Tradition Addition Edition

My mother-in-law visits us every Thanksgiving for several days, and being full-blood Ukrainian (as is my lovely bride), she always helps us create some pysanky and we make a big (fully justified) fuss over the homemade perehe she brings us for dinner.

This year, a colleague who is married to a 1st generation Ukrainian beauty brought his family unit for a little visit, and introduced us to Medivka - a traditional concoction of vodka, spices and honey.  All I can say is "mighty fine".  And it's right next to spectacular when added to the morning coffee.

Pysanky

Perehe (aka pirogi)

Medivka:

1-1/4 cups water

Zest of 1 orange, tangerine and/or lemon

3 whole cloves

1 tsp. allspice

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 cup buckwheat honey

2-1/2 to 3 cups vodka (or grain alcohol)

Place the water, citrus zest, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg in a small saucepan. Cover and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Strain the water through a clean cotton cloth into another pan and add the honey.

Bring to a low simmer, skimming the foam from the top.

Warm the vodka (or alcohol) in a bottle, in a water bath. 

Add the honey mixture to the warmed vodka (or alcohol), shake well, cap, and let cool.

A Meme Is Born

via quickmeme.com

And I saved the best (mine, of course) for last.

Best Guitar Player You Never Heard Of

Tommy Emmanuel - sorry about the sound quality; still looking for something better.

Meme Wildfire

OWS Meme

Officer Pike has won himself a place in Mike's American Liberties Hall Of Shame.
(hat tips: Balloon Juice, facebook)

OWS Anthem Nominee

"Too many hungry people losing weight"

This Is A Justice System?

Via Crooks and Liars, Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:

Apparently in this country you become ineligible to eat if you have a record of criminal drug offenses. States have the option of opting out of that federal ban, but Mississippi is not one of those states. Since McLemore had four drug convictions in her past, she was ineligible to receive food stamps, so she lied about her past in order to feed her two children.

The total "cost" of her fraud was $4,367. She has paid the money back. But paying the money back was not enough for federal Judge Henry Wingate.

To hear some people tell it, you'd think OWS was nothing but spoiled kids gripin' about their allowance.  Taibbi's story serves to point out a few things that really are just flat wrong with the way we've been doing things here in the USA for a good long time.  And it isn't only about "the rich get richer and the poor get children".  There are real problems with the basic structure of our system.  So I don't know what all we need to do to fix it, but maybe we could start by addressing the concept of equal protection under the law.

And Jesus Wept

Another Good One

...From Mr Fallows at The Atlantic:

What is going on is a war of ideas, based in turn on moral standing. This engagement, which started in Minute 1 with police over-reaction and ended in Minute 8 with nervous police retreat, was a rout.

Not News

This cannot be considered any kind of news - not after almost 2 generations of constant and concerted efforts to chip away at every democratic tradition anybody cares to name.

I'm NOT saying CongressCritters haven't contributed greatly to their own crappy image by doing things that everybody thinks are stupid; and by not doing things that everybody thinks are smart.  What I'm saying is that on top of all that, you don't get to spend 35 years and a gajillion dollars trashing each other in very public ways and then wonder why everybody's looking at you like you've got scabs on your dick.

What's Up With OWS

A good re-cap, and some decent analysis from Garance Franke-Ruta at The Atlantic:

And yet it is all too American. America has a very long history of protests that meet with excessive or violent response, most vividly recorded in the second half of the 20th century. It is a common fantasy among people born in the years since the great protests movements -- and even some not so great ones -- that they would have stood on the bold side of history had they been alive at the time and been called to make a choice. But the truth is that American protest movements in real time -- and especially in their early days -- often appear controversial, politically difficult, out-of-the-mainstream, and dangerous. And they are met with fear.

Even decades later, acts of protest can be the subject of heated debate and lead people to question (as well as celebrate) the moral standing of those who put their bodies on the line during moments of historic tumult -- as Sen. John Kerry, Vietnam veteran and former anti-Vietnam protester, learned during his presidential bid in 2004.

 (hat tip = JR)

More Tim Wise

via GRITtv

On Things Authoritarian

One of the better bits from Theramin Trees. At about 11:00, there's a great parallel with how some city governments are trying to deal with OWS protests. Makes a lot of sense to me in that context.

d r i f t g l a s s Speaks

This is a link to a driftglass blog post:

d r i f t g l a s s: Professional Left Podcast -- Bonus Edition

One of the smartest guys you'll ever hear.

New Music

And the rush is on to claim the mantle: The Voice of Occupy

Too cynical? Maybe - the tune isn't available at Amazon, so there's that. It's just always a good idea to check for signs of commercialization. It's a good thing in a way, because when somebody starts making a few bucks off of OWS, we'll know it's gained some real support from a slice of the populace big enough to give it a real chance at being self-sustaining. And that should mean that the changes being sought by the movement are imminent (The Overton Window sez so anyway). It will also mean that OWS is being assimilated into the larger Body Politic, which means its power will begin to dissipate, which means the whole cycle starts over.