Tuberculosis Mary and Hive Survival

Yesterday, I was reading about a woman up in Tacoma who refuses to accept medical treatment and quarantine for tuberculosis. 

The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department in Washington has obtained multiple court orders requiring a Tacoma resident to get treatment for her active tuberculosis, officials told NBC News on Friday.

The woman has thus far refused to isolate or take the necessary medications, according to Nigel Turner, the department's division director of Communicable Disease Control.

Many of my friends (and some of my family) refused Covid vaccines. Is it safe to ask you folks if you feel like it is proper for this woman to refuse treatment and potentially cause a public health crisis and tuberculosis contagion?

If you do not, why is this different? Does her "freedom" include the right to infect her neighbors? 

Dirty Rubles and Red Scares

If you want a deep read, interesting article on Russian money buying political influence in Europe. Wonder what they are paying Tucker Carlson?

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From TPM:

We officially have an absurd debate over Chinese surveillance balloon toughness. Yes, this is now a thing. A slew of Republicans today lashed out at President Biden for not shooting down the balloon just as the Pentagon carried out his orders to do so. The balloon was shot down by an F-22 firing a sidewinder missile just off the coast of South Carolina.

This was followed by new claims that President Trump never would have allowed a Chinese balloon into US airspace at all. Rep. Joe Wilson, a notorious goober who represents a district in South Carolina declared: “The catastrophic Chinese Spy Balloon spectacle clearly threatened American families from Alaska to my home community in South Carolina and confirms President Biden and Vice President Harris should resign.”

But according to a Pentagon press release out this afternoon, Chinese surveillance balloons entered US airspace at least three times during Trump’s presidency. He not only didn’t shoot them down he also, it would seem, kept it a secret.

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From the press release:

Long before the shoot down, U.S. officials took steps to protect against the balloon's collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the Chinese. The senior defense official said the recovery of the balloon will enable U.S. analysts to examine sensitive Chinese equipment. "I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon's collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon's overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us," the official said. "I can't go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable."  

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I have long wished that NATO could trade back Turkey for Finland and Sweden. The Turks and Erdogan are a very bad fit and not helping the current situation in Europe and the Baltic. Good article at the Guardian: Turkey's two faced sultan is no friend of the west. Strategic expedience notwithstanding, very shortsighted to allow them in in the first place.

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White nationalists plans to take over Idaho.

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P-22 memorial.

Moosterpiece

Well, Bobby's first moose roast is a done deal. Or should I say well done? The Sunday night meal turned into a Saturday night meal on account of a party we are attending tomorrow. How was it? It was good but it could have been great. I learned a lot tonight. Once again I stole ideas from several online moose recipes. Honestly don't have a lot of friends with moose cooking experience.

The first thing I did was soak the roast in milk for two hours to tenderize and rid it of any gamy flavor. 

All good.

I removed the roast from milk, patted it dry and seasoned it with thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Cut slits in the ends of the roast and added large garlic slivers to the body of the meat.

I seared the roast in olive oil on the cooktop. It came out nice. 

I then pulled out the dutch oven and filled it with my organic potato assortment, carrots and mushrooms.

I added a whole bunch of garlic and a large onion. More herbs. Worcestershire sauce. Bone broth.

All good. Stuck the roast in the middle and slathered it with duck fat and dijon mustard. Added a couple bay leafs.

Looked something like this.

Dave said that I could have prepped the carrots smaller and done a better job cleaning the mushrooms. 

Fair enough on the latter point, I like the large carrots, they were smaller when I made my recent pot roast. 

The mushrooms were a last minute buy, Leslie said they were not optimal, honestly they tasted great!

So I cook the dish for 20 minutes at four hundred, then added wine and more herbs and reduced down to 250.  

I had various recipes telling me different things, some people cook for up to six hours, some go for two. Hard to get a bead on the thing. 

I cooked for three and the moose, while delicious and flavorful, was overcooked to our taste. 

I took it out at 150 degrees internal temperature, the proper range is 125 to 160.

Chef friend Melissa says cook to 130 and then let it rest for 20 minutes. Next time.

I melted butter and flour in a sauce pan and whisked in the broth from the pot, made my first gravy. Seasoned it, quite good.

There you have it. Roasted moose with champignons, carrots and purple potatoes and moose gravy. It was not a beautiful dish but it was delicious. I really like the taste of this meat, nothing off putting whatsoever. More beef taste than elk, at least to me. Leslie says it is like neither. Definitely lean. 

If I am ever lucky enough to get gifted moose again it will be cooked rare. Leslie said I made an error and over seasoned the dish, to hold back on the thyme a tad. Also said not to mix dry and fresh rosemary. I was afraid I overdid the Worcestershire but she said it was fine. I probably used too much broth, there was much more than I expected at the end.

What do I know? I'm a rookie.

All in all I think it was a good effort. I generously give myself a seven. Thanks to Jeff and Gina for providing the moose. We paired it with the lovely meritage wine from Debbie and Jim, so delicious!

Moose sandwiches tomorrow!

Uh huh...

 

Phil Harris & The Jubilee Four

Pas de deux

 

Jesus gets a rebrand

I sent the following email out to some friends this morning. Please don't take offense, it is a true story and I wanted to get a few reactions, not bash. Truth is I was baptized and raised Methodist before my mom took the left hand turn to Unitarianism. We did a lot of religious singing at home and in church and I can't help but think of mother's favorite, the song "give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me." 

So what are they thinking? We know Jesus's ratings are down but that has more to do with the flock than the son of god. Perhaps a mullet would be a nice refresh? Maybe some new threads, a little rap or hip hop music? Everyone knows that more and more young people are leaving the church and that something has to be done. But what?

I say leave him alone, the message still works. 2023 years later, who else has their initials on a penny? The article says that Jesus loves who you hate. I know, why not try loving them too, just as an experiment?

I have received three responses.

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Two of the ads?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcfz8rJKXX4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcGF8yBKr60

**They seem pretty "liberal"...  effective...?

What three Christians say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8cqSPwd26A

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If they’re serious, about re-branding, Jesus, change his name to Beauregard. Southerners love people named Beauregard…

Eva Cassidy - Nightbird

Wanna watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?

I cook my moose roast tomorrow. Still undecided what to accompany the dish with. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find flying squirrel nowadays?

Honestly, I am not so sure about the moose, if I will like the taste, although it is said to resemble elk, which I love. 

Did you know that it is illegal to buy moose meat in this country? It has to be given to you by the person who harvested it. My friend shoots a moose every year up in Alaska. It feeds his family for the entire year. Moose and caribou, which is much leaner.

He says that it is his favorite meat. I bet I will like it. It is a very clean and organic meat, no hormones or preservatives, eats a very clean willow diet.

I am told that many people find it gamy. To fight this I will be soaking it in milk for a few hours prior to roasting. This is said to neutralize the wild taste. Some people don't like lamb, I love it so I don't think there will be a problem with moose.

We don't normally have milk at home. We haven't really drank it for a decade or three. I told Leslie I needed a pint and she brought home a half gallon. She said it was on sale and cheaper than the pint. Said to soak my moose and then pour the rest down the drain. Screw that, I said. I am going to buy some cereal. We have not had dry cereal in our house for even longer than the milk. She told me to knock myself out.

Now this led to my predicament. What to buy? My all time favorite was frosted flakes but I also went through an early sugar pops and captain crunch phase, who didn't? Liked cheerios, rice krispies and corn and rice chex. 

Hated raisin bran, fruit loops, chocula, shredded wheat, lucky charms, sugar smacks, any of that stuff. Ate grape nuts but there were times it was like chewing on gravel. I decided to nose around the grocery outlet and bought an on sale box of honeynut cheerios this morning. Not quite the bang of frosted flakes, which I used to eat dry out of the box but also less guilt. Looking forward to a nice bowl.

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I am a very loyal person. I believe in long friendships and professional relationships, ones that stand the test of time. I have prejudices, like every honest person, only I admit to mine and one of them is that I believe in old doctors. Ones that are not quite so cocksure and who have made a few mistakes in their time. Don't really trust the young ones, not sure why.

But old doctors also eventually get too old or worse and that is the conundrum I am now faced with. I have had the same G.P. since 1977 or 8 and I can't see him anymore. He has been put out to the farm of some boutique or concierge medicine company and can no longer see me.

Seymour and I have been through so much, he found my cancer initially in 1985, saw me through a myriad of ailments, but it just doesn't work any more, for either of us. I asked my new cardiologist, who I really like, to recommend three doctors and she did. I see the first one Monday, just to get a feel for him. Young guy. Osteopath. Sort of strange to me. But his reviews are good and he is highly recommended. We will see.

My dentist retired last year after 60 years of practice here. Eyes and ears are giving out. I didn't flow with the guy he sold his practice to and now he too is retired. Ron was a beauty, would come in on a Sunday out of his grove in his blue jeans and work on me when I had a rare emergency, on his own. Did missionary dentistry in remote Polynesia in his early days where you were taught to function by yourself, no excuses.

I will never find another Ron, I know that. He was very concerned with not overcharging his patients, many of whom were not wealthy. Anyway it has been ten months since my last cleaning and I was way overdue.

I went to see Leslie's dentist, a really nice lady, the other day. When I tried to schedule a cleaning the staff said that because I had one bleeding area that was a six I would need a double deep cleaning schedule, close to eight hundred bucks.

I was flummoxed. I have always had one small area that was a six. I asked if I could just get a regular cleaning and they said no, not after a deep cleaning diagnosis. I have never paid over a hundred and thirty bucks for a cleaning and I demurred. I finally tracked down my old hygienist, with help of my friend Beth and got a regular cleaning this morning at Stewart's old practice, where he is now working.

Haimish has been cleaning my teeth for about thirty years or so and said everything looked same as ever. Teeth were smooth, few required planing. Cost about a hundred bucks. He asked if I was on blood thinners and I said yes and he said that was the reason for the minor bleed. Saved about seven hundred bucks I would say. Feels great to have clean teeth again.

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One of the young new dentists at the practice came in to inspect my mouth.  Nice guy. Saw a couple spots he wants to keep an eye on, and a small cavity under an old amalgam filling. Thinks I will need a crown, eventually, but was not pressuring me. I winced at the $1700 price tag and he said that he might be able to do something on account of my "senior citizen" status.

"What?"

Honest to god, I have never been addressed like that. This was a first for me. Why you young whippersnapper, I'll show you senior citizen. But hey, I guess it happens to everybody. If you are not getting older, you are dead. Simple as that.

Punk kids...

Robin Adler - Dave Blackburn

Dizzy's San Diego CA on Nov 13 2022.

Execrable Omar

People are rending their culottes and in total hysteria over the removal of Rep. Ilham Omar from the House Foreign Affairs committee. I am the last one who will shed a tear for her. I think it was long overdue and am looking forward to the day she hits the exit door, along with her husband or her brother, whoever the guy is she lives with? She has shown in the past that she is not an honest person. It is not just her blatant jew hating, this is a woman who I honestly believe truly hates our country.

Noah Rothman sums up my feelings completely, Ilhan Omar’s committee removal was a long time coming. 

Not so smooth operator

Leslie and I were invited to a rather upper crust dinner last weekend, excellent five course catered meal, perhaps eight or nine other couples. All very nice and pleasant people, perhaps with a bit cleaner fingernails than my normal pals might sport.

There was a band, it was very nice and certainly not cheap for the host and hostess. The host is very smart and a musician and he had the remote for the music system, which was top drawer. We sort of traded off suggestions. Now I pride myself on being a good disc jockey but that night I completely misread the room, or perhaps I didn't care.

It was Charlie's fault, he started the night's musical fare with Black Sabbath's War Pigs. I chuckled, oh so that is how we are going to roll, is it? I countered with Zappa. We started trying to drag the bottom of the barrel, going to the Bachman Turner and Alice Cooper card and then farther on down the ladder.

Beautiful women in nice outfits started shooting us nervous looks, I completely lost the room with Timmy Thomas and Les McCann. Finally Leslie stepped in and stuck Sade's Smooth Operator on. There was an audible gasp of relief from the women folk and people swiveled back to their conversations, the party was able to return to a bit of normalcy.

There are definitely nights I should not be near the controls, especially in mixed company.

Quick mailbag

Hudgins sends: How the Freedom Caucus Hopes to Defund the Police

Michael's daughter Harper is a young volleyball whiz. Three kills. Last one rocks.

Risking your life at the gym.

Renee offers: Rare white dolphin spotted off Dana Point.

Loughlin send an article about the I-5 killer, ex Green Bay Packer.

Allan sends a Salton Sea dry dock picture.

Shawn sends pics of the Black's crumble.

Ray sent this.

Ricardo send pics of the quarantine elevator in Chiang Mai.

Steve sends pics of the other side.

Surfeit of lampreys - Salon

From Bruce:

From Millard: Unattractive people are MORE likely to keep wearing face masks in post-Covid era, study suggests.

From Renee : Last of us? Dangerous fungi on the loose.

Craven politics

Another well meaning person is having their legacy torched on the pyre of political correctness. The late assemblyman Bill Craven, a moderate Republican and Marine veteran, is having his name erased from Cal State University San Marcos, an institution he fought tirelessly for decades to build.

Cal State San Marcos has launched a “Craven Taskforce” to examine whether Craven deserves to be honored at all on campus. 

The task force has spoken Bill. You are out.

I must confess that my father was a builder, a Democrat, but he had a warm and productive relationship and longtime friendship with Craven and knew that he could always count on him to be a fair and honest steward of the public good. He helped our family business on multiple occasions. I only knew him to be a tireless supporter of San Diego and North County.

But no, William Craven is now being recast, in the most perfect and self righteous backwards twenty twenty vision, as being a bigot. Because of a few intemperate comments he made in the 1990's that have been completely taken out of context. Craven has now had his quick kangaroo trial but the final judgement was really never in doubt, guilty.

In 1991, he wrote a letter to school districts, cities and county officials asking for headcounts of suspected undocumented immigrants who used public services in the school district and city.  In his letter, however, he wrote that he hoped to “use data gathered from the survey to lobby Washington officials in September for more federal funds to pay for the cost of providing services to undocumented immigrants.” 

Craven had the audacity to want the feds to help shoulder the financial burden that the undocumented were putting on the local system. And then he used what may have been a very poor choice of words two years later:

According to an article published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, in a Senate hearing in 1993, Craven referred to undocumented immigrants as “perhaps on the low scale of humanity, for one reason or another,” before later clarifying that he was referring to the “lower rung of humanity, economically speaking.”

Sorry Bill, your actual intent means nothing. You are hereby cancelled and all of your many contributions will be duly erased from the history books in the future. The so very perfect thought police of 2023 don't mess around. The woke have spoke.

Ravioli time

There are a mother and daughter in Fallbrook that are now teaching the finer art of pasta making from scratch as well as giving Italian cooking classes.

Leslie, Linda and Renée went to their ravioli making class last night. 

They said it was a delightful experience and that the teachers Annalisa and mother Paola were very talented.

Leslie came back very happy and is looking forward to the next lasagna making class. I note the red wine glasses.

Unfortunately, she told me that men are not invited although I definitely see a guy in the picture! 

Or one of these girls really needs a shave...

Oh well, at least I get to eat the bounty!

Looks like a lot of fun. My mother and grandmother made their own pasta.

How nice! I know that she is looking forward to more classes.

I will let you know how it tastes later. 

Thanks to Linda for sending the pictures over.

Let's Party!

 

I am predicting great and swinging times for the three new roommates at Mar-A-Lago! Duterte and Putin have to be but a step behind. You guys rock!

Birdies

 

Lincoln's Sparrow

Black shouldered white tailed kite

Bald eagle, raven and coot

Swainson's Hawk

Peregrine falcons

national bird

eponymous

Red tailed hawk

Hello It's Me

The Isley Brothers do a nice cover of the classic Todd Rundgren song, make it their own.

Silver Linings

 Thanks to Michael Calvanese for sending this over.

Blue Heron show schedule

I want to remind you that the Blue Heron Gallery will be exhibiting at two wonderful and prestigious shows this month and then two more in April.

The first will be the Palm Springs Modernism Show. 

I always split a booth at this Spring show with Steve Stoops from Stevens Fine Art, Phoenix.  I like to think we put out a very nice booth together.

The show is, in my opinion, the premier Modernism show in the entire country.

This show is always great and a lot of fun but my promoter Rosemary tells me that this one will extra special. 

Lots of great dealers, lots of buzz. More info and tickets here. 

If you have never visited Palm Springs during Modernism Week, you need to, lots of events, Woodstock for the Jetsons!

By the way, opening night tickets are not cheap and I can't give you any for free. Sorry.

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The following week I am exhibiting in beautiful Santa Barbara at the new Santa Barbara Antique Show, formerly the CALM Show. This show is held at the Earl Warren Showgrounds.

Santa Barbara has always been one of my most favorite events. The public is sophisticated, there is great folk art exhibited that you don't really see at other shows, the town is beautiful and you can always buy the best street tacos at Super Rica.

You can find more information about this show here. Here is a discount ticket you can save and print out with a right click.

Hope to see you at either show or both!

Future dates are as follows in Del Mar and San Mateo:

Score one for Ruben

I thought this was funny. 

Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) attacked Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) as the “AOC of Arizona” on Sunday night, a week after the progressive Democrat announced he’s running for Senate in 2024.

Gallego parried back on Twitter with a dig at the failed gubernatorial candidate.

“We call Kari Lake the Kari Lake of Arizona and yes that is an insult,” Gallego wrote.

MC5 - Kick Out The Jams

Mere coincidence? I think not. Canine paybacks...

Do you not see a pattern here? Just who is in the doghouse? It used to be, you feed them a little kibble, pat them on the head, throw them an occasional frisbee and you had nothing to worry about. 

Those days are over pal. These days, you get on Rover's bad side and they are bringing the heat. The headlines are more and more frequent. Your basenji just might have a bone to pick or a score to settle and god help you if you don't see it coming...

A good dog having a bad day. It happens...

Dog says sorry, was just trying to scare him

So why was it sold to the nice Korean family then?

Unloaded. Isn't that what they all say? The dog thought the gun was unloaded...

Karma's a bitch...

Wise up, fellow humans. 

There have been way too many of these types of stories lately. 

Vizsla's with vendettas. Great Dane's with grudges. Poodles seeking payback.

Could there be a large canine conspiracy lurking among us? 

Beware, Fido has certainly been settling scores of late and I, for one, do not think he's finished yet.

By the way, only two cases of a cat shooting a human that I can find. Cat shoots man. Cat shoots man with a 9mm handgun. So who's your real best friend?