the good old days

This is the food pyramid.

This is not.

Seriously, the food pyramid was developed to emphasize that different types of food were appropriate in different amounts. The “classic” Four Food Groups placed grains, fruits and vegetables, dairy, and meat on essentially equal footing, which was ridiculous. In fact, the last of the four can be dispensed with entirely. (OK, by the 1980s, beans were half-heartedly acknowledged as belonging in the “meat/protein” group, but they didn’t get much mention in my elementary school health classes—and none in my parents’.)

The food pyramid fixed that, with the foods we should be eating more of filling out its broad base. Foods we ought to eat less are situated higher up. However, as I discovered on a recent visit to Ed Venture, the current pyramid has slid back to being nothing more than the slightly more nuanced version of 1956’s Four Groups that I head about as a kid. Sure, the “Meat & Beans” wedge is narrower, but that’s a lot less effective than relegating it to the upper tiers. No doubt the Beef Board is very happy.

When I was driving to pick up our daughter from camp today, I was literally moved to tears by what I heard on the radio. But it wasn’t a tale of human tragedy; it was a remembrance of what happened forty years ago today at Statio Tranquillitatis.

I was moved by both the profundity of the occasion and by disappointment with what has happened to the space program since 1969. When I was a child in the early 1980s, enthusiasm about the space program was still abundant. Charles Bolden, now the head of NASA, reported that when he visited schools in the 1980s, every child wanted to be an astronaut. Now only a two or three kids in a class are interested. What was supposed to be the greatest adventure in human history has fallen out of the public consciousness.

When I picked her up, I reminded my daughter of the anniversary, and we started discussing the missions to the moon and prospective missions to Mars. She wanted to know why it would take so long to get to Mars and why the astronauts would need to remain on Mars for a year and a half before starting for home. So we got to discussing the motions of the planets and Kepler’s Laws. When I got home, I found this and showed it to her.

This is Cosmos; this is what I learned astronomy from as a child. My daughter is now the same age I was when I first watched it, and she was enthralled. Thankfully, the whole series is available for online viewing via Netflix, so she can see it just as I did.

trimmed from a Rinso ad posted by JB’s Warehouse and Curio Emporium

Grumpy taxpayer Charles thinks we’d be better off without Congress since they won’t build him a post office closer to his house than ONE MILE AWAY, those jerks. (Probably a communist plot to prevent us from sending mail.) So the whole country has to suffer through a lack of legislature because he’s made one careless wish. (The world-without-what-you-hate theme was better in A Case of Spring Fever, but it works here, too.) So enjoy The Powers of Congress from 1947.

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Apparently, Congress mainly keeps our world from looking like a weird German expressionist film. (You can stop watching after 6:30, it gets real dull real quick.)

The Truth About Taxes, that is.

• Everyone pays taxes, not just rich people! AAAAAAH! [*]
• Léon Blum brought France a New Deal and they were promptly conquered. [**]
• All this New Deal Debt is not giving us enough tanks.
• Your wife puts on taxes instead of stockings, and taxes come with you to the movies.
• A “male fist of centralized bureaucracy that knocks at democracy’s door” — I don’t really know what this one means, but it goes well with rhetoric such as “holy crusade”.

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It’s an odd combination of “taxes are horrible and wasteful” and “we need to pay taxes to build up defense and protect our freedom.” As there has not been a President Wilkie, the ad obviously wasn’t enough to convince the public. (I do like the imagery of a ghostly hand grabbing money from paychecks and bread from the family table, though. It’s a good visual.)

One other thing mentioned in this film is that only approximately 7 billion dollars were spent over 7 years for national defense… something over 100 billion in modern money.

* I will note that the income tax structure has changed quite a bit over this century — rates change, income levels to qualify for tax change, exemptions change… and I’m not nearly interested enough in tax law to research who was paying what in 1940.

** Geez, why do we hate the French so much?

Having a to-be-kindergartner in the family should be exciting. She’s certainly looking forward to school, but I’m just worried about whether she’ll actually have a teacher next year. Plus Buzz works in academia, and I’m currently a student — three quarters of our family is in a position that’s much shakier thanks to South Carolina Governor Sanford’s repeated insistence that he won’t take stimulus money. (Luckily, we’re not the only residents of the state disgusted by the idea; a high school student is asking the state Supreme Court whether such budgetary choices are solely the Governor’s responsibility. Good for you, Casey Edwards.)

Sanford keeps saying it’s all about saving the children, won’t somebody please think of the children and their horrible, horrible future debt load:

In the end, I just don’t believe a problem created by too much debt will be solved by piling on more debt. — Gov. Sanford’s opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal

So we’re going to solve the problem of too much debt by not adequately instructing our children on, among other things, the basics of economics and how to budget their own money? Oh, except Sanford’s children go to private school, so their educational quality stays constant whatever happens to public schools. That explains why he seems disproportionately interested in the next generation’s debt load — it’s the only burden his kids are taking on.

At least payday lenders love South Carolina; just drive along any street in greater Columbia and count how many TITLEMAX stores you see. One SC industry is certainly flourishing.

It’s an important sentiment and a very famous bumper sticker.  However, as with many things, people often get more caught up with the trappings than its content.

I knew somebody in high school who had one these bumper stickers slapped on the front of her notebook.  Her senior class voted her “Most Political,” but she wasn’t really that interested in politics.  For her, having a “Question Authority” sticker didn’t seem to be about actually questioning authority, so much as trying to emulate a certain 1960s–1970s countercultural lifestyle.  She wore cut-off jeans, tie-dyed shirts, and even a fleece-lined jacket.  The sticker itself was decorated in psychedelic colors.  All these things were evocative of a certain time and circumstance, but they weren’t really political.  It had been decades since anyone saw tie-dyed gear as a sign of a possible commie insurrectionist.  Heck, our Accelerated Chemistry class had a unit on tie-dyeing!

Just as the social right in America gets nostalgic about the 1950s, the cultural left is equally sentimental about the 1960s.  Baby boomers remember it as part of their coming of age—a time of life almost sure to evoke nostalgia.  Younger people imagine it as a time of cultural and intellectual ferment, when people like them could make a difference.  Last year, National Public Radio had a series on “Echoes of 1968,” and listening to it only confirmed my already held opinion that the view of the 1960s as a time when people were doing things that mattered is ridiculously overblown.  I particularly remember a story about protestors trying to block Columbia University from building an athletic facility in Harlem.  This utterly middling dispute erupted into a huge riot.  My impression, listening to the recollections of people who were there, was they people were protesting just for the sake of protesting.  Uncharitably put, protesting was the fad then, and the Columbia students wanted to be a part of it.  More charitably, one could say that the students were angry about a wide range of issues, and this happened to provide an outlet for their frustrations.  I suppose that’s fine, as far as it goes.  But when I listen to stories like this one, I can’t help but make a mental list of things that these largely white, upper middle class college students could have done instead that would have been more effective in combating the societal ills they saw.

The title of this post come from an exchange I had with my brother, when I was about seventeen.  I was listing off for him the classic bumper stickers I thought I would want to have on my car.  Along with “Frodo Lives” (which I wanted because I am a big fan of Tolkien, and I agreed with his elevation of the martyr as the noblest of heroic archetypes), I mentioned “Question Authority.”  My brother interrupted me to say that I should really have one that read, “Ignore Authority.”  Relfecting on this comment, I agreed this was true.  I really have almost no use for authority, and I find the way many people look to authority figures for guidance quaint, at best.

I remember an exhange Ronald Reagan had with some reporters near the end of his presidency.  When somebody suggested he was out of touch, Regan forcefully replied that, no, he was informed and in charge; he was the one making the decisions.  When, moments later, he professed ignorace of what the Iran-Contra conspirators had been doing in his White House, it was practically self-parody.  But while many people focused on this obvious incongruity, I was far more affected by the first part.  I found it mind-boggling that Reagan or anyone would want to project an image of the President playing a crucial role in all decisions.  And for the first time, I realized that many (most?) voters did want their leaders to be intimately involved with such choices.  To me, the obvious objection was that the President can hardly be qualified to have useful opinions of most of the tricky issues that his administration will face.  That’s why he must surround himself with good people—so they will know what to do in these situations.  Do othe people really want to imagine their leader as King Lear, making all his policy decisions himself, so they come to be based on who does the best job of convincing him?  No, I suppose people want their President to be an Ayn-Rand-style polymath, who simply knows better than anyone else how to respond to any situation.  Yet I, at age ten, knew this wasn’t a realistic way to look at the world, and it was sobering to realize that many people really thought this was how things should work.  To desire authority, just for consistency to have some body making decisions that could be left to individuals, is disturbingly common; but to me it will always remain a frightening prospect.

Prohibition in the United States was repealed, thanks to ratification of the 21st Amendment, on December 5, 1933. Raise a glass in tribute. (Just make sure you don’t go all the way to Step 9 and blow your brains out.)

One out of every 10 people in America is employed in a service that is related to the U.S. auto industry.

That’s a statistic from the Center for Automotive Research, via GM Facts and Fiction. It’s actually plausible; there are factories around the nation, not just in Detroit, that are somehow related to putting a car together. (I will note, though, it’s not clear how many of those sub-suppliers also work for Honda, Toyota, BMW, or “foreign” companies with US operations.)

The “Big Three” will never simply vanish — they (and the extended support structure of dealerships, suppliers, mechanics, etc.) are simply too large and too integral to the country’s manufacturing landscape. The job loss, health care loss, and tax income loss would be spread over the course of a few years. And it’s also worth noting that, to a large extent, the American Auto Maker crisis is largely of its own making; the recession is simply pinching them harder and sooner than expected.

I’m not against bailing out the auto industry, because the ripple effect around the country would be incredibly bad. At the same time, I haven’t decided if I’m in favor enough to write to my elected officials about it. (Yes, Visteon, when you fire loyal employees, they’ll hold a grudge and not help YOU out when the time comes. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it.) But I am in favor, just enough, to mention it here. The issue is worth awareness and discussion and thought. And perhaps a large dose of nervous worrying as well.

If it is decided that they deserve a second chance, then the automakers need to be held to a much higher standard than they currently are. It would be inspiring to see them remade into an industry that is a leader in sustainable design and manufacturing, rather than grudgingly hoping global warming is a passing fad. But given the firmly entrenched old-style industry and infrastructure they have, I’m not holding out much hope.

Another Historiann Recipe, this time for Tuesday instead of Thursday because hopefully nobody will be election-obsessed in two days time. (Seriously, Nation, I would like an election that’s over the same day it starts this time. Is that too much to ask? No more 2000/2004 drag-it-out bullshit, there’s a good country.)

Considering today’s long lines, it’s a good thing there was a tasty cake waiting at home. Even though I got to cut in line because I had a toddler with me. Did you know that parents with kids under 6 and anybody over 65 years of age gets to cut in line at the polls? I didn’t. I thought the person who said we could go to the front was kidding. Part of me felt bad, like I took advantage of my son to get out of there faster — but another part says to hell with that, I didn’t want to stand in the cold drizzle with him for two hours. (If you do take an adorable child to the polls with you, just make sure you don’t let it push the buttons for you. My kid kept trying to change the selections. If Chuck Baldwin takes South Carolina, I blame the “under two” voting contingent.)

Hartford Election Cake
1/2 cup each yellow and dark raisins
4 t dried coriander seeds
¼ C brandy
2 packages active dry yeast (2 T)
2 ½ C warm water
½ C nonfat dry milk
7 C all-purpose flour
¾ C sugar
½ lb. butter (2 sticks)
¾ C brown sugar
4 eggs
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
½ t freshly grated nutmeg
½ C sliced citron
Molasses

Soak the raisins and coriander in the brandy for 3-4 hours.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in ½ C of the warm water and let stand a minute. Add the remaining water, the dry milk, 4 C of the flour, and ¼ C of the sugar and beat well, about 100 strokes by hand or 3 minutes on the electric beater. Cover with plastic wrap and let this sponge rise for about 3 hours.

Cream the butter* with the remaining sugar and the brown sugar, then beat in the eggs, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Turn this mixture into the sponge, stir in the remaining flour, cup by cup, using enough to form a soft dough. Add the citron and the raisins and coriander, along with their juices, and a little more flour, if necessary to make a cohesive dough. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise again until double in volume.

Beat down the dough, adding a little more flour again if it is too sticky. Divide in half and placed in two greased 9-inch cake pans, cover lightly with a towel, and let rise again for 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 55 minutes. Turn out of the pans onto a baking sheet. Drizzle molasses over the tops and slip the cakes under the broiler until the glaze bubbles. Let cool on racks

* This is an excellent time to realize you don’t have as much butter as you thought you did, swear for a while (”I have coriander but I’m out of butter?“), then drag a sleepy toddler to the store to buy more. When you arrive home, inhale deeply to appreciate the mingling aromas of brandy and yeast and realize your kitchen smells like a brewery (and not in a good way). Definitely adds something to the baking experience.

The only brandy we have in the house is Armagnac. Now, Armagnac is one of those drinks that you hear about and think, “Wow, that’s really expensive, it must be totally awesome. Why would you be using it to make alcoholic raisins?” In fact, Armagnac tastes like liquid leather. We have been trying to get rid of this for years, and twice managed to get Buzz’s father to drink a shot because he believed it was totally awesome. (Unfortunately, he’s learned his lesson by now, so we are resorting to eggnog and alcoholic raisins to get rid of it.)

The initial “sponge” wasn’t terribly interesting. When the sponge, creamed butter, and additional flour came together, however, things got messy. Extremely messy.

I got batter up inside my mixer and had to finish combining everything by hand. Luckily I remembered to take rings off beforehand, or we’d be able to play a fun election game where the person who finds my ring gets to be vice-president for the next year.

And doesn’t the cake batter liook like Clayface? Maybe it’s just because I’ve been playing too much Lego Batman, but the resemblance is uncanny.

No?

I tried to draw an elephant and donkey with the molasses but they turned into runny blobs. So, in a fit of pique, I just dribbled the molasses all over the place instead.

I haven’t actually tasted this yet, although it smells good enough. I’ll have it tonight, though, while watching poll results come in. It’s a massive cake (two massive cakes!) and not the typical flat, only-slightly-risen cake that you would frost and top with candles… definitely suitable for an election festival day.

UPDATED 11/4 — It’s delicious! I really like the citron, it’s got a very bright flavor that goes well with the cake. (The raisins are decidedly “meh”, in contrast.) I agree with Historiann’s recommendation, it’s probably best without molasses but with a generous slather of butter on each piece.

However, without a version which calls for baking powder instead of so many rises, I don’t know if I’d make it again. At least Election Day only comes once a year, right?