Great Question

An old girlfriend wrote me this email the other day about our presidential candidates:

I’d love to know who you think would be a great candidate for this great country. Frankly, I have no idea ! 

Boy, that is a tough one. Not because I do not know who I will vote for but because I have a hard time telling anybody else how they should think. Here was my short response:

Thanks Abby. I can't tell you how to vote but I will say that even though most people and politicians lie, Trump takes it to a new level! I could never vote for him. He said he never said "lock her up", turns out he said it repeatedly.

I hate liars.

She responded:

So do I, but as you said, they all are! It’s a surreal nightmare! 

Now Abby was never particularly religious when we were an item long ago but I believe that she is now and I think has definitely drifted right politically. And I have no idea how she will vote and frankly, it is none of my business. She equivocates a bit at the end which tells me that she will probably vote for Trump. But who knows? Vote for whoever you want to. Not my concern or job to make anyone's decision but my own.

I do judge politicians by the company they keep and the "team" they associate with. I used to wonder how anybody could align with these sorts of malevolent folks?

Truly pernicious individuals, antithetical to my policy preferences and moral code.

But are they any worse than people like this?

Now that is a tough call! I loathe these progressives. I can't even join the local Democratic club because they were openly hostile and anti semitic to me forty years ago and I am pretty sure that it is not now any better. I didn't leave the party, the party left me. I guess I am a liberal conservative, or maybe even a conservative liberal at this point, if we are granted any license for nuance or to deviate in these highly partisan times.

But I think that the distance between Joe Biden and the batshit progressive wing of the Democratic Party is much farther than the distance between Donald Trump and his band of crazies, in fact I am not sure there is any distance between them whatsoever.

So I don't even struggle with my decision for the top of the ticket. But that is based on my values, my experience, the news silos I tend to associate with, and the way I process critical information.

You may come up with a completely different answer and that is the beauty of democracy. My thought is that you should take every piece of information that enters your orbit and ask yourself if it is valuable, shaded and who may be trying to influence or manipulate you with it? Because the pressure from the media machines, on either side of the equation, who no longer even try to hide their bias, is constant and pervasive.

Think of the things that are important to you and focus on policies, not personalities or parties.

For me it is the environment, civil rights, choice, the economy and the rule of law. Your litmus test may be entirely different.

Choose wisely.

Far Side

 

Judy Henske

Flora time

It is nice to be back in Fallbrook.

I am finally unloaded and starting to take a breath.

My place is glowing with flowers right now.

Getting back to my "same old used to be."

My suitcase is empty and I already have had a couple bakes in the oven.

Tomorrow I pay bills. But it feels good to finally take the foot off of the gas. I did chair yoga yesterday, which was really good and tougher than it sounds. I walked Los Jilgueros Preserve this morning, on a trail I don't normally take.

Lots of wildflowers blooming. 

Funny, some of these flowers are like rare moths or butterflies, lifespan of a day or a week. So you have to catch them at the right time.

The matilija poppies are really going at it.

 

One of my goals, more walks after coffee and more yoga classes.

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Tom and I went across the river today and I bought an Australian grass plant at Steve's nursery.

I have wanted one for a while.

I will take a picture of it when I get it out of the truck later.

Cool nursery!

Soon I hope to put the phone away and start using a real camera again!

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My new xanthorrhoea preissii

Also known as the Australian grass tree. Similar structure to a dasylirion longissimum but not the same.

Frampton's Camel

6/5/2024

I thought that these stories were interesting:

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Full list of GOP voting against contraception access.

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Los Angeles DPW shtupps the Eastern Sierras.

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The story of Jocko Sutherland. I had already sent this out when Jerry sent it to me.

Outlandish stories swirled around Jock, who was sometimes called the Sunshine Superman, for a popular variety of LSD known as Orange Sunshine. On the North Shore, he and his pals liked to start their acid trips in the mountains of the Ko‘olau Range, which runs down the east side of Oahu. They knew the mountain streams, and where to find the old work camps from the sugarcane plantations, which had been abandoned as Hawaii’s sugar industry shrank. The workers had kept fabulous gardens, which were now full of wild fruit and vegetables. At some point, Jock’s troupe would head for the coast, to rinse off the day’s psychic grime in the surf.

Psychedelics weren’t harmless—we all came to know many acid casualties. But they had, as many contemporary researchers know, the power of revelation, the potential to expand self-awareness. Jeff Hakman, the other young haole phenom of the period, told an interviewer that the best surfing experience of his life had been enhanced by LSD, and shared with Sutherland. “We used to call him the Extraterrestrial because he was so good at everything,” Hakman said. “He could beat anyone at chess or Scrabble; he could smoke more hash than anyone, take more acid, and still go out there and surf better than anyone.” 

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Ahem.

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Illinois Democrats think they can magically cure the crime devastating Chicago with a few words.

I'm not a criminal, I'm just "justice impacted."

... Democratic lawmakers plan to introduce House Bill 4409 to amend the Illinois Crime Reduction Act of 2009 in order to rename "offenders" as "justice-impacted individuals."

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Crickets.

Four more October 7th Israeli hostages found dead in Hamas custody more than a third presumed dead. What do you hear from the squad and the progressive college students about this atrocity? 

Nothing. 

Because Hamas is engaging in righteous armed resistance. And you know if they were in charge how much better it all would be. Israeli Arabs vote and hold positions in the Knesset, even some that advocate for the extermination of Israel.

You think they would let Jews hold office in Gaza? Or Saudi Arabia for that matter?

Think again.

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In the weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Rep. Jamaal Bowman not only publicly cast doubt on reports that Israeli women were raped, but also called those accusations “propaganda.”

“There was propaganda used in the beginning of the siege,” Bowman (D-N.Y.) told a Nov. 17 rally of about 50 pro-Palestinian protesters in Westchester, according to a post on TikTok reviewed by POLITICO. “There’s still no evidence of beheaded babies or raped women. But they still keep using that lie [for] propaganda.”

Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman is in a real political primary fight In New York. AOC is castigating fellow democrats for turning on Bowman. I would certainly never vote for the guy. Apparently he is even too anti-semitic for J Street.

Bowman was captured on video last November calling Israel an “apartheid” state as he angrily claimed reported rapes and child murders during the Oct. 7 attack were a “lie.”

He later walked back the comments after being accused of spreading Hamas propaganda.

During a debate last month, Bowman argued that the phrase “From the river to the sea” — which is generally interpreted as a call to eradicate the Jewish state — wasn’t hateful. 

If Bowman and Cortez truly want to cut the Jews out of the democratic herd, they definitely need to continue the hateful rhetoric. 

Border Security

Everybody in both parties knows that we have an immigration and border control problem in this country. Unfortunately neither party has the political will to fix the underlying issues and the antiquated laws in our immigration system. 

Big business and certain sectors of our agricultural community know that they need to import foreign manpower but don't like to acknowledge it, preferring to pretend the problem does not exist and maintain the status quo. Left wing progressives think it is our job to let everybody have amnesty, no matter what harm it does to our country. It is a sad fact but we can't feed the entire world. And many people claiming political violence and oppression in their home countries really just want a better standard of living, not that you can blame them.

The answer has to lie somewhere in the middle.

On February 4th, a bipartisan group of Senate legislators, which included Krysten Sinema (then D, now I) and James Lankford (R) came up with a bill which they worked long and hard on. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators have come out with a carefully negotiated $118 billion compromise that pairs tens of billions of dollars in wartime aid for Ukraine with new border laws aimed at shrinking the historic number of people who have come to the U.S. border with Mexico to seek asylum.

Why did the bill fail? Because of opposition from the titular leader of the Republican party Donald Trump, who worried that the aid to Ukraine would hurt his pals in Russia. He didn't want a compromise solution to be enacted under Joe Biden's watch.

The Oklahoma Senator Lankford, was forced by politics to vote against his own bill. See Abandoned by his colleagues after negotiating a border compromise, GOP senator faces backlash alone.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just before the Senate voted Wednesday to kill the border deal he spent the last four months negotiating, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford climbed a set of marble stairs outside the chamber and joined his wife in the visitors’ gallery.

As the Republican quietly watched from a floor above, briefly the outsider after defending his legislation in a last Senate floor speech, fellow negotiator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona was down on the floor excoriating the Republicans who had abandoned Lankford, one by one, after insisting on a border deal and asking him to negotiate a compromise on one of the country’s most intractable issues.

“Less than 24 hours after we released the bill, my Republican colleagues changed their minds,” said Sinema, a former Democrat turned Independent. “Turns out they want all talk and no action. It turns out border security is not a risk to our national security. It’s just a talking point for the election.”

I rarely agree with the soon to be departed Arizona Senator but she nails this one. Border Security is a hot button issue, a real issue to be sure but also one that triggers serious atavistic emotions about invaders threatening the nest.

No way we can solve that one under the other party's watch. And give up such a great talking point? So much easier to complain that the other party isn't getting anything don while you gum up the wheels.

Gypsy Healer

Pear tart with cream cheese, ginger and hazelnuts

I decided to get away from my usual scone thing and make a tart with puff pastry tonight. 

Leslie brought some pears home the other day and I have always loved pear desserts. 

Why not? 

I would make a nice pear tart, from my own head. Made it up as I went along.

Renee bakes a lot of good desserts and she told me that she likes to use Dufour puff pastry as it is made with butter instead of shortening. 

But it is hard to find. Whole Foods sells it but there isn't a Whole Foods around for miles.

So I was overjoyed when I did a Google search and found out that Albertsons sells it as well.

Except that they don't actually, at least locally. I drove down and had two choices, Pepperidge Farm and Schar, an Italian company, whose product happens to be gluten free.

What the hell, I picked up a package.

I prepped my ingredients and opened up the box of dough. Unfortunately, the package said to let it thaw for at least four hours and then defrost it in the microwave to boot. 

Damn, I didn't have four hours. So I preheated the oven for 400 degrees and let the sheet pan with the dough unrolled sit on top with the door open and got it as unthawed as I could. 

I knew that it would not be perfect but what is in this world? I would find the Dufour for the next round but would do the best I could for this one.

I used a rolling pin and a little water and mended the breaks in the still brittle dough. 

I used the edge of my fork to create a border and then used the tines to poke the bottom.

I then whisked up four ounces of cream cheese, a quarter cup of sugar and a half teaspoon of vanilla and made a paste for the bottom of my tart. 

I wanted a binder under the fruit that would add a bit of tartness and did not really feel like making a custard and using all the egg yolks that would entail and all the extra work.

I washed my two large d'anjou pears and then sliced them into small segments. 

You want your fruit ripe but firm, not mushy! Left the peel on by the way.

I took a large mixing bowl and added three tablespoons of honey, a tablespoon of flour, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg and stuck the pear slices in, using a wooden spoon to coat them fully.

I arranged them on my pastry shell in an interlocking fashion. 

I took a handful of hazelnuts and used my wooden mallet to crush them as best I could.

This did not work so well, so I ended up chopping them with my chef's knife.

I sprinkled the nut mixture on top of the fruit and then poured what remained of the honey mix on top of that in a drizzle.

I slid the pan in the oven and cooked the tart for about 22 minutes, until it started to brown a bit and I could see it start to caramelize.

The cooked tart looked wonderful although I forgot to egg wash the border for color.

Next time.

I was almost done. 

I took the heavy whipping cream I had bought at Albertsons, added some sugar and a bit more vanilla and whisked it as stiff as I could, not having access to a good electric hand or stand mixer. 

I tried my immersion blender and it was pretty useless.

I cut Leslie and myself a piece and can report that it tasted and smelled incredible. Fragrant and delicious.

Quite heavenly dish.

Wouldn't have changed a thing except the pastry dough, which was a bit underwhelming but that might be on me for my quick thaw and it might be because it is gluten free and contains no eggs or dairy products.

Definitely want to repeat this with a better dough or make it myself next time.

I have one more pastry sheet in the box. 

I will thaw it out properly this time and either make an apple tart or berry but will change it up, maybe use mascarpone.

Manassas

Erica's Sourdough

I stopped at Major Market yesterday to get provisions for dinner, they ended up having baseball cut sirloins on sale that were wonderful. I seared and roasted them and made spinach as well, then made peach ginger scones to top it all off.

Getting back in the cooking groove. Pear tarts tomorrow, maybe Cornish game hens?

Anyway as I was getting out of my car I saw my friend Jim standing around in the parking lot, quite suspiciously like he was waiting for a dope deal.

I told him and he laughed. 

He was waiting for Erica, a woman who makes delicious sour dough bread and sells it around town.

She makes it fresh to order, Jim says it is really good and tasty.

She can be reached at 760-421-8704.

She drove up and he made the score, a loaf of blueberry lemon sourdough, which sounds very interesting.

She also makes starter. I haven't made bread in a while and have killed my last two starters, not quite ready to take the plunge again yet but will someday.

Robin Adler

Photastic!

Leslie dropped her car off at the body shop today and I asked her if she wanted to have lunch. She suggested the Pho place near Major Market.

"Uggh," I exclaimed. I went there once and the food was so bad I swore never to return.

"No," she said, "It's new owners, it is all different. I walked by and it smelled great."

Now I trust my wife's schnozz, it is pretty infallible. I would have to trust her on the new ownership. But the funny thing is, famous gem dealer Bill Larson lives in Fallbrook and we always run into each other eating, tending to like the same types of food.

He recently told me that the place was really good now.

My wife and I drove over to Photastic together. 

Our hosts were engaging and friendly, not at all like the original owners.

The place did smell great and it had a new menu.

We ordered an appetizer combo of spring rolls and egg rolls with two dipping sauces which was great. 

Leslie had a combo vermicelli bowl and rather than have my customary bun bo hue, I ordered a chicken banh mi sandwich.

Food was delicious and we will certainly be back.

Honey, I'm home.

Ain't gonna lie. I had a pretty tough show in Palos Verdes, maybe a little better than a very dismal one last year. 

I started doing the show last year after a thirty year layoff. 

It is held at an old Episcopal Church, St. Francis.

And I will probably do it again next year. Why? Because the parishioners are exceedingly nice and they pamper us. 

They serve us lunch, and tea, and bring us a wonderful dinner at the end of the show.

Now in its fifty third year, the small antique show is the last general antique show left in California south of Santa Barbara. 

The only other show is Palm Springs Modernism, believe it or not.

I am, at this point, an antique dealer for life and will go down with the ship.

I had a lot of interest in my wares but two decent sales, my typical price point being a bit north of the buying whims of a population with a median age nearing seventy five or eighty. 

As I approached the show Tuesday morning, I passed a huge water geyser, perhaps somebody clipped a hydrant? 

Maybe it was a strange omen for a show that never really fired for me.

Wealthy but not really interested any longer in feathering their nests. 

I bought a nice Navajo concho belt from a woman who was no longer wearing that stuff, probably overpaid her. 

I also bought a nice small Sydney Yard tonalist painting of Carmel.

I got on the phone and made some things happen with out of state clients, closed two more deals this morning. 

I am, all in all, glad I went, even with the diminishing returns.

I stayed in a Ramada Limited in Redondo. Motel was alright but limited was the keyword, mainly parking.  The staff was great and I made do. No complaints. 

Had a nice breakfast meal at the Yellow Vase, a very stately old restaurant in Malaga.

I also went back to my favorite taco shop on Hawthorne Blvd. in Torrance, Tacos el Goloso for the killer birria and potato tacos.

Nine of us dealers  went out for great Chinese on Friday night at Seashore off Calle Major. 

We had a sumptuous feast, whole crab in ginger, whole Peking duck, walnut shrimp, chow fun, fried rice, on and on and on. I think they made a big mistake on the bill, it was less than $250 dollars. Hey, we don't read Chinese...

I am exhausted from the last month. I got a service on my car three weeks ago and I already need another, driving to San Francisco and back twice and beyond. I am home now for a while and want to put the shop back together and make it presentable, that is my goal. 

I have clients who are interested in material and I am woefully remiss in updating my website and AskArt. 

I got the smalls out of the van today, tomorrow the paintings. I am without a car until Leslie's comes back from the body shop, need to drive the van.

Good to be back on dry land. I need to rest, recharge and start back with my yoga, walking and photography again, try to catch a little me time.

Van Ronk

Really?

Here's a great headline from law enforcement. Sort of like the D.C. police endorsing the guy who had them beaten up on January 6th. Goes to show that clan affiliation and partisan politics trumps ethics and common sense.

Bianco is a total loser, always has been. He was an Oath Keeper and has been endorsed by the notoriously far right and neo-fascist Claremont Institute.

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — In a video posted Saturday to his Instagram account, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco endorsed Donald Trump for president, saying, "I think it's time we put a convicted felon in the White House."

"I'm all in," said Bianco, who has hinted he may run for California governor in 2026. "Trump 2024, baby. Let's save this country and make America great again."

In the video, Bianco dons his county law enforcement uniform while lashing out at state leaders, particularly Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, over what he calls their "love for criminals."

Bianco said in the video that the state leaders might be "on to something," so he's decided to "change teams" by backing a felon for president.

Of course, it is most probable that he is breaking the law by even making this endorsement in his uniform. Or do laws even matter anymore?

A California statute prohibits public employees from wearing their uniforms when engaging in political activities. Government Code section 3206 provides that "no officer or employee of a local agency shall participate in political activities of any kind while in uniform."

Don't Stop Believin

I hate Journey's music but I love this guy...

My Only Love