more interesting
use limitations than
overcome struggle

I’m not a good cook. Not that I don’t have my moments—like anyone who has spent thirty years happily cooking, I have absorbed something along the way. And in its casual way, it pays off—God knows I eat well enough. However, if our criterion for goodness is whether I possess anything like a genuinely well-rounded repertoire of dishes I consistently prepare well, then my credentials are nothing much to boast about. Quite honestly, this has never bothered me much at all.

It’s my experience that truly good cooks are born. I was not born to be one, and I don’t like being trained, especially if the result is going to be mere competency. I’ve generally found life a lot more interesting learning to use my limitations than struggling to overcome them.

For example, since I have little patience in getting things just right, I tend to avoid dishes that require a calculated perfection. I’m a compulsive fiddler, so I steer clear of foods that must be set up to run and then left to cook strictly on their own. And since I can’t abide following someone else’s directions, I rarely prepare anything that I can’t get a good mental fix on before I start.

Thoughts for Thanksgiving.

I am making pies.

Blueberry and pumpkin.

I will craft them out of flour and lard and water and fruit or pie mix.

I will follow the example of my Mom by I will craft them my way.

As Anthony Bourdain once said, “Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman — not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen — though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable and satisfying.”

get wrinkles and fat
freedom comes with that, lightness …
life becomes more fun

For someone who has long been the face of anti-ageing products, she’s decidedly pro-ageing herself.

“You know, you get wrinkles and you get fat and you lose a kind of beauty – that is true,” she says. “But they never talk about the freedom that comes with that. More than freedom, a lightness. When you’re young, you have so many things to prove. You have to prove that you are intelligent, that you’re financially independent, that you’re a good parent. There are so many obligations. And when you’re old, you’re not proving yourself any more. I don’t know if I’m that intelligent or not. I am who I am. You start to say, if I don’t do what I want to do now, I will never do it. And life becomes more fun.”

From the article, ‘Isabella Rossellini: ‘People never talk about the freedom, the lightness, that comes with ageing’ by Guy Lodge, Observer film columnist and the chief UK film critic for Variety.

I have long been at home with what I look like.

As Mr. Churchill said to his barber, “A man with limited means as I do cannot spend time worrying about a STYLE. Just cut it.”

However there are other things I am aware of as I age.

The other day the my wife and I were walking the path around a local park and I looked at the all the work out equipment that had been placed along the walk way.

Chinning bars, parallels bars, sit up benches, push up bars … you name it, it was there.

I tried them all.

Jumped up on the parallel bars and … hung there.

Jumped up to the chinning bar and … hung there, too.

Sat on the sit up bench and looked at how I would have to arrange my body, said nope and got up.

It was a bleak performance.

Then I found the step up bar.

It had high steps around a pole and you were supposed to put your hands on the pole for balance … and step up.

And I did it.

Felt so good, I did it again.

Felt so good I called out to my wife, “I can do this one!”

A half dozen of so 8th grade boys were walking by and stopped to stare.

“Go for it Gramps!” one yelled.

…

When you’re old, you’re not proving yourself any more.

I don’t know if I’m that intelligent or not.

I am who I am.

I say, if I don’t do what I want to do now, I will never do it.

And life has become more fun.

lost the genius of
independence, fit subjects
of cunning tyrants

Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them.

Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.

Abraham Lincoln in a speech at Edwardsville, Sept. 11, 1858.

Watching the clown shop assemble its crew I think that those who follow and approve of the clown show are accustomed to trample on the rights of those around them , and have lost the genius of their own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.

I feel they have familiarized themselves with the chains of bondage, and are preparing their own limbs to wear them.

Why am I reminded again of Mr. Lenin’s famous, “When it comes time to hang the western world … a capitalist will sell me the rope.”

Mr. Lincoln pointed this out in 1856.

No cell phones.

No facebook.

No internet.

Through the long trail of history, it is us who have consistently perverse and goofy and open to those cunning tyrants coming down the road.

but the smart money
says that they have no idea
what they are doing

Adapted from the article, Trump’s tax cuts and Musk’s Doge show they have no idea about US debt by Jeffrey Frankel.

Mr. Frankel is professor of capital formation and growth at Harvard University and he is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

He writes:

During Trump’s first term in office, he added $8tn to the national debt – all previous presidents combined had accumulated $20tn – despite having promised to run budget surpluses so large that they would eliminate the national debt within two terms.

In the campaign, he vowed to cut taxes for seemingly every group that caught his fancy. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s central estimate, Trump’s tax proposals imply $10tn in forgone revenue over the next 10 years. Add to that an extra $1tn in interest accrued on the national debt, and the losses far exceed the $3tn in added revenue that would come from the sky-high tariffs Trump has pledged to introduce. This will require the federal government to sell a lot of bonds – a practice that will keep their price low and interest rates high.

Oh well, so the Emperor has no clothes.

When has anyone noticed before?

When has anyone cared?

Mr. Frankel closes with the line: Supporters often say that a businessman like Trump or Musk will know how to put America’s fiscal house in order. But the smart money says they have no idea what they are doing.

I am reminded of something Harry Truman was supposed to have said.

President Truman said, some claim, that he did not fire General Douglas MacArthur for being a dumb son-of-a-bitch.

He didn’t, Truman said, because that isn’t against the law for Generals.

kakistocracy …
government run by the worst
and least qualified

From Wikipedia:
A kakistocracy is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century. Peter Bowler has noted in his book that there is no word for the government run by the best citizens, and that the aristarchy may be the right term, but still, it could conceivably be a kakistocracy disguised as an aristocracy

The term is generally used by critics of a country’s government. It has been variously used in the past to describe the Russian government under Boris Yeltsin and later Vladimir Putin, the government of Egypt under Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, governments in sub-Saharan Africa, the government of the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, and several United States presidential administrations. The term saw increased usage during the presidency of Donald Trump, going viral when MSNBC host Joy Reid and former CIA Director John Brennan used it to insult Trump in 2017 and 2018 respectively. The word was used by commentators in numerous newspapers, political publications, and books to describe the Trump administration.

I am reminded of how David Halberstam wrote the definitive book on the Kennedy Administration with the title, The Best and the Brightest.

Mr. Halberstam said that at one time he meant the title to be ironic, as if it should have a question mark, IE The Best and the Brightest?

Over time, as more and more Presidential Administrations piled up, the question mark, in retrospect, came off.

Maybe one day, like Gothic or Impressionism, Kakistocracy will take on a meaning almost unimaginable today.

Of course, that thought is predicated on the idea the following Presidential Administrations will … be worse.

We may be living in the golden age.