August 31, 2004
The Bounce Has Begun
The most optimistic electoral vote prognostication site has updated its electoral vote prediction dramatically in favor of Bush, 280 to 242. This is a change from last week's prediction favoring Kerry slightly. A new poll puts Bush ahead in Florida, Pennsylvania, but it should be noted that the polling firm, Stategic Visions, "normally works only for Republicans".
Posted by jbahr at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2004
The 9/11 Commission Report
I've had this naggingly uncomfortable feeling about the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, informally known as the 9/11 Commission, and the report it issued (available free for downloading).
I admit to having only read some of the large tome so far, and admiring its thoroughness and clarity of writing. What has been bothering me is the unquestioning trust most Americans, and both Presidential candidates, have in its recommendations. I also question the thin layer of blame that was spread over our many intelligence agencies and four administrations -- the whole "if we had only done this or that, we could have prevented 9/11" thrust of the conclusions. The report ignores the psychology of the American electorate at the time, and the fact that even instituting the current security measures (e.g., beefed up airport screening) would have been a political impossibility until the tragedy occurred.
My biggest problem with the report was the sudden seque from analysis to recommendations. As Richard Posner says in his outstanding article, The 9/11 Report: A Dissent:
Much more troublesome are the inclusion in the report of recommendations (rather than just investigative findings) and the commissioners' misplaced, though successful, quest for unanimity. Combining an investigation of the attacks with proposals for preventing future attacks is the same mistake as combining intelligence with policy. The way a problem is described is bound to influence the choice of how to solve it. The commission's contention that our intelligence structure is unsound predisposed it to blame the structure for the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, whether it did or not. And pressure for unanimity encourages just the kind of herd thinking now being blamed for that other recent intelligence failure -- the belief that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The recommendations of the Commission include many proposals with far-reaching consequences: instituting a biometric entry-exit system for travelers; having the Federal government set standards for individual identification (e.g., driver's licenses); centralizing all counter-terrorism planning and policy under the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, which is to be a cabinet-level position.
Most of the recommendations (and some seem eminently wise) call for increasing centralization, and almost all of that centralization increases the reach and budget of the Executive Branch -- at a time in history when the Executive Branch already enjoys a great deal of power.
We already have a lot of areas for concern about future terrorism: insufficiently guarded rail systems, sorely inadequate security of container cargo, insufficiently funded first-response providers. It's difficult for me to see how centralization, per se, will improve these security holes (and there are many more), because that is a matter of will and money -- something that requires sacrifice and political solutions.
Generals are often criticized for "fighting the last war", but in a sense, what other war can you fight? Just look at the resources thrown at airport security, as opposed to other possible national security threats. If 9/11 had been accomplished with a small nuclear device in the subway beneath the Twin Towers, what would we now be doing, and how would we be spending our money, and how would our security apparatus be organized? And what would the 9/11 Commission report look like?
Posted by jbahr at 06:56 PM | Comments (0)
The Mother of All Meatloaf
During the first Gulf War, I was glued to the TV, watching the CNN reporters and the airwar they were broadcasting off the roof of their hotel. This went on for a week, and I decided I needed a nice big dish that I could eat over a couple of days. Saddam was predicting an Iraqi victory in The Mother Of All Wars.
This recipe came out of the experience. It's modified from the Silver Palate recipe, that's borrowed from the Market Street restaurant in Venice, CA. Craig Clairborne and Vogue magazine raved about it, and Good Morning America flew the Market Street chef to do the recipe on the show.
2 pounds of ground round
1 pound of ground pork
1 medium green pepper
1 medium red pepper
2 stalks of celery hearts
4 green onions
1 medium onion
6 cloves of garlic
3 medium carrots
2 Teaspoons of cumin
1/2 Teaspoon of ground/grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, white if you have it
1/2 cup of whipping cream or half-and-half
3 medium eggs
1 Teaspoon of What's This Here (Worcester) sauce
6 shakes of Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup of catsup
1/2 cup of diced parsley, curly or Italian, it doesn't matter
1/2 to 1 cup of crushed saltines or Italian bread crumbs, depending upon how firm you like your meatloaf
4 Tablespoons of butter
Dice the parsley, onions, green peppers, red peppers, and carrots. The carrots are best food-processed until they are the size of small fresh-water pearls. Crush the garlic cloves with the blade of a large knife and mince. Slice the green onions into transparent rings (processing never works, trust me). Create dozens of translucent half-moons by cutting the celery across the grain. Saute slowly all the chopped vegetables and garlic in 4 T of butter, which should take 20 minutes or more if you do it right and get all the excess moisture out of them. Fold the sauteed vegetables into the ground round and pork, taking care because it may still be hot from the pan. Use your hands, squishing the mixture through your fingers. Beat the eggs briefly in a separate cup and add to the mixture, along with the whipping cream, What's This Here sauce, Tabasco and catsup. Add the cumin, nutmeg and black pepper, saltines/bread crumbs, and mix thoroughly again with your hands, squeezing the meatloaf mixture through your fingers until it's thoroughly uniform, ingredient-wise.
Fill a breadloaf pan or anything else it will fit into. At this point, you can bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or (better) slide the pan of meatloaf into a bath of hot water and cook it as you would a custard, which usually takes 40-45 minutes. Test for doneness by slipping a knife in and seeing if it's just past pink. Take the meatloaf out and let it set for 20 minutes before slicing and serving. Best eaten with mashed potatoes and any red wine with authority.
Posted by jbahr at 04:14 PM | Comments (3)
Poet Blogs
I've been hyperleaping from blog to blog, trying to collect a reasonable set of initial links to other poets. I'm trying to keep the list down to places I've actually visited and read, and where the format is a diary/journal (as opposed to a thinly-veiled marketing program).
Most of the poet's blogs I've been reading embarrass me with their scope, thoughtfulness and poetic insights (e.g., Tony Tost, Gabe Gudding). I mean, nobody posts recipes for meatloat at all, at all.
I'm keeping a mental list of poets whom I wish had weblogs: Brenda Hillman, Billy Collins, Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, ... Of course these are poets who are often represented by the Steven Barclay Agency and don't speak for free. Maybe Lucie Brock-Broido, Henri Cole, Carl Phillips? Probably not going to happen. How about William Logan? Now, that would be some kind of blog.
Posted by jbahr at 07:36 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2004
Favorite Poems
I first read this extraordinary and hilarious piece, How I Caught My Cold, by Gabe Gudding, in APR.
You can find it on the APR web site.
Posted by jbahr at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
Quote of the Day
If you're born to hang, you'll never drown,
so let the big cat jump.
Old West Virginia expression.
Posted by jbahr at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2004
Electoral End-Run Update
CNN claims that Bush is now ahead in electoral votes by a margin of 274 to 264. They reach this conclusion by ceding Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas to the Bush Team. CNN appears to have little additional information upon which to make this assessment.
Posted by jbahr at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)
Invisible Bride
I'm usually less than overwhelmed by the winner of the Whitman Award, but I suppose I can say that about many of the poetry books I read. I received, as a gift of membership, Tony Tost's Invisible Bride a month ago and read a little of it. At first, I was disoriented by the lack of titles and the way that one doesn't know offhand whether one prose poem has finished or has continued to the next page. The book sat on my kitchen counter for a couple of weeks, until I remembered GC Waldrep mentioning at AWP how wonderful he found it. I abandoned my Sillimanesque desire to categorize and began to enjoy it.
My left brain is happier with pieces like Winter Outtakes (1) that actually have a title and something like a unifying theme:
My boys, given a small supply of water and food, are told where to build. Stuttering-heart cold. I sit in here and view musicals set in the 17th and 18th centuries, wondering how people occupied time other than killing, kissing, and writing letters.
This seems to me to be a poetry of juxtaposed imagery and narrative arc, playful without being irreverent. A poetry where you are left with a retinal image, a poetic aftertaste. A poetry where you get to know Tony and are pleased to have done so. Which makes it a different experience that, say, Hoagland or Ashbery or Graham. The eventual profundity is built up layer by layer, a deposition of memory and observation.
Posted by jbahr at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
World's Best Salmon
Wait until Safeway has it on sale and a good-sized filet, say 2 pounds, goes for under $10. Place it on a cookie sheet, skin-side down, and rub with olive oil, then sprinkle with black pepper. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, then let it set in the cooling oven for another 15. Take the sheet out and liberally coat the filet with Dijon mustard. Take one bag of good potato chips (Cape Cod, Boulder) and 2 Big T of dried dill and Cuisinart the bejeezes out of it. Spread this evenly on the mustard base and put the salmon under the broiler for 60 second, turning the sheet to get a nice brown crust. Great warm, great cold. Keeps for up to a week.
Posted by jbahr at 09:00 AM | Comments (1)
In The Mail This Week
Harper's, Smithsonian, Poets & Writers, Spin, Cook's Illustrated, Atlantic Monthly, Time, Wired.
Well, actually Atlantic Monthly was last week. Junie and I finished the Puzzler in worse than record time. Email me for hints if you're stuck.
P&W has an interview with Richard Howard that will only reinforce his curmudgeonly reputation. The article sub-headings include: On Fame (it's overrated), On Poetry in Public (poetry should be private), On Getting Published (anyone with a pulse can get published), On the Number of Poets (zillions, but there aren't more excellent poets), On Workshops (they're delusional), and On Judging Contests ("You do it blind"). The last topic is a thinly veiled defense against the likes of the Foetry crowd. Lovely article on Ruth Stone, and Rita Dove looks pretty sassy.
Harper's has a couple of typically left-leaning and well-researched articles: Bremer's NeoCon-driven mismanagement, the right-wing enculturation machine. Best quote, by Lapham on Gingrich:"nasty, brutish, and short."
Wired purports that Arnold is The Future of American Politics. CI answers the question "Could we find a jarred tomato sauce with fresh taste and good balance of flavors?"
Posted by jbahr at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)
Electoral End-Run
I read a lot of political news feeds, political blogs, and mainstream magazines. I listen to Air America, NPR and American Patriot Radio. So how come I've never heard about this, this, or this?
If sites like these are correct, and the polling data that underlie the predictions are accurate, then Kerry has been ahead of Bush for months in terms of electoral votes. This cannot possibly have escaped the attention of either party's analysts. Unless Kerry is caught in bed with Nancy Reagan, he's a shoo-in to win the Northeast Corridor, Minnesota and Illinois. It's gotten tighter recently, but California is probably in the bag, along with Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Iowa. I've done the counts for almost a month, and Kerry has been leading by 15 to 35 electoral votes.
95% of the polls I read focus on the popular vote, which, as we all learned in 2000, doesn't get you elected. Sure, Bush has the whole Red Zone locked up from Idaho to South Carolina, but the whole South still doesn't add up to one California. It doesn't seem likely that Bush could win by anything but a small margin, but Kerry could win by enough of a margin to actually look like a mandate.
There is also the distinct possibility that Bush wins the popular vote and narrowly loses in electoral votes. The Republicans will scream bloody murder, the Supreme Court justices will pout because they didn't get to be involved again, and both Parties will work to gerrymander even more legislative districts.
Update: CNN claims that Bush is now ahead in electoral votes by a margin of 274 to 264. They reach this conclusion by ceding Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas to the Bush Team. CNN appears to have little additional information upon which to make this assessment.
Posted by jbahr at 06:59 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2004
BAP 2004
I've been following the Best American Poetry series for 7 years. I have a complete set, something that's harder to acquire than you would think. I've also entered all the poets and contributing literary publications in a database, to make some sense of what poems get selected, and by whom, and why. I made a study of the results a couple of years ago, which, in retrospect, was both naive and accurate. I have a different view of BAP nowadays. I still believe that it's a snapshot of America's more interesting/noted/trendy poets, and not the American poetry per se. Having had a large fraction of a decade to digest the series, I'm beginning to come around to the notion that BAP does a good job of circumscribing the Big Tent. If you read five or six in a row, of course, which irons out the idiosyncracies of individual guest editors (e.g., the adored or despised BAP 2002).
I've just begun reading BAP 2004 seriously. Lyn Hejinian is this year's guest editor, which would lead some to believe that we were in for another round of Creeley's excesses. Not so, really. This year's model is an intriguing mix of the Same Old White Guys (e.g., Pinsky), the Rebel Contingent (e.g., O.K. Davis), the PoPoMo Crowd (e.g., Alice Notley), the Big Press Run Poets (e.g., Jane Hirshfield), the Deep Poets (e.g., Carl Phillips and Anne Carson), the Poets Who Refuse To Capitilize (e.g, kari edwards), and the Poets Whose Name Is Just Short Of Believable (e.g., Heidi Peppermint). And that's not all. There's Wagoner, Silliman, Stern, Addonizio, Koch, Dinh, and Burkard. For God's sake, there's even BC. Extra points to Ms. Hejinian for inserting Mary Jo Bang between Ashbery and Bernheimer. You have to hand it her for throwing together perhaps the most eclectic volume in the series' history.
OK, more than fluff in my next post.
Posted by jbahr at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)
A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care ...
I've spent too many years on poetry boards penning posts about technology. Ditto politics. Seems like a good idea to put everything in one place. Who knows, maybe there's a connection.
Apologies to Frank Herbert.
Posted by jbahr at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)