Perfection Salad
For quite some time I have had a fascination for congealed salads or, as they are more commonly known today, Jell-O Salads, "congealed" rather having fallen out of favor as a descriptor since it seems to have developed unsavory connotations and association, as evidenced by the fact that discussing "congealed salads" at this recent, about-to-be-mentioned dinner, led to a discussion of blood puddings and blood sausages.
Anyway, we were invited to a small, pot-luck dinner this past Saturday. For some time I've been wanting to prepare a "Perfection Salad", to my mind the most famous and renowned congealed salad ever created, so I did. Imagine my surprise — dismay even — when I discovered that the other eight people at the dinner had never heard of "Perfection Salad"! I couldn't believe it either.
"Perfection Salad" was the invention of one Mrs. John E. Cooke, who submitted her recipe to a contest sponsored by Knox Gelatin. For her efforts she won $100, a not-to-sneeze-at amount in 1905. The recipe was published in the 1905 Knox cookbook Dainty Deserts for Dainty People, edited by Janet McKenzie Hill. Here is the text of her recipe as originally published. Ms. Hill was a graduate of Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School; here's an appreciation of Janet McKenzie Hill.
So iconic was "Perfection Salad" of its time that Laura Shapiro used it as the title of her fascinating history of the development of "home economics", Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (New York : North Point Press, 1986). It was a time when technology was starting to impinge on the kitchen arts. Here is Ms. Shapiro on salads, and why salads encased in sparkling gelatin were the epitome of modern cooking:
Salad greens, which did have to be served raw and crisp, demanded more complicated measures. The object of scientific salad making was to subdue the raw greens until they bore as little resemblance as possible to their natural state. If a plain green salad was called for, the experts tried to avoid simply letting a disorganized pile of leaves drop messily onto the plate…This arduous approach to salad making became an identifying feature of cooking-school cookery and the signature of a refined household…American salads traditionally had been a matter of fresh greens, chicken, or lobster, but during the decades at the turn of the century, when urban and suburban middle class was beginning to define itself, salads proliferated magnificently in number and variety until they incorporated nearly every kind of food except bread and pastry…Salads that were nothing but a heap of raw ingredients in dissaray plainly lacked cultivation, and the cooking experts developed a number of ingenious ways to wrap them up…The tidiest and most thorough way to package a salad was to mold in in gelatin. [pp. 96–99; quoted here]
"Perfection Salad" is an example of the savory gelatin salad, a taste for which Americans at least seem to have left behind by about 1970. Yes, there is sugar in the recipe (I used a non-sugar sweetener to good effect), but there is also vinegar, so that the overall effect is a pleasant sweet-and-sour effect rather than the dessert-sweet of, say, fruit cocktail molded in Jell-O. The idea easily strikes the uninitiated as somewhere between "odd" and "ooh, gross!" (read, for instance, the disdainful discussion and grossed-out comments here), but it's really quite tasty and refreshing, and entirely suitable for a salad meant to accompany an entree.
I am delighted that I finally got around to making this classic and introducing it to some friends. One taste told me it was a classic combination and a keeper of a recipe that I plan to make again real soon. I am equally delighted that it fit my parameters for "easy to make" : chop a few vegetables, stir some things together, combine and put in the refrigerator. I think my reputation as our pot-luck go-to-guy for all things molded Jell-O is about to be seriously enhanced.
The recipe I give here comes from a fun website called "Recipe Curio" (source), and it's very faithful to the original. Where the recipe calls for finely shredded cabbage, I agree that shredding it as finely as possible is essential to the presentation and the taste; the very fine shreds present more crunchy texture and ensemble taste with the other vegetables rather than a full-on cabbage effect. Remember, it was originally "Dainty".
———-
Perfection Salad
- 2 envelopes (1 oz. each) or 2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
- 0.5 cup sugar or substitute (I used Splenda for cooking)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1.5 cups boiling water
- 1.5 cups cold water
- 0.5 cup mild vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon's worth)
- 2 cups finely shredded cabbage (about a quarter of a head; green cabbage is preferable to red)
- 1 cup chopped celery (about 3 stalks)
- 0.25 cup chopped green pepper (about half a pepper)
- 0.25 cup chopped pimiento
- 0.33 cup green-olive slices (I didn't use these and I'm still of two minds about whether I want to)
- Thoroughly mix unflavored gelatin, sweetener, and salt. Add boiling water and stir to dissolve. Then add cold water, vinegar, and lemon juice.
- Chill until partially set, about 1 hour.
- Stir in the shredded cabbage, celery, green pepper, pimiento, and green-olive slices.
- Pour mixture into an 8.5 x 4.5 x 2.5-inch loaf pan that has been oiled or sprayed with Pam.
- Chill until firm; at least 4 hours. Unmold (it helps to run a thin knife around the edges of the mold.
I ♥ Bariolage
I was very happy today to be reminded of the word "Bariolage", which refers to a technique of playing a stringed instrument in which a changing note played on one string is quickly alternated with an unchanging note played on another string; the unchanging note frequently is an open string. It's commonly heard in Baroque music, particularly Baroque violin sonatas, and sometimes gives a sense of an accompanied melody issuing from the solo instrument. The technique has always appealed to me and I knew there was a word for it that I'd heard decades ago but had forgotten, much to my annoyance. Now I can reinforce the memory of the word by telling you about it.
Here is a ready example of bariolage from the first Cello Suite, in G Major, of JS Bach. The bariolage occurs in a short passage that begins at the 1:54' mark, where the "melody" is fingered on the D string, alternating with an open A string. The bariolage is foreshadowed in the way the arpeggiated figures are written, particularly at the beginning, with alternating notes at the end of each short figure.
This is Mischa Maisky playing.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Bariolage refers strictly to the alternation of two notes on two strings, but is frequently misapplied to figures of rapid arpeggios across strings. These arpeggios are also a very characteristic form of passage work, particularly in Baroque music, but it is distinct from bariolage. Here is an excellent short demonstration of rapid arpeggios on the violin, mistakenly called bariolage even though the violinist is speaking French.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
So, as long as we're talking about rapid arpeggios, here's one of my favorite passages to play, also from a Bach Cello Suite, this one is #3 in C Major. Playing it is my favorite cellist, Janos Starker. The arpeggio fun beings at 2:25'.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
In: All, Explaining Things, Music & Art
Pride in New York
It's the Empire State Building with its gay-pride colors on, but this celebration is special. New York City's gay-pride events were already scheduled for this weekend but they are a bigger-than-ever party celebrating the arrival, late Friday night, 24 June 2011, of marriage equality in the state of New York. The New York assembly has handily passed a marriage-equality bill several times in the past two years; the Republican-dominated Senate finally did so Friday night by a vote of 33 to 29. They join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia as jurisdictions where same-sex couples may now marry legally. California, as you certainly know, is in marriage-equality limbo but presumably on its way back. Maryland, I might note (since that's where I live) nearly managed to join the small but growing crowd earlier this year but balked, giving the initiative to New York, which I hope will gall our assembly so much that they get over themselves next session.
There was, rather quietly, some movement on the marriage-equality front in Maryland this past week as well, as a friend (BR) pointed out. The background is that last year (2010) in Maryland our attorney general, Doug Gansler, wrote a legal opinion in which he said that our current state laws required the recognition, in Maryland, of any marriage entered into legally in any other jurisdiction; specifically, this was directed as same-sex marriages. It was one reason Isaac and I decided that the time had come for us to commit our own marriage. That idea had not, however been tested in court until this past week when the question came up in a Circuit-Court case in Maryland. It arose in a case involving a couple, two women, who had been legally married in Washington, DC. At issue was whether one of the couple could be compelled to testify against the other. The court found that, because of state law and in light of Gansler's opinion, that the privilege of not testifying against a spouse applied (details in this story). This feels very significant to me.
Most people I hear, both in favor of and opposed (for inscrutable reasons), seem to feel that New York's move marks the tipping point in favor of marriage equality in this country. I do think that. Marriage-equality foes have been fighting the "inevitability meme" with all their might and money, but The People — basically a Fair People — have heard the arguments (endlessly!), or perhaps more precisely "tired platitudes", and see them for the empty fear-mongering in the name of some religious righteousness that they are. When I was listening to the unhappy, distinctly non-gay groups making their threats of retribution over Friday's vote in New York, it sounded to me like the roar of an old tiger that's lost its teeth. Beyond this point all the secret money from the Catholic and Mormon churches can't keep these party poopers from becoming ever more marginalized.
The bill in New York passed after lots of "compromise" negotiation went on over the issue of "religious exemptions". There are several written into the legislation, most of which covers issues that were already addressed in other laws, but a few of which may prove useful in the future for lawyers looking for work. I rather like the attitude of the Friendly Atheist who wrote about them,
You know what? I’m fine with the exemption. Years from now, it’ll be proof that while the majority of the public — and the majority of NY senators — was in support of marriage equality, certain religious groups wanted to hold back progress. They wanted their bigotry enshrined in the law.
I have to say it reminds me mostly of the Boy Scouts who fought loudly and publicly for their right to discriminate against gay people (NB: the Girl Scouts have always taken a much more inclusive attitude) until the Supreme Court said they were free to hate and exclude gay people as much as they wanted. It was definitely a Pyrrhic victory : have the Boy Scouts ever been less a social force in America than they are today? Vehemently hating on gay and lesbian people has been a losing proposition for some years now but the news is slow to get to the ones who need to hear it most.
I do get upset by the anti-gay forces who try, in the face of their own hateful rhetoric and actions, to pretend that gay and lesbian people do not face any discrimination, are not hated and feared, are not marginalized, and are not in need of "special rights", as they try to brand moves toward equality. They seem to suffer no intimations of irony as they try to convince that some of their best friends are gay and that they really have no problem with gay people if we just wouldn't keep flaunting it. It's not like straight people have straight-pride parades, after all.
As I wrote once here:
Forty years ago, in this country, within my lifetime, homosexuality was both a mental illness and a crime. That has changed slowly through the intervening decades–at least in law if not entirely in attitude–because of the courage and sacrifices of untold numbers of gays and lesbians and other sexual outlaws, people whose persecution was violent, bloody, often fatal. Too much of it still continues to this day.
In the 1950s and 1960s gay and lesbian people, while looking for routes that might lead to some social respect, were a relatively low-profile group. I hate to sound childish about this whole "in your face" gay thing but we didn't start it. Despite the innocent expression on the faces of the haters, they just couldn't leave us alone. Societal disapprobation, persecution, raids on queer bars, oppressive laws, shock treatment as "therapy" — there was a limit to it all.
If you think I'm making up this pervasive anti-gay attitude, let's take a quick look at this paragraph from a 1964 essay, "Homosexuality in America", from the pages of Life magazine (quoted here) :
Homosexuality shears across the spectrum of American life — the professions, the arts, business and labor. It always has. But today, especially in big cities, homosexuals are discarding their furtive ways and openly admitting, even flaunting, their deviation. Homosexuals have their won drinking places, their special assignation streets, even their own organizations. And for every obvious homosexual, there are probably nine nearly impossible to detect. This social disorder, which society tries to suppress, has forced itself into the public eye because it does present a problem — and parents especially are concerned. The myth and misconception with which homosexuality has so long been clothed must be cleared away, not to condone it but to cope with it.
This would appear to be a "friendly" article, despite that suggestion that we were "flaunting our deviation". You can see that gays and lesbians had become the scapegoats representing the demimonde, to blame for everything that had caused all the most idyllic aspects of the fondly remembered 1950s — fondly remembered by the white middle- and upper-class — to start melting away, leading American society into an abyss from which it might never be freed. Not only that but apparently we were expected to accept this role without demur.
Well, sooner or later that pot was bound to boil over, and boil over it did on the night of 27 June 1968 outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a night noted as a riot of drag queens. There's a lot written about "Stonewall", as we refer to it today. There's a fair amount of myth that swirls about, but we needed some myth, and the reality is a lot more than some people would like to admit. It's very hard these days to imagine the oppressive milieu in which the Stonewall riots took place–it just doesn't seem credible. If you find it incredible, read (here at Joe.My.God) this reprint of the news article "HOMO NEST RAIDED – QUEEN BEES ARE STINGING MAD", by Jerry Lisker, New York Daily News, July 6th 1969. This contemporary account was thought to be news reporting!
You see what happened that night at Stonewall : the shame under which we were supposed to cower, knowing our place, accepting our fate, started to be replaced by pride, pride in accepting who we are and what we are and pride in finally knowing that we are all human beings worthy of respect.
If you've wondered why there are all these "Pride" events going on around the country in June, there's your reason : they started, and they continue, as commemorations of events outside the Stonewall Inn on 27 June 1969.
If you want to know why these celebrations are called "Pride" events, there's your answer.
That's part of the answer, too, why the events this past week in New York seem like such a big deal, because we've been traveling a long way and it's nice to have a spot where we can rest our tired, weary selves awhile.
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
Maddow on Birthers
The idea that the birth certificate is the real story, and Osama bin Laden is the distraction from it, tells you everything you really need to know about the people who are invested in the birth certificate.
—Rachel Maddow on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 3 May 2011
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Protecting "Traditional Spaghetti"
My purpose in quoting this news excerpt is not to recapitulate the dreary and clichéd patter of anti-gay politicians, as you will see below.
BOSTON — For anyone paying attention to the Governor's Council recently, the questions were predictable, the exchanges inevitable.
Charles O. Cipollini repeatedly pressed [Massachusetts'] Gov. Deval Patrick's latest state Supreme Judicial Court nominee, Barbara Lenk, with questions about same-sex marriage during Wednesday's confirmation hearing.
Lenk, if confirmed, would be the court's first openly gay justice in its history.
Cipollini, a Fall River Republican whose District 1 stretches from the Rhode Island border to the tip of Cape Cod, has billed himself as a "traditional family values" councilor. He has indicated he thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman.
In the Supreme Judicial Court confirmation hearing for Fernande D.V. Duffly earlier this year, he appeared to conflate same-sex marriage with polygamy and communal living.
Wednesday he said "I am tired of attempts by the court to redefine common words … especially those that we hold dear, like marriage."
"Will the definition of spaghetti be next?"
[from Dan McDonald, "Cipollini presses openly gay SJC nominee on same-sex marriage", SouthCoastToday.com, 28 April 2011.]
Now, it's quite possible that Mr. Cipollini was not paying attention in — what was it? — the 1980s when 'spaghetti' and 'macaroni' fell out of favor and were largely replaced by 'pasta', a term that embraced greater diversity, but it seems to me that 'spaghetti' is a relatively insignificant word over whose redefinition one should fret. Will we be hearing soon about new crusades to protect "traditional spaghetti"?
I suppose we must imagine that Mr. Cipollini holds the meaning of 'spaghetti' especially dear.
In: All, Faaabulosity, Laughing Matters
Balancing Basic & Applied Research
The transistor, the LED, and the medical isotope technetium-99m are important applications of science, yet as far as I know none of them was invented as the result of a government initiative to fund industrially relevant research.
The transistor was invented at Bell Labs. The LED was invented at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and technetium-99m was discovered—and its usefulness to medicine recognized—at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
My short list is not meant to buttress an argument that governments shouldn't fund applied, goal-directed research. They should. The challenge lies is striking the right balance between basic and applied research. If a government overemphasizes applied research, it risks depriving basic researchers of the funds they need to make discoveries and inventions that could prove industrially important.
[from Charles Day, "Striking the right balance between basic and applied research", The Dayside, 21 April 2011.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
You've Got to be Carefully Taught
Remarking on the news that the Catholic Church in Rhode Island was to kick off a program to "educate" parishioners about the "dangers" of marriage equality:
[P]eople must be coached into seeing [gays and lesbians who wish to marry] as a threat, since the instinct is to see us as the benign lovers that we truly are.
[Jeremy Hooper, "Just in time for Lent, RI Catholic leaders give up all pretense of church/state separation", Good As You, 26 April 2011.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Faaabulosity
Beard on Salads
Tonight I was thumbing through James Beard's American Cookery (1972, in a reissued edition), and noted these two remarks on the subject of salads.
[from page 34]
When a Pennsylvania housewife won a national prize for a jellied salad in 1905, she unleashed a demand for congealed salads that has grown alarmingly, particularly in the suburbs. The jellied salad does have its delights, though, and it is without question an American innovation.
[from page 44, considering different ways to serve "Sliced Tomatoes"]
(10) Place strips of crisp bacon across the tomatoes and add oil & vinegar dressing. This is sometimes called a Greased Pig Salad if served on greens.
It's the first I've heard of a "Greased Pig Salad", but I think it could quickly become a favorite.
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book, Food Stuff
The Gingrich Theology of Sex and Sinning
It was, for a change, a quiet evening at home. Dogs curled at their feet, Frank was reading the newspaper while Kenneth furrowed his brow over a challenging Sudoku.
Frank rattled the pages of his paper, drawing Kenneth's attention. "I was just thinking earlier about serial adulterer Newt Gingerich and his seemingly serious–to him–bid to become President. Now I read that it was his 'passion for America' that caused him to cheat on his succession of wives. That's a novel name for it, I guess. Say, maybe it was former-governor Sanford's 'passion for America' that had him out 'hiking the Appalachian trail'. Still, it doesn't seem to affect Gingrich's polling numbers much."
Kenneth paused, tilting his pencil at Frank. "Thats because he applies the Gingrich Theology of Sex and Sinning."
Frank knew better than to encourage Kenneth, but he couldn't help asking. "And that would be…?"
"Apparently you can sin as much as you like and, so long as you really beg God to forgive you he will and Jesus can still be your best friend. I'm thinking of converting myself."
"What! You would give up your cherished secular humanism, and for what…?"
"More sex, of course, plus greater happiness. See, every time you're forgiven again by God you feel a little better, knowing that you are a morally superior person. As Gingrich has demonstrated, the more sin the more forgiveness and the better you feel about yourself. So I'm going to the bar more often and try to pick up more men, and every time I have a sinful episode of sex with another man I'm going to beg forgiveness and feel a whole lot better about myself."
"I would think you'd feel wonderful. After all, Gingrich and his crowd tell us that gay sex is just about the worst sin there is, so you should experience even more forgiveness and, therefore, even greater happiness than serial-adulterer Gingrich."
"Well, you might very well think that, but it could be that one of the Commandments has to be involved. Adultery is covered, of course, but homosexuality isn't mentioned anywhere in the Commandments so it may be that God won't deliver so much forgiveness for sinful gay transgressions as he does for sinful adulterous transgressions."
"Oh dear, that could be a draw back. What can you do?"
"Sin more. I'll try to have multiple sex partners every night."
"Sounds tiring."
"May be impossible. I regret that as I grow older I have but one orgasm to give each night for my sins."
In: All, Current Events, Frank & Kenneth
Do As He Says, Not As He Does
Newt Gingrich, lately infected with delusional notions that people want him to be president (yes, of the United States!), enjoys his sinning but apparently gets his sin-tickets fixed through his very special relationship with Jesus. Don't forget, however, that he finds the idea of marriage equality, well, unforgivable. So, I repeat the following just because it seems to me that it deserves repeating.
Newt Gingrich would like to remind everybody that that marriage is between one man and one woman whom you abandon riddled with cancer on her hospital bed while you fuck the shit out of your mistress whom you later marry and cheat on with a third woman while screaming with Godly moral outrage about the infidelities of the president.
["Anti-Gay Marriage Money Gingrich Sent To Iowa Went Through Focus On The Family", Joe.My.God, 16 March 2011.]
In: All, Current Events, Splenetics
When Are Two Things the Same?
As a response today to the Colorado Senate's Judiciary Committee voting 6-3 today to pass civil unions, I read this (here):
"It is as close to marriage as can be construed in Colorado law without using that word," said Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg, a long-time opponent of LGBT rights. "For that reason it is marriage and it changes the institution of marriage."
Among other things I am reminded, with a bittersweet, ironic smile, that whenever social conservatives are faced with marriage equality as an issue they always exclaim "Please! Can't we make it civil unions? Please, please, anything so long as you don't call it 'marriage'!" Of course, plenty of actual experience with reality has demonstrated that they really don't mean it — see Mr. Lundberg's remark above, e.g. — but only use it as a dramatic rhetorical negative to try to delay the conversation, a frequent conservative tactic that appears in many guises.
But what really caught my notice was the more metaphysical question that Mr. Lundberg raises, namely, when are two things that are not the same the same? Many marriage-equality foes have repeatedly suggest that "civil unions" are plenty, are a separate-but-equal equivalent of "marriage" that will mollify the gays but keep the straights from having their own marriages rendered asunder. On the other hand, we know also from experience and from court cases that "civil unions" are not, in face, treated as virtually identical to "marriage" but are, in fact, treated as — no surprise, this — the second-class imitations that they are when it comes to conferring the civil benefits of marriage.
So, this is how the conservative argument goes: "civil unions" are identical to "marriage" but don't use the word, except that "civil unions" are lesser than "marriage" and safe to use for gays, except that "civil unions" are too much like "marriage" and had better not be used….
Honestly, what Mr. Lundberg really put me in mind of is the timeless, and rather pointless, question of whether this mathematical statement is true:
1 = 0.999999999… .
In: All, Faaabulosity, Snake Oil--Cheap!
A Letter to MD Delegate Valentino-Smith
In the process that's trying to move a bill for marriage equality in my home state of Maryland, last week's step was to get the bill out of the Maryland House Judiciary Committee so that it can be debated and voted on by all the delegates. One of my district's delegates, Geraldine Valentino-Smith, sat on that committee. Unfortunately, she voted "No" on the bill in committee. Assuming that perhaps it was a procedural matter of some kind and not a result of misplaced concerns about welcoming marriage equality to Maryland, I've written a second letter to my delegate.
Greetings Ms. Valentino-Smith,
My husband and I noted with dismay that you chose to vote "NO' on reporting the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act (HB 175) out of committee last week. I am happy that it nevertheless made it to the foor for debate and a vote of the entire House.
I am very disappointed that you apparently feel that my relationship with my husband is somehow less deserving of equal treatment under civil law than that of other of your consitutents.
I am particularly disappointed since my vote in your favor seemed to count the same as others' in the last election that sent you to the Maryland Assembly.
There is still time, of course, to record your name in the history books as a person of integrity who supports full equality in Maryland, and vote in favor of full marriage equality in our state.
I encourage you to vote in favor of marriage equality for all your constituents.
Yours,
Jeff Shaumeyer
In: All, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
Martha Graham Dances "Appalachian Spring"
"Appalachian Spring", the ballet by Martha Graham with music by Aaron Copeland, premiered at the Library of Congress in 1944. As Jennifer McDonald says in this short blog entry, it "became an instant treasure". She also helpfully reminds me that it is a great thing to see Martha Graham's dance and hear Aaron Copeland's music, and that we can, thanks to this beautiful recording filmed in 1959, when Graham was in her mid-60s.
Dancers in this film:
The Bride: Martha Graham
The Husbandman: Stuart Hodes
The Revivalist: Bertram Ross
The Pioneer Woman: Matt Turney
The Revivalists' Flock: Yuriko, Helen McGehee, Ethel Winter, Miriam Cole
Film Directed and Photographed by Peter Glushanok, Produced by Nathan Kroll, Presented by WQED Pittsburgh. Filmed in 1959.
[YouTube link for Part I, for those who don't see the embedded player.]
[YouTube link for Part II, for those who don't see the embedded player.]
[YouTube link for Part III, for those who don't see the embedded player.]
[YouTube link for Part IV, for those who don't see the embedded player.]
George W. Trippon — The Film
Sometime last year my friend Arne introduced me to the late George W. Trippon (1916–2010) and pointed out some videos on YouTube of Trippon's program "Sew Whats New"; the episodes I saw were from the early 1970s although we're told the program ran from 1972 until 1994.
George W. Trippon–who is, surprisingly, apparently not famous enough to merit a mention in Wikipedia yet–started his Hollywood career as a dancer but didn't see a long future in dancing on screen and apprenticed as a costume designer, which became the career he could live with. He ran a school for a number of years, and it was teaching design that led him to making the television programs about sewing and fashion and whatnot. He also was a World War II Veteran, serving as a Corporal in the Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army from 1942-1944 before being given an honorable discharge for health reasons.
This is a 30-minute documentary about Trippon by Shawn Quinlan; it's delightful and enlightening. Trippon is quoted as saying "I was born gay", by which I take it he meant he was fabulous and guilt-free right out of the womb and, as the YouTube notes mention, we get a fascinating glimpse into Hollywood gay life in the 1930s from hearing his story. Also featured is his military life and how, as he was about to leave his military hospital he ended up teaching physical therapy courses in millinery that proved extremely popular with the army boys! In the midst of all that we get the touching story of how he met, in 1942, James W. Price, the man he would spend 64 years with.
Someplace I read that Trippon is known to some as "The Liberace of the Sewing Machine". Well, after you see the clips from "Sew Whats New" in this film, you'll know why, and he was a hoot. He also was a creative and lively teacher; several of the "Sew Whats New" episodes will show up on YouTube after an easy search.
I expected this film to be, at the least, light and amusing. It is certainly that but it also tells a very compelling story worth hearing.
"Trippon", by Shawn Quinlan, Part 1 of 3
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
"Trippon", by Shawn Quinlan, Part 2 of 3
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
"Trippon", by Shawn Quinlan, Part 3 of 3
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
[via Sissydude]
Ricks on Bergen on Bush
Bergen[, in his book The Longest War,] is evenhanded but ferocious in reviewing the failures of the Bush administration, noting that in the wake of the worst security failure in American history, no one was fired, no one resigned and no one took responsibility. It’s widely understood that the White House ceded the moral high ground by embracing torture and secret prisons, but Bergen highlights how flatly unprofessional these actions were: seasoned interrogators were shunted aside in favor of eager amateurs who thought the facts could be physically wrung from detainees. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times, yet told his torturers nothing more about the 9/11 attacks than he had already voluntarily spilled two years earlier to an interviewer from Al Jazeera. Similarly, Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile, learned to bypass intelligence professionals and inject his fictions directly into the offices of his less knowledgeable allies in the Pentagon and White House.
Colin Powell comes off as a chump who should have resigned in November 2001, when he learned about the administration’s new policy on detainees from a news broadcast on television, and long before he delivered one of the most misleading speeches in American history, his rallying cry for war at the United Nations. Dick Cheney appears less a brooding presence and more a red-faced buffoon, which may well be how history comes to regard him. I was surprised, however, at how badly Condoleezza Rice appears in this historical record. Bergen makes it clear that she was at best misleading about the actions of the administration. For example, she testified that the White House was on high alert before 9/11, but, he dryly notes, “the historical record does not reflect this.” As secretary of state, Rice reassured us that “the United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured” — a statement that Bergen says we now know to have been “demonstrably false.”
Yet Rice hardly stands out in an administration that confected the rationale for the invasion of Iraq out of a few stray rumors, stale leads and discredited reports. The only evidence Bush ever offered for a nexus between Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda was based on information obtained though the interrogation of a Libyan militant that both the Defense Intelligence Agency and the C.I.A. had separately concluded was fabricated — well before the president used that information publicly.
[excerpt from Thomas E. Ricks, "Determined to Strike", New York Times, 11 January 2011, a review of The Longest War : The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda, by Peter L. Bergen.]
A Small Basket of Links
Rather than link those things that caught my eye and give a footnote to Avedon Carol for them, here instead is a brief excerpt from "Look over your shoulder" (The Sideshow, 5 January 2011), with links:
Like that former senior House aide said: "You can't blame the voters. In 2006 they voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts. In 2008 they voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts. And in 2010 they voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts." Clearly, there is only one way for Americans to get their rights back – we must all become corporations.
[…]
List of members of the House who are against net neutrality
Selecting a Popular-Science Book to Read
Recently I was contemplating answers to potential questions prior to a brief interview (I'll give a link if it shows up someplace linkable) I gave about our Science Book Challenge. One question that came to mind, one for which we try to provide one answer with our collection of science-book notes, is "How do I choose a popular-science book that I might like to read?"
It's an important question. I want to encourage people to read about science, but I really want to encourage people to read something that they will enjoy, something that will speak to them and leave them feeling refreshed with new ideas. What value is there is reading something that just doesn't speak to you? It may fulfill some false notion of virtue but it's not going to open anyone's mind to the idea that science is something that can speak to them with pleasure and profitable learning.
Here's a simple algorithm I came up with that I truly believe will work well for most people. In addition to helping a reader locate a potential rewarding book, it has the virtue of introducing the reader to a librarian — librarians are great people to get to know! — and of encouraging the use of one's local library, a valuable resource perennially in danger of withering from community neglect.
- Go to your library.
- Ask a librarian to show you where the science, or math, or engineering books are.
- Look along the shelves for a book with a title that interests you, or one with a funny author's name, or one with an interesting picture on the cover or an attractive color on the spine. This isn't as random as it sounds–you're pulling out a book that already has something appealing to you.
- Open the book to some page near the middle and read a few paragraphs to see whether the way the author writes is agreeable to you. It doesn't matter at this point whether you understand any of the ideas the author might be writing about. Rather, it's to get an idea whether you can stand to listen to this author talking to you for the next 200 pages.
- Check out the book and start reading it. If it doesn't engage you — for any reason whatsoever! — stop reading it, take it back, and try another one.
The basic ideas here are to start anywhere but start now, and not to let the books intimidate you–you get to judge the books, the books don't get to judge you.
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Rainbows of his Mind
My interest is captivated by this item from Mike Tidmus [source ; his post has the links]:
San Diego’s least meteorologically-inclined Christian, James Hartline, claims an airplane was struck by lightning because it flew through a rainbow — the universal symbol of gay and lesbian rights. That offense, apparently, pissed off Hartline’s god. Tweets San Diego’s Most Oppressed Christian™: “Video captures plane being struck by lightning as it flew through rainbow during catastrophic storm in San Diego. http://bit.ly/ewQxO6.”
It's fascinating because rainbows, while they have an objective physical existence, are not tangible objects. They are optical phenomena created by sunlight refracting through a mist of water droplets and creating the image of a rainbow in the eye of observers located in the right spot to see it. The rainbow is a personal thing, created for everyone who sees it, although it indeed has an objective existence that can be measured by instruments and photographed by cameras. Nevertheless, there is no physical rainbow that one can locate in space, there is no physical rainbow that one can touch, there is no physical rainbow at the end of which one will ever find a pot of gold–but it makes a fine metaphor for the futility of such a financial quest.
In particular, there is no physical rainbow that an airplane can fly through even if it were miraculously ordained by Mr. Hartline's invisible friend. It is of course possible that a video camera might see an airplane appear to fly through a rainbow and be struck by lightning, but it would be a very personal revelation for that videographer since someone standing nearby could watch the airplane fly comfortably past the rainbow.
Still other observers standing elsewhere would be in the wrong place to see the rainbow but they could still observe the airplane, perhaps seeing it struck by lightning as it flew over Mr. Hartline's head. What a revelation a change in perspective can bring!
In: All, Faaabulosity, It's Only Rocket Science
Mullen on Integrity
"Our people sacrifice a lot for their country, including their lives. None of them should have to sacrifice their integrity as well."
— Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted by President Obama in remarks at the signing of "The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010" on 22 December 2010.
In: Common-Place Book, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Palin : America's First "Reality" Candidate?
As I write this the big controversy of the week–in addition to whether the senate might vote to repeal DADT and whether our not-really-progressive president has "caved" to Republicans on extending the anti-progressive Bush tax-cuts–is the escalating spat between Margaret Cho and Bristol Palin. Ms. Cho contended that Ms. Palin as induced by her celebrity mom to be a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" so that teabaggers everywhere could stuff the phone-in ballot box in Bristol's favor, thus expressing their undying and subversive love for Bristol's mom.
Says Palin: "Did not."
Says Cho: "Did too."
Palin: "Did not!"
Cho: "Did too!"
In this war of words, should it ever return to words of more than one syllable, I know where the smart money will be–unless, of course, it goes up for a text-in vote from teabaggers.
Ms. Cho says she doesn't mind at all that noted unwed mum and abstinence spokesmodel Bristol was a contestant. Cho clarifies:
What I do have a problem with is Sarah Palin running for president and using reality TV as her platform.
–Margaret Cho, on whether Sarah Palin forced her daughter to be on "Dancing with the Stars" [quoted in Andy Towle, "Watch: Margaret Cho Won't Have Sarah Palin Run for President on Reality TV", Towleroad, 8 December 2010]
Duh! And now I see it with stunning clarity. Sarah Palin is not running a presidential campaign at all, largely because she hasn't the first idea how that's done.
Rather, the half-term governor is starring in a Palin-Runs-For-President reality program at the end of which viewers get to vote (maybe only once, maybe multiple times) the other candidates off the stump and Palin wins the keys to the Dream White House! This is the only scenario I see in which one might hope to understand the strange set of antics that seem to constitute Palin's non-campaign. And it makes sense : this is the way to reach a whole new generation of voters and all those whose overriding concept of competition comes from watching the survival of contestants on "reality" programs.
This idea of trying a "reality" campaign might seem discordant since we know from the Bush years that Republicans generally don't believe in reality. However, it's only an apparent contradiction since "reality" programs are generally the least real and most contrived of anything one can see on today's television programming.
Forget governing qualifications. Ratings is what it's all about.
In: All, Current Events, Eureka!