Optimism and Cynicism

Some Cana­dian and Amer­i­can friends have asked for my opin­ion on the upcom­ing US Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. What do I think Obama’s chances are?  Isn’t it going to be a Land­slide for the Demo­c­ra­tic party, given the dis­as­ter that Bush has proven to be? Do I think I might return to the US after it’s gone back to being a coun­try more in tune with my beliefs and values?

While for some I may seem unen­thu­si­as­tic or even pes­simistic, I have to admit that my first response has been that I think the out­come is a toss-up. While I’m hope­ful that Obama and Biden will win in Novem­ber, I remem­ber all too vividly how it was to be stunned in 2000 by Bush tak­ing the oath of office, and shocked again in 2004 (no, that time it was more like we were all in mourn­ing) when he was reelected. How could more than half of the Amer­i­can pub­lic be so blind, twice? (More about that in a bit). Being a long-suffering Red Sox fan dur­ing their drought of World Series vic­to­ries and ago­niz­ing defeats to the Yan­kees that lasted the life­time of my mother-in-law (she was born the year after their Word Series win in 1916 and died before they won it again in 2004), I’m no stranger to the despair of an unex­pected defeat. Per­haps I’m just doing my best to guard against that pain a third time in a row.

Repub­li­cans, like the Yan­kees, are Good at Winning

If a win for the Democ­rats is not a cer­tainty, does that mean that McCain and Palin can win? I’m reminded that the GOP is very, very good at win­ning elec­tions. (As Howard Dean used to say that it’s a pity that the Republican’s aren’t as good at gov­ern­ing as well as they are at get­ting elected). They still have tons of money from count­less cor­po­ra­tions and groups made far richer and more pow­er­ful than they were eight years ago. They are still in power and hence, have access to all sorts of advan­tages their oppo­nents don’t have, and they have highly regarded experts with impres­sive track records like Karl Rove (either within the party or hired as con­sul­tants and lob­by­ists) who know how to per­suade vot­ers and per­haps even once again alter vot­ing machines enough to gain an advan­tage in key swing states (Ohio, anyone?).

Amer­i­can Lack of Education

My belief that either party could win goes deeper than just the GOP’s recent suc­cesses (not count­ing the 2006 Con­gres­sional elec­tions, but it’s worth not­ing that even in defeat, they still man­aged to hold on to enough num­bers to make the Democrat’s retak­ing of sev­eral Con­gres­sional seats a non-issue for them; the US Con­gress is cur­rently held with even lower esteem than Bush!)  I believe that for the last 20 years or so the US pop­u­la­tion has been method­i­cally robbed of the abil­ity to think ratio­nally about the choice of who will gov­ern them. With the weak­en­ing of the Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion sys­tem that started at about the Rea­gan era, it is very pos­si­ble that both par­ties — per­haps even by acci­dent — dis­cov­ered that a dumbed-down elec­torate was far eas­ier to con­trol, and hence, eas­ier to gov­ern. I can imag­ine that each group came to the same con­clu­sion: An eas­ily steered pop­u­la­tion would ben­e­fit their agenda. For lib­er­als who believed that indi­vid­u­als deserved help from the gov­ern­ment, this meant that peo­ple could be con­vinced of the worth of social pro­grams by sell­ing them the way that Ford or Toy­ota sold a new car model. For con­ser­v­a­tives, well, we can see that the last 8 years of tax cuts (‘You like tax cuts, don’t you? After all, it’s your money!’) for the rich­est friends of the party and mil­i­tary adven­tures (with cor­re­spond­ing mil­i­tary con­trac­tor feed­ing troughs) have been the direc­tion they’ve got­ten through herd­ing the US’s citizenry.

I’m not alone in this view. Al Gore’s lat­est book deals not with cli­mate change, but this very sub­ject. It’s called The Assault on Rea­son.  There are also books by Richard Hof­s­tadter: Anti-intellectualism in Amer­i­can Life (which ended up being very pre­scient, as it as the Pulitzer Prize Win­ner in 1963) as well as Susan Jacoby’s very recent The Age of Amer­i­can Unrea­son. There are oth­ers, but I thought it might be good to point some of the more well-known titles. There’s been a lot of ink on this par­tic­u­lar subject.

With a pub­lic so eas­ily influ­enced and turned to the advan­tage of who­ever is the clev­erer mar­keter, either out­come is pos­si­ble. It comes down to a game of duel­ing com­mer­cials between the cam­paigns (and isn’t it appro­pri­ate that the same word ‘cam­paign’ applies to both the activ­ity of sell­ing soap as well as polit­i­cal candidates?)

The Press is Play­ing for Time

Sound cyn­i­cal?  There’s more: The press has it’s own agenda, but it’s a dif­fer­ent one. At a slightly later date after the erod­ing of the pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem, many news report­ing orga­ni­za­tions were bought up by a rel­a­tively small num­ber of own­ers, and also placed under the enter­tain­ment bud­get of their respec­tive own­ers’ busi­nesses. This is par­tic­u­larly the case with TV News, not to men­tion the 24-hour cable net­works. We almost take for granted the fact that The News is now clearly in the rat­ings busi­ness. That means that they not only have to com­pete for atten­tion, but they also ben­e­fit if the Pres­i­den­tial race is close and peo­ple stay tuned in and engaged as long as pos­si­ble. I’m not echo­ing the com­mon tirade that the press has a con­ser­v­a­tive or lib­eral bias. Instead, they have a bias towards any­thing that makes the race closer, and in turn gen­er­ates more ad rev­enue. It’s very likely that the see-sawing lead between McCain and Obama in the polls is a con­certed effort by the news media to make sure that their view­ers stay on the edge of their seats until November.

Per­haps it isn’t duel­ing com­mer­cials, but a Pro­fes­sional Wrestling match. It’s cer­tainly not a debate of issues. You get the appear­ance of a con­test, but it’s really all just the­atre. Pol­icy dis­cus­sions are, well, just too bor­ing and dry for an une­d­u­cated elec­torate. They want to be enter­tained, and in the final analy­sis, may end up vot­ing for the most enter­tain­ing and telegenic can­di­date, and depend­ing on how you define telegenic in this case, I don’t think that Obama’s youth and hand­some­ness will nec­es­sar­ily guar­an­tee that he gets more votes, par­tic­u­larly if vot­ers want to be reas­sured by an avun­cu­lar or Grand­fa­therly McCain. This could cer­tainly be the case if the Repub­li­cans can once again play the fear card, and there could, of course, be another ter­ror­ist attack before the elec­tion. I’m not quite cyn­i­cal enough to believe that the Repub­li­cans will stage a fake attack, or even sur­rep­ti­tiously notify some group of a secu­rity hole, but give me time.

So with an igno­rant pub­lic that’s ruled by emo­tion and cam­paign manip­u­la­tion,  orga­ni­za­tions (like some within the GOP) that have no qualms with a lit­tle cheat­ing here and there, and a media that mainly just wants to keep the con­test excit­ing for as long  as pos­si­ble, I don’t expect the out­come to be pre­dictable based on real facts or sit­u­a­tions. So, I’m opti­mistic, but won’t at all be sur­prised if the Repub­li­cans find some way of win­ning once more. The out­come was never any­thing that you or I could pre­dict in the first place.

It’s Their Last Chance

One final thought; if the Democ­rats do man­age to lose, they should absolutely and with­out any fur­ther dis­cus­sion be dis­banded. Sell off all the assets at a fire sale and start with a new party with a new name and all new per­son­nel. If I was light-hearted in any of the above dis­course, I’m dead seri­ous about this. If the Democ­rats lose in 2008, get rid of them for good. For­get about Hillary in 2012; That’s not even an issue at that point. If an oppo­si­tion party can’t win after the appalling two terms of rule by Bush and Cheney, who with all prob­a­bil­ity will go down as the worst Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent in his­tory, it doesn’t deserve to exist.

Bit­ter? Moi?

August Recipe: Chilled Cherry Soup

I had an idea, because I get a kick at being able to get fruits and veg­eta­bles at Granville Island Mar­ket in sea­son and then build a meal or two around that ingre­di­ent (like the Iron Chefs, but not every dish on the menu). So I’m going to try and make this a monthly post (well, we’ll see if I can when Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary roll around, but for the time being, I think I’m prob­a­bly good until November).

This month, we’ve seen a lot of blue­ber­ries and cher­ries at the mar­ket. Most of the cher­ries have been the sweet ‘Lapin’ vari­ety, but just yes­ter­day I saw one ven­dor who had Sour ‘Hun­gar­ian’ Cher­ries. I knew imme­di­ately that this was my chance to make the East­ern Euro­pean chilled cherry soup that I remem­ber hav­ing as a teenager. I’ve also been want­ing to do my part to sup­port the Okana­gan cherry farm­ers, who lately have had some really tough times due to weather prob­lems and, of course, ris­ing fuel costs.

So here’s the recipe:

Hun­gar­ian Chilled Cherry Soup

(mostly from Joy of Cook­ing, with a few adjustments)

Ingre­di­ents

6 cups of pit­ted cher­ries: 4 cups sour ‘Hun­gar­ian’, 2 cups sweet ‘Lapin’.
2 cups Gewurtz­traminer wine (or any other dry but inter­est­ing white wine, like an Aus­tralian or New Zealand Sauvi­gnon Blanc)
1/4 cup sugar
4 tea­spoons corn­starch
1 table­spoon lemon juice
1 table­spoon orange juice
2 tea­spoons grated orange rind
mint leaves and sour cream for garnish

Direc­tions

Add half of the cher­ries to a large pot with 2 cups of water and the 2 cups of white wine. Bring to a boil and cook until the cher­ries are just ten­der (about 15 min­utes). Purée either with a mini-blender in the pot (eas­i­est) or sep­a­rately in a food proces­sor until it is smooth and return to the pot. In another bowl, mix sugar and corn­starch. Add some of the cooked cherry soup to it and mix until it is a smooth paste with most of the sugar and corn­starch semi-dissolved. Add that to the pot and stir.

Add the other half of the cher­ries, along with the lemon juice, orange juice and grated orange rind. Cook for another 10 min­utes or so, for the newer cher­ries to get a lit­tle more ten­der. Taste; if it is too sweet, add lemon juice. If too sour, add sugar. Let cool and chill before serving.

Serve with a dol­lop of sour cream and some mint leaves. It can be either served as a soup before the meal or as a dessert.

We had it tonight, fol­lowed by some Turkey Schnitzel, Far­fel (which is not Far­falle, the bow-tie pasta, but a barley-shaped pasta that I serve with a lit­tle but­ter, salt and pep­per and paprika), and some cole slaw. Not 100% authen­tic there, but we wanted some cold cab­bage for the sum­mer night. Cucum­ber salad with a sweet vinai­grette and fresh dill would prob­a­bly work just as well. As our (nearly) neigh­bor in Cam­bridge, Julia Child would say, ‘Bon Appetit’.

South Park Creators Get Zen (via Alan Watts)

Life is like a musi­cal per­for­mance, sug­gested the philoso­pher and author Alan Watts. The cut-out ani­ma­tors Trey Parker and Matt Stone, known for their acer­bic (if shrilly-voiced) car­toon South Park decided to ani­mate his mini-lecture, to great effect:

What a remark­able lit­tle clip! I found this via the blog of another Matt,  Danc­ing Matt, whose YouTube videos I also admire. Good thoughts for a warm, sum­mer morn­ing in August.

Job Hunting and Food Shopping 101

You always hear the same thing from employ­ment offices, career man­age­ment coun­selors, and books like ‘What Color is Your Para­chute’ (I guess it’s spelled with an extra ‘u’ in the Cana­dian print­ing): The best way to find a job is Net­work. So, since I fin­ished my con­tract at IBM, that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. It takes patience, per­se­ver­ance, and some­times I felt as if I was just spin­ning my wheels. Finally, this week, it looks like I’m start­ing to break through. I got a nib­ble here, a nib­ble there. Noth­ing per­ma­nent, and noth­ing that I could say is ‘The Big Break’, but it’s start­ing to look like I’ll be employed again, if not this month, prob­a­bly next month. Don’t want to jinx it by writ­ing any more about it at this point.

So, what have I been doing this sum­mer (besides Net­work­ing)? There was the Gay Pride Parade (took a lot of pho­tos of that), berry-picking on West­ham Island (Tay­ber­ries and blue­ber­ries), a lec­ture and piano recital by Sarah Davis Buech­ner, my friend from child­hood who is now an inter­na­tion­ally famous con­cert pianist, and a bunch of mee­tups; one for Blog­gers and another for Graphic/Web Design­ers. I’ve been to the Library a cou­ple of times, but haven’t gone to the movies. I’ve been adding a lot of music to my iTunes library, partly in prepa­ra­tion for when CBC Radio 2’s Clas­si­cal Music is snuffed out (Labor Day, I think is the day the music will die). Inter­net radio and my col­lec­tion will sadly have to suf­fice until Van­cou­ver gets a radio sta­tion that car­ries that sort of music (I’m not hold­ing my breath, though).

I have been to Granville Island quite a bit; nearly daily in fact. Sev­eral ven­dors have begun to rec­og­nize me, and I fre­quently get to make some small talk with them. The other day, one of them asked if I worked on the Island (appar­ently peo­ple who do get a dis­count). Per­haps some day I will (there are quite a few busi­nesses that are located there).

It’s taken a while, but I now know where to get the best mush­rooms, who has the fresh­est can­taloupes and the which butcher has the best steak (or the best meat­loaf). It’s really ter­rific to be able to find some­thing that’s fresh, in sea­son, and bring it home and make din­ner around it. Sum­mer­time has brought bushels of cher­ries and blue­ber­ries to the mar­ket (and I got a cherry-pitter so that we can get many of them and freeze them for those days in Feb­ru­ary when we really need them), as well as heir­loom toma­toes of every shape, size and colour com­bi­na­tion). Seafood con­tin­ues to be excel­lent (although some­times pricey), and turkey is still amaz­ingly good (and def­i­nitely not just for Thanksgiving!).

It’s been a quiet sum­mer, but I bet that soon, it won’t be so quiet. Fam­ily will be vis­it­ing in a cou­ple of weeks, and I’ll be very sur­prised if I’m not doing a com­mute of some sort within that same span of time.

The end of the sum­mer is always her­alded by the PNE (Pacific National Exhi­bi­tion), a great big ‘county fair’ that takes place on the East­ern bor­der of Van­cou­ver. There’ll be another fas­ci­nat­ing Bar­Camp, the self-organizing con­fer­ence that this year I’m help­ing (a lit­tle) to orga­nize. Soon after that is the Fringe Fes­ti­val,  a cou­ple of film fes­ti­vals, the start of the Symphony’s sea­son, and the other annual events that make for for a full year in our lives here in Van­cou­ver.  The ongo­ing suc­ces­sion of the year’s events is a com­fort, partly because of the rhythm of it, but also because there is always some­thing to look for­ward to.