Ingredients Cake 1 1/2 cups (298g) vegetable oil 2 cups (397g) granulated sugar 1 cup (227g) sourdough starter, unfed/discard 3 large eggs 1 cup (…
Sourdough Carrot Cake with Creamcheeese Frosting
It’s funny about the way we simplify what we experience to fit our little minds.
The act of reading to a child appears so simple. It’s easy to assume that what is happening is just as simple as the act appears. But so much more is happening than we give at first perceive. Looking beyond the obvious takes us into a veritable hidden world of meaning, within meaning, within meaning.
Children may not have the language skills to articulate the different levels on which they learn. Children may not have the brain development to even realize what they are learning or on what level — but the process of learning, of acquisition, evaluation, and synthesis is going on all the time. They are sponges.
As we age we continue to do things on multiple levels. Perhaps it is just the politicians who think life is as simple as it appears. Or poorly prepared professionals who have reputations to preserve and don’t want new ideas to disturb the status quo. Or selfish parents who had children because they just wanted kids — with no regard to how to raise them to be functional human beings and an asset to society. There are a lot of reasons why we look at a child being read to and think it’s a simple action with simple results. But we fool ourselves and ignore a world of growth for the child and for ourselves.
UPS workers have overwhelmingly voted in favor of a strike unless contract negotiations reach a settlement before the end of July 2023. in light of that union news, I wanted to remind y’all of the Battle of Blair Mountain. Kids raised in West Virginia, heard about it tons in school but it’s not spoken much about told outside of the state.
To make a very long story short, it was the biggest armed conflict in the US since the Civil War and it was between striking coal miners sick of being treated like trash, and the cops/army. The miners went up against chemical weapons in an attempt to be treated like humans. It’s a really important moment in worker’s rights that I feel doesn’t get talked about enough, and now seems as good a time as any to bring it up.
Here are some links if you’re interested in reading more.
In the foreword of Che Guevara’s timeless creation – “Motorcycle Diaries”, there is a paragraph dedicated to the eulogization of youth……Youth is not mere sequential in this journey of life…..it is in fact the best of life…. life’s greatest blessing, with unbridled energy and countless possibilities. Now, looking back, I feel a bit sad …….the brightest years of my countrymen are spent slogging at exploitative jobs ….. or mindlessly gulping “tuition notes”……. or drugging themselves useless. An ocean of youth lies stupidly calm….just a few murmurs hither-thither ……. the possibility of a revolution, far far more powerful than the French revolution, stays dissolved …… the spread of convenience, knowledge, “so-called” good wisdom helping in compartmentalizing individuals’ consciences …… bringing nations closer while alienating neighbors….. the greatest paradox in this stage of anthropological evolution.
Andrea Chalupa discusses her graphic novel, co-authored with Sarah Kendzior, about authoritarianism and its dangers
Three zombies lurching your way is scary enough. Now imagine they’re Lenin, Stalin and Putin. This scene isn’t from a Kremlin-themed horror film, but rather a new graphic novel, Dictatorship: It’s Easier Than You Think! by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa.
Through their day job, as co-hosts of the Gaslit Nation podcast, the authors have long warned about the dangers of authoritarianism, whether discussing January 6 or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now they are releasing a book, illustrated by the Polish artist Kasia Babis.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek look at dictatorship, a how-to manual with lessons from Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Putin, Kim Jong-un and many others whose stories offer time-tested tips on how to seize and consolidate power.
“We wanted to do a book on the dictator playbook to show people how unoriginal dictators are,” Chalupa says, “so they can better predict the next moves of an aspiring authoritarian.”
Some such moves, such as stigmatizing minority groups or employing propaganda, are well-known from history class. Others may seem counterintuitive. According to Chalupa and Kendzior, dictators are fond of both elections and constitutions. It helps, of course, if they win the popular vote by an overwhelming margin and if constitutional rights are guaranteed on paper but not in real life.
On the page, these tips and more are shared by an omniscient narrator who Chalupa says has Cary Grant’s looks and verve, Stephen Colbert’s snark and the devil’s ability to tempt.
One relatively new development for dictators is the increasing usefulness of technology when it comes to keeping civilians under surveillance. Chalupa notes that when her Ukrainian grandfather was in one of Stalin’s prison camps, inmates were allowed to speak to each other relatively freely. Today, China uses technology to keep a constant eye on Uyghurs in its own camps. Chalupa and Kendzior fault companies like Apple, Facebook and Google for doing business with China.
“When you have innovations in AI driven by companies in the west, it’s going to be used for authoritarian control,” Chalupa says.
“It’s only a matter of time before it starts spreading everywhere. You think you live in a democracy? Every single democracy is vulnerable. Nobody is immune to the authoritarian virus. If all the surveillance technology tools go unregulated, if there’s no vocal outcry against them from the public or elected officials in the EU, North America and elsewhere, if there’s no pushback against them, it’s going to be game over.”
When Chalupa and Kendzior conceived their book, they outlined it as if it were an infomercial, wondering what a Trump University course on dictatorship would look like, and proceeded accordingly. They also thought about Oscars-style awards for despots.
In one sequence, the narrator becomes an Academy Awards host. He dons a tuxedo, strolls the red carpet and presents the Oscar for Best Purge to Kim Il-sung, founder of the dynasty that rules North Korea. According to the book, nowadays Kim Jong-un not only continues the tradition of purges, he has extended it to canine pets of the ruling class.
As Chalupa points out, dictators can’t achieve power on their own. They require the help of “useful idiots”.
“In terms of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, all the sort of people we highlight throughout the project, the larger theme of the book is useful idiots. People helped Hitler have power. Why? What did they get out of it, or think they were getting out of it?”
The book looks at a Weimar Republic media baron, Alfred Hugenberg, who thought he could control Hitler and limit his danger to Germany: a fateful miscalculation. Meanwhile, Stalin’s brutality was whitewashed in the west thanks to figures including the celebrated playwright George Bernard Shaw and the New York Times journalist Walter Duranty, whose fawning coverage won a Pulitzer prize. One of Duranty’s contemporaries, the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who sought to expose Stalin’s atrocities, was the subject of Chalupa’s 2019 feature film, Mr Jones. Another voice of conscience spotlighted in Chalupa and Kendzior’s book is George Orwell, for his courageous opposition to Stalin and to authoritarianism in general.
“I think Orwell wasn’t alone,” Chalupa says. “He had a community working with him side-by-side” including “his wife Eileen, a remarkable poet in her own right”.
The rogues’ gallery wouldn’t be complete without Donald Trump. Recently indicted a second time, the 45th president plays a prominent role in the book. One aspect the authors emphasize is Trump’s dictatorial skill when it comes to inflaming supporters.
They highlight his tweets on the campaign trail in 2016: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ’em would you? Seriously. OK? Just knock the hell – I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.”
Another sequence depicts Trump supporters drinking conspiracist Kool-Aid on January 6. A man wearing a red Maga cap downs a shot which makes his muscles expand and brain shrink. “Stop the steal!” he exclaims. Others, similarly addled, start threatening Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. Egged on by Trump, the mob attacks the Capitol. With the seat of government burning, Trump feigns innocence.
The book also examines US support for dictatorships abroad. In the 1970s, such support often came about through the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. Whether it was the coup against Salvador Allende that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile or coziness toward dirty war dictators in Argentina, Kissinger was key to the embrace of despots worldwide.
“He was like a ‘Where’s Waldo?’ during our research,” Chalupa recalls, noting “all the times he kept popping up – ‘there’s Kissinger again.’”
With so much material to work with, the authors had to make decisions about what to include. Their treatment of Hitler spotlights Mein Kampf and his brief alliance with Stalin, but there is not much mention of his antisemitism and the Holocaust.
“We sort of focused on the dictators themselves versus their atrocities,” says Chalupa, whose next project is a Holocaust-themed work about the American second world war reporter Dorothy Thompson. “It’s sort of like the Hitchcock method.”
She adds that “the focus is so much on useful idiots. It’s really the theme of the book. We’re not trying to minimize any atrocities” or “eclipse the victims”.
Chalupa noted that the book is geared toward younger readers, aiming to encourage them to learn more. Sadly, with things the way they are, it seems there will be no shortage of material should a sequel ever be planned. But Chalupa maintains a sense of hope.
“We’ve got to keep fighting,” she says. “We have no choice. Every single one of us, wherever [we are], should not check out, should not say, ‘OK, it’s out of my hands.’ It’s not up to you alone to fix it, but what we have the power to do, the bandwidth to do, is incredibly powerful.”
When I was young — back there in the 1950’s and 1960’s — it was common to hear animals referred to as “dumb” animals — meaning that they had no reasoning power, no insight, that they existed merely as veritable flesh machines that acted out of mechanical instinct and without reason or thinking.
Now, of course, we realize that animals are far more intelligent than we ever gave them credit for (most of us still don’t give them credit). They are capable of reason, compassion, ordered behavior. Depending on the species we have paid enough attention to their behavior that we realize that some animals are, indeed, smarter than some humans!
By animals I mean birds and mammals and reptiles, the great fishes and sea creatures — whales, octopi and more — exist in a rich and complex world that we know little about. Many of them have sensory systems that far exceed our own — in some aspects — just as our sensory systems exceed some of theirs.
We have learned that trees communicate with one another; they protect and care for others in their area just as humans do — except in languages and using tools that we have barely discovered much less fully understand.
When I saw this graphic I was reminded of the story I heard years ago about a place in the desert where rocks are known to have moved. Recently I saw another story about the same place that attempted to give a reason but at the moment I didn’t have the time to read the article so I have no idea what they are suggesting but seeing this graphic made me smile.
I wonder, in a hundred or a thousand years from now — if we haven’t blown up the planet — will we discover that what we think of as inanimate objects — like rocks — actually have a life on a different time scale or dimension than we can even conceive? Science tells us that 80% of the universe we cannot even perceive. Science can track influences and powers around us that we know not how to measure or even identify — so perhaps there is life in other forms than we would ever guess. In dimensions we know nothing of.
I have talked about needing to pay attention to my blood sugar. I am controlling diabetes with diet but carbs are no longer my friends. And as I have also mentioned my body some years ago decided that it and garlic were no longer on speaking terms. 🤨
I do to.write hummus quite well and really enjoy it. This is a great recipe that requires the investment of soaking time, but it’s a minor annoyance that is well worth planning your menu half a day ahead.
Feel free to eliminate the garlic. The recipe is tastier with it, but it still “works” without it.
In a large saucepan combine oil, onions and garlic. Saute over medium heat, until softened.
Drain the chickpeas add to sauce pan and stir to coat in the oil. Add water and bay leaves, cover and simmer until tender 4 hours or so. Add more water as needed.
Take your time, let the processor whiz the hummus until it’s smooth. You’re not in a race!
Enjoy!
I love egg custard of almost any form. Heck, even my scrambled eggs are made with cream and have a slightly custardy taste and texture.
I have been watching Tubi episodes of Masterchef Australia where one of the judges is Greek. His greekness playing on my mind has meant that when I see Greek recipes I have paid closer attention than usual.
In general I lean towards Mediterranean flavors when dining but Milwaukee has not had hugely popular Greek restaurants for the past few years. It seems as if all the Greek cooks have opened Milwaukee “Greek family restaurants” which really feature basic American diner food. When we were newlyweds there were a couple really good places in town and we frequented them all as much as we could afford. When traveling we still like those flavors, and seek them out.
But, it’s worth a try…
The thing is, this is really an egg custard pie and you’ve seen me publish other egg custard recipes. This uses a thickening agent in place of as many yolks that you might expect — but hey, not every recipe is perfect. 🙂
Prep Time 30minutes minutes
Cook Time 50minutes minutes
Cooling Time: 4hours hours
Total Time 5hours hours 20minutes minutes
Servings 10 serves
Calories 223kcal
From the Far Side of '70 
You must be logged in to post a comment.