American Political Family Feuds

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
(photo: Wikipedia)

The United States has experienced its share of political families which feud with one another. To help understand this historical curiosity a bit better, The Washington Post published a short piece in today's online edition about the families that fight over the same political turf. My favorite is Moore vs. Rockefeller in West Virginia.

Of course, the upcoming 2016 heavyweight political fight between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton will be the marquee family feud of the early 21st Century. If George H.W. Bush passes away between now and the election for the 45th president of the United States, the family angle will be accentuated.

City of Stairs

View of Lake Washington, Seattle
from the top of a public stairway
(photo: Seattle Times)

My two recent visits to Seattle wisened me to one of the Emerald City's enduring truths: it's hilly. If you're not in Seattle-game shape, an unprepared tourist can quickly get tired and sore. It's best to be prepared for a fair amount of climbing.

If you're going to indulge in this form of soft, urban exercise, a guidebook can be your best friend. In that case, consider obtaining Seattle Stairway Walks: An Up-and-Down Guide to City Neighborhoods. The writers, refugees from LA, provide interesting perspectives on one of America's loveliest cities. What I like best in the book's approach is its use of stairways as a metaphor for the soul of a city.

If you're curious, the Seattle Times ran a feature piece on the authors and their valentine to Seattle's stairways.

Survey Rates World's Top Airport Restaurants

Signage from Tortas Frontera, O'Hare Airport
(photo: Tim Hoey)

A blog called The Daily Meal recently released a ranking of airport dining around the globe. If you're hungry, the place to fly to for a meal near Gate Whatever is Barcelona's Porta Gaig restaurant. The establishment is owned by a chef whose main gig in the Catalan city has earned one star in the Michelin  firmament.

Winning the figurative bronze medal is Tortas Frontera, Rick Bayless' fun outpost at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. My wife and I ate there last month, and took some food home to New Jersey. Yes, it was worth it, especially as it was our main meal immediately after Hurricane Sandy.

The complete story summarizing The Daily Meal post appeared in Bloomberg News.

A Lifetime of Christmas Trees

Characteristic Christmas scene
in the town where I grew up.

I grew up in a small, snow-bound rural town where obtaining a Christmas tree required direct action. My two older brothers would venture with a saw and a sled into the nearby countryside and come home with a fresh sacrificial conifer as their prize. As a result, a resinous scent filled our modest Cape Cod home for the duration of the holidays.

Colorfully wrapped presents mysteriously appeared under the tree in the days prior to Christmas Eve. I have no idea where my parents hid my gifts in our small house. I have even less idea where they found the money for them. It didn't matter to me at that time: I was, by all accounts, a very happy child and happiest of all after Midnight Mass, when we could open the presents. Serenity and joy and certainty characterized Christmas for me in those sheltered times.

Urban Christmas Tree search
(photo: businessinsider.com)

When my family moved to New York, we continued the tradition of the tree. However, the feeling had changed: my two brothers, who are nine and ten years older than I am, had gotten married and felt physically and psychically far away. The boyish adventure of finding a Christmas tree did not exist in Queens. Trees were sold on street corners. The ritual of gift giving remained intact, but the sense of family and community had been shattered. The low point came during one of my teenage years, when my parents bought a midget artificial tree. I had grown up with real trees, and the idea of a fake tree went completely against my grain. The artificial tree's size seemed insulting. This wasn't Christmas. To my parents' credit, they didn't repeat the experiment while I lived with them.

After I graduated from college, I packed and unpacked in a lot of places, none of which ever quite felt like home and none of which included a Christmas tree in its history. The spell was broken, briefly, only to resume its grip.  I might not have ever had a tree again, except for my wife Amy's intervention. At the time, we were in the first stages of getting serious about loving each other. That meant we were becoming increasingly inseparable, especially during holidays. Well, my wife grew up without a Christmas tree and wanted one. She was living in a studio apartment and adding a full-blown tree was more challenge than the space could handle. My resourceful bride-to-be would not be denied. She had a rubber plant, which she promptly decorated with earrings, strands of costume beads, and lights. It was a crazy, yet completely endearing sight. I could see it from an adjacent parking lot at night and it filled me with a happiness I had not felt in a generation.

Tim and the Artificial Christmas Tree, circa 2012

Five years ago, I finally crossed a psychological Rubicon and bought an artificial tree. My wife was allergic to whatever real trees put into the air, and I dreaded the work of dragging a tree home and putting it in our awkward, ancient tree stand. Amy and I somehow found the money to purchase a fake tree at the height of the 2008 financial disaster. Even though the price was very much in our favor, I wondered if the tree would become a symbol of untimely financial folly. (It didn't.) I liked the tree and could walk away from needing to possess a physical icon to resurrect my childhood sentiment. Thanks to love, I could accept a practical alternative while cherishing all that was -- and remains -- wonderful about Christmas.

Natural Gas Tanker Attempts First Winter Arctic Crossing

The Ob River, the ship cited in the BBC report.
(photo: Gazprom)

For the first time in recorded history, the Arctic passage between Europe and Asia is navigable during November. According to a BBC report, a Greek-owned liquified natural gas carrier is currently making the inaugural attempt to sail from Norway to Japan. The sailing, if successful, will trim the standard transportation time by twenty days. More significantly, the voyage demonstrates how climate change is impacting formerly frozen Siberia. What the world may gain some advantage in freight passage, it may dramatically lose in the planet's potential to sustain human life.

Alleged Shoplifter Dies During Apprehension Outside Walmart Store

Holiday shopping, especially during the ginned up "Black Friday" hysteria, is rapidly becoming rough stuff. However, it's one thing for things to get out of hand, and quite another for them to become fatal.

Death was the fate of an alleged shoplifter outside a Walmart in Georgia this weekend. According to a Reuters story appearing in the Chicago Tribune, a man accused of purloining a couple of DVD players was apprehended by Walmart employees and a "contract security guard" in a parking lot outside a Walmart. Possibly as a result of their zeal to subdue and maintain control of the alleged perp, the suspect died.

In some ways, Walmart provides a window into the world of downscale purchasing. In some cases, Walmart is the only shopping game in town; in others, it's brick-and-mortar's version of Amazon. Walmart has taken a lot of heat for its cutthroat business practices and predatory consumer pricing. Ask a political liberal about Walmart and one hears outrage. Then ask them about their Amazon account. "Well, that's different," I've heard more than once. Really?

For those on limited incomes, the Walmart "proposition" is alluring or unavoidable. It's easy to sit in a major city or its prosperous suburbs and tell Walmart customers to boycott the chain. In rural America's small towns, that's not such an easy formula to fulfill. The economics of scale and commoditized goods, something Mitt Romney knew only too well, work in Walmart's favor and against competition from small businesses. There's no easy answer to the Walmart-Amazon drive toward monopoly, but the death of a shoplifter is not the way to go.

 

HP Denies Allegations of Direct Product Sales to Syria

The once-proud HP hit a new public relations low this week, even after the Autonomy fiasco. An SEC inquiry has begun to explore whether Hewlett Packard provided Syria with equipment. HP acknowledged the SEC's formal letter, and suggested an unscrupulous Italian intermediary firm supplied the outlaw Assad regime with the goods. While that possibility is a likely one, HP would prefer to dance around questions about how it tracks the ultimate destination of its equipment. It's not as if the Assad forces were buying close-outs of HP's ill-fated, though well made, tablet.

The story was covered by Reuters and appears in today's siliconvalley.com.

David Taub -- "Mr. Pinot Grigio" -- RIP

David Taub
(photo: The New York Times)

David Taub, a New York-based wine importer, had a brainstorm during the Carter Administration years. He thought Americans would take to a wine varietal called Pinot Grigio. At the time, Pinot Grigio was unknown in the States. Thanks to some very slick marketing, a wine star was born, and Americans embraced the light, somewhat fruity wine. It now dominates cheap, imported white wine sales in the United States. The story of Pinot Grigio's climb to commercial prominence is an interesting one, and is relayed in Taub's obituary in today's New York Times.

I lived in Italy just after Taub's campaign gained traction. I never saw a bottle of Pinot Grigio in Rome, probably because nearby vineyards produced passable, fresh whites. I didn't see a bottle in Tuscany, although I did have a quite fine white Chianti there. Pinot Grigio was made near the Alps, north of Venice. In those days, Italian wine was a highly local business; if Saul Steinberg had drawn a "Roman's View of the World," the region where Pinot Grigio was made would have been banished to some perceptual Siberia. (Pinot would not have even made a Steinbergian map of Florence, but discussion of Florentine provincialism is another story for another day.) Wines infrequently travelled out of their native region, and Pinot Grigio rarely made the cut.

When I worked in the retail wine business, Pinot Grigio had its following, especially among women. It still does. Pinot Grigio is not to my taste at all; in fairness, I generally don't like any of the white wines Italians export to the US. I also think Italian wines today are poor value for the money; French wines, surprisingly, can be much better buys. However, there is no changing a determined Pinot Grigio fan. For that entrenched taste, we have David Taub -- "Mr. Pinot Grigio" -- to thank.

A Spiritual Message on Thanksgiving

Ritual Bathing in Ganges River, India
(Photo: PBS)

During this evening's Thanksgiving dinner, I spoke with a West African woman who has found opportunity in the United States. Our conversation flowed into a consideration of spiritual matters. She said that many of her country's people believed in the existence of spirits. As I understood this perspective, each element in our environment -- trees, sun, moon, plants, rivers, and other things -- has a spirit. Each has something to say, if one is truly psychically open, able to be still, and willing to listen to the world in which we are immersed.

I thought this was a beautiful and an entirely appropriate message for Thanksgiving Day. Later, as my wife and I drove home, I looked at the half moon in the southern sky and wondered what it was communicating. I thought about a river, and how its symbolism has moved philosophers and mystics from India to Egypt to produce profound thoughts. I considered Native Americans and their assertion of the natural world as a collection of living spirits.

I wondered what spirits I could hear, would hear, might hear, if I only tried.

"L'Express" Article Asserts US Hacked Sarkozy Office Computer

Former French President
Nicolas Sarkozy
(photo: Wikipedia)

Not so long ago, Nicolas Sarkozy was France's elected leader. Many countries had considerable interest in obtaining "early information" on what the French president was planning. Among those nations was the United States. It's a natural impulse among countries to want to gain this type of material. Prior to the electronic world's ascension, information was obtained from human beings. The 21st Century has changed that perspective; the current trend is information acquisition from various forms of gadgetry.

Today's online edition of the BBC summarized a story from the French magazine L'Express which asserts America hacked into computers inside former president Sarkozy's office. The cyber attack, according to the L'Express piece, featured a "'powerful worm'" that went undetected for more time than the leader of any powerful nation would feel comfortable with.

The emergence of sophisticated cyber attacks penetrating seemingly secure venues, such as France's Elysee Palace, is a grave matter. Most facilities essential to a society's smooth functioning rely on uncompromised computer programs and a secure, steady supply of electricity. Nations now possess the means to disrupt the operation of water supply systems, power grids, telecommunications. These forms of attack are much more insidious than the more coarse instruments of conflict, such as bombs. It's not exactly news that China, Russia, the United States, Israel, Britain, Iran, and (yes) France possess the know-how and the will to engage in cyber warfare tactics. I wonder if any of these countries command the parallel skill of knowing how and when to wisely use them.

Danica Patrick's Vehicle for her Divorce Announcement? Facebook

Danica Patrick
(photo from Fox News)

Keeping her fans informed of her public, yet personal life, race car diva Danica Patrick let the world know via Facebook that her marriage is kaput. A story about Patrick's announcement appeared in today's online edition of the Chicago Tribune.

Now that Ms. Patrick is available, I wonder how many gentlemen's libidos have started their engines just thinking about her?

Owner of Nevada's Mustang Ranch Wins Local Election

Mustang Ranch owner Lance Gilman
with a pair of prostitutes
(photo: Virginia City News)

In the recent presidential election, Mitt Romney asserted that his business credentials certified him as suitable for consideration as commander-in-chief of the United States. Romney joined New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, and others, who believe what America needs is a CEO (usually themselves) "running" the country.

The citizens of Storey County, Nevada jumped on the CEO as Great White Father bandwagon in this recent election year. By a wide margin, they voted for Lance Gilman to the office of county commissioner. Mr. Gilman's claim to political fame is that his day job includes ownership of the famous Mustang Ranch. Its principal business is prostitution. The world's oldest profession is legal in Storey County.

The story about Gilman's electoral success appeared in today's online edition of the LA Times. Somehow, I don't think Gilman's candidacy was the "leadership" Mitt Romney referenced during his stump speeches.

The Trouble with "Argo"

My wife and I went to see Argo last night. The venue was a shopping mall multiplex where New Jersey's suburbs and its truly mainland portions merge. Its virtues are that its screens are big, the prints are in good shape, and the sound systems deliver appropriate oomph. Argo, which we'd been told was a fabulous movie, seemed to deserve a decent theatrical experience.

By the end of the picture, I wondered if I had watched the same movie Argo's fans had. The movie, except for John Goodman's and Alan Arkin's delicious comic depiction of two Hollywood insiders, made me squirmy. Affleck takes a flag-waving, feel-good story and presents a flag-waving, feel-good story. While he's at it, Affleck scores some political points, mostly at the expense of the US State Department and the Carter Administration. Hamilton Jordan, Carter's chief of staff, comes across as something of a provincial dim bulb, while Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's name is not even mentioned. Why Vance is spared while his department is unflatteringly depicted is a curiosity.

However, that's small potatoes compared to the movie's "uplifting" ending, in which the nervy Yanks escape the clutches of the evil Republican Guard. Argo makes it clear that the Iranian Revolution was a dreadful event. Inferentially, how could Americans today allow those same anti-Western religious fanatics any chance at obtaining nukes? No way. To that end, I wonder if Affleck and the movie's producers found it useful to remind the public about perceived American "weakness" with the dangers Iran's ruling mullahs and military Praetorian Guard represent. While the Tehran embassy hostage crisis took place during "weak" President Carter, they were released shortly after the inauguration of a "firm" Ronald Reagan.

Former Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor,
who hid the American embassy personnel in Tehran.
Read the Canadian TV interview with Taylor,
noting how Affleck's original ending (shown at the Toronto Film Festival!)
praised the CIA and implied the Canadians sat on their hands.

There was something eerie about watching Argo while Hamas (Iran's proxy along the Israeli border) and Israel (to some extent, America's regional proxy) begin their duel to the death in Gaza. This most recent conflict began on the American presidential election day, and reached the boiling point while President Obama was in Myanmar. It's hard to imagine 44 couldn't have been further from the world's media centers, or more inaccessible to the American audience that is separated by a dozen or more time zones from Southeast Asia. Of course, any military action against Iran proper would probably require Israeli neutralization of Hamas' military capability in Gaza. One wonders if Carter-Reagan was heading toward Obama-Romney, with Mitt on record as egging on Bibi Netanyahu's "bombs away" approach to Israel's neighbors.

The people in the movie audience who felt good about Argo's blend of daring escape and Rambo-style jingoism probably felt we delivered a blow against the bad guys -- a blow we should deliver again. We should be careful what we wish for. It's going to take more than Hollywood chutzpah to successfully manage any conflict with Iran and its allies.

PS. Ken Taylor's issues with Argo were amplified in a February, 2013 New York Times piece. Among them was Affleck's interesting decision to not invite Taylor to the film's premiere at, ironically enough, the Toronto Film Festival. Notable in the Times piece is Affleck's reasoning for "adjusting" history to fit narrative and entertainment "needs" (my quotes in both cases in this sentence).

Seattle Museum Show To Feature Jimi Hendrix's London Days

Someone -- I don't remember who -- once defined greatness as a force from which "before" and "after" were defined. If one accepts that notion, then Jimi Hendrix's music certainly fits. Ironically, for nearly two-thirds of his life, the Seattle native was more or less a musical unknown. That changed when he visited London and played there. He very quickly became a star.

A new exhibit at Seattle's EMP Museum explores this turning point in Hendrix's life. You don't have to be an aging hippie to enjoy this show.

I visited EMP about a year ago. The Frank Gehry-designed building, with its wavy, reflective exteriors, was a fitting home for the museum's pop culture exhibits. At the time, I got a glimpse of a sculpture of assembled electric guitars and one of Michael Jackson's gloves. Of course, for me, the EMP Museum was an homage to Hendrix. It also reminded me of a time, long ago, when I attended a concert at New York's Fillmore East. (I went to grammar school with one of the theatre's light show designers.) Reputedly, Jimi was backstage that night. He was in the building, so to speak; I returned the favor to the 60s musical genius, many decades later, with my visit to EMP.

PS. EMP is an acronym for "Experience Music Project".

A Lamborghini SUV?

Rendering of Lamborghini SUV
(from roadandtrack.com)

An Associated Press article picked up by philly.com reported that Lamborghini execs are considering manufacturing an SUV. The presumed principal market for the vehicle would be North America.

I'm not a car enthusiast, but I have a healthy respect for Lamborghinis. A number of years ago, I was driving along a California hill road when two Lamborghinis passed me. Lamborghini sightings were rare enough, but seeing two was akin to hitting a high-odds daily double. I was going around 70 mph and, when the high-performance cars went by, I realized they were really, really fast. I also understood the drivers weren't really pushing the cars' potential for sudden, exceptional speed. Well, we all can dream.

That real brush with automotive fantasyland gave me a sense of the romance implicit in driving a high-performance car. That's why I can't fathom why Lamborghini would consider manufacturing something as inherently clunky and inelegant as an SUV. Don't get me wrong: we happen to own and like an SUV. However, we don't confuse it with a high-performance machine. And no one imagines James Bond dashing about in an SUV, unless he can't get to his destination any other way.

Lamborghini should stick to making sexy, fast cars, and drive away from the SUV market. The faster Lamborghini stays true to its personality, the better.

Obama Re-Election Alleged Cause of Key West Man's Suicide

Political suicide, GOP style:
2012 candidates waiting their moment
in the presidential sun

Some people take politics very seriously. Take the case of Henry Hamilton. The Key West resident had told friends he would be very upset if 44 were re-elected. Well, the One was the People's Choice for a second presidential term. That fact was apparently more than Mr. Hamilton could handle. He was found dead on November 8th, according to a keysnet.com article reprinted in The Miami Herald's online edition. The initial reported cause of death was suicide.

At least Hamilton did not commit political seppuku. That act was left to the GOP's two pro-rape candidates for the US senate, on behalf of the Tea Party.

Report: 59 Philadelphia Voting Wards Showed Absolutely No Votes for Mitt Romney

The picture tells the story.
(Photo from Fox News)

In a fitting epitaph to the recent presidential election, a report in philly.com, the online editon of the Philadelphia Inquirer, notes that Mitt Romney was unanimously rejected in certain Philadelphia voting wards. We're talking zero votes for the man from Massachusetts. Nada. Absolutely nothing. Zip.

You could characterize this as the Obama campaign pitching a shutout, or Romney's campaign repeatedly swinging and missing. However, when the vote count is 19,605 to zero, well, what else can one say? We can reasonably suppose the Romney-Ryan message died a hard death in the predominantly African-American, predominantly 47 percenter wards cited in the story.

Unsurprisingly, the political Dracula known as "voter fraud" stuck its hand out from the political grave. According to the story,

Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, brought up his party's voter-identification initiative - which was held off for this election - and said "We believe we need to continue ensuring the integrity of the ballot."

Some people just don't get it.

A-Rod's Miami Beach Mansion and a Neighbor's Complaint

Alex Rodriguez' Miami Beach mansion
(photo: CBS/Miami)

A-Rod has managed once again to find himself a lightning rod for criticism. It seems the New York Yankee star has a nine-bedroom Miami Beach mansion which Rodriguez occasionally rents to film and TV firms for their shoots. Well, according to a story in today's Miami Herald, Rodriguez' next-door neighbor thinks there are far too many commercials, segments, and reality shows occurring in his one-percenter residential area. The neighbor, a retired New Jersey plastics manufacturer who happens to like Rodriguez personally, has unsurprisingly made his opinion known via his attorney.

As the Herald article notes, Miami Beach is home to a thriving media industry, thanks to its combination of iconic setting, readily available sunshine, and even more available celebrities. Glamorous homes are made available for the media's insatiable thirst for image. Reality television has only accelerated this trend.

Ironically, A-Rod has put his digs, which are less than two years old, on the market for $36 million. Maybe he just doesn't like the neighborhood anymore.

After Hurricane Sandy's Pass, A Passing

With the passing of Hurricane Sandy, and a subsequent first snow of the season, we've had our share of climatic drama. My wife and I were very happy the agita the storms generated was beginning to fade away. Today was the first day I felt confident in weather and gasoline supply to venture about eight miles from our residence. My destination was a place my spouse and I call the "egg farm."

It's not really a farm, but the owners do sell eggs from the chickens they keep on the property. The land itself borders a river that's more akin to a stream as it meanders through the owners' land. A waterfall forms a visual boundary on the other side of the road from the egg farm. Some plain leafy trees shade the property and old house in the warmer months. A couple of those fell, along with some conifers, during Sandy.

Seeing the fallen trees saddened me, as I had considered the egg farm something of a paradise all too rare in suburban central New Jersey. I concluded the place would feel more gathered once the fallen trees were removed.

I wasn't certain eggs would be available for sale in the wake of Sandy. The scattered remains of trees and branches didn't inspire much hope. However, I pulled up by the egg box. I didn't see the handwritten note attached above it until I got out of the car. The document noted, in remarkably calm prose, that the husband of the spousal team that owned the egg farm had passed away "suddenly" six days ago.

I had seen him about a month ago, and he appeared vigorous and without any outward manifestation of illness. That was the last time we saw him alive.

In the midst of this recollection, two gray haired, somewhat stout men approached me. One of them turned out to be the brother of the deceased. Although we had never met before today, he openly talked with me about the circumstances surrounding his sibling's death. He kept his composure as he relayed how a "simple surgery" had tragic consequences, including sepsis, kidney failure, and relatively sudden death. The train of events seemed incredible, yet I was aware they are a daily occurrence in hospitals. My wife once told me "there's no such thing as a simple surgery"; I didn't believe her until today.

The dead man's brother told me briefly about the wake and burial. At the cemetery, "I put my hand on his coffin and I saluted him," and then the box went into the earth. As the story ended, the man began to cry; I put my hand on his shoulder and offered condolences as best as I could.

Later, my wife and I read the obit from the newspaper. The deceased had married his childhood sweetheart, he worked for Ma Bell, he was active in the local fire department, and he belonged to a state beekeeper organization. The story didn't relate the deeply tragic circumstances that ended his life, or his warmth when he would meet my wife and me during one of our egg purchases. It didn't talk about his evident affinity for the land, his obvious love for his wife, and his wry sense of humor. Those qualities are something for those who knew him, including my spouse and me, to honor and cherish.

I only wish my wife and I could have said good-bye to him.

Report Finds Deep South Was Epicenter of Election Day "Hate" Tweets

One historic aspect of this year's presidential election was the first re-election of an African-American chief executive. Ever since Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2008, one wondered whether he would be one-term president, or even be alive to complete a first term. Race was always hanging around this presidency, and certainly so during the 2012 election campaign. Obama v. Romney included offensive episodes such as Donald Trump's repellent, insulting $5 million dollar offer for the 44th president to produce his college records. In this case, we're talking about a doubting a president who was a Harvard Law grad.

While few people told pollsters they were voting against Obama simply because he was a brother, racism was unquestionably a factor Democrats and Republicans took into account in certain states. However, evidence of articulated racism is a little tricky to identify.

According to a story appearing in today's online edition of the LA Times, during the final days of the election period, and Election Day itself, some academic researchers "analyzed 'hate' tweets by geography." The results: Alabama and Mississippi led the pack in this shameful category, with many states of the former Confederacy following close behind.

It's an interesting story, and one that won't vanish after January 20, 2013.

DC Comics Takes Online Retail Plunge

It didn't take long for post-Election Day news to enter our politically addled consciousness. Exhibit A was an announcement from DC Comics that its work would be available through online distributors Apple, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. The Associated Press story appeared in today's siliconvalley.com.

The move is a blow, though not necessarily a fatal one, to independent comic stores. What's interesting is that storefronts selling comics were financial survivors, and, in some cases, thriving, even during the worst of the so-called "Great Recession." Now, DC has "expanded" its market to include digital distribution's "Big Three." It will be curious to see if they "compete" on price and product offering for Batman, Superman, and other characters in the DC stable of characters.

Strong Drink Recipes for Election Day

If the presidential campaign has driven you to drink, consider having a speciality cocktail created with Election Day in mind.

John Lee Hooker cocktail
(photo from The Seattle Times)

The Seattle Times interviewed a number of local mixologists and got the goods on strong adult beverages suitable for "Decision Day," as TV likes to call the first Tuesday in November. My favorite is the "John Lee Hooker cocktail," mostly because I like his music. "The drink is tinted red," according to the article.

If you're a political animal -- donkey or elephant -- tonight's results are likely to go down easier with a drink. If you're not, you might want something strong and adult to get through the parade of congrats, concessions, and recounts.

Russ and Daughters' Nepalese Fish Slicer

New Yorkers and its suburban emigres (I am among the latter category) have strong opinions about smoked fish. I didn't grow up with smoked fish in the small, central New York town where I spent my childhood years. It was an acquired taste that slowly, but steadily emerged for me in my adultage. These days, I thoroughly enjoy the range of smoked fish available in Gotham. Well, I do make an exception for herring, which I find inedible.

Photo from Russanddaughters.com

A few years ago, I walked into Russ and Daughters on Houston Street. I'd never stepped inside before that day: two rental stints on the Lower East Side never included this oddly-named business. Eventually, I concluded this was by far the best place in New York to obtain smoked salmon, sturgeon, whitefish, and other indefensible, but entirely delightful luxuries. (My favorite is a wonderful, seasonally available Danish smoked salmon.)

This background encouraged me to read today's brief New York Times profile of Russ and Daughters' Nepalese fish slicer. Now, if you think New Yorkers are opinionated about smoked fish, they definitely double down on their opinions' velocity when the subject turns to the art of slicing. Let's just say some people are very particular about how their fish is cut. I'm not quite so fussy, but I do see the point.

The profile is a genuine New York story. Yes, the slicer really is from Nepal, and no, he's not Jewish. He does, according to the story, speak some Yiddish. He comes across, all in all, as a real mensch.

Voting American Style

Election Day for the presidency, many US senate seats, a posse of House reps, state and local offices is two days from today.

Early voting line/Miami
(photo from The New York Times)

In a number of states, early voting has commenced. Not surprisingly, Florida's early voting is already controversial. Officials of Florida's Republican governor says the early voting process is operating smoothly. That's true if your standard of a well-run process is a seven-hour wait for the opportunity to vote, as some south Floridians have experienced, according to a Miami Herald report.

In New Jersey, where I live, early voting became something of a necessity for many people whose lives were disrupted by the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Voters could go to the county seat and cast a ballot. The obvious problem is that the Garden State is experiencing gasoline rationing and many people are afraid to drive in this fuel-challenged situation. In fairness, New Jersey's GOP governor Chris Christie is trying to do the right thing for voters, something Florida governor Rick Scott's administration cannot honestly claim.

Sign on Milwaukee's East Side,
October 2012
(photo by Tim Hoey)

What's striking in this presidential election is the rendering of the electoral garment into two roughly equal pieces. My wife and I were recently in Wisconsin, a so-called "battleground" state. Really, the Badger State was the 2012 election's version of the Spanish Civil War, courtesy of the election of Scott Walker to the governor's office, his subsequent evisceration of public workers' collective bargaining rights, and a failed recall vote. Walker's victory in the recall balloting has not diminished the electoral fervor this fall. Wisconsin is home to the GOP's vice presidential candidate, borders Barack Obama's home base of Chicago, and has a very tight US senate race that features an openly lesbian candidate.

In Wisconsin, my wife and I saw an astonishing number of intense TV political commercials. We expected that. What we were unprepared for was a parade of billboards that mostly featured pro-Romney messages or strongly anti-Obama messages. Nothing seemed very sacred, least of all the politicized churches, the majority of which felt comfortable embracing the GOP message.

Billboards paid for by venture capitalists
Stephen and Nancy Einhorn.
They also contributed $50,000 to
Scott Walker's election as Wisconsin governor.

Last night, we attended a small dinner party a short drive from our home. One of the hosts was an Italian-born painter. The Italian voting system is quite different from the American version, in that Italians have to travel to the town or city of their birth in order to vote. The entire country is literally on the move during the Italian election period. I asked the painter if he could envision Americans mirroring the Italian voting procedure. He laughed and simply said, "Basta, Tim."

If we could only say that for our own country's very screwed up political process.