Obama bashing

Online blogging has tickled down to captivate even me, witness my tepid attempt.  There’s been so much news on how writers, wanna-be writers and ranters nee bloggers are now “journalists” and “news-reporters” and the next new thing.

Into their fifth year, “Netroots Nation”, the progressives’ blogger conclave convened in Minneapolis this past week.  Not to be left out, the right premiered their mirroring event “Right Online” a few blocks down the street.  (Couldn’t they have had the independence to pick another city?  Lemmings all?  Or limited imagination?  Come to think of it, weren’t the Republicans also-rans, fiercely running in place after Howard Dean’s internet fundraising success in 2004?  But then again, Republicans are the undisputed champs at negative campaigning, single issue popularism, outright electoral fraud and unconscionable lying.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

NPR played a clip featuring Netroots Nation yesterday morning.  Right Online had their turn this morning.  Both reports couldn’t avoid tieing in a bash of our President.

He can’t get it right.  The Netroots Nationers kvetch about the futility of campaigning for him when he doesn’t deliver.  Now, they argue, is the time to hold out for stronger guarantees for our due, before going door to door for the next election.

What?

The news loves this shit.  Lambasted from the left and right, the President can’t win.  And I suppose it is a no win job.  Damned if you do / don’t, right?  That’s what he signed on for.

Still, its heartbreaking to hear the left and progressives give up on what is possibly the best President we’ve had in the last thirty years.  By “best” I mean the one most interested in fairness and creating a better world for the majority, if not all Americans.  Jimmy Carter was good, maybe even better, but all the rest were in it for their self-interest.

OK maybe I’m a little naïve, and perhaps Obama’s means and methods are out of date and of a by-gone era.  Of a time when your neighbors, friends, employers and leaders could be trusted to have your mutual (best) interests in their decisions.  Sure, he can be a heartless, self-serving politician, but compared with the noise surrounding him, he’s a saint.  Is he the problem?  Or is it us?  

Could it kill us to give him a break.  To give him time.  To trust him.  And give a little credit for what's been done given the situation he's inherited from 8 years of Bush?  Does anyone at Netroots Nation really think life would be better under any of the current Republican candidates? 

Has the progressives conveniently forgotten that the Feds are no longer pursuing DADT and DOMA?  And the bailout of GM was not a moneypit but saved over 1.4 million jobs?  And healthcare reform passed after more than eighty years of thumbs up the butt?  Duh, do you forget we are still in a recession?  Not every social program can grow in funding and instead of burning energy flailing against that reality, focus it on the military largesse and the tax-free lives of the super-rich.  According to a NY Times editorial, over 70% of the population supports better carbon emission controls, from cars to factories.  Why isn’t that leveraged to broaden EPA, and reduce factory farming and their subsidies?

To all liberals, progressives, conservatives, tea partiers and all you sanctimonious political hangers-on:  stop being such self-interested bastards.  Raise up a little higher.  Your opponent / enemy is you.  No single person / party / group needs to or should win-it-all.  Perhaps it's useful to examine our own lives.  What is your limit for buying, getting, burning more?  Have you ever regretted the results your choices and actions?  Did it ever occur to you that a me-first attitude is an undercurrent to most of our decisions?  All we all that different from the obvious brain-numbing self-interest that obsesses / drives the Tea Party?  And we / they conveniently call that politics, and for the good of all?

(Sigh).  We can do better.  We have to.  Why must we feel/think/act like crabs in a bucket?

Clearly no one wants to go first.  In this world, any signs of openness are seen as weaknesses.  Eat or be eaten.  And that's where Obama hit the wall.  Try to be open, try to be sensitive, try to be collaborative, and the other side muscles you aside, pounds you down.   But its no help to have those ostensibly on your side doing the same.

seafood labels

The other night we continued our quest for less meat in our diet. Fish is exempt, for now. And I had a hankering for nitsuke fish, memories of mom’s cooking.

So the problem was where to find the “right” fish. Preferably full body, with head, tail and innards intact. But after trolling (no pun intended) through my favorite pre-veg shops, I was unable to find anything fresh enough, and affordable. No one seemed to carry whole fish. What was there looked old, defrosted, or woefully unappetizing.

Nijiya, the Japanese grocer in Japantown, was my safe house and default source for fish. I trust the freshness of their fish but though I like how they label their origins, it often falls short of my evolving expectations. Too many farmed species, too many “wrong” sources, and never any info on how the fish were caught.

Despite those anxieties, I picked up a flat of rockfish filets. Rockfish, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, is not a bad choice. And tho I hold my breath about how the rockfish were caught, at least the species label is accurate. Seafood Watch warns that whenever you see “pacific snapper”, you are probably picking up the relatively less familiar rockfish. So why is it so labeled in every one of the major grocers in California?? Safeway, you know I’m talking about you. Do I hear a cash register? There are NO snappers on the US West Coast.

So how were the rockfish caught? I dunno. Seafood Watch notes that trawl-caught methods for virtually all species should be avoided. Hook and line, and “jig” caught rockfish from California, Washington and Oregon are acceptable. But very few grocers, at least those I can afford, label catch methods. I vaguely recall Bi-rite having source and catch method labels, I think. I remember their staff being knowledgeable and didn’t flinch at the question. Everywhere else? No labels? Assume the worst.

OK. Even with labels, can they be trusted? Think again. Oceana, an international organization dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans recently published a fascinating and worrisome report, Bait and Switch: How Seafood Fraud Hurts Our Oceans, Our Wallets and Our Health, on the fraudulent labeling of every imaginable seafood product.

Short plug for Oceana.

They are “the largest international organization working solely to protect the world’s oceans. Oceana wins policy victories for the oceans using science-based campaigns. Since 2001, we have protected over 1.2 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea turtles, sharks, dolphins and other sea creatures. More than 500,000 supporters have already joined Oceana. Global in scope, Oceana has offices in North, South and Central America and Europe.”

The report’s “name that fish” test is especially humbling, particularly for someone who prides himself on his fish-sense. From fresh filets and frozen (raw and processed) products, to restaurant menus, buyer beware. Your favorite grocer and restaurant are just as likely to be victims than perpetrators. And why? There’s that cash register ringing again.

If its not labeled correctly what does it matter whether salmon is farmed or wild-caught? Oceana refers to a Consumer Reports study that found that 56% of “wild-caught” salmon is actually farmed. Other studies have found that 77% - 90% of red snapper on the market are not the so-named species from the Gulf of Mexico, but instead another kind of snapper, a rockfish or something else! Other switches include swordfish substituted with mako shark, albacore/white tuna with tilapia or escolar, mahimahi with yellowtail, and grouper with any number of lower value species of catfish/tilapia/hake/pollack. Processed food is really scarier. Do you have any idea what fish is actually in that frozen breaded filet? Or what kind of clams or tuna are in the can?

Download the report, read it. It’s fairly short, to the point, and graphically engaging.

What to do when I’m hungry and jonesing for nitsuke?  Ach, I don't yet have a convincing explanation for my food choices, only this extended musing over the dilemma. The path to better health and a healthier planet is not getting any easier. 

Nitsuke, as my mom did it, simmers fish in a sweet soy broth. Adding daikon rounds and burdock segments took it to a level beyond her standard and much beloved fare. (Sorry mom.) Dinner was terrific. Still a ways to go before it becomes truly fabulous.

 

forks over knives

Saw a thought provoking film a couple of nights ago:  Forks over Knives.

About our food and health, and how you are what you eat (surprise!).  What's especially surprising, and enlightening, is the research that the two featured doctors (Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, now in their 70s) conducted and the ideas that have evolved.

 

Lots of compelling statistics, and simple to digest (no pun intended) engaging graphics.  Data is drawn from enormous statistical studies in China, Japan, Norway and the US.  The studies done in Hawaii are oddly familiar (my dad was a participant in one).

The short message is that degenerative diseases (heart disease, diabetes and cancer) can be arrested, controlled and even reversed by a diet of plant based whole foods. 

The featured demons are fast food, processed food, meat, sugars, dairy products.  Scary stats on the amount we ingest.  Through it all, the movie espouses a vegan diet, but stealthily.  Hardly a mention of "veganism".  No mention of animal rights.  And the barest touch on the environmental and social consequences of the typical western diet.  It focuses on health.  Your health.  Our health.  Smart move.

Not all of this is well received.  Opposing perspectives by Connie B. Diekman, MEd, RD, FADA (Director of Nutrition at Washington University, and former president of the American Dietetic Association) and David Klurfeld, Ph.D. (USDA's National Program Leader for Human Nutrition) are given airtime but hardly compelling.  Doesn't help that Connie looks like her nutrition should be examined.
 

A review by Rex Reed in the New York Observer (rex reed ny observer review) is off-putting but his synopsis is really pretty good.  And the corrective comments to his on-line post are hilarious in their brevity.   For all the bitterness in the article and his admission of guilty eating, its funny that Rex was compelled to post a photo of Dr. Esselstyn's hunky son.



So we did our first foray into it last night.  After much discussion, and lots of time on the web searching for recipes, we made buckwheat noodle salad with apple-ume-ginger vinegrette dressing, asparagus bisque, and tofu-rice burgers with honey glaze.  Surprise!  Tasty as all get out.  And the best part:  clean cleanup.  No grease splatters on the stove or plates.  Yay! 

As a first pass, it was a great success.  We have more ideas about presentation and variations. (E.g. soba would have looked better atop the greens.)  It will be a struggle.  We are acknowledged omnivores and only recently cut back on our meat consumption for health concerns.  Frying is frowned upon, and fish is a fave, but that's another problem and another post.



In the meantime.  The movie has opened nationwide.  Look for it.  See the possibilities.  Certainly has its biases and no end of criticisms can be leveled against it, but its value is in revealing possibilities and an alternate path.  Don't need to become a true believer and re-born as a vegan.

Go ahead, see it.

I see you

Ever wonder why it seems like you are the only one who noticed that (fill in the blank  . . ) : pattern of cracks in the sidewalk, mole on your face, thumbprint in the mirror, passersby's limping walk, flight path of the fly tapping against the window, . . .?

So much of life to be noticed.

Noticing a bit of life is the aspiration for this blog.  Looking, seeing, perhaps clearing a path.  It's a work in progress.

I heard an opinion on talk radio today.  The speaker pronounced his definition for the "working class."  If you lost your job and remained unemployed for a year, you'd likely had to "move out of your mortgage".  (Isn't that curious phrasing.  Who wouldn't want to "move out" of a mortgage?  Excuse me, oh no thank you please, I'd rather live forever under the bank's thumb.  Sheesh!)  If you didn't move out, you were middle class.  Oh-kay.

That opinion came on the heels of another radio program where the speaker claimed to be "of the working class" because he worked.  Rah-ight.

Where do they find these guys?

 Why did these opinions matter?  Well, to put it euphemistically, my life is in flux.  I'm of the non-working class, in a state of work interrupted.  And any discussion about it stirs deep uncertainties.

So many people want to tell you what they think (including this blog) about work, about life.  It's utterly wack and crowds out your own conclusions.  Does it matter what other people think?  Need one follow another's path?

Been spending a fair amount of time listening to public radio.  Reading, and thinking.  About my path.  What did I look at?  What did I see?

That crack pattern in the concrete sidewalk can be mesmerizing.  Just watch any 2 year old.  And that thumbprint on the mirror begs four fingers to be whole, or the swipe of a damp cloth to be complete.  Look inward to your heartbeat or your breath.  There are worlds of mysteries.  Keep looking.

My boyfriend and I have a favorite movie memory.  You've probably, inexorably if you are asian, heard it.  From Joy Luck Club, from a mother to her child:  "I see you."

A day after Mother's Day I miss mom.  Come October it will have been five years since I've been truly seen.  Tomorrow is her birthday.