MORE from Fighting Bob Fest

UPDATE -- Just found another YouTube site with more from Fighting Bob Fest. Check out more great stuff at PABAKER55's channel: www.youtube.com/user/pabaker55. Huzzah! (FYI, Fighting Bob Fest is named after Wisconsin's great progressive, Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette.)

Thom Hartmann at Fighting Bob Fest

Author and radio/TV host Thom Hartmann was in Baraboo, WI, earlier this month for the 9th Annual Fighting Bob Fest. Couldn't be there in person but have been seeking a video and have found it, thanks to Karen, YouTube.com's user OnTheEarthProduction -- also with a website to bookmark: On the Earth Productions. (Good stuff!) Thom's talk dealt with corporate personhood, how it was based on a headnote that was NOT in the judges ruling (the 1886 Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railrood decision), and the importance of action to restore what's left of our democracy. We need to negate the effects of the recent outrageous extremist Citizens United decision. Tell our congress critters that we want them to add the word NATURAL before person in the 14th amendment of the constitution. (See MoveToAmend.org)

I just bought Thom's new book, Rebooting the American Dream. Listen, read Thom's stuff, and check out ThomHartmann.com (as well as other stuff from Karen).

Imagine

Imagine -- finally, Central Park
Originally uploaded by Kate Anne

It took my son and his friends being in town for the Porcupine Tree concert at Radio City Music Hall for me to finally get to see the Imagine mosaic at Strawberry Fields in Central Park. How New York of me! Had to play tourist with my visitors :) FYI -- it is close to the Dakota where John Lennon lived. Enter Central Park at 72nd and Central Park West. Veer a little to the left and follow the crowd. (Great Porcupine Tree concert btw.)

Deregulation

Senator Bernie Sanders astutely asks questions about deregulation of Jacob Lew, the president's nominee to head the White House Office of Management and Budget. Despite his questionable response to the deregulation question during the hearing of the Senate Budget Committee, the panel unanimously voted to confirm him. Go figure, but Lew, a former Citigroup executive, did serve under Clinton who ran a budget surplus. Whether this helps remains to be seen, but at least Bernie asked the hard questions.

My voting experience: Scanners Down!

Got to cast my primary vote, literally, at my new old site, Queen of Angels Center on Skillman in Sunnyside. Our lever machines are gone. We've got a scanning system, which worked, sort-of. There were lots of empty privacy booths when I voted. But when I collected my ballot, I was offered a privacy folder (for the actual casting into the scanner) only after I requested it. (I had watched the instruction video.) I walked to the scanners and found that they were BOTH down. Site supervisor Richard Drake said neither machine would boot up, whether plugged in or with the battery. Perhaps the batteries were upside down, he suggested, a rumor he had heard. The good news is I could deposit it in the emergency slot in the scanner where the ballots would be handcounted later, under watchful eyes: THE BEST MOST VERIABLE WAY.

The Majestic Plastic Bag - A Mockumentary

Hope you like me are mostly using re-useable bags instead of plastic bags. This beautifully done four minute video mockumentary tells a lot, providing much impetus for reducing, reusing, and recyling. Found it thanks to the Wondering Rose blog, where I had landed thanks to author Anne Rice and the saintly Sister Margaret McBride [more on them in another blog post, most likely].

Do you know how many plastic bags are used each year just in California? 19 billion. That’s Nineteen BILLION! Of which only about 5% are recycled. Most of the bags, like the plastic bottles (which I wrote about in my earth day post on April 22 2010) end up in the Great Pacific Garbage patch ~~ Roseanne Freed, Wondering Rose

Just looked at Rose / Roseanne's bottle post -- gotta redouble my effort on NOT using plastic bottles, too. Join us!

Target Ain't People

Thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, corporations are allowed to pour even more cash into our elections and they are not even having to identify themselves. In the case of Target, a Minnesota law forced them to 'fess up. Target is only one -- we must get off our rears and re-claim our democracy. It is We the PEOPLE and not We the corporations!!!! Check out the MoveOn.org sponsored boycott Target site, http://targetboycott.org.

Francis's Crowd Pleasing German Potato Salad

(When my dad gave this recipe to me years ago he neglected to put the amount of potatoes but he was making it for a family gathering so I think it was probably a five pound bag of potatoes, perhaps more, leave me a msg if you figure it out.)

Cook potatoes with skins in salted cold water. Cool-peel-cube.

1 quart of water
6 T cornstarch
1 C vinegar
6 t sugar or to pleasant sweetness

Onion larger than a golf ball, chopped very fine
Salt & pepper to taste

3/4 # of bacon chopped 1/2 " across, sauteed to pleasing brown, stirring occasionally till done. Remove bacon and set aside. To bacon fat add water mixed with corn starch, vinegar, etc. Heat for thickening. Add onions to cubed potatoes. Then add thickened sauce to potato mixture and stir lightly till well mixed. Heat slightly before serving. Add bacon and serve.

My dad would make the above and place it in a yellow insulated covered serving container and take it to family picnics and get raves. I no longer eat meat and I miss this salad. The memories, though, I still have. I give the recipe as promised to my bacon eating kids and friends.

Zucchini with Cilantro and Garlic: yum!

A fellow CSA friend told me she made a zucchini and cilantro soup -- don't have her recipe (yet) but got great results taking her idea and adding a handful of cilantro to my microwaved sliced organic zucchini (with a little water, butter, and dash of sea salt)-- this last time I added garlic: yummy. I imagine I could have pureed it and gotten a great soup because you certainly want to enjoy the buttery zucchini water. Maybe next time. In the meantime, my share partner gave me the lion's share of our box: 11 pounds of vegetables and fruit. Hey, neighbor, ya wanna zucchini, heh heh! [Is this a throwback to PRETZELS, a musical review by Jane Curtin and Fred Grande that I was in way back when? -- It may be.]

Chris Hayes: Strategic Mortgage Defaults - contracts are for...

Great reporting from The Nation's Chris L. Hayes and reason for follow-up: Wealthy people strategically walk away from underwater mortgages [when a homeowner owes more than the place is worth] but big banks want to force the rest of us to sink or swim in deep water and pay up so they can make money on OUR backs. "Contracts are for 'little people'." (When Chris is there, I don't miss Rachel Maddow quite so much. He does great stuff!)