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.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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.
==========================================================================
Monday, November 02, 2009
PERVERTS IN TRAINING, REWARDED WITH CANDY
Halloween in San Francisco is better than anywhere else. We're special that way.
It isn't necessarily the spike-heeled gay transvestite vampires that make it so, although admittedly they are a large part of what makes it great. It's the total ambience.
Many people dress up. By no means all of them are gay or children.
Example ONE: A very busty and leggy Little Miss Muffet, in a dress that was short and tight, and extremely revealing, with a large mock-spider pulling down the top to nearly expose a nipple. Her panties had the word 'tuffet' stenciled across in mirror script.
Example TWO: A gentleman wearing a striped box and two discs. I thought he was an old-fashioned film camera, but when he got closer I could tell that he was the money I could have saved by calling GEICO.
Example THREE: A dry flower arrangement consisting largely of straw, corn, and twigs tied to the head and shoulders. An exotic pattern tablecloth wrapped around the torso like a sarong. The result being between angry child of the corn, Aztec priest, and Polynesian orgiast. Drunkenly shedding all over the place.
Example FOUR: A large well-muscled black man having a smoke outside my office building on Friday, wearing a short frilly blue skirt, a femmy shirt that was far too small, and a very lovely blue bonnet. Lots of leg and smooth rippling skin.
When I asked him what he was, he replied in a very deep rich voice "I'm Little Bro Peep!".
Halloween is an exercise in data-overload for some people, like the Chinese kiddie-winkies being led around by their bemused parents to collect candy. Dressing up and getting loot for doing so is a bright new idea that takes some digesting. Their parents probably got a hand-out from the school explaining the holiday and it's traditions, and the kids were then pressured into dressing up by teachers convinced that it would help them adapt faster to American society.
WAAAAAAAAAAAH!
There was a darling little four or five year old Chinese moppet on my way home on Friday with cat whiskers drawn on her cheeks. She did not look happy - probably numb with tales of poisoned candy, razor apples, healthy snacks, ghouls, goblins, batman, baby-snatchers, wizards, witches, crones, and evil stepmothers.
When a very elderly white woman leaned over to ask "and what are YOU supposed to be?", the little girl looked up with frightened eyes and just started yowling, clearly at her wits end with it all.
It was extremely cute.
She wasn't the only Chinese person not fully vested in the holiday.
Seeing the sex-gargoyles from hell trouping past on Polk Street at twilight, some Chinese parents must have wondered if encouraging their kids to dress up might not be a very bad idea.
On the other hand, such ambiguity and disturbing undertones make halloween one of my favourite times of the year.
I'll be lurking with candy at the edge of your vision now.
It isn't necessarily the spike-heeled gay transvestite vampires that make it so, although admittedly they are a large part of what makes it great. It's the total ambience.
Many people dress up. By no means all of them are gay or children.
Example ONE: A very busty and leggy Little Miss Muffet, in a dress that was short and tight, and extremely revealing, with a large mock-spider pulling down the top to nearly expose a nipple. Her panties had the word 'tuffet' stenciled across in mirror script.
Example TWO: A gentleman wearing a striped box and two discs. I thought he was an old-fashioned film camera, but when he got closer I could tell that he was the money I could have saved by calling GEICO.
Example THREE: A dry flower arrangement consisting largely of straw, corn, and twigs tied to the head and shoulders. An exotic pattern tablecloth wrapped around the torso like a sarong. The result being between angry child of the corn, Aztec priest, and Polynesian orgiast. Drunkenly shedding all over the place.
Example FOUR: A large well-muscled black man having a smoke outside my office building on Friday, wearing a short frilly blue skirt, a femmy shirt that was far too small, and a very lovely blue bonnet. Lots of leg and smooth rippling skin.
When I asked him what he was, he replied in a very deep rich voice "I'm Little Bro Peep!".
Halloween is an exercise in data-overload for some people, like the Chinese kiddie-winkies being led around by their bemused parents to collect candy. Dressing up and getting loot for doing so is a bright new idea that takes some digesting. Their parents probably got a hand-out from the school explaining the holiday and it's traditions, and the kids were then pressured into dressing up by teachers convinced that it would help them adapt faster to American society.
WAAAAAAAAAAAH!
There was a darling little four or five year old Chinese moppet on my way home on Friday with cat whiskers drawn on her cheeks. She did not look happy - probably numb with tales of poisoned candy, razor apples, healthy snacks, ghouls, goblins, batman, baby-snatchers, wizards, witches, crones, and evil stepmothers.
When a very elderly white woman leaned over to ask "and what are YOU supposed to be?", the little girl looked up with frightened eyes and just started yowling, clearly at her wits end with it all.
It was extremely cute.
She wasn't the only Chinese person not fully vested in the holiday.
Seeing the sex-gargoyles from hell trouping past on Polk Street at twilight, some Chinese parents must have wondered if encouraging their kids to dress up might not be a very bad idea.
On the other hand, such ambiguity and disturbing undertones make halloween one of my favourite times of the year.
I'll be lurking with candy at the edge of your vision now.
Friday, October 30, 2009
THE DUTCH - NOT EXACTLY GROUNDED IN REALITY
Cruised into a Dutch news site after lunch, as is my wont.
I really don't know why I bother anymore, as usually I will find something that makes me wish that the entire Netherlands would be consumed by fire and the Northsea waves.
It is a guarantee that any article mentioning crime in the US, Hollywood celebs, or some American scandal, will be graced by a flood of reader comments - the Dutch, apparently, have little interest in their own crimes or scandals, but plenty of interest in ours - and at least one of the comments will always assert that Americans are the most perverted, the most insane, the most disgusting, the most vulgar, the fattest, or the most depraved people on the planet. The very worst of something, in any case.
[Netherlanders tend to overlook their own rather ghastly qualities. Fortunately, not too long ago I detailed some things the Dutch have deliberately forgotten about here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/06/time-to-remind-yall-of-some-things.html
Please do a favour for the natives of Banda and remember these things for them, as they themselves can not do so.]
THE YOBBO READERS OF 'DE TELEGRAAF'
An article in today's Telegraaf mentioned that people with AIDS will finally be allowed to travel to the US, as president Obama intends to lift the entry ban soon. The process to lift the ban carried over from the previous administration.
The article itself is not really interesting.
QUOTE:
"Na een verbod van 22 jaar gaan de Verenigde Staten weer personen met aids of hiv toelaten tot het land. De ban wordt in 2010 beëindigd, maakte de Amerikaanse president Barack Obama vrijdag bekend. "
[Translation: 'After a ban of 22 years, the United States will again permit people with AIDS entry. The ban will end in 2010, as per American president Obama on Friday']
SOURCE:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5204987/__Mensen_met_hiv_mogen_VS_weer_in__.html?p=10,2
Plain and straightforward, nothing odd or meshune. The article, remarkably, is not anti-American.
The comments underneath are.
All three of them.
Comment 1.
tja waarom ook eigenlijk niet, het is daar toch uitgevonden ?
---C.C, Groningen 20:42 30.10.09
[Tr: 'Sure why not? It was invented there anyway.']
This reader accuses the United States of inventing AIDS. You've probably run into that assertion before, usually on the internet sites frequented by the 'not-fully-in-touch-with-reality' crowd.
Of which, it must be said, a very large percentage live in Europe and the Middle-East. People who write such things are poisonous little blobs, often alcoholic, frequently twisted beyond redemption. Probably resentful Old-World inbreds.
Comment 2.
Iedere zichzelf respecterende Aids / HIV patient zal de USA toch zeker wel links laten liggen!!?Wie denken die Yankee Doodles eigenlijk dat ze zijn :((
---Rick Vogelschrik, Spike City 20:56 30.10.09
[Tr: 'Every self-respecting AIDS / HIV patient would surely avoid the USA!!? Who do those Yankee Doodles even think they are?']
I suspect that Rick has no clue about the immense amount of research that has been done on AIDS in the United States, nor about the pioneering programs that started in San Francisco (location of this blog, by the way).
Frankly, Rick, your statement is hideously insulting, as it overlooks the fact that ground-zero of the epidemic was in the US, in San Francisco ( I lost many friends over the years, Rick, friends who were far far better people than you or any supercilious arrogant know-nothing Nederlandsche kloojak), it overlooks the fact that AIDS activism started in San Francisco, where also many of the approaches to fundraising, charity, care, and comfort of people with AIDS were developed, and it ignores the truly herculean work of such organizations as the San Francisco Aids Foundation.
Perhaps, Rick, you should just shut your ignorant Dutch gob and retreat to your hole?
Comment 3.
De meeste nieuwe virussen die volgens Amerika uit bijvoorbeeld Afrika of Azië komen (ook HIV) zijn in werkelijkheid met het geld van aandeelhouders in de pharmaceutische industrie gecreëerd in de VS om hun eigen zakken te vullen. Ze gaan letterlijk over lijken met hun drie grootste inkomstenbronnen: wapens, olie en medicijnen. Mij houden ze niet langer voor de gek, maar helaas is onze regering bevriend met ze.
---Flipje, Voorburg 21:15 30.10.09
[Tr: Most new viruses that originate in Africa or Asia, according to America (including HIV), actually were created with funds from shareholders in the pharmaceutical industry in the US to fill their own pockets. They literally go over corpses with their three largest sources of income: weapons, oil, and medicine. They ain't fooling me any longer, but alas our government is 'friends' with them.']
Flipje represents a type frightfully numerous in the Netherlands - a type that makes reading every Dutch website an experience akin to stumbling into a minefield. Not that they are quite the most common type of Dutchman, but many Ollanders will instinctively defend such people if an outsider (for instance, an American, Moroccan, Turk, or Jew) points out how gibberingly insane the Cheesehead in question really is. While a large number of rabid Dutch will happily and brutally mob the critic, others will say nothing and quietly stay in the background.
Even if the critic is right, there is no honour in siding with a foreigner, who in any case should know better than to find fault with the Dutch.
Remember, the Dutch are always right. Even when they are wrong, they are right. They will gang up on you and prove it.
In some ways it is a remarkably chickenshit little culture.
What Flipje in Voorburg also overlooks is the humongous Dutch investment in weapons, oil, and medicine - not only directly in Dutch companies headquartered in the Benelux (the Dutch are among the worst merchants of death in the world), but also by the Dutch in overseas companies. Individual Dutch, Dutch investment funds, Dutch insurance companies, Dutch banks, Dutch retirement funds, Dutch governmental organs, Dutch holding companies, and many among the Dutch ruling classes. The Dutch are far more fully vested in weapons, oil, and medicine than a very large part of the rest of the world.
If there is any evil afoot in those industries, then the Dutch too are complicit.
Irritating bunch, those Dutch.
===================================================
UPDATE
There are now six more comments underneath that article.
Flipje added a long and very typical Dutch rant about wars, pollution, torture, intimidation, pornography, fast food, violence, foul language, greed, materialism, capitalism, loneliness, egoism, hardness, drugs.... all of which are in his estimation solely and entirely the fault of the Americans. Oh those evil Yankees!
Apparently he's forgotten Holland's four-hundred year role as worst imperial power of all time, all of the hardcore smut including sadistic child-pornography that is printed in Holland, the incredibly nasty 'food' offerings of the typical Dutch frituur ('fry shop'), murderous fights between Ajax and Feijenoord supporters...... and so on and so on.
And as regards drugs, dude! Amsterdam is stoner central. You guys are the worst dealers in the whole world. The air pollution above Mokum Alef reeks of tetrahydrocannabinol and heroine labs. Ever heard of ecstasy? The Netherlands is the world's number one supplier. Date rape drugs? Again, the Netherlands is the number one supplier - and probably the number one user, too. In any case, pioneers.
We are quite innocent compared to you lot.
Some other bozo (Michel) claims that AIDS doesn't really exist, followed by Kaan in Utrecht drunkenly spewing anti-American venom about 'guantenema' (stet) and 'israil' (stet), then whimpering on a bit about inequality (he wasn't strictly lucent).
A resident of Spijkenisse (a veritable hotbed of civilization and all that is good and holy and nice in the world) then avers that ALL diseases are made in labs.
I really have to wonder about the mad scientists that gave us head colds and athletes foot - life must have been so nice before laboratories.......
These remarks substantiate my friend Floris' contention that the comments underneath Dutch newspaper articles on the internet are usually from mental defectives -"getuigen van een borrelnoot ikuu" ('attest to a cocktail nut intellectual level').
I have to admit, everything he said about Dutch newspaper commenters was correct.
Sometimes a Dutchman is indeed right.
I really don't know why I bother anymore, as usually I will find something that makes me wish that the entire Netherlands would be consumed by fire and the Northsea waves.
It is a guarantee that any article mentioning crime in the US, Hollywood celebs, or some American scandal, will be graced by a flood of reader comments - the Dutch, apparently, have little interest in their own crimes or scandals, but plenty of interest in ours - and at least one of the comments will always assert that Americans are the most perverted, the most insane, the most disgusting, the most vulgar, the fattest, or the most depraved people on the planet. The very worst of something, in any case.
[Netherlanders tend to overlook their own rather ghastly qualities. Fortunately, not too long ago I detailed some things the Dutch have deliberately forgotten about here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/06/time-to-remind-yall-of-some-things.html
Please do a favour for the natives of Banda and remember these things for them, as they themselves can not do so.]
THE YOBBO READERS OF 'DE TELEGRAAF'
An article in today's Telegraaf mentioned that people with AIDS will finally be allowed to travel to the US, as president Obama intends to lift the entry ban soon. The process to lift the ban carried over from the previous administration.
The article itself is not really interesting.
QUOTE:
"Na een verbod van 22 jaar gaan de Verenigde Staten weer personen met aids of hiv toelaten tot het land. De ban wordt in 2010 beëindigd, maakte de Amerikaanse president Barack Obama vrijdag bekend. "
[Translation: 'After a ban of 22 years, the United States will again permit people with AIDS entry. The ban will end in 2010, as per American president Obama on Friday']
SOURCE:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5204987/__Mensen_met_hiv_mogen_VS_weer_in__.html?p=10,2
Plain and straightforward, nothing odd or meshune. The article, remarkably, is not anti-American.
The comments underneath are.
All three of them.
Comment 1.
tja waarom ook eigenlijk niet, het is daar toch uitgevonden ?
---C.C, Groningen 20:42 30.10.09
[Tr: 'Sure why not? It was invented there anyway.']
This reader accuses the United States of inventing AIDS. You've probably run into that assertion before, usually on the internet sites frequented by the 'not-fully-in-touch-with-reality' crowd.
Of which, it must be said, a very large percentage live in Europe and the Middle-East. People who write such things are poisonous little blobs, often alcoholic, frequently twisted beyond redemption. Probably resentful Old-World inbreds.
Comment 2.
Iedere zichzelf respecterende Aids / HIV patient zal de USA toch zeker wel links laten liggen!!?Wie denken die Yankee Doodles eigenlijk dat ze zijn :((
---Rick Vogelschrik, Spike City 20:56 30.10.09
[Tr: 'Every self-respecting AIDS / HIV patient would surely avoid the USA!!? Who do those Yankee Doodles even think they are?']
I suspect that Rick has no clue about the immense amount of research that has been done on AIDS in the United States, nor about the pioneering programs that started in San Francisco (location of this blog, by the way).
Frankly, Rick, your statement is hideously insulting, as it overlooks the fact that ground-zero of the epidemic was in the US, in San Francisco ( I lost many friends over the years, Rick, friends who were far far better people than you or any supercilious arrogant know-nothing Nederlandsche kloojak), it overlooks the fact that AIDS activism started in San Francisco, where also many of the approaches to fundraising, charity, care, and comfort of people with AIDS were developed, and it ignores the truly herculean work of such organizations as the San Francisco Aids Foundation.
Perhaps, Rick, you should just shut your ignorant Dutch gob and retreat to your hole?
Comment 3.
De meeste nieuwe virussen die volgens Amerika uit bijvoorbeeld Afrika of Azië komen (ook HIV) zijn in werkelijkheid met het geld van aandeelhouders in de pharmaceutische industrie gecreëerd in de VS om hun eigen zakken te vullen. Ze gaan letterlijk over lijken met hun drie grootste inkomstenbronnen: wapens, olie en medicijnen. Mij houden ze niet langer voor de gek, maar helaas is onze regering bevriend met ze.
---Flipje, Voorburg 21:15 30.10.09
[Tr: Most new viruses that originate in Africa or Asia, according to America (including HIV), actually were created with funds from shareholders in the pharmaceutical industry in the US to fill their own pockets. They literally go over corpses with their three largest sources of income: weapons, oil, and medicine. They ain't fooling me any longer, but alas our government is 'friends' with them.']
Flipje represents a type frightfully numerous in the Netherlands - a type that makes reading every Dutch website an experience akin to stumbling into a minefield. Not that they are quite the most common type of Dutchman, but many Ollanders will instinctively defend such people if an outsider (for instance, an American, Moroccan, Turk, or Jew) points out how gibberingly insane the Cheesehead in question really is. While a large number of rabid Dutch will happily and brutally mob the critic, others will say nothing and quietly stay in the background.
Even if the critic is right, there is no honour in siding with a foreigner, who in any case should know better than to find fault with the Dutch.
Remember, the Dutch are always right. Even when they are wrong, they are right. They will gang up on you and prove it.
In some ways it is a remarkably chickenshit little culture.
What Flipje in Voorburg also overlooks is the humongous Dutch investment in weapons, oil, and medicine - not only directly in Dutch companies headquartered in the Benelux (the Dutch are among the worst merchants of death in the world), but also by the Dutch in overseas companies. Individual Dutch, Dutch investment funds, Dutch insurance companies, Dutch banks, Dutch retirement funds, Dutch governmental organs, Dutch holding companies, and many among the Dutch ruling classes. The Dutch are far more fully vested in weapons, oil, and medicine than a very large part of the rest of the world.
If there is any evil afoot in those industries, then the Dutch too are complicit.
Irritating bunch, those Dutch.
===================================================
UPDATE
There are now six more comments underneath that article.
Flipje added a long and very typical Dutch rant about wars, pollution, torture, intimidation, pornography, fast food, violence, foul language, greed, materialism, capitalism, loneliness, egoism, hardness, drugs.... all of which are in his estimation solely and entirely the fault of the Americans. Oh those evil Yankees!
Apparently he's forgotten Holland's four-hundred year role as worst imperial power of all time, all of the hardcore smut including sadistic child-pornography that is printed in Holland, the incredibly nasty 'food' offerings of the typical Dutch frituur ('fry shop'), murderous fights between Ajax and Feijenoord supporters...... and so on and so on.
And as regards drugs, dude! Amsterdam is stoner central. You guys are the worst dealers in the whole world. The air pollution above Mokum Alef reeks of tetrahydrocannabinol and heroine labs. Ever heard of ecstasy? The Netherlands is the world's number one supplier. Date rape drugs? Again, the Netherlands is the number one supplier - and probably the number one user, too. In any case, pioneers.
We are quite innocent compared to you lot.
Some other bozo (Michel) claims that AIDS doesn't really exist, followed by Kaan in Utrecht drunkenly spewing anti-American venom about 'guantenema' (stet) and 'israil' (stet), then whimpering on a bit about inequality (he wasn't strictly lucent).
A resident of Spijkenisse (a veritable hotbed of civilization and all that is good and holy and nice in the world) then avers that ALL diseases are made in labs.
I really have to wonder about the mad scientists that gave us head colds and athletes foot - life must have been so nice before laboratories.......
These remarks substantiate my friend Floris' contention that the comments underneath Dutch newspaper articles on the internet are usually from mental defectives -"getuigen van een borrelnoot ikuu" ('attest to a cocktail nut intellectual level').
I have to admit, everything he said about Dutch newspaper commenters was correct.
Sometimes a Dutchman is indeed right.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
IN PRAISE OF JAPANESE PORNOSPAMBOTS
Fellow blogger e-kvetcher has an important post today about sneeze pornography and neurotics. Really, you should visit his blog, you will be glad you did!
[This post in besonderes.]
But in that vein.......
For the past two months, Japanese porn spammers have been trying to post comments underneath one of my postings. Just one comment string, only one post. And I am baffled by it, as I cannot for the life of me figure out why.
Why that post? Why that particular comment string?
[In case you're interested, this post:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/07/conversational-storm-surge.html , this comment string: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17704096&postID=92707442160638019&isPopup=true
The post itself has NOTHING to do with porn, Japanese or otherwise.]
ZESTY JAPANESE DELECTATION
While I quite admire the Japanese approach to naughtiness, because they tend to use food-photographers instead of flunkies from the coroner's office to take pictures of naked bodies (with much better results, I assure you - many of the young ladies end up looking quite edible, instead of repulsively corpse-like - but I wouldn't know about that, as I lead a saintly porn-free life, and never EVER look at such pictures), I will admit that the Japanese also have some pretty 'unique' fetishes.
For example:
和服 Traditional Japanese clothing, though not always fully clothed.
体操服 Sport togs.
わき Armpits.
貧乳 Small mammaries.
ナース Nurses.
めがね Spectacle wearing damsels - Meganeko.
メイド Maids - young ladies dressed in frilly or gothic maid outfits.
ミミ付き Ears - girls with strap-on animal ears.
手こき Digital manipulation of a regenerative organ.
胸ちら Accidental mammary gland exposure (munechira).
スク水 or スクール水着 Sukumizu, school swim togs - girls wearing the typical very Protestant-looking swim suits common in Japanese high schools.
Anyhow, since I started noticing the pattern, I have saved many of the comments, without allowing them on the blog. All the commenter names had links - I had no urge to direct traffic away from myself. But it's some rather interesting stuff.
Herewith a sampling:
若妻 wrote:
セレブと言われる世の若妻は男に飢えています、特に地位が邪魔して出会いが意外と少ないから、SEXサークルを通じて日頃のストレス発散に毎日男を買い漁っています。ここは彼女達ご用達の口コミサイトです
エロ動画 wrote:
流出からハメ撮りまでマニアも満足のエロ動画満載、抜きたくなったらチャットでサックと約束、有無を言わさずサックと中出し、便器女を簡単get出来るサイトです
SOS少女wrote:
家出中のSOS少女たちを助けてあげよう！家やホテルに招いてご飯をおごってあげたりするだけで、後でウッハウハなお礼をしてくれるかもしれないよ
人生の値段wrote:
人生の値段を診断してみませんか？自分の価値を診断してあなたの生涯年収、人間としての価格が丸裸になります。友達と一緒にチャレンジして絆を深めよう
画像流出 wrote:
芸能人から素人まで、画像流出を探すならココ！最近有名な仮面ライダーヒロインの山本ひ○るの画像などなど、幅広く流出画像を公開中です。他人のプライベートに興味がある方はこちら
恋人wrote:
大金を貰って美女を抱きませんか？恋人契約は10万円、SEX付きの関係には30万円のシステムとなっております。私生活が忙しいセレブ女性達、仕事面では成功を納めていても男性との関係には凄くうとい方が多いようです。今宵も30万円でのSEX付き関係が申し込まれております。満たしあう関係と札束を手に入れてくださいませ
女子高生 wrote:
女子高生が友達・恋人を求めて集まる当サイトは、彼女たちのちょっぴりHな画像や出逢いを求める自己紹介などで賑わう掲示板サイトです。彼女たちと友達になって一緒に遊んだり写メの交換などをしてみませんか
家出人 wrote:
これから家出したい少女や、家出人の娘とそんな娘と遊びたい人を繋げる掲示板です。家庭の問題などでやむなく家出している子が多数書き込みしています。女の子リストを見て彼女たちにメールを送ってみませんか
Some of the pseudonyms are by themselves potent clues that the ensuing comment is highly pornspammic.
若妻 (wild concubine), エロ動画 (working mouth moving picture), 画像流出 (graphic image flowing out), 恋人 (love-sick person), 女子高生 (girl highly alive), and 家出人 (outside the home persons) are names that really say it all.
I flatter myself that the Japanese porn industry reads thousands of blog posts, and only picked a few to grace with their adverts. Only those posts that spoke to something deep within, posts capable of arousing a yearning, questing, emotive state, were chosen as billboards for linkage to quality smut.
Sometimes just one post out of many was, it was felt, worthy of the sexually predilective Japanese male attention. True cognoscenti would be charmed by the post, and thus receptive to a nudge nudge wink wink.
That post, on this blog, was 'CONVERSATIONAL STORMSURGE'. There is no porn there. But it was probably the Starwars metaphors that made it worthy.
Thank you, Japanese photography buffs. Your offerings are indeed very nice.
I feel honoured.
Something else too, but definitely 'honoured'.
[This post in besonderes.]
But in that vein.......
For the past two months, Japanese porn spammers have been trying to post comments underneath one of my postings. Just one comment string, only one post. And I am baffled by it, as I cannot for the life of me figure out why.
Why that post? Why that particular comment string?
[In case you're interested, this post:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/07/conversational-storm-surge.html , this comment string: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17704096&postID=92707442160638019&isPopup=true
The post itself has NOTHING to do with porn, Japanese or otherwise.]
ZESTY JAPANESE DELECTATION
While I quite admire the Japanese approach to naughtiness, because they tend to use food-photographers instead of flunkies from the coroner's office to take pictures of naked bodies (with much better results, I assure you - many of the young ladies end up looking quite edible, instead of repulsively corpse-like - but I wouldn't know about that, as I lead a saintly porn-free life, and never EVER look at such pictures), I will admit that the Japanese also have some pretty 'unique' fetishes.
For example:
和服 Traditional Japanese clothing, though not always fully clothed.
体操服 Sport togs.
わき Armpits.
貧乳 Small mammaries.
ナース Nurses.
めがね Spectacle wearing damsels - Meganeko.
メイド Maids - young ladies dressed in frilly or gothic maid outfits.
ミミ付き Ears - girls with strap-on animal ears.
手こき Digital manipulation of a regenerative organ.
胸ちら Accidental mammary gland exposure (munechira).
スク水 or スクール水着 Sukumizu, school swim togs - girls wearing the typical very Protestant-looking swim suits common in Japanese high schools.
Anyhow, since I started noticing the pattern, I have saved many of the comments, without allowing them on the blog. All the commenter names had links - I had no urge to direct traffic away from myself. But it's some rather interesting stuff.
Herewith a sampling:
若妻 wrote:
セレブと言われる世の若妻は男に飢えています、特に地位が邪魔して出会いが意外と少ないから、SEXサークルを通じて日頃のストレス発散に毎日男を買い漁っています。ここは彼女達ご用達の口コミサイトです
エロ動画 wrote:
流出からハメ撮りまでマニアも満足のエロ動画満載、抜きたくなったらチャットでサックと約束、有無を言わさずサックと中出し、便器女を簡単get出来るサイトです
SOS少女wrote:
家出中のSOS少女たちを助けてあげよう！家やホテルに招いてご飯をおごってあげたりするだけで、後でウッハウハなお礼をしてくれるかもしれないよ
人生の値段wrote:
人生の値段を診断してみませんか？自分の価値を診断してあなたの生涯年収、人間としての価格が丸裸になります。友達と一緒にチャレンジして絆を深めよう
画像流出 wrote:
芸能人から素人まで、画像流出を探すならココ！最近有名な仮面ライダーヒロインの山本ひ○るの画像などなど、幅広く流出画像を公開中です。他人のプライベートに興味がある方はこちら
恋人wrote:
大金を貰って美女を抱きませんか？恋人契約は10万円、SEX付きの関係には30万円のシステムとなっております。私生活が忙しいセレブ女性達、仕事面では成功を納めていても男性との関係には凄くうとい方が多いようです。今宵も30万円でのSEX付き関係が申し込まれております。満たしあう関係と札束を手に入れてくださいませ
女子高生 wrote:
女子高生が友達・恋人を求めて集まる当サイトは、彼女たちのちょっぴりHな画像や出逢いを求める自己紹介などで賑わう掲示板サイトです。彼女たちと友達になって一緒に遊んだり写メの交換などをしてみませんか
家出人 wrote:
これから家出したい少女や、家出人の娘とそんな娘と遊びたい人を繋げる掲示板です。家庭の問題などでやむなく家出している子が多数書き込みしています。女の子リストを見て彼女たちにメールを送ってみませんか
Some of the pseudonyms are by themselves potent clues that the ensuing comment is highly pornspammic.
若妻 (wild concubine), エロ動画 (working mouth moving picture), 画像流出 (graphic image flowing out), 恋人 (love-sick person), 女子高生 (girl highly alive), and 家出人 (outside the home persons) are names that really say it all.
I flatter myself that the Japanese porn industry reads thousands of blog posts, and only picked a few to grace with their adverts. Only those posts that spoke to something deep within, posts capable of arousing a yearning, questing, emotive state, were chosen as billboards for linkage to quality smut.
Sometimes just one post out of many was, it was felt, worthy of the sexually predilective Japanese male attention. True cognoscenti would be charmed by the post, and thus receptive to a nudge nudge wink wink.
That post, on this blog, was 'CONVERSATIONAL STORMSURGE'. There is no porn there. But it was probably the Starwars metaphors that made it worthy.
Thank you, Japanese photography buffs. Your offerings are indeed very nice.
I feel honoured.
Something else too, but definitely 'honoured'.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
WHATEVER WILL BE
A sunlit day over thirty years ago......
The Dutch Railway Company used to sell passes that allowed you to travel anywhere in the kingdom by train for eight days. Each summer, after we returned from Switzerland, I would purchase at least one such pass, and scoot all over the country.
Amsterdam - several times. Leeuwarden in the far north - once. Utrecht - several times. Naarden, where we stayed from my third year till my sixth - several times.
[Naarden was where the Bakker family lived, up the street from our old house. ]
I also travelled to several other places in the Netherlands. One of them being Middelburg on Walcheren in Zeeland province, a chartered city since the twelve hundreds.
A TRADING CITY
Middelburg was one of the cities represented in the Dutch East-India Company (the others being Amsterdam, Delft, Enkhuizen, Hoorn, and Rotterdam), as well as the West India Company (the other cities being Amsterdam, Groningen, Hoorn, and Rotterdam).
The Middelburg Commercial Company was founded there, which would become the largest Dutch slave trading company and one of the major international concerns supplying prisoners from Africa to the New World by the middle of the eighteenth century.
[East India Company: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) 1602 - 1800. Traded with Asia, except where it was better to rob, plunder, and seize control of an area. West India Company: Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie 1621 - 1791. Involved in trade, administration and piracy in the New World, primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America, in the Caribbean, and several horrible ventures in South America. Had a monopoly on the slave trade in the Dutch colonies till 1730. Middelburg Commercial Company: Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie (MCC) 1720 - 1889. Founded as a general mercantile venture, involved in the slave trade from 1730 to 1807, thereafter a shipbuilder and wharf service provider).]
The city used to be more important than it is today. Evenso, the Germans thought it important enough to bomb during the second world war.
TRAINS FAST AND SLOW
The train ride from Eindhoven to Middelburg takes several hours - one has to transfer from the express train to a local in Roosendaal, if I remember correctly. As the crow flies Middelburg is not very far from the main hub at Rotterdam - but the crow flies, he does not ambulate. Walcheren is a long peninsula, formerly an island, in the heart of Zeeland province to the south; the ambulatory bird would have to make a considerable loop to get to Middelburg.
Dozing, on a train bummeling through flat wet fields, is highly recommended.
I slept.
The return trip was more exciting. The late afternoon sun gilded the seats, and golden edges limned the distant trees and buildings. There were flickering shafts of light through lines of trees, and a soft zephyr from the window vents.
A few seats over the only other people in the carriage, an English woman and her two angelic daughters, were happily singing - some songs in Dutch, but most in English. They took full advantage of the fact that in a nearly empty carriage, no one would likely understand the lyrics, or object to their cheerful noise.
Several of their songs I recognized from a record by Elsa Lancaster - 'If you peek in my gazebo', 'Lola's Saucepan', 'The Husband's Clock', 'My New York Slip' - all slightly naughty.
Then came several songs of an even more questionable nature - 'Charlotte The Harlot', 'The Ring Dang Doo', 'The Winnipeg Whore'.
They sang very well.
I did not let on that I understood any of it, maintaining a poker face while smoking my pipe and pretending to read my book. Every couple of minutes I flipped a page, then moved my head as if following the text down and across.
By the time we got to Roosendaal, I was quite lost - I had progressed several chapters without reading a single word.
Three bowls of Coopvaert tobacco finished, the fourth halfway down.
[Coopvaert tobacco was a product of the house of Douwe Egberts (founded in 1752), described on the package as 'fragrant natural pipe tobacco ('Geurige Naturel Pijp Tabak), consisting of ribbon-cut Virginias, Maryland, and Java. I doubt that it is still made. Douwe Egberts was sold in 1978, and the tobacco side of the business has been farmed out to other companies since the eighties.]
It was marvelous. Magical, almost, listening to their singing, already knowing most of the songs, and enjoying their sweet performance. A loveable combination of innocence, depravity, and high spirits. These were no humorless continental bourgeois types, but knowing and self-confident citizens of the English-speaking world.
At Roosendaal, more people entered the carriage, and I got off. As the train started moving I could hear them singing 'Que Sera Sera' - whatever will be, will be.
"..... I asked my mother, what will I be? Will I be pretty, will I be rich? Here's what she said to me - 'que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be ....."
All sounds faded into the distance. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, and waited on the darkened platform for the last train to Eindhoven.
The Dutch Railway Company used to sell passes that allowed you to travel anywhere in the kingdom by train for eight days. Each summer, after we returned from Switzerland, I would purchase at least one such pass, and scoot all over the country.
Amsterdam - several times. Leeuwarden in the far north - once. Utrecht - several times. Naarden, where we stayed from my third year till my sixth - several times.
[Naarden was where the Bakker family lived, up the street from our old house. ]
I also travelled to several other places in the Netherlands. One of them being Middelburg on Walcheren in Zeeland province, a chartered city since the twelve hundreds.
A TRADING CITY
Middelburg was one of the cities represented in the Dutch East-India Company (the others being Amsterdam, Delft, Enkhuizen, Hoorn, and Rotterdam), as well as the West India Company (the other cities being Amsterdam, Groningen, Hoorn, and Rotterdam).
The Middelburg Commercial Company was founded there, which would become the largest Dutch slave trading company and one of the major international concerns supplying prisoners from Africa to the New World by the middle of the eighteenth century.
[East India Company: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) 1602 - 1800. Traded with Asia, except where it was better to rob, plunder, and seize control of an area. West India Company: Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie 1621 - 1791. Involved in trade, administration and piracy in the New World, primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America, in the Caribbean, and several horrible ventures in South America. Had a monopoly on the slave trade in the Dutch colonies till 1730. Middelburg Commercial Company: Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie (MCC) 1720 - 1889. Founded as a general mercantile venture, involved in the slave trade from 1730 to 1807, thereafter a shipbuilder and wharf service provider).]
The city used to be more important than it is today. Evenso, the Germans thought it important enough to bomb during the second world war.
TRAINS FAST AND SLOW
The train ride from Eindhoven to Middelburg takes several hours - one has to transfer from the express train to a local in Roosendaal, if I remember correctly. As the crow flies Middelburg is not very far from the main hub at Rotterdam - but the crow flies, he does not ambulate. Walcheren is a long peninsula, formerly an island, in the heart of Zeeland province to the south; the ambulatory bird would have to make a considerable loop to get to Middelburg.
Dozing, on a train bummeling through flat wet fields, is highly recommended.
I slept.
The return trip was more exciting. The late afternoon sun gilded the seats, and golden edges limned the distant trees and buildings. There were flickering shafts of light through lines of trees, and a soft zephyr from the window vents.
A few seats over the only other people in the carriage, an English woman and her two angelic daughters, were happily singing - some songs in Dutch, but most in English. They took full advantage of the fact that in a nearly empty carriage, no one would likely understand the lyrics, or object to their cheerful noise.
Several of their songs I recognized from a record by Elsa Lancaster - 'If you peek in my gazebo', 'Lola's Saucepan', 'The Husband's Clock', 'My New York Slip' - all slightly naughty.
Then came several songs of an even more questionable nature - 'Charlotte The Harlot', 'The Ring Dang Doo', 'The Winnipeg Whore'.
They sang very well.
I did not let on that I understood any of it, maintaining a poker face while smoking my pipe and pretending to read my book. Every couple of minutes I flipped a page, then moved my head as if following the text down and across.
By the time we got to Roosendaal, I was quite lost - I had progressed several chapters without reading a single word.
Three bowls of Coopvaert tobacco finished, the fourth halfway down.
[Coopvaert tobacco was a product of the house of Douwe Egberts (founded in 1752), described on the package as 'fragrant natural pipe tobacco ('Geurige Naturel Pijp Tabak), consisting of ribbon-cut Virginias, Maryland, and Java. I doubt that it is still made. Douwe Egberts was sold in 1978, and the tobacco side of the business has been farmed out to other companies since the eighties.]
It was marvelous. Magical, almost, listening to their singing, already knowing most of the songs, and enjoying their sweet performance. A loveable combination of innocence, depravity, and high spirits. These were no humorless continental bourgeois types, but knowing and self-confident citizens of the English-speaking world.
At Roosendaal, more people entered the carriage, and I got off. As the train started moving I could hear them singing 'Que Sera Sera' - whatever will be, will be.
"..... I asked my mother, what will I be? Will I be pretty, will I be rich? Here's what she said to me - 'que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be ....."
All sounds faded into the distance. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, and waited on the darkened platform for the last train to Eindhoven.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
CHOPPED PORK SHOULDER AND HAM WITH SALT, WATER, SODIUM NITRITE, AND ONLY TRACE AMOUNTS OF VITAMINS AND MINERALS
Moderation in all things...... especially Spam and chocolate.
Yesterday's dinner has convinced me that moderation is a good thing.
After work I headed over to the bar to have a cocktail, where I discovered Lawrence and Don happily snarfing down Spam sandwiches - sourdough bread, shmear mustard, a layer of Spam, slices of hothouse cucumber.
It's truly amazing what you'll eat after you've imbibed. And I was having such a splendid time that I had a second drink. At which point the fresh, pink, sexy rosiness of the processed pressed pork shoulder with the overload of sodium looked ....... incredibly delicious!
Yes, the hothouse cucumbers really did make it a feast. A nice touch. Very elegant.
Spam is Philippino manna, by the way.
[Serve with little siling labuyo (pickled birdseye chilies), atsara (pickled shredded green papaya), vinegar and garlic dip, and banana ketchup. Sarap to da max, man! ]
Hawaiians also like spam.
So do the English - they even sing about it. Wonderful Spam. Spammity Spam.
Spam is the quintessence of modern culture.
Or so it may seem, when you've had a few.
DANCING TROLL
When I got home I was not hungry. So I headed into the teevee room to watch 'My Neighbor Totoro', which is where I discovered the chocolate.
Somehow, a dozen bonbons disappeared while I watched a large furry creature with a red umbrella. Maybe more. It had once been a two-pound box, three days ago.
It is now nearly empty.
During the night I had amazingly vivid dreams. Technicolour and textural.
Including one dream informed primarily by an urgent need to micturate. Most uncomfortable.
It was the fault of the salt. At four in the morning, my body had finished processing the huge amount of sodium I had ingested, and no longer felt any need to retain water. Which proved disconcerting. Especially as my mind took a while to realize what was going on, and, still in a dream-state, filled in its own blanks.
If you are a man, you know what I mean.
Down the hall at quick-waddle.........
Think of cold water, think of rain, think of ocean waves. Do NOT think of lovely young teenagers in the swimming pool ........ oh darn!!!
Try more watery thoughts! Marshes, fens, and bogs. Creeks, streams, rivulets. Canals, ditches, channels. Grachten, vlieten, vaarten, sloten. Lakes, shallow meres, and pools of standing water. Sunlight reflecting off the surface. Naked girls frolicking in a swimming hole shaded by trees approximately a mile south of where the Dommel river flows past the mill (Venbergsche Molen), their thin elegant limbs and taut taut stomachs ......... oh darn it again!!!!
Better have a smoke, this might take a while.
Moderation. It's a good thing. It promotes a sound night's sleep.
If you're a man, you know what I mean.
Yesterday's dinner has convinced me that moderation is a good thing.
After work I headed over to the bar to have a cocktail, where I discovered Lawrence and Don happily snarfing down Spam sandwiches - sourdough bread, shmear mustard, a layer of Spam, slices of hothouse cucumber.
It's truly amazing what you'll eat after you've imbibed. And I was having such a splendid time that I had a second drink. At which point the fresh, pink, sexy rosiness of the processed pressed pork shoulder with the overload of sodium looked ....... incredibly delicious!
Yes, the hothouse cucumbers really did make it a feast. A nice touch. Very elegant.
Spam is Philippino manna, by the way.
[Serve with little siling labuyo (pickled birdseye chilies), atsara (pickled shredded green papaya), vinegar and garlic dip, and banana ketchup. Sarap to da max, man! ]
Hawaiians also like spam.
So do the English - they even sing about it. Wonderful Spam. Spammity Spam.
Spam is the quintessence of modern culture.
Or so it may seem, when you've had a few.
DANCING TROLL
When I got home I was not hungry. So I headed into the teevee room to watch 'My Neighbor Totoro', which is where I discovered the chocolate.
Somehow, a dozen bonbons disappeared while I watched a large furry creature with a red umbrella. Maybe more. It had once been a two-pound box, three days ago.
It is now nearly empty.
During the night I had amazingly vivid dreams. Technicolour and textural.
Including one dream informed primarily by an urgent need to micturate. Most uncomfortable.
It was the fault of the salt. At four in the morning, my body had finished processing the huge amount of sodium I had ingested, and no longer felt any need to retain water. Which proved disconcerting. Especially as my mind took a while to realize what was going on, and, still in a dream-state, filled in its own blanks.
If you are a man, you know what I mean.
Down the hall at quick-waddle.........
Think of cold water, think of rain, think of ocean waves. Do NOT think of lovely young teenagers in the swimming pool ........ oh darn!!!
Try more watery thoughts! Marshes, fens, and bogs. Creeks, streams, rivulets. Canals, ditches, channels. Grachten, vlieten, vaarten, sloten. Lakes, shallow meres, and pools of standing water. Sunlight reflecting off the surface. Naked girls frolicking in a swimming hole shaded by trees approximately a mile south of where the Dommel river flows past the mill (Venbergsche Molen), their thin elegant limbs and taut taut stomachs ......... oh darn it again!!!!
Better have a smoke, this might take a while.
Moderation. It's a good thing. It promotes a sound night's sleep.
If you're a man, you know what I mean.
Monday, October 26, 2009
HAH! I WIN!
I am a regular man. Which surprises me. I had not expected it at all.
When I still lived in Valkenswaard (North Brabant, the Netherlands), I would stumble downstairs at around seven while my dad was abluting, pour myself a cup of coffee and hurriedly read the Volkskrant or the Eindhovens Dagblad before he came down.
We would then exchange newspapers - he had snagged the Herald Tribune and taken it into the bathroom - and at some point I would finish my coffee, and perform whatever ablutions I deemed necessary before heading off to school. A bowl of pipe tobacco might sabotage my grooming - one cannot bathe and smoke at the same time.
Washing oneself in the dead of winter in Northern Europe in any case is predicated upon a fine balance between central heating, hot water, and suicidal tendencies.
[The miserable Dutch climate with its constant grim overcast plentifully ensured a sufficiency of the last item mentioned, the first two were, at that time, merely erratic benefits of modern technology at best.]
Factoring in the universal tobacco appreciation of that era, plus ever-present rain, and the societal results could be described as pungent. Dutch high-school students in the nineteen-seventies had to be experienced to be believed.
It is the fragrance of the past.
My father was a very clean man, militarily organized in his habits.
The RCAF may have had something to do with that. Three years of bombing Jerry inculcates regularity, I guess.
Up at six AM. Physical exercises while the coffee perks. Breakfast, then upstairs to the bathroom for forty five minutes. Ending with a thorough scrubbing, even with the heater out.
The routine does not vary, do not dare interrupt it without a very good reason.
[There is no good reason. In case you wondered. None.]
In 1978 I returned to the United States to go to school. Students, as is well-known, are not given to very organized habits.
School alone requires attention to time, nothing else does. Personal cleanliness may take a backseat to a bowl of fine tobacco in the morning, at eventide dinner may be delayed by a particularly juicy passage in Joyce (Ulysses).
[Thirty years after the fact I realize that there are NO particularly juicy passages in Joyce; reading the entire book, attentively to boot, was an act of insanity.]
Fast forward to the present.
Savage Kitten and I have been living together now for over sixteen years.
In the morning, she gets up first, fixes herself breakfast, and, after considerable prodding, retreats into the bathroom. It takes quite a bit of encouragement, too. The caffeine and her chipper morning personality combine to frightening effect. She is social. She has good cheer. She is talkative. She speculates about things. She wishes to interact. She will interpret for the small furry creatures, or spar with the one-legged monkey .
[More about the monkey here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/09/happiness-is-quarrelling-with-monkey.html
and here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/08/evil-monkey.html ]
I am not like that at all in the morning - I merely want to get that first cup of coffee down. This will take twenty minutes. Then I shall wish to enter the bathroom, where I intend to smoke and read for half an hour before doing anything else - which will take fifteen minutes.
I do not wish to be interrupted during that time. If you are going to interrupt, you had better have a very good reason.
So before I fix my second cup of coffee (the bathroom cup), I drop hints. "Honey Pie", I will say, "I shall need to use the bathroom soon".
She continues chattering as if she didn't hear me. "Sweety-Boogums, I'm going to fix my second cup now."
Not reacting in any way, she continues quoting from the latest book that she's reading.
Somewhat later, as I'm in the kitchen stirring the cup, I notice that she is still sitting on the bed.
"Muffin Cake, you DO know that coffee inevitably starts the peristaltic process, " I patiently explain, "and that means that certain needs will become painfully apparent within a set time from that first gulp of coffee"
She pretends obliviousness, and continues arguing with the sock sheep and the one-legged monkey that share our bed.
Several more minutes pass, and I take a sip of coffee while contemplating my next move.
"Ummm, dearest, if you need to pee, perhaps you should...." I will now venture, gallantly offering her EVERY CHANCE TO USE THE FACILITIES before I monopolize them.
It takes quite a bit of prodding.
It is not unusual for me to writhe painfully on the floor while waiting for her to come out of the bathroom.
Not inevitable, but not at all unusual.
GOTTA GO!
There have been times when she has urgently needed to use the bathroom while I have been ensconced within the noble precinct. Despite the inconvenience I have inevitably yielded - one should always let a lady pee. It is the gentlemanly thing to do.
This morning I had finally reached the stage of rinsing off the soap, when a frantic voice came from the other side of the door.
"Just a moment," I yelled, while grabbing smokes, book, notepad, pen, spectacles, and towel.
As she hurriedly slammed the door behind her, she muttered something about Navrattan Korma making one regular.
I do not need Navrattan Korma, sweetheart.
I am already regular.
Positively British in that regard.
When I still lived in Valkenswaard (North Brabant, the Netherlands), I would stumble downstairs at around seven while my dad was abluting, pour myself a cup of coffee and hurriedly read the Volkskrant or the Eindhovens Dagblad before he came down.
We would then exchange newspapers - he had snagged the Herald Tribune and taken it into the bathroom - and at some point I would finish my coffee, and perform whatever ablutions I deemed necessary before heading off to school. A bowl of pipe tobacco might sabotage my grooming - one cannot bathe and smoke at the same time.
Washing oneself in the dead of winter in Northern Europe in any case is predicated upon a fine balance between central heating, hot water, and suicidal tendencies.
[The miserable Dutch climate with its constant grim overcast plentifully ensured a sufficiency of the last item mentioned, the first two were, at that time, merely erratic benefits of modern technology at best.]
Factoring in the universal tobacco appreciation of that era, plus ever-present rain, and the societal results could be described as pungent. Dutch high-school students in the nineteen-seventies had to be experienced to be believed.
It is the fragrance of the past.
My father was a very clean man, militarily organized in his habits.
The RCAF may have had something to do with that. Three years of bombing Jerry inculcates regularity, I guess.
Up at six AM. Physical exercises while the coffee perks. Breakfast, then upstairs to the bathroom for forty five minutes. Ending with a thorough scrubbing, even with the heater out.
The routine does not vary, do not dare interrupt it without a very good reason.
[There is no good reason. In case you wondered. None.]
In 1978 I returned to the United States to go to school. Students, as is well-known, are not given to very organized habits.
School alone requires attention to time, nothing else does. Personal cleanliness may take a backseat to a bowl of fine tobacco in the morning, at eventide dinner may be delayed by a particularly juicy passage in Joyce (Ulysses).
[Thirty years after the fact I realize that there are NO particularly juicy passages in Joyce; reading the entire book, attentively to boot, was an act of insanity.]
Fast forward to the present.
Savage Kitten and I have been living together now for over sixteen years.
In the morning, she gets up first, fixes herself breakfast, and, after considerable prodding, retreats into the bathroom. It takes quite a bit of encouragement, too. The caffeine and her chipper morning personality combine to frightening effect. She is social. She has good cheer. She is talkative. She speculates about things. She wishes to interact. She will interpret for the small furry creatures, or spar with the one-legged monkey .
[More about the monkey here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/09/happiness-is-quarrelling-with-monkey.html
and here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/08/evil-monkey.html ]
I am not like that at all in the morning - I merely want to get that first cup of coffee down. This will take twenty minutes. Then I shall wish to enter the bathroom, where I intend to smoke and read for half an hour before doing anything else - which will take fifteen minutes.
I do not wish to be interrupted during that time. If you are going to interrupt, you had better have a very good reason.
So before I fix my second cup of coffee (the bathroom cup), I drop hints. "Honey Pie", I will say, "I shall need to use the bathroom soon".
She continues chattering as if she didn't hear me. "Sweety-Boogums, I'm going to fix my second cup now."
Not reacting in any way, she continues quoting from the latest book that she's reading.
Somewhat later, as I'm in the kitchen stirring the cup, I notice that she is still sitting on the bed.
"Muffin Cake, you DO know that coffee inevitably starts the peristaltic process, " I patiently explain, "and that means that certain needs will become painfully apparent within a set time from that first gulp of coffee"
She pretends obliviousness, and continues arguing with the sock sheep and the one-legged monkey that share our bed.
Several more minutes pass, and I take a sip of coffee while contemplating my next move.
"Ummm, dearest, if you need to pee, perhaps you should...." I will now venture, gallantly offering her EVERY CHANCE TO USE THE FACILITIES before I monopolize them.
It takes quite a bit of prodding.
It is not unusual for me to writhe painfully on the floor while waiting for her to come out of the bathroom.
Not inevitable, but not at all unusual.
GOTTA GO!
There have been times when she has urgently needed to use the bathroom while I have been ensconced within the noble precinct. Despite the inconvenience I have inevitably yielded - one should always let a lady pee. It is the gentlemanly thing to do.
This morning I had finally reached the stage of rinsing off the soap, when a frantic voice came from the other side of the door.
"Just a moment," I yelled, while grabbing smokes, book, notepad, pen, spectacles, and towel.
As she hurriedly slammed the door behind her, she muttered something about Navrattan Korma making one regular.
I do not need Navrattan Korma, sweetheart.
I am already regular.
Positively British in that regard.
Friday, October 23, 2009
ANTI-ISRAEL PROTEST OCTOBER 22 - UNION SQUARE SAN FRANCISCO
Yesterday evening nearly 180 Israel-haters faced off against about fifty pro-Israel activists. The occasion being a speech by e-prime minister Ehud Olmert to the World Affairs Council at the St. Francis Hotel in Union Square.
Olmert's presence was merely another excuse for the people who want Israel wiped off the map to scream angrily in public.
THE HATE-FILLED MASS
The protest against Israel had been organized by Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid (BACEIA), CODEPINK, Friends of Deiribzi'a, Northern California International Solidarity Movement, Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), South Bay Mobilization, Stop AIPAC, CAL Students for Justice in Palestine, US Palestine Communities Network (USPCN), Bay Area Women in Black.
Given the sheer number of organizations who claimed sponsorship, the turn-out by the anti-Israel crowd was pretty pathetic. Less than two hundred people, half of whom were the not academically gifted children of Palestinian liquor store owners.
The remainder consisted of agitators from International Answer, the misguided Jews from the usual cliques of mutually supportive deviants (JVP, Women In Black, Brit Tzedek, etc.), and a few members of Queers United Against Israeli Terror ('Queers for Hamas') - whose voice is much reduced since Tom Ammiano is no longer on the board of supervisors.
Dick Becker's chief-flunky Forrest was also there, as well as Lily Haskell's handler from the Lawyers' Guild. And several other known quantities.
There were no people on the anti-Israel side in favour of co-existence, which may explain why several of the chants were about freeing Palestine from the river to the sea, dying gloriously in jihad against the evil Jew, down down Israel, with our souls and our blood, and whores.
[That last one was very strange - something about Richard Becker and his love-associates, perhaps? It was nearly unintelligible, given the vast spectrum of Arab accents - everything from coarse Egyptian through Hadramawti and Yemeni to Morrocan. Mostly American-raised schoolkid.]
PEACE
Inside, Olmert's speech inside the hotel was interrupted several times, resulting in the arrest of over twenty troublemakers.
Outside, the police did a fine job of keeping the two sides apart, despite attempts by infiltrators from the disaffected side to pick fights with women and elderly Jews on the pro-Israel side.
The spirit on the pro-Israel side was lively and feisty.
The anti-Israel crowd was bellicose and blood-thirsty. And frustrated. In more than one way.
Forrest (Richard Becker's butt boy) was severely disappointed that the police escorted him back to the other side - contrary to what Baruch believes, I really think Forrest wanted to be photographed in front of Victoria's Secret, with that huge poster of the curvy woman wearing two frilly nothings in the window.
The San Francisco Chronicle mis-reported the event, of course, relying on the Associated Press stringer who had an early dinner appointment.
Festivities ended at around seven thirty, when San Francisco Voice for Israel declared victory, thanked the SFPD for their good work, and headed home.
Several of the Muslim teenagers hung around Union Square aimlessly afterwards, being still far too young to go to a bar to crow about their performance.
AD HOMINEM
To 'Saddle-bags' from the Lawyers Guild: next time you see Lily Haskell, tell her 'Alai' said 'hi'.
To Abdullah Q: do you know that your sister is seeing that black kid?
To Ahmad: man you're stupid - you didn't even recognize me! Hee hee hee!
To Myra: they think you're kinda plain and dull - some of them think that's why you left the Jews and joined them.
To Moonwind: Rifa'at simply wants to get into your panties. One more won't make a difference.
To Afifa: for g-d's sake, use condoms!
To the chubby blonde in the centre: he's just shtumping you 'cause you're easy, honey, once his cousin finishes college he's getting married. But enjoy it while it lasts, in the best of health.
To Lily Haskell: see you at the next Aipac protest, dearie.
To Naeema: sorry to hear about your mom.
To Dick Becker: I heard that you were rather small..... Now I believe it.
To Forrest: is ANYTHING going right in your life?
To Hatim: does your uncle know about your lousy grades?
To Ra'eed: how's your father doing? Everything okay at the store? Tell him Rick said 'hi'.
To S.: how are you gonna raise the kid? Jewish but self-hating, or Gentile and Jew-bating?
I guess you ain't ever gonna let you mom visit, huh?
Oh, and that also goes for 'Brian', 'Moe', and 'Sue'.
------------------------------------------------------
One a personal note, the highlight of the evening was when the gorgeous young Asian girl and her friend strolled past and smiled at me. Woooo!
Red red lipstick and fishnets. Woooo!
Woooo!
Olmert's presence was merely another excuse for the people who want Israel wiped off the map to scream angrily in public.
THE HATE-FILLED MASS
The protest against Israel had been organized by Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid (BACEIA), CODEPINK, Friends of Deiribzi'a, Northern California International Solidarity Movement, Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), South Bay Mobilization, Stop AIPAC, CAL Students for Justice in Palestine, US Palestine Communities Network (USPCN), Bay Area Women in Black.
Given the sheer number of organizations who claimed sponsorship, the turn-out by the anti-Israel crowd was pretty pathetic. Less than two hundred people, half of whom were the not academically gifted children of Palestinian liquor store owners.
The remainder consisted of agitators from International Answer, the misguided Jews from the usual cliques of mutually supportive deviants (JVP, Women In Black, Brit Tzedek, etc.), and a few members of Queers United Against Israeli Terror ('Queers for Hamas') - whose voice is much reduced since Tom Ammiano is no longer on the board of supervisors.
Dick Becker's chief-flunky Forrest was also there, as well as Lily Haskell's handler from the Lawyers' Guild. And several other known quantities.
There were no people on the anti-Israel side in favour of co-existence, which may explain why several of the chants were about freeing Palestine from the river to the sea, dying gloriously in jihad against the evil Jew, down down Israel, with our souls and our blood, and whores.
[That last one was very strange - something about Richard Becker and his love-associates, perhaps? It was nearly unintelligible, given the vast spectrum of Arab accents - everything from coarse Egyptian through Hadramawti and Yemeni to Morrocan. Mostly American-raised schoolkid.]
PEACE
Inside, Olmert's speech inside the hotel was interrupted several times, resulting in the arrest of over twenty troublemakers.
Outside, the police did a fine job of keeping the two sides apart, despite attempts by infiltrators from the disaffected side to pick fights with women and elderly Jews on the pro-Israel side.
The spirit on the pro-Israel side was lively and feisty.
The anti-Israel crowd was bellicose and blood-thirsty. And frustrated. In more than one way.
Forrest (Richard Becker's butt boy) was severely disappointed that the police escorted him back to the other side - contrary to what Baruch believes, I really think Forrest wanted to be photographed in front of Victoria's Secret, with that huge poster of the curvy woman wearing two frilly nothings in the window.
The San Francisco Chronicle mis-reported the event, of course, relying on the Associated Press stringer who had an early dinner appointment.
Festivities ended at around seven thirty, when San Francisco Voice for Israel declared victory, thanked the SFPD for their good work, and headed home.
Several of the Muslim teenagers hung around Union Square aimlessly afterwards, being still far too young to go to a bar to crow about their performance.
AD HOMINEM
To 'Saddle-bags' from the Lawyers Guild: next time you see Lily Haskell, tell her 'Alai' said 'hi'.
To Abdullah Q: do you know that your sister is seeing that black kid?
To Ahmad: man you're stupid - you didn't even recognize me! Hee hee hee!
To Myra: they think you're kinda plain and dull - some of them think that's why you left the Jews and joined them.
To Moonwind: Rifa'at simply wants to get into your panties. One more won't make a difference.
To Afifa: for g-d's sake, use condoms!
To the chubby blonde in the centre: he's just shtumping you 'cause you're easy, honey, once his cousin finishes college he's getting married. But enjoy it while it lasts, in the best of health.
To Lily Haskell: see you at the next Aipac protest, dearie.
To Naeema: sorry to hear about your mom.
To Dick Becker: I heard that you were rather small..... Now I believe it.
To Forrest: is ANYTHING going right in your life?
To Hatim: does your uncle know about your lousy grades?
To Ra'eed: how's your father doing? Everything okay at the store? Tell him Rick said 'hi'.
To S.: how are you gonna raise the kid? Jewish but self-hating, or Gentile and Jew-bating?
I guess you ain't ever gonna let you mom visit, huh?
Oh, and that also goes for 'Brian', 'Moe', and 'Sue'.
------------------------------------------------------
One a personal note, the highlight of the evening was when the gorgeous young Asian girl and her friend strolled past and smiled at me. Woooo!
Red red lipstick and fishnets. Woooo!
Woooo!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
ARAB WOUNDED
A teacher in Denmark was severely beaten up for shaking the hand of a female student at the Abildgård school after a parent-teacher meeting.
The assault happened in the presence of a female teacher who had also been in the meeting. The father of the student was infuriated that the teacher had shaken his daughter's hand and thus offended his family honour.
He also bit the ear of the teacher during the fracas. The father was a Palestinian.
Article (in Dutch): http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5139504/__Man_bijt_leraar_om_handdruk_dochter__.html?p=7,1
I can already see you shaking your head, convinced that there is just no living with these people.......
But I really must point out that the teacher is also an Arab.
As is the teenage daughter of the assailant. Who probably is embarrassed as all git out by her father's behaviour.
The assault happened in the presence of a female teacher who had also been in the meeting. The father of the student was infuriated that the teacher had shaken his daughter's hand and thus offended his family honour.
He also bit the ear of the teacher during the fracas. The father was a Palestinian.
Article (in Dutch): http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5139504/__Man_bijt_leraar_om_handdruk_dochter__.html?p=7,1
I can already see you shaking your head, convinced that there is just no living with these people.......
But I really must point out that the teacher is also an Arab.
As is the teenage daughter of the assailant. Who probably is embarrassed as all git out by her father's behaviour.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
GEERT WILDERS AT TEMPLE
Yesterday evening Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders spoke at Temple University. If you weren't there, it will probably be a bit hard to figure out what happened. The reason being the hyperbole on both sides and the somewhat overblown news coverage.
Cite ONE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORnwDS7Deg
The news clip above suggest a calm and rational evening, the intro-text by the person who posted it avers otherwise.
Cite TWO
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5125233/__Wilders_in_VS_weggehoond__.html?p=37,2
The article from De Telegraaf (in Dutch) alleges that Geert Wilders was booed off by the crowd of students. The article makes it seem like the crowd massively screamed their disapproval and chased him off stage.
I get the impression that reporters are not familiar with American college campi.
Loud noises, catcalls, and a hypercritical audience for speakers are fairly common.
Geert Wilders, as a politician, should in any case be used to Bronx cheers and rude shouting. Certainly he has been exposed to that in the Dutch parliament.
Other news reports suggest a fairly quiet and low-key response by those who disagreed with his message.
Quote:"About 100 students who came remained silent throughout his 17-minute "Fitna" film, which casts Islam as the culprit behind terrorism since the turn of the century. During a 25-minute speech that followed, he said the increasing Muslim population in Europe is causing a retrenchment of freedom.
[CUT]
Most of the 80 students gathered outside to protest Wilder's appearance quietly held signs or passed out pamphlets.
"We've had to deal with hate speakers before," said Monira Gamal-Eldin of Temple's Muslim Students Association. "What he's preaching is not free speech. He is funneling hate toward one group of people."
A small minority like freshmen Erik Jacobs, however, said Wilders' appearance and the peaceful protest showed off the virtues of free speech."
End quote.
SOURCE:
http://www.metro.us/us/article/2009/10/21/05/1032-85/index.xml#
"WHERE ISLAM SETS ROOTS, FREEDOM DIES"
The New York Times has perhaps the best coverage: their account of the event describes audience reaction to Geert Wilders remarks, quotes him, and also cites students' comments.
Quote:
His remarks were met by a mixture of applause and boos, and occasionally gasps -- particularly when he stated that ''our Western culture is far better than the Islamic culture and we should defend it.''
End quote.
SOURCE
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/21/us/AP-US-Islam-Speech-Controversy.html?_r=1
Quote:
He decried as a ''disgrace'' a resolution co-sponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, and backed by the U.N. Human Rights Council earlier this month, deploring attacks on religions while insisting that freedom of expression remains a basic right.
End quote.
I would be leery of anything backed by the Human Rights Council, given its sorry track record and inclusion of the worst human rights violators. The United Nations in general might do well to stuff a sock in it too - the right to say horrid things is precisely what freedom of speech is about. If Geert Wilders wishes to call the Koran worse than Mein Kampf, insist that Islam is an intolerant ideology that encourages violence, or even aver that the prophet Mohammed was a brigand, a rapist, and a depraved pedophile who violated a nine year old, who the hell are the third-world gangsters, tyrants, and mother-violators in the United Nations to deny him that right?
None of the Muslim nations has freedom of speech, most of them are brutal dictatorships, and hardly anywhere in the Muslim world are non-Muslims treated as equals, despite having been in those countries longer than the Muslims.
Fine.
All of you foreign Thugbucket tyranies, kindly shut the F up. Thank you.
Quote:
A question-and-answer session was cut short after the tone of the event began to turn nasty, with some in the crowd of several hundred students began shouting jeers. Wilders' security detail quickly ushered him from the room.End quote.
That's quite a bit different than the impression that De Telegraaf paints. It also makes clear that he was not booed off, but that his security detail made a decision to extract him.
Paid protection tends to be very pragmatic about such things.
Quote.
''I think it's completely wrong that someone who promotes racism and intolerance should be given a platform at this university,'' said Temple student Josh Rosenthal. ''It's hate speech disguised as free speech.''
End quote.
Josh Rosenthal appears to have problems thinking. Perhaps Josh Rosenthal should contemplate his navel instead of speaking. Idiot.
Quote:
Another student, Joseph Rodrigues, said that being able to voice unpopular opinions is a freedom not to be taken lightly. ''I might not like what he said, but I think it's important that he be allowed to say it,'' he said.End quote.
Mr. Rodrigues is correct. It is important that one be allowed to say things that other people do not like. This is a fundamental right denied to many in the Muslim world. It is also a fundamental right of Muslims in the United States, some of whom are in fact students at Temple University. A number of whom made their point calmly, without causing any disruption.
Temple University students are free to disagree with Geert Wilders. Just as free as Geert Wilders must be to say disagreeable things.
And as free as the audience must be to hear what the man has to say.
------------------------------------------------------------------
POST-SCRIPTUM
If you're offended by whatever Geert Wilders says, you have the freedom to either counter-argue him, or ignore him. You also have the freedom to say nasty things about him, his ideology, and many other things. And really, there is nothing wrong with exercising that right.
You may also say whatever you want about other religions. Just bear in mind that no one really cares what you think about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his Noodly Appendage, nor what your opinion is of the Grelzakian Toadcult.
You are far less important than you think you are.
Stop acting like you are a victim and grow up.
------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM
The nine year old mentioned above in connection with the prophet Mohammed was Aisha bint Abu Bakr, who was only six or seven years old when betrothed to Mohammed. She continued living with her parents for several more years before the marriage was consummated, allegedly when she was nine or ten years old. But the traditional sources can be doubted, as this may very well be hyperbole serving to emphasize her purity and youth - she was the only one of Mohammed's wives to have been a virgin when she married him.
[Sources suggest that succession and legitimization issues may have influenced the narrative - her father Abu Bakr (Abu Bakr As-Siddiq also known as Abdallah ibn Abi Quhafa, 573 CE to 634 CE) became the first Caliph after Mohammad's death in 632 CE. Additionally, she is the source for many of the ahadith of the prophet's life, which later generations took as sources of authority. So there may be more to her reputed age at the time of her wedding than meets the eye.]
After their wedding, she continued to play with her toys - Mohammed would join in to make her happy.
Aisha is said to have been Mohammed's favourite wife, and they had great affection for one and other. Her tent curtain became the prophet's battle flag.
During his final illnes, the prophet sought her apartments and expired with his head in her lap in 632, aged 82 years.
She survived him by forty six years, being 65 when she died.
Cite ONE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORnwDS7Deg
The news clip above suggest a calm and rational evening, the intro-text by the person who posted it avers otherwise.
Cite TWO
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5125233/__Wilders_in_VS_weggehoond__.html?p=37,2
The article from De Telegraaf (in Dutch) alleges that Geert Wilders was booed off by the crowd of students. The article makes it seem like the crowd massively screamed their disapproval and chased him off stage.
I get the impression that reporters are not familiar with American college campi.
Loud noises, catcalls, and a hypercritical audience for speakers are fairly common.
Geert Wilders, as a politician, should in any case be used to Bronx cheers and rude shouting. Certainly he has been exposed to that in the Dutch parliament.
Other news reports suggest a fairly quiet and low-key response by those who disagreed with his message.
Quote:"About 100 students who came remained silent throughout his 17-minute "Fitna" film, which casts Islam as the culprit behind terrorism since the turn of the century. During a 25-minute speech that followed, he said the increasing Muslim population in Europe is causing a retrenchment of freedom.
[CUT]
Most of the 80 students gathered outside to protest Wilder's appearance quietly held signs or passed out pamphlets.
"We've had to deal with hate speakers before," said Monira Gamal-Eldin of Temple's Muslim Students Association. "What he's preaching is not free speech. He is funneling hate toward one group of people."
A small minority like freshmen Erik Jacobs, however, said Wilders' appearance and the peaceful protest showed off the virtues of free speech."
End quote.
SOURCE:
http://www.metro.us/us/article/2009/10/21/05/1032-85/index.xml#
"WHERE ISLAM SETS ROOTS, FREEDOM DIES"
The New York Times has perhaps the best coverage: their account of the event describes audience reaction to Geert Wilders remarks, quotes him, and also cites students' comments.
Quote:
His remarks were met by a mixture of applause and boos, and occasionally gasps -- particularly when he stated that ''our Western culture is far better than the Islamic culture and we should defend it.''
End quote.
SOURCE
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/21/us/AP-US-Islam-Speech-Controversy.html?_r=1
Quote:
He decried as a ''disgrace'' a resolution co-sponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, and backed by the U.N. Human Rights Council earlier this month, deploring attacks on religions while insisting that freedom of expression remains a basic right.
End quote.
I would be leery of anything backed by the Human Rights Council, given its sorry track record and inclusion of the worst human rights violators. The United Nations in general might do well to stuff a sock in it too - the right to say horrid things is precisely what freedom of speech is about. If Geert Wilders wishes to call the Koran worse than Mein Kampf, insist that Islam is an intolerant ideology that encourages violence, or even aver that the prophet Mohammed was a brigand, a rapist, and a depraved pedophile who violated a nine year old, who the hell are the third-world gangsters, tyrants, and mother-violators in the United Nations to deny him that right?
None of the Muslim nations has freedom of speech, most of them are brutal dictatorships, and hardly anywhere in the Muslim world are non-Muslims treated as equals, despite having been in those countries longer than the Muslims.
Fine.
All of you foreign Thugbucket tyranies, kindly shut the F up. Thank you.
Quote:
A question-and-answer session was cut short after the tone of the event began to turn nasty, with some in the crowd of several hundred students began shouting jeers. Wilders' security detail quickly ushered him from the room.End quote.
That's quite a bit different than the impression that De Telegraaf paints. It also makes clear that he was not booed off, but that his security detail made a decision to extract him.
Paid protection tends to be very pragmatic about such things.
Quote.
''I think it's completely wrong that someone who promotes racism and intolerance should be given a platform at this university,'' said Temple student Josh Rosenthal. ''It's hate speech disguised as free speech.''
End quote.
Josh Rosenthal appears to have problems thinking. Perhaps Josh Rosenthal should contemplate his navel instead of speaking. Idiot.
Quote:
Another student, Joseph Rodrigues, said that being able to voice unpopular opinions is a freedom not to be taken lightly. ''I might not like what he said, but I think it's important that he be allowed to say it,'' he said.End quote.
Mr. Rodrigues is correct. It is important that one be allowed to say things that other people do not like. This is a fundamental right denied to many in the Muslim world. It is also a fundamental right of Muslims in the United States, some of whom are in fact students at Temple University. A number of whom made their point calmly, without causing any disruption.
Temple University students are free to disagree with Geert Wilders. Just as free as Geert Wilders must be to say disagreeable things.
And as free as the audience must be to hear what the man has to say.
------------------------------------------------------------------
POST-SCRIPTUM
If you're offended by whatever Geert Wilders says, you have the freedom to either counter-argue him, or ignore him. You also have the freedom to say nasty things about him, his ideology, and many other things. And really, there is nothing wrong with exercising that right.
You may also say whatever you want about other religions. Just bear in mind that no one really cares what you think about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his Noodly Appendage, nor what your opinion is of the Grelzakian Toadcult.
You are far less important than you think you are.
Stop acting like you are a victim and grow up.
------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM
The nine year old mentioned above in connection with the prophet Mohammed was Aisha bint Abu Bakr, who was only six or seven years old when betrothed to Mohammed. She continued living with her parents for several more years before the marriage was consummated, allegedly when she was nine or ten years old. But the traditional sources can be doubted, as this may very well be hyperbole serving to emphasize her purity and youth - she was the only one of Mohammed's wives to have been a virgin when she married him.
[Sources suggest that succession and legitimization issues may have influenced the narrative - her father Abu Bakr (Abu Bakr As-Siddiq also known as Abdallah ibn Abi Quhafa, 573 CE to 634 CE) became the first Caliph after Mohammad's death in 632 CE. Additionally, she is the source for many of the ahadith of the prophet's life, which later generations took as sources of authority. So there may be more to her reputed age at the time of her wedding than meets the eye.]
After their wedding, she continued to play with her toys - Mohammed would join in to make her happy.
Aisha is said to have been Mohammed's favourite wife, and they had great affection for one and other. Her tent curtain became the prophet's battle flag.
During his final illnes, the prophet sought her apartments and expired with his head in her lap in 632, aged 82 years.
She survived him by forty six years, being 65 when she died.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
GEERT WILDERS SPEAKING IN PHILLY
Dutch politico Geert Wilders is scheduled to speak this evening in Philadelphia at Temple University. And predictably, the Muslims and the Socialists are outraged.
[Per this article in De Telegraaf:http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5122122/__Wilders_spreekt_ondanks_protest__.html?p=22,1
and this mention on the Philly Independent Media Center site:http://www.phillyimc.org/en/no-hate-speech-no-geert-wilders ]
Frankly, my piles bleed for the poor bastards. Truly.
By which I mean of course that they can go piss up a rope, and I hope the blow-back gets in their eyes. They are pigs - sod them.
SNARKY DUTCHMAN
Geert Wilders is popular in the Netherlands because he has struck a nerve. Many Dutch people are fed up with the chickens in the Hague who seem determined to sell the country downriver, and with the unassimilatable element from outside who figure prominently in the crime statistics. Geert Wilders has called for limitations on immigration, particularly from the Muslim world, and has expressed strong opinions about Islam.
I will admit that I do not see eye to eye with Mr. Wilders, even though I am no fan of either Muslims or Islam.
There is a Koran on my desk which has passages in it with which I quite disrespectfully disagree, very much even that I find utterly repulsive, the book inspires truly evil behaviour.
On the other hand, the poetic quality of Koranic Arabic is quite splendid. And Islam has produced some great thinkers.
There are many Muslims whom I absolutely despise, and the prospect of more of that type entering the Western World sickens me; a great many Muslims are odious, uncivilized, barbaric, and cruel.
Yet some of the finest people I know are Muslims, whose kindness and generosity has greatly improved the world in their vicinities.
Some excellent writers are Muslim - even in the Netherlands, where Abdelkadir Benali enriches Dutch literature.
One splendid example of an admirable, fully integrated Muslim, and a very good man indeed, is the mayor of Rotterdam: Ahmed Aboutaleb.
Mr. Aboutaleb has managed to irritate commentators across the full spectrum of political views, chiefly by being intelligent, independent-minded, and capable.
Let me repeat that: intelligent, independent-minded, capable.Any of those qualities is quite unusual for a Dutch bureaucrat.
The Netherlands and Europe could use more men like Abdelkadir Benali and Ahmed Aboutaleb.
So while on one level I agree with some of the things Geert Wilders has said, I find myself also disagreeing.
I appreciate him for what he is: a gadfly. Dutch society desperately needs gadflies, lest the Dutch establishment become rigid and constipated. The average Dutchman often needs a clout on the side of the head to knock some sense into him.
Geert Wilders is tonic to Dutch society.
As the various comments (in Dutch) under the Telegraaf article make clear:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5122122/__Wilders_spreekt_ondanks_protest__.html?p=22,1
[It is interesting that many of the people who disagree with Geert Wilders are both native speakers of Dutch, and lousy spellers. Many of them being rather dull may be taken for granted. ]
'YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELLED OF ELDERBERRIES!'
That Geert Wilders irritates the spit out of the Muslim Students Association and the Socialist retards at Temple University is icing on the cake. If those jihadniks and morons cause any disturbance this evening, they should all be arrested.
A pox on them, on their ideologies, on their attitudes, and on their families and retrograde backgrounds. And a pox on the Philly Independent Media Center, which like all of Indymedia has been hijacked by the various ultra radical groupings, and represents the worst and most blatantly social-destructive elements among the disaffected.
Let Geert speak.
[Per this article in De Telegraaf:http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5122122/__Wilders_spreekt_ondanks_protest__.html?p=22,1
and this mention on the Philly Independent Media Center site:http://www.phillyimc.org/en/no-hate-speech-no-geert-wilders ]
Frankly, my piles bleed for the poor bastards. Truly.
By which I mean of course that they can go piss up a rope, and I hope the blow-back gets in their eyes. They are pigs - sod them.
SNARKY DUTCHMAN
Geert Wilders is popular in the Netherlands because he has struck a nerve. Many Dutch people are fed up with the chickens in the Hague who seem determined to sell the country downriver, and with the unassimilatable element from outside who figure prominently in the crime statistics. Geert Wilders has called for limitations on immigration, particularly from the Muslim world, and has expressed strong opinions about Islam.
I will admit that I do not see eye to eye with Mr. Wilders, even though I am no fan of either Muslims or Islam.
There is a Koran on my desk which has passages in it with which I quite disrespectfully disagree, very much even that I find utterly repulsive, the book inspires truly evil behaviour.
On the other hand, the poetic quality of Koranic Arabic is quite splendid. And Islam has produced some great thinkers.
There are many Muslims whom I absolutely despise, and the prospect of more of that type entering the Western World sickens me; a great many Muslims are odious, uncivilized, barbaric, and cruel.
Yet some of the finest people I know are Muslims, whose kindness and generosity has greatly improved the world in their vicinities.
Some excellent writers are Muslim - even in the Netherlands, where Abdelkadir Benali enriches Dutch literature.
One splendid example of an admirable, fully integrated Muslim, and a very good man indeed, is the mayor of Rotterdam: Ahmed Aboutaleb.
Mr. Aboutaleb has managed to irritate commentators across the full spectrum of political views, chiefly by being intelligent, independent-minded, and capable.
Let me repeat that: intelligent, independent-minded, capable.Any of those qualities is quite unusual for a Dutch bureaucrat.
The Netherlands and Europe could use more men like Abdelkadir Benali and Ahmed Aboutaleb.
So while on one level I agree with some of the things Geert Wilders has said, I find myself also disagreeing.
I appreciate him for what he is: a gadfly. Dutch society desperately needs gadflies, lest the Dutch establishment become rigid and constipated. The average Dutchman often needs a clout on the side of the head to knock some sense into him.
Geert Wilders is tonic to Dutch society.
As the various comments (in Dutch) under the Telegraaf article make clear:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5122122/__Wilders_spreekt_ondanks_protest__.html?p=22,1
[It is interesting that many of the people who disagree with Geert Wilders are both native speakers of Dutch, and lousy spellers. Many of them being rather dull may be taken for granted. ]
'YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELLED OF ELDERBERRIES!'
That Geert Wilders irritates the spit out of the Muslim Students Association and the Socialist retards at Temple University is icing on the cake. If those jihadniks and morons cause any disturbance this evening, they should all be arrested.
A pox on them, on their ideologies, on their attitudes, and on their families and retrograde backgrounds. And a pox on the Philly Independent Media Center, which like all of Indymedia has been hijacked by the various ultra radical groupings, and represents the worst and most blatantly social-destructive elements among the disaffected.
Let Geert speak.
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