pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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STRATEGIC DISTRACTIONS, OR, WHEN IN DOUBT, ADD MORE CHEESE

25.

Random Cheese Fact No. 4: Cheese is the best ingredient in any dish in which it is a part.

Now I don�t have any clue why someone would pay good money to see Sun Ra or the Connells just to head to the bathroom to scrawl such things on the door, but I like her sentiment.

Have been ranting about our government so much lately that I figured I�d talk about food today before I slip into a familiar rant. So yeah. I could go on and on about the incredibly delectable Indian food that Pottergrrrl prepared for our New Year�s feast�who even KNEW that cabbage could taste so good (especially with champagne)?�but I began this entry by referencing a fascination with macaroni and cheese and will try to keep my focus there for at least a moment (after which I will probably sneak off to the K&W Cafeteria to purchase this side item).

So, in South Cackylacky, where I was raised (twitch twitch), macaroni and cheese is a staple. A field guide to the palmetto state would define this dish's natural habitat as church picnics, family wakes, Sunday afternoon family gatherings, and hot food bars.

This staple was also a required dish at my family�s Thanksgiving celebrations. My paternal grandmother always arrived late carrying a glass baking dish of the creamy stuff fitted into a matching wicker basket. She made the best macaroni and cheese ever, bar none.

Now the same gourmands who insist that Whole Food�s free-range chickens taste divine are apt to add a horrid white sauce to this dish (which even the newly macaronied author recognized as wrong wrong wrong). And, come to think of it, my ex the Ginger took this mistake one step further and actually added onions to her white sauce.

(Bleah! hack! cough!)

Now hear this: Any southerner worth her weight in grits will tell you that you should not get too adventurous with time-honored culinary traditions such as mac and cheese�although parmesan-topped collard greens ain�t half bad.

Very bad for your arteries but very good for your soul.

And speaking of macaroni and cheese�because yes Smartass I will eventually get back to my point so just fucking bear with me, wouldja?�King Bush the Latter�s White House now has three leak investigations underway. No, not corruption investigations, leak investigations. The most secretive administration since Nixon�one that condones torture and apparently suspects Mexicans crossing the border of terrorist acts�wants to know who has dared challenge our would-be dictator�s wishes. (Wonder if the neocons handpicked their investigators so to be sure that they only ask questions that monkeyboys can answer?) And here, let me coin a phrase. Our administration is plaming the messenger. (You heard it here first.)

There's no so-called liberal bias behind my failure to understand how any thinking citizen can fail to notice that punishing whistleblowers thwarts democracy. Plamegate (or Nixon, Revisited) may catch up with the Administration eventually, but I bet attention will remain focused on who informed the public about the (illegal, people!) eavesdropping and other criminal activity instead of inform us about the details of the actual crimes committed (or even what it means that the neocons are so blatantly disregarding our civil rights).

(Speaking of which, wonder what Bunnatine Greenhouse is up to these days?)

I worry that too many Americans have been rendered braindead by the Tim Russerts and Rush Limbaughs and Pat Robertsons and yammering conservative soundbiters and poor public education primers of our age who are teaching their audiences to kowtow to whatever the Administration/Authority/Jebus's money-grubbing mouthpieces tell them to believe. Or maybe all that consumer hogwash we�re being spoonfed has turned us into decorative pinheads instead of thinking people. Could the diminishing middle class be focused on what to wear and where to live and how to decorate their homes and what joyful ring to use on our flip-top mobile phones instead of being concerning about our civil rights?

And why not? I mean, come on. Consumer culture tells us that we are defined by our material possessions and our very own boy king gave us a FEMA director who, in the midst of a hurricane that was drowning numerous people, sat at his computer and wrote �I am a fashion god.� Or, worst of all, do you think people actually believe that it�s fine for our unapologetic president to confer dictatorial authority on himself and to stalk anyone who dares to question his authority?

Yep. What a strategy: Plame the messenger and maybe no one will notice that a military coup is taking place on our own soil.

Now imagine this: Laura puts Shrub on a diet because his Texas tummy has begun hanging over his designer waistband but Shrub jogs down to the White House kitchen (or, more likely, he wakes the cook at his vacation home) and requests a forbidden bowl of piping hot macaroni and cheese. Mmm! What a tasty golden treat our boy king enjoys. But Laura is astute and asks him about his creamy breath. So, in typical Bush fashion, he informs her that national security is at stake here and he cannot reveal what he may or may not have had for breakfast.

(So there butthole. I did so tie the macaroni into my rant. Neh!)

Meanwhile, I guess we ought to get ourselves geared up for the Alito hearings, which begin Monday. That information alone has no doubt sent many a tofu-eating liberal in search of some good old organic mac and cheese. But we can at least remind ourselves that the GOP is mired in corruption and plaming the messenger will only cover that fact up for so long.

Alito is the scariest nominee since Bork (although he�s not quite as ugly and the previous candidate now chief justice sure is a friend of big business). Alito is vehemently opposed to the Establishment Clause (which prohibits school prayer, prayer at football games, prayer in homeroom, tacky electric Jesus displays on city property at Christmas, and so on). He�s �especially proud� of his work opposing abortion and affirmative action. He protects homophobic speech and, at a time when corporations are raping the environment and our polar ice caps are melting, he favors limiting our ability to sue against toxic omissions under the Clean Air Act (which he probably also opposes). He is in favor of capital punishment for children and even opposed admitting women to his alma mater. He was deputy assistant attorney general to Ed Meese and, like Meese, is a pig. (Remember the Meese Is A Pig campaign of the late eighties? I've still got my pig nose from it tucked away in my home office somewhere.)

Alito opposes Warren Court decisions regarding Miranda, reapportionment (one person, one vote), and school prayer. He failed to recuse himself from cases involving his sister�s law firm. When statistical evidence confirmed that a county with an 18 percent black population consistently used peremptory strikes to remove African Americans from death-sentence juries, he ruled that this was just plain ol' happenstance, folks, rather like the fact that five of our last six presidents have been left-handed. (Yeah. Watch out; We lefties are taking over.) He struck down an anti-harassment policy that interfered with Christian groups� right to speak out against dreaded homosexuals (because, you know, it's just a life-style choice really. People can choose to whom we are attracted. ) Alito has also been sole dissenter in cases involving sex or race discrimination.

(And thank you very much Daniel Pollitt for sharing this information with the world.) ...But maybe you�d prefer to know which men are the nation�s most eligible bachelors. That�s what Yahoo is headlining today anyway.

I feel trapped in a rock-paper-scissors world where convenience and stress and obligations and static from the talking heads are trumping my civil rights. And I don�t like it one goddamn bit.

SANG IN SHOWER: �Rock the boat, don�t rock the boat baby. Rock the boat. Don�t tip the boat over.� Who sang that? I want to say it was Hues Corporation but am too lazy to Google it.

2:08 p.m. - 2006-01-05

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