perfidy

For anyone not yet ready to pull into the garage, turn on the car, and breathe in the brown cloud of death (off the cuff paraphrase stolen from Richard Jeni) - to push you over the edge, we now have the collected writings of Osama bin Laden: From the November 17, 2005 UK Telegraph: "The world of bin Laden: no drinks, no gambling, no pictures of women". And if the title alone isn't enough to make you turn on the ignition, read just a bit farther, and you'll see:

Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty.

As a lapsed Catholic, I'm generally indifferent to comparative religion, and these "demands" on the part of the increasingly redolent bastard sheep of the bin Laden clan are hardly new. Their inclusion in a "collected words" volume is the only reason they're "news". However, the reminder of the breathtaking stupidity inherent in radical Islam's view of what the world should be, well, almost takes my breath away. And not due to excessive carbon monoxide, either.

On the bright side of the ledger, however, looking at living a life constrained by these and many of the other inane supposed strictures of Islam, I can understand why bin Laden spent so much time tempting, nay, begging for death at the hands of a U.S. Marine. The self-styled head fuckwit among his radical segment of Islamic fuckwits (who knows if it's a small segment? who cares?) must have welcomed death when it came, as I continue to presume it did. (Thus, the increasing redolence.)

The Telegraph article mentions some "horrendous errors" in the initial translations of the book, and alleges they're all fixed now.

So am I the only one who thinks the addition of the Kyoto treaty at the end of the mini-screed attributed to him above is the least bit odd? It fit in there about as well as a declaration of fatwa against the styrofoam-headed guy who plays the lead in the Jack in the Box commercials, fercripesake.

The troubles in France seem not to be entirely fading away, and President Chirac has taken action to deal with the crisis. His diagnosis? "Profound National Malaise."

I have two words for the French people: Jimmy Carter.

However, unlike America in the seventies, they do not have as we did, waiting in the wings, the Godlike eminence of Ronald Reagan. They have Le Pen.

The other day, not the day I just described, but another one, my son John came to me with his concerns about space robots. I have tried to foster an open and trusting relationship with my son, and I was pleased that he would speak to me about these matters.

"Daddy, giant robots... in the sky?"

I was surprised that John was concerned about the giant space robots at such an early age. In fact, I have attempted to shield him from knowledge of our impending doom, and have never spoken of robots in front of him. Nevertheless, my clever boy has ferreted out the essential details of the growing threat.

"John scared, robots" John was still working on articles and prepositions at this point, but his meaning was clear – he was scared of the robots. Wise beyond his years, he wanted to know if the robots were coming.

"Robots, down here?" he asked.

I told him not yet.

Alert readers will have noted in me from time to time a mild disdain for our nation's space policy. I wonder now whether there is a genetic component to this feeling, as a result of a conversation last night with my son. Yesterday evening was mild, mostly clear with clouds swiftly scudding across the night sky. It was the full moon, and the light was nearly bright enough to read by.

My son and I accompanied our dog into the backyard, and John pointed up to the moon and said, "We need a rocketship." I was surprised by this – I had not intended to begin space policy indoctrination for several years. I don't even know for certain if I have ever even mentioned the word "rocketship" in little John's presence.

I replied, "Yes, we do need a rocketship. But there aren't any rocketships that can take us to the moon."

Aware, apparently, that he is in the 21st century, John cut right to the heart of the problem: "Where'd the rocketships go?"

I was forced to tell him, "We had rocketships once, but we threw them away." John wrinkled his forehead and grimaced at this information. Unsure if 'ol Dad was telling true, he asked again, "Where'd the rocketships go?"

I said again that yes, we had once had them but we threw them away.

"We need a rocketship."

Truer words have never been spoken. To do things in space, you need rocketships. Not plans for rocketships, or budgetary allocations for rocketship development, or a roadmap to space development. Rocketships. To get rocketships, you need to build them. NASA has not built a rocketship in twenty years. Kind of a pisspoor track record for a rocketship building agency, non? And even that last, solitary rocketship was based on a ten-year-old design.

So I told him, "Someday, someone will build rocketships again. And when they do, you and I will ride a rocketship to the moon."

I have little faith that NASA will do it, but there's always Burt Rutan.

Inspired by a recent poll, the Ministry's interest is piqued. We now wish to take the pulse of our readership and members, to get a demographic sense of the tastes and predelictions of the group. Please, take a few minutes to answer the following questions so that we may more accurately tailor our content to your (our readership's) wants and needs and separate the wheat from the chaff, the literati from the glitterati, and the 1947 Château Cheval-Blanc St.-Emilion from the 2004 Yellowtail.

The questions follow after the break. Thank you for your co-operation; your timely compliance is expected.

• Philip Glass or Terry Riley?
• Milton or Dante?
• Mission of Burma or Gang of Four?
• Buzzcocks or Wire?
• Webern or Berg?
• Vico or Spengler?
• Addison or Steele?
• What's your favorite Goethe poem?
• What's your favorite Keats poem?
• What's your favorite de Kooning work?
• Art Moderne or Bauhaus?
• Clarke or Asimov?
• Joyce or Pynchon?
• Dreiser or Dos Passos?
• Lucchese or Gravano?
• O'Connor or Welty?
• The New Criterion or The New Yorker?
• Granta or The Paris Review?
• Ghengis Khan or Alexander The Great?
• Jean-Luc Godard or Krzysztof Kieslowski?
• Nino Rota or Ennio Morricone?
• The Romance of Three Kingdoms or Journey To The West?
• Bolshoi or Mariinsky?
• Alvin Ailey or Jerome Robbins?
• Laphroaig or Lagavulin?
• Golden Cavendish or cube-cut Virginia?
• Beluga or Savruga?
• My Favorite Things or A Love Supreme?
• Beethoven: better at Cleveland under von Dohnanyi or New York under Bernstein?
• Chanson de Roland or Orlando Furioso?
• Esalen or Chautauqua?
• Grand Crus: Montrachet or Chambertin?
• Explain the faults in reasoning in act ii, scene three of King Lear.
• Guryevich or Tolstoy?
• Kepler or Brahe?
• Louenhoek or Galileo?
• Ruprecht or Heeringen?
• Castelnau or Bulow?
• Best military memoir - Gallic Wars or the Anabasis?
• Most literate general - Wellington or Caesar?
• What, in your opinion, is the single greatest flaw with the new Michelin Guide: New York, and what differentiates it from Zagat?
• Which is the correct condiment for a roast beef on sourdough: aioli or brown horseradish mustard? And what cheese would be most appropriate for that sandwich: farmhouse cheddar or washed-rind tomme?
• For a five course formal dinner, how many spoons would you find to the left of the dinner plate?
• Who's your favorite Muslim naturalist?
• Who was more important in the decline of Christianity in the west, Descartes or Newton?
• Whose Protestantism (Puritanism) do you feel had more of an effect on the shaping of the American politicial and social landscape: John Calvin or John Owen?
• Favorite sophist?
• Who do you feel was more responsible for the development of the Calculus, Newton or Leibniz?
• Euclidian or Reimann topology?
• Which Superstring theory is most likely to survive intact if M-theory proves valid?
• Favorite pre-Revolution Russian mathematician and why?
• DiBergi or Smithee?
• Sidd Finch or War Of The Worlds?

That's the title of a magazine I've always wanted to publish, a lifestyle glossy for the jetsetting intellectual working in the humanities.

Whaddaya think?

On that note, two obscure but edifying facts to brighten your day:

• The Muppet Movie (1979) featured the last screen appearance of Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy before their deaths.
• "Nothing" was Elizabethan slang for, well, "pussy." Now the title of Much Ado About Nothing makes a lot more sense.

Make sure you aren't eating, about to eat, or recently fed and click on this newspaper story about a medical mishap in India. You will be so glad you did!

Via crony NDR (who's apparently my main supplier for material these days), I find this impossibly highbrow poll which is nevertheless enticing.

1) Jane Austen or Charles Dickens? oh, please.... Dickens!
2) Who is your favorite George Eliot character? Having never cracked the spine on a George Eliot novel, I'm going to have to say "the man with the most interesting facial hair."
3) What is your favorite play by Sophocles? jeez... having suffered through a crushing production of Antigone in college (I was the sound tech and therefore yoked to the mast of that sinking ship), Oedipus Rex.
4) What is your favorite play by Euripides? The Bacchae, natch.
5) What is your favorite play by Shakespeare? Hamlet.
6) Plato or Aristotle? Aristotle
7) Name two movies that most people have probably never seen that you would highly recommend. "Red Rock West," starring Nicholas Cage in his pre-action indie mode, Lara Flynn Boyle, and the greatest regular-guy character actor of all time, J.T. Walsh. "The Day The Clown Cried," starring Jerry Lewis as an unlucky clown imprisoned by the Nazis who puts on the clown suit once again to entertain Jewish children in the camp before leading them onto the train to Auschwitz. Intended to be what "Life is Beautiful" eventually was, it is so repugnant in execution and repellent in message that Jerry Lewis has one copy - the last copy - locked away in his vault where nobody can ever screen it again. I have made it one of my life's goals to see this movie.
8) Foucault's Pendulum or The Name of the Rose? Tie.
9) Tea or Coffee? Tie.
10) In your opinion, the least appreciated great thinker in history is: yours truly, followed by (the historical, aphoristic, Gospel of Thomas) Jesus and Erasmus.

Perfidious crony NDR has it all over many of the rest of us in one regard. Not only has he traveled to Europe - to France - in the very recent past, but his doctoral dissertation is on the vexed questions of identity and assimilation in the Alsace region. He relates a long and very interesting story about a conversation on a train with a French Muslim about the unique, and to an American, incomprehensible, problems facing French citizens who nevertheless are on the outside looking in.

As I equated things that made sense to me about integration and advancement, I hit a nerve. "More education!?" he said. I wasn't sure what had given him a shock. "Why should I have more education? I move on to the next level, studying more, because the degrees I have earned don't help me to get a job. I look forward only to more education." He had no faith that an employer would give him the chance to practice what he studied (he tried hard to find a job) so he continued to study.

This chance meeting was not unique. I've had it many times in France and Germany: a conversation with an enthusiastic Muslim or African who is surprised that someone will pay attention. Listening to them, I find that they are enthusiastic about their European homeland (adopted or natal.) They are culturally aware, exhibiting (what I consider) good social practices for their milieu. Yet they remain outsiders. I have also asked Frenchmen and Germans about Muslims and Africans: "Why are people who seem assimilated not accepted?" The question can turn a conversation on its end, turning transnational discourse into national defense.

The explanations that I hear through gritted teeth are nothing but cliches. "Immigrants" (which describes even the second generation born in country) are not assimilated. They retain backward traditions. They come just to earn money and send it home. They get brides from the mother country, locking them away and not doing anything to assimilate them. They don't learn the language, so they become rabble-rousers rather than hard workers. They are a problem for society.

The litany of complaints are familiar to me: Frenchmen used them to discredit the protests of Alsatians in the 1920s. They were used to discredit regionalist movements in Brittany and Provence. They were used to discredit traditional Catholics. They belong to a discourse of nationality and nationalization that shifts attention from discourse between national identity and ethnicity to the "other." Indeed, the most understanding Frenchmen said that it was not up to them to understand Alsatians, only for Alsatians to change. Race deepens the problem.

At least in Germany Muslims and Africans know that they are not accepted. The Turks, generations after being invited to work in the factories, are still not citizens, and they are subjected to an arduous process of naturalization. And there is an ongoing, albeit uncomfortable, discourse about how Germans view race. But the French constitution, which calls anyone born in the territory a citizen, obscures the problems of acceptance. Being taken seriously as a Frenchmen require more than a passport.

A very interesting and a fairly off-the-wall take on an issue that 'mericans are fond of pontificating on but that we - let's face it - know crap about.

My wife and I have a tradition called "assing around," which is an activity most people call "doin' nothin'." Our life has been very hectic of late thanks to Mrs. Johno's new job and the numerous social obligations that go along with it, and we haven't had very many days to just ass around in several months.

Since today was a free day, we determined to spend it just assing around. And I am. Having cooked up a batch of waffles for brunch, made up our lunches for the upcoming work week, and brewed a quick five gallons of stout, I can proudly say that today, compared to my typical weekend day obligations, I have indeed done comparatively nothing. Having finished all that in enough time to catch the thrilling second half of the Patriots-Dolphins game, I am now ready to settle in for a long evening of malt beverages, unhealthy snacks, and copious pigskin spectation culminating in the Browns-Steelers showdown later this evening. Go Browns, and take the Cavaliers with you!

Anyway. To business. (To business!... what... that isn't a toast?)

Brew #5
Naumkeag Dry Stout

2 cans (6.6 lbs) John Bull liquid light malt extract
1 lb. flaked barley
3/4 lb. roasted unmalted barley
1/4 lb. chocolate malt
2.25 oz. Northern Brewer hop pellets (7.5% AAU) (bittering)
1 package Safale S-33 yeast

Steeped grains in muslin bag in 1 gal filtered water at 165 degrees +/- 5 degrees for 1 hour. Brought 2 gal filtered water to boil, added steeping liquid and malt extract, and returned to boil. Added all the hops and started the boil clock. 60 minutes later removed brewpot to bathtub with 25 lbs ice in water. Added a sanitized 2-liter bottle of frozen water to brewpot itself. Got wort down to 95 degrees in 20 minutes flat. Poured wort through mesh strainer into fermenter bucket and added 2 gal refrigerated distilled water and a little under 1 gallon room temperature distilled water to make a tad over 5 gallons of wort at a perfect 70 degrees. Poured back and forth between pot and bucket to aerate. Reconstituted yeast in 85 degree water and let stand 20 minutes. Pitched yeast at 80 degrees.

This is going to be a very dry, heavy bodied stout. That much I know. Flaked barley adds mostly starch and protein to the mix for a heavy mouthfeel, and 3/4 lbs roasted barley is definitely going to bring an up-front burnt/roasty flavor. The 1/4 lb of chocolate malt isn't enough to bring much sweetness, but I expect it to lighten the overwhelming darkness and add depth and complexity to the mix. I love Northern Brewer hops, and I expect I'll need fully as many as I used to balance out the size of the malt profile. I also love S-33 yeast, which I am now told is the Whitbread strain. Whitbread ales are some of my favorites from when I was in England, and so it's no surprise I dig the yeast. It results in a fairly dry ale with mild but noticeable characteristic ale flavors. In my porter, the S-33 resulted in a beer that tastes more like a Schwarzbeir (black lager) than an ale, and I expect a similar result in the stout, just writ much larger. Oooh... I can't wait!! I'm hopping up and down like a little girl.

Yesterday I bottled my Very Special Bitter, which is gonna be great, and next week I expect to make another porter with a similar grainbill but different hops and yeast. It's funny... when you have five gallons of beer ready to drink, you think "jesus... I need to make more." When you have ten gallons of beer ready to drink, you think "jesus, this is gonna go fast... I need to make more." When you have fifteen gallons of beer... you get the picture. The best part is giving it away. Anybody want a beer?

[wik] What the hell happened?? I have a good beer herer, but it sure ain't a stout! Much more light-bodied and bitter than I expected. Not that that's a bad thing, mind, but I was after Stout. Changes for next time: use two mesh bags and a very large pot for steeping, to give the barley room to get around and extract all them starches! Use fewer bittering hops! Use American or Irish ale yeast... the Safale 33 is good, but has too much character. So a failure, but an eminently drinkable failure.

[alsø wik] What the hell happened, part deux?? After five months in the bottle, now that I have all of three bottles left, suddenly I have a thick, rich, roasty stout on my hands. I still didn't manage to hit my mark, but this recipe has potential. I NOW think that 1/2 lb chocolate malt, 1/4 lb crystal 120 or so, 1/2 lb roasted unmalted barley, and that full pound of flaked barley would be a good grainbill. Oh, and I should add a pound or so of dry malt extract as well, to add some alcohol to balance out the flavors. If I do this, the 33 is still a good yeast to go with, or alternately, say, Edme or London Ale yeast. Something with a little mineral character, crispness, and some nice soft generic esters. Mmmmmm...