Found . . .

. . . this

headline on MSNBC the other day. . .

"GOP lawmaker says Democrat drank on the job"

Now let's look at this with a somewhat discerning eye.  First, our 'objective' news organization thought this 'story' would be best promoted by pointing out that there are two opposing U.S. political parties involved in this 'development'.

Second, it appears that one of the principals in the 'story' (from one of the two opposing U.S. political parties) has an problem or an issue regarding either self-control, addiction or mere lack of discrimination in his personal activities.

So not only is there (and how many times do we see THIS??) no story here whatsoever, but the mere semblance of a story that was perceived by this reporter and his (or her) respective editor thought not only was it his (or her) duty focus public attention on a very personal problem of one individual who happens to be an elected official, but this reporter and his (or her) respective editor thought that possibly there could be no better way to maliciously publicize a potentially serious personal condition to the public than to invoke the currently divisive, polarized political climate and make sure that everyone knows that a "GOP" lawmaker said a "Democrat" drank on the job.

I didn't, haven't and do not intend to even read this story.  Quite possibly I have jumped to a conclusion or two in my thoughts and maybe the story is really harmless.  But I don't think so.  And I don't think so for the mere reason that, in spite of however true, tawdry, misguided, inappropriate, misjudging, naive or merely rebellious the latter personage's conduct truly is,  it is in fact, nothing short of irresponsible, inconsiderate and indicative of poor judgement for a news organization to even conceive of, let alone write and publish a headline of this fashion.

Sorry.  But that's the way I feel.

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So what . . .

. . . miracle drug or horrendous malady can do all of the below? . . .

Prevent depression
Prevent prostate cancer
Reduce probability of strokes for women
Ward off Alzheimer’s
Reduce probability of breast cancer
Contain antioxidants
Make you smarter
Deliver a jolt deep in the brain
Not make you more alert
Protect you against type 2 diabetes
Trigger heart attack
Stimulate the adrenal hormones leaving your body’s parasympathetic nervous system (also known as the rest and digest system) inactive
Cause stomach ulcers
Cause birth defects
 
A newly published study of 400,000 participants says that coffee is not a guilty pleasure that may do harm. Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute says there may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking. Coffee contains many things that can affect health, from helpful antioxidants to tiny amounts of substances linked to cancer. And surprisingly, caffeine didn't play a role in the results of the new study. It's not that earlier studies were wrong. There is evidence that coffee can raise LDL, or bad cholesterol, and blood pressure (at least short-term) and those can raise the risk of heart disease.

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WHAT am I gonna do? . . .

. . . ? ? ? 

 The Food Pairing Craze: Down The Same Wrong Road As Wine Scores

July 30, 2011 | Filed under Worth A Look | Posted by Lewis Perdue

The current infatuation with wine and food pairings is headed down the same wrong road as wine scores. Why? Because people are genetically unique and so are their taste buds. No two people experience the same smell, the same taste — or the same wine/food pairing exactly the same way.
Because of that, it’s unreasonable to expect an individual wine-tasting/food-pairing experience to coincide with those of a set of expert high priests/priestesses who pronounce what is “good” and what is not.

Struggling to find the “right” food/wine combo adds a whole ‘nother' level of insecurity to the wine experience. And that first level of insecurity remains as the primary obstacle to broader consumer acceptance of wine. We’ve seen that wine has recently reached parity with beer as a preferred alcoholic beverage. There are a lot of factors associated with that as are well-studied by the Wine Market Council. A lot has to do with rising income among America’s growing Latino population. That follows the trend that wine consumption increases with income and socioeconomic status.
Some of that growth also comes from Millennials who scorn experts, tasting notes and snobbism. And more support comes from rising set of voices such as Tim Hanni, Gary Vaynerchuk and others who have emphasized and recognized the importance of individual palate variations and spoken out against the elitism that still endures as wine’s most prominent paradigm.

This elitism, this dogmatic insistence on perfect pairing has dominated articles and posts that emphasize education, learn, education, learn … and thus carry the unspoken message that the average wine drinker must study, study, study. Hell, if I faced that level of strenuous effort at the market, I’d go for a Jagged Edge IPA or a Racer 5 any day rather than turn my imbibing experience into sweaty- palm quantum chromodynamics final exam that I arrived for stark naked. In fact, we frequently go for a brew at our meals — especially when we’ve gone through several days in a row when we’ve opened a highly rated bottle of wine and found it unworthy of either the calories or alcohol intake. Some nights we open two or three of these before heading for beer or a reliable wine in the cellar. The average wine consumer does not have a cellar, nor are they likely to persist in one bottle of wine after another.

This whole emphasis on correct coupling discourages individual experimentation and raises the perceived risk quotient … and decreases overall enjoyment of the wine and the food.
And least we forget: constrains wine sales.

Just remember: people do not flock to musicians with perfect pitch. If that were the case, The Fray, Green Day, Gaslight Anthem and Matchbox 20 would be non-starters. On the other hand, they WERE non-starters to the elite music critics. But experimenting with what band you listen to lacks the financial penalty inherent in wine. Attacks on scores and perfect pairings are heresy. They also endanger the raison d’être of experts. For, if scores and perfect pairings are not relevant to average consumers, then what value do vino-gurus bring to the table? Make no mistake, there is a powerful and long-established set of vested interests who will defend the status quo as brutally as wholesalers attack the direct shipment of wine. But in the end, we must honor pleasure. Remember enjoyment? That’s what food and wine are about. Just drink it. Just eat it. Just enjoy it.

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Fine wine. . .

. . . time . . . if you're inclined . . . Friday til nine . . . (I get tired of all these attempts at clever etc., don't you????)  BUT . . . THIS FRIDAY, beginning at six . . . 
at Elk Run Vineyard . . .

Doug Alan Wilcox and Ray Jozwiak-Gonzo Piano (joined by Tomy Wright, percussion)  These guys [Doug and Tomy] are GOOD.  Guaranteed!  

Elk Run Vinyard
15113 Liberty Road  Mt. Airy, MD 21771  Phone: 410-775-2513 • Fax: 410-875-2009 • TOLL FREE: 800-414-2513 • elk_run@msn.com





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Bad . . .

 . . . dream . . .

. . . The fortified stone shelter was thought to be strong enough to withstand the trauma that would result from the earth's departing its axis.  It was however, difficult to enter and not large enough to accommodate everyone.  He sat on one of the bus-stop benches, brought into the First National Bank Building to seat the throngs, between his youngest son and his best friend, staring blankly at the obviously futile efforts toward protecting building's inhabitants including the blocking of all windows and doors with concrete.  Catching a last glimpse of the the cloudy grey sky as the concrete wall was sliding into place, his son asked compassionately if he thought Mom had safely reached the shelter and was there a plan to re-unite when the disaster passed.  He tried, however unconvincingly, to comfort his youngest in the affirmative but harbored greater uncertainty than even he wanted to admit. . .

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What Ifs and What Is. . .

. . . Ian Anderson

(photo and bio from Wikipedia.com)
Ian Anderson was born the youngest of three children. His father, James Anderson, ran the RSA Boiler Fluid Company in East Port, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Anderson spent the first part of his childhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was influenced by his father's big band and jazz records and the emergence of rock music, though disenchanted with the "show biz" style of early American rock and roll stars like Elvis Presley.

His family moved to Blackpool, Lancashire in 1959, where he gained a traditional education at Blackpool Grammar School,. In a recent interview, Anderson stated that he was asked to leave Grammar School for refusing to submit to corporal punishment (still permitted at that time) for some serious infraction. He went on to study fine art at Blackpool College of Art from 1964 to 1966.

While a teenager, Anderson took a job as a sales assistant at Lewis' department store in Blackpool, then as a vendor on a newsstand. He later said it was reading copies of Melody Maker and the New Musical Express during his lunch breaks that gave him the inspiration to play in a band.

In 1963, he formed The Blades from among school friends: Barriemore Barlow (drums), John Evan (keyboards), Jeffrey Hammond (bass) and Michael Stephens (guitar). This was a soul and blues band, with Anderson on vocals and harmonica – he had yet to take up the flute.

At this time Anderson abandoned his ambition to play electric guitar, allegedly because he felt he would never be "as good as Eric Clapton". As he himself tells it in the introduction to the video "Live at the Isle of Wight", he traded his electric guitar in for a flute which, after some weeks of practice, he found he could play fairly well in a rock and blues style. According to the sleeve notes for the first Tull album, "This Was", he had been playing the flute only a few months when the album was recorded. His guitar practice was not wasted either, as he continued to play acoustic guitar, using it as a melodic as well as rhythmic instrument. As his career progressed, he added soprano saxophone, mandolin, keyboards and other instruments to his arsenal.

As a flautist, Anderson is self-taught; his style, which often includes a good deal of flutter tonguing and occasionally singing or humming (or even snorting) while playing, was influenced by Roland Kirk. In 2003 he recorded a composition called Griminelli's Lament in honour of his friend, the Italian flautist Andrea Griminelli. In the 1990s he began working with simple bamboo flutes. He uses techniques such as over-blowing and hole-shading to produce note-slurring and other expressive techniques on this otherwise simple instrument.

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Is this. . .

. . . progress??? . . . 

 (From World News Daily Information Clearing House)
"Bush Found Guilty Of War Crimes

By Yvonne Ridley

May 11, 2012 "Information Clearing House" -- Kuala Lumpur -- IT’S OFFICIAL - George W Bush is a war criminal.

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were today (Friday) found guilty of war crimes.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

Full transcripts of the charges, witness statements and other relevant material will now be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council. . .


. . . President Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

“The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicised accordingly.

“The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions”.

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