my rice, she kept wondering at the potency of the odeur. That was some eppes strong fish sauce, wow, unclean, unclean, unclean! Gevalt!
She kept ranting on about the elderly Asian women who infest the downtown clothing stores, and how the changing rooms stink of stale fish. What is it with old people, they can't smell themselves? Peee-ew! Stanky! Take a bath sometime, auntie! Use lye-soap and rag-on-a-stick why don't you?!? Makes even big white midwesterner tolerable. Heck, makes even pipe-tobacco seem like flowers!
I put that last assertion to the test by smoking a strong Balkan mixture after dinner in the teevee room.
She didn't say anything.
Gonna have to use MORE of that fish sauce.
[Fish sauce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_pla The fish sauce I used was a lovely
Huế-type clear amber liquid, with a deep rich taste. A bit expensive, but accentuates pork very nicely.]
The next morning, she cheerfully speculated that vinegar would keep the aunties happy. Better than any amount of shopping-therapy or valium. Heck, if they just rinsed themselves thoroughly with vinegar, and applied a sponge occasionally......
She seemed to have something on her mind there - a bee, so to speak, in her bonnet.
And she wondered whether it was Nobel prize material.
My contribution to the conversation was to silently smoke another pipe in the teevee room.
Normally she insists that I smoke in the kitchen - perhaps I mentioned that?
That was some darn good fish sauce.
For several days afterward she kept bringing up the subject of fishy smells in clothing stores. In actual fact, I think she was probably exaggerating, seeing as she also kept mentioning the Philippinas that haunt places like Ross and Marshalls. She is not fond of pushy Philippinas. The Philippinas, as she told it, were the principal offenders.
Which probably explains the durian in the kitchen.
Fastidious Philippinas, especially if well brought-up, eschew durian. The average Manilenyo regards the noble spike-fruit as intolerably 'country-style', why, only unreconstructed provincials would even TOUCH such a thing. Peasants and savages, hah! Malansang!
Years ago I told Savage Kitten about flying back to Manila from Cagayan De Oro after having eaten durian for breakfast. At the beginning of the flight, all seats were taken. When we landed in Manila, the seats all around me were empty. Nearly twenty seats in my immediate vicinity were deserted.
See, if you eat durian, the smell comes out of your pores. Your skin acquires 'character'. And Philippinos of good breeding have sensitive noses.
The other passengers refused to come near me.
"Wah, si mukang puti iyan mabahoooooooo! Talaga! Madre de dios!"
Durian: potent medicine against Philippinos.
I think I'll use some more of that Hue-type fish sauce tonight.
This could get interesting.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Being a coward, I did not say anything. Savage Kitten would have suggested that I take out the garbage once in while (like "right NOW!") instead of leaving that task to her all the time.
I need not have worried. It was her. She did it.
She had bought a durian to give to a friend the next day.
That was very sweet of her, seeing as she and durian are not simpatico.
[Savage Kitten meets durian, see this post:http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2007/09/biting-delicacies.html
For an in-depth description of durian, see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian ]
After the durian left the building the stink faded.
Which does not mean that the kitchen reverted to smelling new and fresh.
Our kitchen normally is a bit whiff.
For one thing, I smoke in there.
She insists that I not light my pipe or cigars anywhere else, as she does not wish Ms. Bruin (the senior teddy-bear, aka head room-mate, and her oldest friend in the world) to smell like smoke.
I'm usually in there several times a night because of her objection to my strong tobacco.
There always a pongus of Oriental leaf in the kitchen.
For another.......
Earlier last week she walked into the kitchen after I had fixed myself a snack and recoiled, shrieking "good Lord it smells of c*nt in here! Did you fry up a bucket of dead c**tchie?!?"
Even after I clarified that it was merely pork chunks with a little brown sugar, chilies, and garlic, with lime juice and fish sauce (!), to go with my rice, she kept wondering at the potency of the odeur. That was some eppes strong fish sauce, wow, unclean, unclean, unclean! Gevalt!
She kept ranting on about the elderly Asian women who infest the downtown clothing stores, and how the changing rooms stink of stale fish. What is it with old people, they can't smell themselves? Peee-ew! Stanky! Take a bath sometime, auntie! Use lye-soap and rag-on-a-stick why don't you?!? Makes even big white midwesterner tolerable. Heck, makes even pipe-tobacco seem like flowers!
I put that last assertion to the test by smoking a strong Balkan mixture after dinner in the teevee room.
She didn't say anything.
Gonna have to use MORE of that fish sauce.
[Fish sauce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_pla The fish sauce I used was a lovely
Huế-type clear amber liquid, with a deep rich taste. A bit expensive, but accentuates pork very nicely.]
The next morning, she cheerfully speculated that vinegar would keep the aunties happy. Better than any amount of shopping-therapy or valium. Heck, if they just rinsed themselves thoroughly with vinegar, and applied a sponge occasionally......
She seemed to have something on her mind there - a bee, so to speak, in her bonnet.
And she wondered whether it was Nobel prize material.
My contribution to the conversation was to silently smoke another pipe in the teevee room.
Normally she insists that I smoke in the kitchen - perhaps I mentioned that?
That was some darn good fish sauce.
For several days afterward she kept bringing up the subject of fishy smells in clothing stores. In actual fact, I think she was probably exaggerating, seeing as she also kept mentioning the Philippinas that haunt places like Ross and Marshalls. She is not fond of pushy Philippinas. The Philippinas, as she told it, were the principal offenders.
Which probably explains the durian in the kitchen.
Fastidious Philippinas, especially if well brought-up, eschew durian. The average Manilenyo regards the noble spike-fruit as intolerably 'country-style', why, only unreconstructed provincials would even TOUCH such a thing. Peasants and savages, hah! Malansang!
Years ago I told Savage Kitten about flying back to Manila from Cagayan De Oro after having eaten durian for breakfast. At the beginning of the flight, all seats were taken. When we landed in Manila, the seats all around me were empty. Nearly twenty seats in my immediate vicinity were deserted.
See, if you eat durian, the smell comes out of your pores. Your skin acquires 'character'. And Philippinos of good breeding have sensitive noses.
The other passengers refused to come near me.
"Wah, si mukang puti iyan mabahoooooooo! Talaga! Madre de dios!"
Durian: potent medicine against Philippinos.
I think I'll use some more of that Hue-type fish sauce tonight.
This could get interesting.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
NASTY SMELLY SCOTS
The Scots, as is well known, are the meanest, stingiest, penny-pinchingest, cheapest, most penuriating tightwads in the entire world. Tightest bunch of skinflinting, coin-hoarding, expense-begrudging, penny-dragging turnips in all of human history. They are very unpleasant about money.
Being a Dutchman, it gives me great pleasure to say so. We Dutch also have a modest reputation in that regard. I am happy to note that the Scots are far far worse, the bastards.
[I am American-Dutch. Not one of those rapacious and sadistic Netherlands-Dutch, not a degenerated southerner from Flanders, not a rigid and constipated Afrikaner, nor a Ceylonese or Malaccan Burger, and certainly not one of those sneering young immigrants who have decided that they might as well experience the world a bit and screw stupid Yankee chicks before going back to marry a nice girl and talk trash about Americans.]
Yes, the Scots are indeed everything they are made out to be.
Except.
They aren't.
Not really cheap, that is. A nation that produces very fine woolens, great cakes, and the best whisky in the world should NOT be called 'cheap'. High quality and 'cheap' are not on the same page.
Which makes the prevalence of Scotch pipe tobaccos among the nomenclature of so many manufacturers baffling. One would not imagine that a reputation for cheapity would be a desirable mental connection for one's product. The more so as there is no such thing as a Scotch blend - it's merely a naming convention.
SCOTS MIXTURE, SCOTS BLEND, SCOTS ROPE
The Scandinavians think it means Cavendish mixed with ribbon Burley and mild flavourings. The Dutch and the Germans call anything sauced with honey and liquor a Scotch blend. American companies think it's a Burley-Virginia mixture, or the cheapest nastiest leaf in the store dolled up with an aromatic agent, or even a cheap strong flake mixed with Perique to cut the tongue-bite.
The Scots no longer produce tobacco, and the British companies always called a darker English blend a Scots mixture.
[English blend: a goodly amount of smoke-cured leaf from Syria (Latakia), Turkish and Greek leaves, on a basis of Virginias. Maybe some Perique added, only rarely air-cured leaf, and then only Maryland, in minute quantities.]
The confusion probably stems from enterprises like Charles Rattray in Perth, who manufactured several different tobaccos, all based on full Virginia flakes. At one end of the scale, these would be blended with Virginia ribbon for smokability and Orientals for complexity. At the other end, Perique might be added, or two or three flakes mixed in proportion. Other than the assertiveness of the Virginias, the only thing they had in common was a heat-process (panning) and a brief aging period to meld the flavours.
Most Scots tobacco companies used panning or steampressing to improve their products.
[Heating tobacco, in addition to rounding the rough edges of some tobaccos and making them more gentle on the tongue, allows the addition of flavouring agents, as the leaf is receptive and will readily absorb aromas. Which, of course, explains why Charles Rattray used that method - the various tobaccos absorbed each other's characteristics, and the result was a much more uniform product.]
Much Burley is processed with heat to make it mellow. Cheaper grades of air-cured tobacco definitely also benefit from such treatment. And both Burley and cheap Virginia are common ingredients in aromatic mixtures and Cavendish. It's but a short leap to call anything made with heat-treated cheap leaf 'Scots'.
It is, however, a horrible misnomer, and a repulsive canard.
None of this has anything to do with 'Scotch Cut Mixture' by Samuel Gawith. They produced it for the 2009 Chicago Pipe Show in a limited edition. Scotch in this case probably means that they didn't know what else to call it. The tartan on the label looks like the material Ronald Reagan had suits made from, twixt dull and dowdy-garish.
SCOTCH CUT MIXTURE
Samuel Gawith
'Blended from Fine Virginias, Black Cavendish, Burley & Latakia for the Chicago Pipe Club'
This product has been described as being like an electrical fire, smouldering rubber, dead chickens, mildewed sofa, and mother-in-law repellant.
So naturally I had to try it.
It's fine.
Not enough Latakia to satisfy the members of the dark side, nor enough Burley to keep all the drug-store blend smoking old farts happy. The Virginia is excellent, but not of a type that would please smokers of flake. This is a pleasant medium strength natural mixture that would appeal to many Europeans finally making their escape from syrup-soaked Dutch and Danish steampress garbage, being a fairly neutral mixture of good quality leaf.
I cannot judge the smell - it smells okay to me. The taste is like some of the Dutch natural mixtures which lost the battle with the candy Cavendishes before most Dutch tobacco companies were sold to the Americans. The texture, too, is reminiscent of products long unavailable, being a crinkled narrow ribbon-cut that packs easily.
It is not at all perfumy, but faintly earthy - the merest echo-whisp of pasture, with a hint of cow.
All in all a decent and somewhat unremarkable product, the kind of blend one might purchase every month from the tobacconist in the nearest city while supply-shopping.
Assuming one lived out on the moors or beyond the forest.
The smell from the tin reminds me of rainy summer days years ago, when I was still living in Valkenswaard. All the day would seem dull and gloomy, and wherever you went, you switched on the light. Sitting in an unlit room made even space and the distance between objects hard to gauge, let alone details and textures. During the frequent downpours a wave of darkness enveloped the world and the falling water muffled the sounds from outside.
It was very womblike, and I thoroughly enjoyed those days.
Naturally, the comfort of the womb is much better with a good smoke.
You should probably have some tea while you're at it.
And take off those sodden socks , just hang them on a chair to dry.
You are glad to finally be inside.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Being a Dutchman, it gives me great pleasure to say so. We Dutch also have a modest reputation in that regard. I am happy to note that the Scots are far far worse, the bastards.
[I am American-Dutch. Not one of those rapacious and sadistic Netherlands-Dutch, not a degenerated southerner from Flanders, not a rigid and constipated Afrikaner, nor a Ceylonese or Malaccan Burger, and certainly not one of those sneering young immigrants who have decided that they might as well experience the world a bit and screw stupid Yankee chicks before going back to marry a nice girl and talk trash about Americans.]
Yes, the Scots are indeed everything they are made out to be.
Except.
They aren't.
Not really cheap, that is. A nation that produces very fine woolens, great cakes, and the best whisky in the world should NOT be called 'cheap'. High quality and 'cheap' are not on the same page.
Which makes the prevalence of Scotch pipe tobaccos among the nomenclature of so many manufacturers baffling. One would not imagine that a reputation for cheapity would be a desirable mental connection for one's product. The more so as there is no such thing as a Scotch blend - it's merely a naming convention.
SCOTS MIXTURE, SCOTS BLEND, SCOTS ROPE
The Scandinavians think it means Cavendish mixed with ribbon Burley and mild flavourings. The Dutch and the Germans call anything sauced with honey and liquor a Scotch blend. American companies think it's a Burley-Virginia mixture, or the cheapest nastiest leaf in the store dolled up with an aromatic agent, or even a cheap strong flake mixed with Perique to cut the tongue-bite.
The Scots no longer produce tobacco, and the British companies always called a darker English blend a Scots mixture.
[English blend: a goodly amount of smoke-cured leaf from Syria (Latakia), Turkish and Greek leaves, on a basis of Virginias. Maybe some Perique added, only rarely air-cured leaf, and then only Maryland, in minute quantities.]
The confusion probably stems from enterprises like Charles Rattray in Perth, who manufactured several different tobaccos, all based on full Virginia flakes. At one end of the scale, these would be blended with Virginia ribbon for smokability and Orientals for complexity. At the other end, Perique might be added, or two or three flakes mixed in proportion. Other than the assertiveness of the Virginias, the only thing they had in common was a heat-process (panning) and a brief aging period to meld the flavours.
Most Scots tobacco companies used panning or steampressing to improve their products.
[Heating tobacco, in addition to rounding the rough edges of some tobaccos and making them more gentle on the tongue, allows the addition of flavouring agents, as the leaf is receptive and will readily absorb aromas. Which, of course, explains why Charles Rattray used that method - the various tobaccos absorbed each other's characteristics, and the result was a much more uniform product.]
Much Burley is processed with heat to make it mellow. Cheaper grades of air-cured tobacco definitely also benefit from such treatment. And both Burley and cheap Virginia are common ingredients in aromatic mixtures and Cavendish. It's but a short leap to call anything made with heat-treated cheap leaf 'Scots'.
It is, however, a horrible misnomer, and a repulsive canard.
None of this has anything to do with 'Scotch Cut Mixture' by Samuel Gawith. They produced it for the 2009 Chicago Pipe Show in a limited edition. Scotch in this case probably means that they didn't know what else to call it. The tartan on the label looks like the material Ronald Reagan had suits made from, twixt dull and dowdy-garish.
SCOTCH CUT MIXTURE
Samuel Gawith
'Blended from Fine Virginias, Black Cavendish, Burley & Latakia for the Chicago Pipe Club'
This product has been described as being like an electrical fire, smouldering rubber, dead chickens, mildewed sofa, and mother-in-law repellant.
So naturally I had to try it.
It's fine.
Not enough Latakia to satisfy the members of the dark side, nor enough Burley to keep all the drug-store blend smoking old farts happy. The Virginia is excellent, but not of a type that would please smokers of flake. This is a pleasant medium strength natural mixture that would appeal to many Europeans finally making their escape from syrup-soaked Dutch and Danish steampress garbage, being a fairly neutral mixture of good quality leaf.
I cannot judge the smell - it smells okay to me. The taste is like some of the Dutch natural mixtures which lost the battle with the candy Cavendishes before most Dutch tobacco companies were sold to the Americans. The texture, too, is reminiscent of products long unavailable, being a crinkled narrow ribbon-cut that packs easily.
It is not at all perfumy, but faintly earthy - the merest echo-whisp of pasture, with a hint of cow.
All in all a decent and somewhat unremarkable product, the kind of blend one might purchase every month from the tobacconist in the nearest city while supply-shopping.
Assuming one lived out on the moors or beyond the forest.
The smell from the tin reminds me of rainy summer days years ago, when I was still living in Valkenswaard. All the day would seem dull and gloomy, and wherever you went, you switched on the light. Sitting in an unlit room made even space and the distance between objects hard to gauge, let alone details and textures. During the frequent downpours a wave of darkness enveloped the world and the falling water muffled the sounds from outside.
It was very womblike, and I thoroughly enjoyed those days.
Naturally, the comfort of the womb is much better with a good smoke.
You should probably have some tea while you're at it.
And take off those sodden socks , just hang them on a chair to dry.
You are glad to finally be inside.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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MINOR TWEAKING
What a man needs after dealing with the angry senescent crowd and their entitled relatives in the suburbs all weekend is a nice quiet alleyw...
