[Justin Trudeau on 3/31/12] At DC Homestay, there are small frogs and snails. Leaving my room yesterday before dawn, I heard a crunch underfoot. In the past, I had always managed to sidestep these sluggish fellows, but this guy’s days were simply numbered. No more swaying grass overhead or sounds of crickets, like rumors of war, arriving from some vast distance, which to him meant ten yards away.
Linh, just in case you hit the motherlode while there;
Snails in Garlic Butter Servings: 4
Ingredients
24 large canned snails, rinsed and drained
1 medium shallot, sliced
0.25 pound unsalted butter cut in cubes
8 large garlic cloves
1 small parsley bunch, about 1 cup
12 large basil leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Instructions
In a pan on medium heat, melt 1 ounce of butter and sweat the shallots and snails for 3 to 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, stir and store in a bowl. In the small bowl of a food processor, chop the garlic, parsley and basil leaves.
Add the cubed butter, salt, and pepper until the butter is soft and the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Arrange the sautéed snails in individual ovenproof serving dishes; cover each dish with a generous tablespoon of garlic butter. Before baking, sprinkle a teaspoon of breadcrumbs on top of the snails.
Bake in a 400°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until the butter, begins to bubble and brown. Serve with a crusty French baguette for sopping up the sauce.
I've had flirtatious glances with snails in my suspicious and dubious past. But for now let it suffice that while not every snail is a man, every man (or woman) is sometimes a snail.
For a snail to traverse 10 yards is analogous to a man traversing to the moon. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for [snaildom].
I believe it was the great Stoic Roman emperor, Marcus Aurellus who, while spending the northern winter of the year 156 A.D. in the dark, dismal and endless forests, north of the Danube River, in Germania fending off attacks by the German barbarians, who wrote in his "Meditations", "Someday, someone will invent the car (autobus maximus) and it will be a hell of a lot easier to drive down to Rome on La Strada for a holiday (rather than traveling like a 'snail' marching with my legions ) to meet up with my friends Gore Vidal and Marcelo Mostriani at the fountains of La Trevia."
Or maybe the great emperor didn't write this. But he wanted to.
I believe it was the Roman historian Tacitus who wrote of a fellow countryman who had made the arduous journey from Gaul in the west to far eastern Germania (what would today be the Polish border). It was said that between the perpetually gloomy weather of the region and the thick and endless coniferous forests the Roman traveler journeyed for weeks without ever seeing the sun.
Your photo (albeit in the form of a mugshot) looks good. Mr. Harrari, on the other hand, looks like the psychopathic, contemptuous criminal that he is. Just as Mr. Trudeau looks like the goof-ball that he indeed is.
I'm greatly chagrined to admit it but my last driver's license photo looks much like that guy with the "tat" on the right side of his face. Maybe that's why the cops pull me over all the time (and I don't even have a car!).
Because in the end you are really alone, whatever you do.
Albert Einstein wrote, in a letter dated 12 February 1950:
"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind."
The frequently quoted version of this passage is somewhat inaccurate, according to
"English is dying across America."So is German across Germany.Genesis,11:7:Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Sometimes, after having a bad day, a comely, beautiful young woman will approach me and say, "Wow! You know what?" And I'll say, "No, what?" And they say, "You look exactly like the young Paul Newman." And, while a little flustered, I respond while smoothing my hair a bit and batting my long eyelashes, "Well, now that you mention it..." At which point they interject, "After he had been smashed in the face with a baseball bat and run over by a large SUV."
Caught off base momentarily I manage to wittily respond, "They need to outlaw those big SUVs. Ralph Nader doesn't approve."
You implicitly raise an important point: Why do some human beings kill (or feel the need to kill) other human beings? Some of the smarter criminal types do so in a somewhat sophisticated manner such as by mass injection imposed and/or mandated on the population. (Just where did that bad ol' Covid go, anyway? It's like George W. Bush mockingly looking for Saddam's bogus "weapons of mass destruction" in his presidential office. There weren't any in the first place. It's a big joke, folks! Don't you get it? And the joke's on you!) Or marching their populations off to war as Woodrow Wilson and later Franklin Roosevelt did.
While the stupider criminal types impulsively kill out of petty greed or malice. The smarter more powerful ones find a pretext to do so.
Pardon me for taking up so much space but in regard to the "...hell [held] down..." reference, when I was in Sacramento I would often hear the word "ask" phrased as "...don't ax me that!" Or, "I axed you a question!" Morons indeed.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: America neither wants nor does it need a populous of educated, articulate citizens; such people ask (or "ax" as the case may be) too many questions and have too many ideas to subvert the status quo that keeps the 1% rich and the lower 90% poor. George Carlin articulated this brilliantly decades ago. Rest in peace, George.
Speaking of the late, great American commentator, author and novelist, Gore Vidal, his best work of fiction was the novel "Julian" about the apostate Roman emperor who tried to eliminate Christianity from the Empire and return it to its pagan roots.
Vidal has one scene in which Julian, commanding several legions in the far western province of Gaul (now France) forcibly marches his army in a matter of a few days to Asia Minor to fend off an attacking Parthian army on the eastern border of the Empire. (It was a march of something like 40 or 50 miles a day with 10 or 12 hours of marching each day.)
To interject here, the term "decimate" (as opposed to "annihilate", which is to completely wipe out or eliminate) means to kill one out of every ten. When an unknown or unidentified conscripted soldier in a Roman legion had disobeyed orders or committed some offense and he couldn't be identified by his superiors the entire battalion of soldiers was commanded to line up and every tenth soldier was killed. This was Roman military discipline. Rome was a city-state (before it became an empire) that was constantly harassed and threatened by its enemies and Roman military leaders maintained the strictest discipline and would suffer absolutely no insubordination.
However Vidal's very best works were not his novels but his non-fiction essays he would write for The Nation magazine (I believe under the editorship of Victor Navasky at the time) in the 1980s and early 90s about the state of American society. As far as I know no one ever saw, or has ever seen, the United States with as clear an eye as Mr. Vidal. If one really wants to understand this country, putting all the bullsh*t propaganda of the main-stream media aside, one must read Gore Vidal. He was a national treasure, at least for me and my fellow proletariat. (If it wouldn't be too presumptuous, Mr. Dinh's essays sometime come close to Vidal's. ) However Vidal's privileged position in American society (his mother's father was one of the first senators from the at that time new state of Oklahoma) was unique. As a boy he would often accompany his blind grandfather into the Senate. And Vidal's father was a gifted early aviator who founded the precursor to United Airlines. Vidal's privileged position in Washington and in society in general allowed him to see the inner machinations of imperial power and privilege and, as an apostate to his class himself, he exposed the foibles and failings of his class for the sake of informing the American people of who their rulers really were. Thus earning himself the enmity of his class for the rest of his life.
I'm old enough to remember when the only tattoos one observed in this country were on Americans who were either conscripted sailors (perhaps "shanghaied" in some San Francisco dive bar) or criminal felons who had spent considerable time behind bars. Now as you allude to, it seems to be a status symbol of some sort. (I'm a wanna be criminal but I'm too stupid to pull off a good caper?)
I considered having tattooed on my forehead, "I did three years in the 'pen' for a botched armed robbery home invasion" but the tattoo artist said he couldn't spell that well. So I had him shorten it to just, "F*ck!"
Kidding aside, When I was working at Sac. City College in California I met a young man, I believe he was either Laotian or Hmong, (or, that is to say, he was from Laos) who had bequeathed upon himself the dubious distinction of having "f*ck" tattooed on his forehead. He expressed wonderment that no one would hire him for a job.
I was going to suggest he travel down to L.A. and get a job in the porn industry but I thought it best to just shut-up.
Linh, just in case you hit the motherlode while there;
Snails in Garlic Butter Servings: 4
Ingredients
24 large canned snails, rinsed and drained
1 medium shallot, sliced
0.25 pound unsalted butter cut in cubes
8 large garlic cloves
1 small parsley bunch, about 1 cup
12 large basil leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Instructions
In a pan on medium heat, melt 1 ounce of butter and sweat the shallots and snails for 3 to 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, stir and store in a bowl. In the small bowl of a food processor, chop the garlic, parsley and basil leaves.
Add the cubed butter, salt, and pepper until the butter is soft and the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Arrange the sautéed snails in individual ovenproof serving dishes; cover each dish with a generous tablespoon of garlic butter. Before baking, sprinkle a teaspoon of breadcrumbs on top of the snails.
Bake in a 400°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until the butter, begins to bubble and brown. Serve with a crusty French baguette for sopping up the sauce.
Ăn ngon miệng nhé
Sounds delicious!
I've had flirtatious glances with snails in my suspicious and dubious past. But for now let it suffice that while not every snail is a man, every man (or woman) is sometimes a snail.
For a snail to traverse 10 yards is analogous to a man traversing to the moon. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for [snaildom].
I believe it was the great Stoic Roman emperor, Marcus Aurellus who, while spending the northern winter of the year 156 A.D. in the dark, dismal and endless forests, north of the Danube River, in Germania fending off attacks by the German barbarians, who wrote in his "Meditations", "Someday, someone will invent the car (autobus maximus) and it will be a hell of a lot easier to drive down to Rome on La Strada for a holiday (rather than traveling like a 'snail' marching with my legions ) to meet up with my friends Gore Vidal and Marcelo Mostriani at the fountains of La Trevia."
Or maybe the great emperor didn't write this. But he wanted to.
I believe it was the Roman historian Tacitus who wrote of a fellow countryman who had made the arduous journey from Gaul in the west to far eastern Germania (what would today be the Polish border). It was said that between the perpetually gloomy weather of the region and the thick and endless coniferous forests the Roman traveler journeyed for weeks without ever seeing the sun.
Your photo (albeit in the form of a mugshot) looks good. Mr. Harrari, on the other hand, looks like the psychopathic, contemptuous criminal that he is. Just as Mr. Trudeau looks like the goof-ball that he indeed is.
I'm greatly chagrined to admit it but my last driver's license photo looks much like that guy with the "tat" on the right side of his face. Maybe that's why the cops pull me over all the time (and I don't even have a car!).
Because in the end you are really alone, whatever you do.
Albert Einstein wrote, in a letter dated 12 February 1950:
"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind."
The frequently quoted version of this passage is somewhat inaccurate, according to
https://www.thymindoman.com/einsteins-misquote-on-the-illusion-of-feeling-separate-from-the-whole/
"English is dying across America."So is German across Germany.Genesis,11:7:Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Sometimes, after having a bad day, a comely, beautiful young woman will approach me and say, "Wow! You know what?" And I'll say, "No, what?" And they say, "You look exactly like the young Paul Newman." And, while a little flustered, I respond while smoothing my hair a bit and batting my long eyelashes, "Well, now that you mention it..." At which point they interject, "After he had been smashed in the face with a baseball bat and run over by a large SUV."
Caught off base momentarily I manage to wittily respond, "They need to outlaw those big SUVs. Ralph Nader doesn't approve."
You implicitly raise an important point: Why do some human beings kill (or feel the need to kill) other human beings? Some of the smarter criminal types do so in a somewhat sophisticated manner such as by mass injection imposed and/or mandated on the population. (Just where did that bad ol' Covid go, anyway? It's like George W. Bush mockingly looking for Saddam's bogus "weapons of mass destruction" in his presidential office. There weren't any in the first place. It's a big joke, folks! Don't you get it? And the joke's on you!) Or marching their populations off to war as Woodrow Wilson and later Franklin Roosevelt did.
While the stupider criminal types impulsively kill out of petty greed or malice. The smarter more powerful ones find a pretext to do so.
Why?
Pardon me for taking up so much space but in regard to the "...hell [held] down..." reference, when I was in Sacramento I would often hear the word "ask" phrased as "...don't ax me that!" Or, "I axed you a question!" Morons indeed.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: America neither wants nor does it need a populous of educated, articulate citizens; such people ask (or "ax" as the case may be) too many questions and have too many ideas to subvert the status quo that keeps the 1% rich and the lower 90% poor. George Carlin articulated this brilliantly decades ago. Rest in peace, George.
Speaking of the late, great American commentator, author and novelist, Gore Vidal, his best work of fiction was the novel "Julian" about the apostate Roman emperor who tried to eliminate Christianity from the Empire and return it to its pagan roots.
Vidal has one scene in which Julian, commanding several legions in the far western province of Gaul (now France) forcibly marches his army in a matter of a few days to Asia Minor to fend off an attacking Parthian army on the eastern border of the Empire. (It was a march of something like 40 or 50 miles a day with 10 or 12 hours of marching each day.)
To interject here, the term "decimate" (as opposed to "annihilate", which is to completely wipe out or eliminate) means to kill one out of every ten. When an unknown or unidentified conscripted soldier in a Roman legion had disobeyed orders or committed some offense and he couldn't be identified by his superiors the entire battalion of soldiers was commanded to line up and every tenth soldier was killed. This was Roman military discipline. Rome was a city-state (before it became an empire) that was constantly harassed and threatened by its enemies and Roman military leaders maintained the strictest discipline and would suffer absolutely no insubordination.
However Vidal's very best works were not his novels but his non-fiction essays he would write for The Nation magazine (I believe under the editorship of Victor Navasky at the time) in the 1980s and early 90s about the state of American society. As far as I know no one ever saw, or has ever seen, the United States with as clear an eye as Mr. Vidal. If one really wants to understand this country, putting all the bullsh*t propaganda of the main-stream media aside, one must read Gore Vidal. He was a national treasure, at least for me and my fellow proletariat. (If it wouldn't be too presumptuous, Mr. Dinh's essays sometime come close to Vidal's. ) However Vidal's privileged position in American society (his mother's father was one of the first senators from the at that time new state of Oklahoma) was unique. As a boy he would often accompany his blind grandfather into the Senate. And Vidal's father was a gifted early aviator who founded the precursor to United Airlines. Vidal's privileged position in Washington and in society in general allowed him to see the inner machinations of imperial power and privilege and, as an apostate to his class himself, he exposed the foibles and failings of his class for the sake of informing the American people of who their rulers really were. Thus earning himself the enmity of his class for the rest of his life.
Did you eat the snail you crushed raw?
Hi Peggy,
I tossed it in my just cooked fettuccine, then closed the lid on the pot for maybe 30 seconds, so it's sort of cooked.
Linh
The only penis-tattoo I've heard of was on a criminal executed last century. It said "L O L L I P O P."
“Episodic privations make that rare banquet or orgy so much sweeter.”
Linh, get a haircut and trim that beard! (You'll look and feel so much sweeter.)
Linh looks just fine the way he is, natural.
Steralizing people into identical carbon copies of everyone else--why would someone want that?
I'm old enough to remember when the only tattoos one observed in this country were on Americans who were either conscripted sailors (perhaps "shanghaied" in some San Francisco dive bar) or criminal felons who had spent considerable time behind bars. Now as you allude to, it seems to be a status symbol of some sort. (I'm a wanna be criminal but I'm too stupid to pull off a good caper?)
I considered having tattooed on my forehead, "I did three years in the 'pen' for a botched armed robbery home invasion" but the tattoo artist said he couldn't spell that well. So I had him shorten it to just, "F*ck!"
Kidding aside, When I was working at Sac. City College in California I met a young man, I believe he was either Laotian or Hmong, (or, that is to say, he was from Laos) who had bequeathed upon himself the dubious distinction of having "f*ck" tattooed on his forehead. He expressed wonderment that no one would hire him for a job.
I was going to suggest he travel down to L.A. and get a job in the porn industry but I thought it best to just shut-up.
Tattoos are the uglification of the body.
Excellent 🙏🏻
clever moniker