Accidental Blogger

I have a confession to make. I am a fruitcake lover. Fruitcake jokes strike me as tired gestures of small minds which have run out of meaningful content. 
My love of fruitcake has roots in childhood when on special of occasions beloved family members or close friends broke out a few home-made versions which were served in too-small rationed portions, always leaving me wanting more than I was allowed.

Two such occasions remain fresh in my memory. The first was when I was about eleven years old, visiting with my parents an elderly woman of my grandparents generation one Sunday afternoon. After a little while she invited us to have a taste of her holiday fruitcake. It was so big it must have been from a recipe I'll tell about shortly, but it was by then over half gone, with evidence that it had been taken away a morsel at a time, leaving behind a crumbling ruin. It would never make a good magazine picture but it was delightful to see, a damaged tube cake under an old cotton towel, stained with whatever spirits kept it damp, with a dried up old half an apple or two in the opening of the tube. My Dad said that Gladys Maupin's black fruitcake was better than anyone else's and when she told people what was in it she never seemed to tell the same thing twice. It was so crumbly I at it with my fingers, but either the flavor or the occasion has remained in my memory.

The second was years later when our girls were involved with gymnastics. The last surviving aunt on my mother's side, an avid sports fan in her eighties, lived two hours away where a state-wide meet was being hosted. When we went by her apartment afterward she discretely invited me into her kitchen for a taste of her holiday fruitcake which by then was at least three months old. She had it wrapped carfully and hidden under a drop-leaf table in the kitchen and obviously didn't let anybody have any unless they were worthy in her judgment. I don't recall the cake as much as the occasion and the way it was treated, almost like a religious relic. 

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Reblogged here from my old blog. Four years ago I posted this recipe while taking a break from Thanksgiving kitchen duties. It was noticed by the Google robots and appears among the first links when I search for "boiled custard recipe." (Algorithms are crafted to reflect a variety of preferences so results may vary.)

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No Thanksgiving or Christmas is complete at our house without boiled custard. I just made two batches which yielded just over a quart and a half after I enjoyed the cook's tasting portion along the way. It took less than an hour, and if family members don't get too much while it is still warm, there should be enough left to serve chilled with dessert later today.

This is a Southern thing but mostly from the border states. My family is from Kentucky, so we have had boiled custard for generations. Think eggnog without the nog. This delectable treat is nothing more than milk, eggs and sugar with vanilla added for flavor. Like all wonderful foods, handling is more important than the recipe. This is how I make boiled custard.

The ingredients are simple…

4 Eggs
1 Cup Sugar

1 Quart Milk

Vanilla to taste

…but that's not the recipe. The recipe is how to put them together.

1. Heat the milk in a double boiler, stirring enough that it won't leave cooked milk at the bottom as it heats. I have found that a small boiler making one quart at a time works better than doing a large batch. I use a pocket thermometer to check the temperature.
2. While the milk is getting hot, break the eggs into another container and mix in the sugar. A small hand whip works well for this. No need to mess up an electric mixer. When the milk shows about 120 degrees, put some into the egg-sugar mixture, mix it in to make it all pour better, then pour it all into the hot milk, stirring all the time.  
3. Continue to stir and monitor the custard as it heats to 180 degrees. As it gets hot, the eggs will be cooking and it will want to stick to the bottom of the boiler, so keep stirring. A wooden spoon is good, but I just use the same whip that I used to mix the sugar and eggs.  
4. Pour the hot custard through a sieve into some other container. I use a two-quart plastic kitchen measure with handle and pouring spout. It makes it easier to pour into jars to cool.  
5. Vanilla always goes into anything at the end. If you put it in as it is cooking the flavor will not be as good. (This is also true of herbs and most spices. The delicate aromas and flavors are never improved by too much boiling, baking or poaching.) I use about a teaspoon and the aroma makes me immediately pour off a little into a juice glass to make certain I didn't make any mistakes. 

This sweet, simple treat will serve wonderfully with almost any dessert. Pound Cake or sweet potato pie comes to mind. Later in the day, I have been known to enrich boiled custard with something alcoholic. Bourbon is traditional, but liqueurs of all kinds are a possibility. The mind reels. Enjoy.

The career of General David Petraeus is under the microscope.  At the risk of being a scandal-monger I have to drag out the skeleton of Col. Ted Westhusing, a field-grade officer in Iraq who committed suicide in June, 2005. The story of his death did not get close scrutiny for hearly half a year when investigative journalists attempted to connect his suicide with some very unsavory events that occurred about the time of his death. Questions were raised at the time which remain to this day about a coverup of those events which included soft-pedaling Westhusing's suicide. Petraeus was his commanding officer. 

This is the opening of a lengthy article appearing in the LA Times at the time.

The Army would conclude that he committed suicide with his service pistol. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq.

The Army closed its case. But the questions surrounding Westhusing's death continue.

Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army's leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.

So it was only natural that Westhusing acted when he learned of possible corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq. A few weeks before he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a private security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the concerns to superiors, who launched an investigation.

In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.

His death stunned all who knew him. Colleagues and commanders wondered whether they had missed signs of depression. He had been losing weight and not sleeping well. But only a day before his death, Westhusing won praise from a senior officer for his progress in training Iraqi police.

His friends and family struggle with the idea that Westhusing could have killed himself. He was a loving father and husband and a devout Catholic. He was an extraordinary intellect and had mastered ancient Greek and Italian. He had less than a month before his return home. It seemed impossible that anything could crush the spirit of a man with such a powerful sense of right and wrong.

Readers can do their own investigation from here.
This is what I said about it at the time. 

There is something wrong with this picture. Very wrong.

I have seen other reports of "straight as an arrow" career military types associated with other stories that do not exactly, shall we say, support the official spin that policy-makers or commanders would have them present. But I don't recall anyone ranked as high as Colonel among them. (There may have been a General or two, but at that level I start to think in terms of political ambitions beyond military careers so arguments about policy take on a different implication.)

A lot of media reporters are "embedded" with the military, which turns out to have been a good thing over all. But I don't know how many media types are embedded with the private sector over there. My guess is that there are very few. And the few that may be there might well be in-bed-with rather than embedded with their host entity. I just don't know.

Letters home and conversations he had with others prior to his death indicate that the man was conflicted about what appears in retrospect to have been a delibrate cover-up of savage behavior on the part of American civilian contractors. No need to go into the details here. At this late date details of those events, though horrible, were long ago tossed into the cesspool of military history, dismissed along with the rest of the bloody mess as the price we pay for "protecting liberty." 

I can't say about the rest, but my suspicions about the closeness of embedded journalists was prescient. 

I'm not the only one not to have forgotten. These comments appeared this morning in one of Juan Cole's FB posts.

==>   I remember being troubled about Petraeus when I read the news item about Ted Westhusing in 2007.

==>  Yeah the Ted Westhusing thing is absolutely wild. I hope the people are willing to get to the bottom of all this.

And last year in The Nation Greg Mitchell wrote a piece, General Petraeus's Link to a Troubling Suicide in Iraq: The Ted Westhusing Story.

Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey spins out a poetic vision of the future via Twitter.  
I'm tagging this "Poetry" because Tweets (140 characters) remind me of haiku (17 sylables)  or sonnet form (14 lines).  I know Ruchira (and others, I'm sure) has an aversion to Twitter, but think of it liquor or hot sauce — an occasional taste won't hurt.
Besides, I have no idea who "frymaster" is but his spontaneous Palin cheer ("Follow Sandmonkey. He can see the future from his house!") was an inspiration.

postapocalyptic movies show a future where pollution is everywhere, no state control, random violence & good shortages.

so, the question becomes, since we do meet all of these criterion, how will the postapocalypse look like in egypt exactly?

And why are we not selling the world on "postapocalyptic tourism" to Egypt? Experience the Future, come to Egypt! :D

I would pioneer postapocalyptic tourism…I would take the tourists to Giza square & leave them there for 3 hours… That shud do it!

The Rapture talks about a time when the best people go to heaven & all that are left are the rest to live in misery & fight each other. hmm.

Dear Western countries, Egypt is not turning into an Islamic state. We are going the faithless route. Just watch us!

The Islamists have no executive power, can't control the streets, & can't enforce their will. They are getting that, will try anyway & fail.

Meanwhile, our government is being run by merchants who don't understand what economy means or the scope of the country they are ruling.

The Secualrists are not becoming any more organized, but they are becoming more determined, & understand that terrorist attacks are coming

Segmentation is taking lace, localization of people into their areas is happening, people are not leaving their neghbourhoods more & more

Everyone is expanding their local neighbourhood network, due to secuirty concerns & traffic, & go out more there..

This localization & informal neighborhood networks are forcing people to think about their neighbourhoods first & work on them..

Soon, the informal local networks will replace the government support on the ground, & replace it in most functions..

Those networks will form coordinators, who will link up with other coordinators, & a true social & political movment will emerge…

But until then there will be no parties, no politics, & no government. Also, call me crazy, but art will be the only way to unify us.

Many of you can't see it from all the beards, but a dynamic egypt is being built right now.

We are doing it the hard way, but it's happening
And the best part, it is happening without our interference or guidance, organically, & none of us twitter activist will matter.

All those symbols, all of those leaders, all of them on all sides will not survive next year. People will look for those who do the work.

Those who do the work will have local networks that can function & mobilize their areas… those will lead us, not those in the media.

I see a truly amalgamted culture forming, I see mindsets changing, I see the future, & it doesn't belong to the Islamists at all..

Veterans Day is tomorrow. I have two readings to recommend. 
The first frustrates me so bad I can't say anything rational about it. Read it for yourself.
The second is nostalgic but excellent. It appeals to my pacifist sensibilities at a deep level.  

►Lost to History: Missing War Records Complicate Benefit Claims by Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans

Stories come from unexpected places. This one emerged from a war resigned to memory but revived by a personal favor I wanted to do for some soldiers.

In the fall of 2011, I decided to write an account of the battle at As Samawah, Iraq, during the invasion of 2003. I was one of the embedded reporters during that invasion, working for The Oregonian newspaper in Portland and attached to the 2nd Combat Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division. Contemporary histories had skipped over the week of fighting in that city, as most people then and now misunderstood its significance. I wanted to honor the soldiers I had known there with the story of what they endured.

[…]

As my reporting went forward, my historical writing morphed into a return to journalism as I realized the magnitude of the problem. Historians within and without the U.S. Army told me repeatedly that the missing records problem extended far beyond one soldier. In fact, they said, it covered two wars and entire Army brigades.

►Burial at Sea by LtCol George Goodson, USMC (Ret)

I came across this man's memorable recollectios several years ago and drag it out when I think of it on Memorial Day or Veterans Day. My version at the old blog is better formatted and easier to read, but the link above has a long comments thread with far more in the way of solid content. 

Jonathan Chait, writing a few weeks ago (October 14), spun out a lengthy string of reflections and predictions well before Hurricane Sandy and Election Day. Not knowing what the outcome of the election might be he covered a lot of ground and several scenarios. Overshadowing them all was the ominous spectre of that fiscal cliff now being featured any time talking heads, politicians or just about anybody runs out of anything else to say. Those references always seem to carry the fatalistic attitude of "Well, we're all gonna die some day anyhow…"

Next time that term comes around, Chait's explanation here will help you remember to take a breath calm down a little and stop rolling your eyes.

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In the interest of full disclosure I should say that my position of beginning-of-life and end-of-life issues is that in most cases it's no one's business but that of the family and whatever professionals they solicit in making those decisions. "Beginning of life" means everything from contraception to viability (in the case of an unborn baby) and "end of life" means whenever an individual or their designated agent for medical decisions decides that death is or should be eminent. These limits are subject to legal and/or criminal considerations but respecting a profound diversity of social and religious opinions there must be a bright line protecting private decisions from what various faiths and society might deem normative for everyone. 

Considering mankind's history of wanton killing of one another, matters of life and death should be way down the list of inflammatory subjects. But I suppose since those two realities are universal to the human condition, we are prone to personalize them more than any other experience. There cannot be one without the other. Having said all that, I can now link to a post at The Health Care Blog discussing briefly a ballot issue to be voted on tomorrow in Massachusetts, The Massachusetts Death With Dignity Act.

As described by the state secretary, “This proposed law would allow a physician licensed in Massachusetts to prescribe medication, at a terminally ill patient’s request, to end that patient’s life. To qualify, a patient would have to be an adult resident who (1) is medically determined to be mentally capable of making and communicating health care decisions; (2) has been diagnosed by attending and consulting physicians as having an incurable, irreversible disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, cause death within six months; and (3) voluntarily expresses a wish to die and has made an informed decision.”

There are, of course, a number of other safeguards built in, such as the need to make the request twice, separated by 15 days, in the presence of witnesses. However, there could probably be stronger safeguards to protect individuals who are experiencing depression and anxiety, and might have preferable alternatives to physician-assisted death.

Oregon and Washington State have already enacted legislation commonly called "assisted suicide", apparently with little evidence of abuse. One commenter at the link made the point that…

It’s really interesting how close the outcome was in Oregon back in 1994: 51.3% in favor, 48.7% against. Then 60% were against repeal in 1997.

Last year one of my high school classmates killed himself after being diagnosed with cancer which had by then metastasized. Prior to his death he took care of as many details as he could to help his wife after he was gone. Although they lived in Oregon I am told he opted to use a gun, outdoors in the back yard while lying on a towel, perhaps to minimize cleanup. His son told me his father was aware of the "cocktail" which is available in Oregon. He commented that it was comforting to know that the option was available. There is no way to know why he opted for a gun, but it may have been fear that a drug would prolong the dying experience. 

 

In a few hours I'm having lunch with an old classmate whom I haven't seen for many years. So last night I was digging through a box of keepsakes from high school and college days and came across something I wrote in high school. 

I totally forgot about this poem. It is in my handwriting on notebook paper that I recognize. And as I typed it to make a digital record the scene became vaguely familiar, and reference to “the Chumbley place” meant that it had to have been a product of my imagination. Finally the odd words pinen and pecanen were the clues that made me remember.
They were my own invention, made to match oaken as wood types.
The characters were Sandra and her husband Cass.
Together they spell Cassandra, a name that tells the future. 

Since there is no chance it will ever be published by anyone else, in the interest of vanity I'm publishing it myself.
I'm also vain enough to think it has held up pretty well after fifty years.

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I'm not posting this just to make the day gloomier, only to help us all be well-informed. Misconceptions prevail because they make us feel better but a relective person feels stronger when better-informed. 

This brief message from Dr. Gawande should get more attention.
Take a moment to read the comments/ replies.

70+% of terminal cancer pts believe, wrongly, that they're on chemo to cure them. Who is to blame? Via @incidentalecon  goo.gl/fb/BVonY
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) October 25, 2012

This feels like the flip side of yesterday’s post, where big effects were often found to be outliers. In this study, patients were asked about their expectations for chemotherapy for metastatic lung or colorectal cancer. The bad news is that these cancers have terrible prognoses. Chemotherapy is still the treatment of choice, but the effect we’re hoping for is an extension of life by weeks to months. Maybe you’ll see some relief of symptoms. But it’s not going to be curative. There are also, of course, significant side effects.

This NEJM report spells out some hard truths.

Chemotherapy for metastatic lung or colorectal cancer can prolong life by weeks or months and may provide palliation, but it is not curative.

[…]

Overall, 69% of patients with lung cancer and 81% of those with colorectal cancer did not report understanding that chemotherapy was not at all likely to cure their cancer.

[…]

Many patients receiving chemotherapy for incurable cancers may not understand that chemotherapy is unlikely to be curative, which could compromise their ability to make informed treatment decisions that are consonant with their preferences. Physicians may be able to improve patients' understanding, but this may come at the cost of patients' satisfaction with them.

Maggie Mahar sez…

Mitt Romney’s web site makes a bold promise: “On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.”

Many of Romney’s supporters assume that this is what will happen if he wins. But in truth, even if Republicans take both the White House and the Senate, Romney wouldn’t have the power to “repeal the full legislation.” Nor could a new president grant waivers that would let states ignore the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We live in a nation ruled by law, not magic wands.

She refers readers to Dr. Timothy Jost and Health Affairs for the explanation.

There are no “Obamacare waivers” that could be issued by executive order. Section 1332 of the ACA permits “waivers for state innovation,” but these waivers, which only affect certain provisions of the law and can only be granted if specific substantive and procedural requirements are met, cannot be granted prior to January 1, 2017. Even in 2017, a state seeking a waiver would have to show that it had a plan to provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive and affordable and that covers at least as many people as the ACA (without increasing the deficit), not exactly what Governor Romney has in mind.

Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would accelerate these waivers to 2014, indeed President Obama announced support for such legislation, but it has gone nowhere. There are other provisions in the ACA permitting waivers or adjustments from specific requirements, such as waivers on the ban on annual dollar limits prior to 2014, but the time for granting these has already expired, and in any event they would have only a trivial effect on the law.

What about repeal? As every American remembers from middle-school civics, the president cannot unilaterally repeal a law. Under Article I of the Constitution, a bill must be passed by both the House and Senate and signed by the president to become law. This happened with the ACA, and the ACA remains the law of the land until it is repealed through this process. Under the Senate rules, a bill must pass the Senate by a three-fifths majority if it is filibustered, and an ACA repeal certainly would be. At this point in time, no one is predicting that the Republicans will pick up a 60 vote majority in the Senate, so repeal as such seems off the table.

This is also true for repeal and replace. Etc.

Lots more at the link for anybody who needs more evidence. There are likely a number of staff and support personnel who are more conversant with the minutiae of the law, but Dr. Jost followed the legislation from the outset and probably knows more about ACA than anybody in Congress. Whatever he says is solid as a rock.

He includes a concise summary of the Byrd Rule and how it acts as a constraint on Reconciliation. It should be remembered that ACA is a product of Reconciliation which opponents like to depict as some kind of parliamentary sleight of hand.

Budget reconciliation bills in the Senate are subject to the “Byrd rule,” which is in fact a federal statute. The Byrd rule allows any senator to raise a point of order objecting to any “extraneous provisions” in a reconciliation bill. If the Senate parliamentarian upholds the point of order, a three-fifths majority of the Senate is necessary for the provision to remain in the legislation.

As a reminder, the famous COBRA law (mandating employer-provided group insurance availability for six months following anyone's discharge from a job) is an acronym for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.

Of all the lies and promises that have come from the mouth of Mitt Romney, his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare is perhaps the most egregious and he knows it. (If he doesn't know it, we're in even worse shape than I thought.)

Thanks to an ambitious international press, always eager to report feel-good "human interest" stories, most of the literate world now knows the story of Malala.  For anybody who may have been living in isolation for the last week or so, Angelina Jolie's We Are All Malala will get you up to speed. 

This comment left at that story deserves wider exposure. 

Ms. Jolie, in addition to Malala, perhaps the Nobel committee might want to consider two other girls named Shazia and Kainat, Malala's companions who when confronted by the Taliban thugs, refused to identify her, and were shot as well. Malala's story is an inspiration no doubt. But the selfless loyalty of her two friends, one of whom remains in critical condition fighting for her life, elevates this story to epic proportions, and defines the meaning of the phrase "I am Malala".

She includes a link to Dawn.

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday inquired after the conditions of the two girls who were also injured during the attack on Malala Yousufzai — Shazia and Kainat, DawnNews reported.

The president moreover ordered the concerned authorities to ensure provision of medical treatment to both girls on the government’s behalf.
He also summoned a report from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on the conditions of the two girls.

Spokesperson to President Zardari, Senator Farhatullah Babar said the president today enquired about the health of Shazia and Kainat and said the quest for knowledge of all these children despite threats had illumined the path for all.  

"They represented the true face of Pakistan, were a national asset and had raised collective national consciousness against the barbarism of militants and extremists," he said.
President Zardari also prayed for the early recovery of Malala, Shazia and Kainat.

Malala Yousufzai was shot and seriously wounded on Tuesday as she was leaving her school in her hometown Mingora, in the Swat valley.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) later claimed responsibility for the attack saying she was pro-West and had opposed the Taliban. — DawnNews/APP