Nashville's first Restaurant Week ended for us with a dinner at The Acorn. The week was lackluster for me, as I was expecting quite a bit from a lot of Nashville's "original" restaurants (in my opinion, all the original and tasty restaurants are on Nolensville Pike). However, I was glad the week ended on a high note at The Acorn.

Unlike other places I had been to, The Acorn actually had a special menu created for Restaurant Week, although I didn't think a lot of people were going there specifically for Restaurant Week because we had to ask for their special menus. I'm assuming their regular menu is good enough to attract a steady stream of customers.

Side note: as with Germantown, the lighting was dim so the pictures are extremely blah, but I believe seeing the food is as much a part of the meal as tasting it. (I would never go to those gimmicky blackout restaurants.)

Deviled egg on a bed of frisee and spinach, praline bacon and sweet tea vinaigrette. The description of the dish doesn't really match up with the presentation, though. The bacon was sweet and crisp, and paired with a simple deviled egg. I popped the entire thing in my mouth to get the full effect: there was a mishmash of crunchy and mushy along with some smokiness and sweetness, and maybe even some eggy goodness. When I try to recall the flavor, the bacon reminds me of hard candy. The sweet tea vinaigrette was subtle, and didn't really add too much flavor to the salad. It's a shame this dish isn't offered on their regular menu. Maybe if I wish hard enough the deviled eggs (or just the bacon) make a comeback sometime.

Pan fried trout, butternut squash confit, brown butter vinaigrette, bacon and walnut crumbs. I couldn't really point out the flavors of the fish in this dish. I definitely tasted fish (in a good way, not in the old fishy way), but I probably wasn't able to appreciate this dish in its entirety because I don't know what brown butter tastes like. The trout had a nicely crisped skin with meat that flaked nicely underneath. Not many places serve fish with skin, so I was pleasantly surprised to find it on the trout. I thought the real winner here, though, was the butternut squash confit. Although a misnomer (confit is made from duck or other meat), this butternut squash tart had a thin and crisp crust with layers of sweet squashy flesh. It made me yearn for fall and the arrival of all things pumpkin-related. Each slice of squash was soft, with hints of sweetness.

Gooey brown butter cake with a sea salt crust and strawberry jam. This cake reminded me of French and Asian desserts, which are made with less sugar, or at least don't taste like they'll induce cavities. The cake itself was ok, but I think it was the mix of sea salt, strawberry jam, and whipped cream that gave the dessert its depth. Just like people, it's not always about the prettiest cakes; it's ok if the cake was a little dumpy and splotched with whipped cream--the cake had character, and that's what counts.

I solidified my decision to go to The Acorn the moment I first saw their special menu for Restaurant Week. A lot of places I've eaten at play it safe in terms of flavors and ingredients. Let's face it: Asian fusion isn't contemporary anymore. Kraft came out with wasabi ranch sauce years ago. Oh, and I don't care about wasabi mashed potatoes. But sea salt on cake? That's something you don't see often in Nashville. And that's what I was looking for: something original, something I haven't had before, something that didn't conform to other trends. My brain had to slow down and savor each individual flavor so it could comprehend what was hitting my tastebuds at each moment. It never occurred to me that I could ever think that deeply. How about that?

Follow up to The Street Hits the Fan:

The Dow Jones Avg. partially recovered with the biggest point jump in history, up 936 points by the close of Columbus Day. 

Lala Thoughts: Keep in mind, I have an art degree, but i think, there wasn't any cold hard cash to begin with for the basis for our economic Rumspringa of the 2000's. 

People were grabbing money from the equity in their homes (because the market said that the value of the home was increasing). The value of the home was intangible, it was inflated, it's not as if the homes doubled in size or gained an ocean view, they were just magically worth more. 

At the same time the economy was growing based on consumer spending that was spurred by our credit cards and loans. Our credit cards were feeding the consumer market strength. 

At no step of the prosperity was there actual money involved. 

So now we must suffer the free market leveling itself out. I do believe some strategic damage control is ideal but there is a fundamental balancing out or backlash of the Hummer prosperity we must go throught before market equality is reached. 

And to all the peops and pundits trying to point to Congress or lenders or Corporate America to place the blame, there wont be a single person or scapegoat to pin this on. It was a climate of greed and money where bending the rules made everyone rich and happy so who was going to speak out against it? No one.

The roots run deep, as you can see in this short ad the McCain group put out about Obama -- but what is Biden not telling you about the real X factor in this campaign?

Obama's idol and early mentor Malcolm X. All those Chicago types you've been reading about and don't quite know who they are? Well the American Press is too chicken or too stupid to let you know. The Australian Press isn't. Here is the story...

Obama's Weatherman shows which way the wind blows

"...Obama was, of course, only about nine when all this started, and wasn't directly involved in the Weather Underground. However, in his autobiography Dreams From My Father (2004), he makes it clear that he was seeking in his youth to construct an identity as an African-American activist, drawing inspiration from Malcolm X, the radical face of the Nation of Islam, and other radicals from the '60s.

Indeed, in his second book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), he declares himself to be a pure product of the '60s and specifically distinguishes the "pre-1967 liberalism" of his mother with "its sweet-natured romanticism", from his own radical political outlook based in the hard-core revolutionary currents of 1968 and the other violent years that followed.

He described how his vision of the '60s was shaped by images of Black Panther leader Huey Newton, the fierce battle between police and demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic national convention, the ignominious last-second escape of defeated US personnel from Saigon, and the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont where Hells Angels bashed a young man to death.

Starting college in 1979, Obama describes how he chose his friends carefully: "The more politically active black students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performers."

He describes how they discussed "neo-colonialism, Frantz Fanon (the Black Power hero and apostle of cleansing violence), Eurocentrism, and patriarchy"; and how he read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness "to help me understand just what it is that makes white people so afraid ... Their demons..."

Ever wonder about that radical segregationist thesis his wife wrote? We did. Given that college life in the 1980's was so post Martin Luther King for many of us in America. But not in the Obama's world. Have a read of Slate on this:

Are We Getting Two for One?

Is Michelle Obama responsible for the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?

"...I direct your attention to Mrs. Obama's 1985 thesis at Princeton University. Its title (rather limited in scope, given the author and the campus) is "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be "read" at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language. Anyway, at quite an early stage in the text, Michelle Obama announces that she's much influenced by the definition of black "separationism" offered by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 screed Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America..."

Well, it worked for her. We all read Malcolm X in High School, but some of us chose to follow Dr. Martin Luther King. She didn't and neither did he. What else don't we know about this couple who are pretending to be the Kennedy's redux? My sense is a lot of things. Especially where the Chicago Communist set comes in. Or Ayers and Dohrn.

Look at the Acorn connection, and that $800,000 payment the Obama's made to them to help set up all the vote fraud currently ongoing. He'll use any method it takes, won't he? But, VOTER FRAUD?

Take a look, here:

Camp Pain in Philly

"...Once we arrived at the events, reporters were walled off behind metal barricades. That made it easier to get some writing and photo editing done on the fly — tables and power outlets were provided everywhere we went — but it also largely kept reporters away from the crowds at each stop. Some journalists — like the Inquirer’s Larry Eichel — interviewed people over the barricades. Others typed furiously on their laptops and checked their BlackBerries every five minutes.

There was only so much to report. Obama gave a nearly identical speech at each of his four stops. There were variations, depending on the audience — he echoed Malcolm X to the mostly–black audience at Progress Plaza, warning them not to be ”bamboozled” by McCain’s campaign ads. To the heavily union crowd at Mayfair Diner, though, he quoted Ronald Reagan, asking if Philadelphians were better off than they were four years ago.

Otherwise, though, there was not much variation. At all four stops, Obama told a story about having pie in Ohio at a diner owned by a Republican. Reporters quickly beaome weary of the repetition. The job was to get off the bus, listen to a speech, then get back on the bus. We were little more than a professional audience..."

Hmm...

Where did we just see those DNC protest cages and the truth squads? It appears to be a pattern with this camp doesn't it? Kind of militant? And suppressive? Yeah. It is, just like the tactics ACORN used with all those banks isn't it?

Our first clue to all of this should have been when the entire PUMAvote was discounted, no? That would be all the liberal really progressive long term Democrats. Basically, they told us to fuck off, didn't they?

Wasn't that Brazile, back then? And, throughout this campaign anyone who has been critical of Obama has been called a racist haven't they? It's a strong arm tactic we can trace back to Malcolm X. What total bullshit. It's up to Americans to call Obama out on all of this. He's not working for America in toto -- in fact his idols and associates HATE the concept of AMERICA! Wow. Watch:

Just knowing who his friends are? It makes an American wonder about his $455,000,000 global fund raising, no? Where that came from -- while our FEC in Washington was in shutdown mode earlier this year. They haven't even accounted for half of it, yet.

More is here -- all those strange sounding names that Obama doesn't want America to know about. No wonder the crowds are yelling treason and traitor. It's bad. No, the question is what does Joe Biden have to do with all this? Democrats want to know!

Well, Joe -- it's time for you to come clean on ACORN, isn't it?

For the American People's sake?

Obama's Three Strikes

"...Obama, it appears, once acted as counsel for the organization. His campaign counters that he was just one of a large team of attorneys. Considering his story regarding Ayers, we can be excused for wanting to look more closely at the relationship, but there we're stymied. Obama's records with ACORN are one of the many that he refuses to release

And now we reach number three: the New Party. Thomas Lifson provides as clear an explanation as we'll find:

The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within.

...and that, it seems, could fairly be called "enemy action".

A terrorist bomber, what may be the largest vote-fraud operation in history, and a political party calling for a socialist revolution in the United States. Obama has certainly been a busy little bee -- though not too busy, it seems, to cover his tracks in all three cases. As well he might -- anybody with such a history has a few questions to answer. And Obama knows this full well, considering the effort he's put into ducking those exact questions since his campaign began..."

Sarah Palin is a fundamentalist, "born-again" Christian. This may not seem like a big deal to many of those reading this, but Palin's form of fundamentalist beliefs is "fundamentally" dangerous for this country. Here are some examples:

• Palin supports teaching creationism in public schools. Why is this a problem? Because the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that there shall be no laws made respecting one religion over another in this country. This is a concept central to our democracy and standing as an actually free country. To teach creationism in school would lift Christianity up as some state-sponsored, qualified faith that holds some truth that other religions, beliefs and, worst of all, science doesn't possess. The Constitution notwithstanding, I expect Palin would support teaching Christian doctrines to the exclusion of all others. Why do I think this? Because a fundamentalist Christian believes all other faiths are not only wrong, but unacceptable, corrupt and against God's will.
• Palin, as a fundamentalist Christian, believes that anyone who does not accept Jesus Christ and His teaching will, literally and without question, be burned alive in an eternal "lake of fire," where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth" for a literal eternity. How can a country's leader who believes things like this have any kind of positive foreign policy with nations that may not consider themselves Christian? They can't. If you are a fundamental Christian, you believe people like Muslims are heathens going against God's will. If you believe that, you are less likely to stop and think before sending bombs in their direction. Which brings me to my next point.
• Palin herself has said the war in Iraq is "God's will." What I would like to know is how come God talks to her and not me? How come she has a direct line to the all-powerful, omnipotent creator of the universe, and I don't? What about all of us who oppose the war? Whose will are we supporting?

Palin also opposes abortion in all cases, including situations of rape and incest. She supports off-shore drilling, which by its nature releases gases many times more potent that carbon dioxide and will compound whatever greenhouse gas emission problems we currently have many times over. Most experts agree that such drilling would produce no benefits for at least 10 years.

Why are all these things problems? Why am I so adamantly against a Palin-McCain administration?

Well, among other things, I believe in free will.

Even those of you who are fundamentalist Christians yourselves must acknowlege the fact that God "in the garden" never forced Adam and Eve to not sin. He let them choose. As such, who are we to make things we may consider "sins" illegal?

I may not agree with abortion (I'm truly indifferent), but it isn't my job to go and say that because I think it's wrong you should be prosecuted for doing it. It's a moral issue, and you should be allowed to make your own choice.

God didn't make sin illegal - He Himself (Herself, Itself, whatever) is pro-choice. That is inarguable.

We can't go about making laws prohibiting things we think are wrong because of some religious tradition. It's ridiculous. We are at a time in history when superstition is no longer excusable. Things like embyonic stem cell research (Proposal 2 on this years ballot in Michigan) should be allowed if for no other reason than because there is no good reason not to allow it. These are embryos that are being thrown in the garbage as medical waste whether they are used for research or not.

The fact is that Republicans, at least the ones significant to us in these next few weeks, want to make laws that restrict the things that we as sovereign individuals can do. They want to take our free will. Even worse, those like Palin want to do so based on there own personal, religious beliefs.

The Republicans not only want to play God - they want to go one step further than even God did. They want to take away our right to "sin."

Is that a right you're willing to give away so freely?

With the presidential election less than a month away, you should be asking yourself what you believe about our Constitution. Do those in power use our constitution as a fluid document that changes without proper authority through political means to attain a goal? Alternatively, is our constitution the document, which states how our government runs and establishes the limits of authority of our elected officials?

If you believe the first question is correct then you are probably a person who fails to understand that freedom is not free. Additionally probably think freedom a free for all as you go through life. If you believe, the second question is correct you are probably a person who sees the multitude of problems that exist in America; brought on by a lack of responsibility, self-control, and in good dose of immediate gratification. Additionally, you were wondering what happened to the world in which we live.

It is the belief of this writer that if you wish to see the continued downfall of America and the collapse of a moral society. Then you should vote for the illusion of success. If you wish to see America becomes strong and the beginning of rebuilding our American foundation; time has come take the responsibility for the mistakes we have made, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and understand that freedom is not free.

This is not an issue of color, of party, of religion, of faith, of family; rather it is an issue of truth, justice, and the survival of our nation as the Lord God intended America.

United we stand and divided we fall… the choice is yours to make

Blessings

AV1

These words were spoken by Barack Obama. These two sentences contain within them a sublime discourse regarding Self versus Other, Perception versus Reality, Hope versus Despair. The human condition, being experienced - at its most fundamental level - with a viscerality that ties us together One to the Other as a holistic human family, bonds each of us in a Web of Causality that wreaks existential havoc upon belief systems based upon Seperation, rather than Unity. Barack Obama's propensity to transcend perceived weaknesses achieves exit velocity with the above statement, revealing an in-depth understanding of the world as it is, and a hopeful forshadowing of the world as it should be.

Each things is connected to the next, each existence entangled at the quantum level, ensconced within a matrix-like and sub-conscious Sea of Potentiality that rises through levels of consciousness in the forms of Archetypes and Symbols that span the gamut of human experience and interpretation, providing us with a wealth of experiential examples that, if accessed, could shed light upon current and future conditions. Obama's statement regarding his status as an African-American awakens deeper meanings that originated in the soils of the Eurasian and African continents and is being played out here, in the rich and prosperous soil of the Americas.  

"I self-identify as African American."

According to Geographers, Anthropologists and Historians, The Americas were the last lands to be inhabited by members of the Human Family. The Aborignal peoples who descended upon this continent came by way of the Bering Strait land bridge, equatorial currents and hard, lengthy treks from points North, East and West, culminating in European Westward Expansion and the eras of Exploration, Imperialism, Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism and, finally, Globalism. To self-identify one's Self as African American is merely to assign a designation to the directional flow of genetic bequeathment. To state that, at some point in the past, some of one's Ancestors arrived in the Americas from Africa.

It has been revealed recently that Obama also has Cherokee ancestry, and that his European ancestry also includes Scottish and Irish strains as well as his East African-Kenyan ancestry, which makes Barack Obama officially tri-racial, a status shared by a significant proportion of the overall African-American population of not only the United States, but the Carribbean and Rimland regions of Central and South America, as well. By self-identifying as African-American, Obama is not only claiming a racial affiliation with individuals enslaved in Africa and brought to the Americas for labor, he is also claiming a cultural affiliation with the broad swath of syncretic social systems that have coalesced all across this continent, reflecting a dynamic and ongoing process of acculturation, as African, European and American cultural memes merge and meld inextricibly in the Crucible of Difference and Graduated Accretion that we alternately call a Melting Pot or Tossed Salad, depending upon our perceived position or status within the aforementioned System of Social Learning.

Barack Obama plays Basketball, listens to Hip Hop and is married to a Strong Black Woman. He had a fiery, black Preacher and learned the game of politics in the black neighborhoods of the South Side of Chicago. In some ways, he fits into a preconceived stereotype of black manhood that has been formed over centuries of genetic manipulation and conscious fear-mongering. But in other ways, he transcends the sterotype. He grew up in Hawaii and points East, attending Muslim schools and Elite Academies during his formative years. His immediate family includes members whose skin colors are of all possible hues and shades. He attended the best Universities in the country. He made choices based upon Service to Others, rather than Service to Self.

Barack Obama fulfills yet simultaneously transcends so much of the potential that is America as-lived and America as-dreamed. His self-identification as African American is an acknowledgement of the promise and the punishment, the hope and the despair, the beauty and ugliness of a Nation founded in the clouds and yet mired in the mud of socioeconomic inequity. He lifts us, while also reminding us that there are heights that ascend far past the level of cloud formation, extending out into the starry sky of inconceivable promise, beyond even our most fervent ability to dream and hope.

"That's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed, and I'm proud of it."

All humans are equal, be they male or female, black, white yellow or brown, tall or short, over weight or under. All souls, spirits are One, be they human or animal, plant or rock, the animating force which Quantum Physics states imbues even cellular lifeforms with consciousness animates all of creation, binds us all within the field of the zero-point energy continuum. Nothing is better than anything else, only different. No one is above or beyond anyone else, only representing different aspects of one, greater Entity, one, greater Consciousness, one, greater Potentiality.

And yet, the dichtomous, segregative function of perception foments illusions of difference and we exascerbate the physical differences with cultural differences that span an infinite range of possible exclusionary points of offense. The peculiar history of Western European Society and its relationship to Indigenous Cultures the world across contains, indisputably, a clear and incontestable stain of xenophobic behavior that continues to result in the inhumane and violent treatment of darker-skinned people all across the world during the expansionist phases of Monarchial and Mercantile European Nations leading up to and including the present day.

Up until very recently, there were no benefits to being identified as an African American - or Black - male. In fact, it has, traditionally, been quite the opposite. From the creation of an entire Federal Prison System designed to cage black men recently freed from slavery, to the experimentation upon groups of black men to determine the side-effects of syphillis, black men have been used and abused, their life spans still the shortest amongst the soaring numbers representative of the ethnically diverse, American population. Given the comedically significant choice of being rich and black or poor and white, many might still choose whiteness over any semblance of perceived blackness, i.e., irrevocable social pariah status.

Given the choice between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, most people might just choose the Deep Blue Sea. It is the Unknow or X Factor in this choice that makes it so attractive, because, who knows? One might get swallowed up by a whale like Jonah in the bible, or rescued by a submarine as one founders, surrounded by hungry sharks and dark despair beneath the pale and unforgiving light of a bloated and distant moon.

Choosing to be African American and choosing to be proud of it automatically infers the existence of a choice. A choice to either be African American, or to be something other-than African American. For Barack Obama, a multiracial designation might have been a practical alternative. Many children of ethnically-diverse parentage choose this option, joining a burdgeoning cadre of multi-racial Others who choose neither black nor white, asian-indigenous nor black, white nor asian-indigenous. Who make the third, intermediary choice, forsaking either extreme. Barack Obama's decision to plant himself firmly on one side of the equation is a testament to his life-long attempt to work through a social and political forumlation of potentiality and preference, of accepting the negative and the positive both and moving beyond either extreme, in search of higher ground.

It is, in the end, a question of Self as opposed to the Other. The tendency of people to identify those different than them based upon surface, physical or cultural differences. The sheer preponderance of  group perceptions wars constantly with self-perception, and most come to an uneasy truce between who they beleive themselves to be, combined within the parameters of who society determines them to be which can either increase or limit their possibilities within Society.  In-groups versus Out-groups, Majority versus Minority, Self versus Other. This war wages within every human and plays out on the stage of our own personal spheres of interaction and intention, resulting in the competiing threads of cultural metanarratives and personal transformation.

Choosing the attempt to transcend these designations, therefore, is a weighty task, and certainly not for the faint of heart. It can occur by rejecting them outright or embracing them. Barack Obama's singular Life Path has prepared him to travel a path of inclusion and acceptance, based upon his own personal experiences within some of the most diverse physical and cultural terrains existent upon the face of the Earth. By proudly proclaiming his self-identified status as a member of one of the most contradictory ethnic groups in America, Barack Obama has stated his willingness to accept the challenge of cultural transcendence. By proudly embracing the societally-derived stigmata that has been associated with African Americans for centuries, Barack Obama has stated his willingness to accept the terms of engagement as defined by Society. 

He has chosen to take the ball upcourt with full knowledge of the defensive position in the attempt to attain the goal by a steady and unrelenting attack that exploits the weaknesses of the opposition, while supporting the strengths of his own team. The Court of Political Awakening is the stage upon which this drama has been set, and Barack Obama has prepared for a lifetime to accept the challenge, and take the game to the next level. And, by proudly continuing to be fully who he is as an individual, Barack Obama has attained Avataric status, exemplifying the innately human drive to "change one's stars" and ascend to the heights of political and social attainment, no matter the barriers that might stand in his way.

American Idol cannot be the honest standard for American music these days for these reasons:

#1: Everyone on American Idol is looking for fame. I've yet to see someone on American Idol say that they love singing so much that they'd be happy if they didn't win; just singing in front of people is enough. Everyone on the show is looking for their first royalty check before they even get into the first judging. While it's not a problem that people want to get famous; it is a problem when being famous out does you want for the music.

#2: Judging is extremely biased! No one watches the show and votes without having the judges comments in mind. If the show wants to really get America's opinion just do the show with the musical acts and vote; do the vote on the results show. Plus look at the judges: Randy Jackson, (Producer to such talentless acts like the RECENT Mariah Carey. He doesn't produce music, he produces voice from a computer) Paula Abdul (A singer whose Career tanked worse than the Titanic) and Simon Cowell (this is the man who puts together albums for talentless; but, profitable acts like the Power Rangers and Alvin & the Chipmunks)who says they're qualified to judge these marginally talented kids?

#3: The signing is clearly for those people who have NEVER experienced a live act before. The singing at best is "ok". The poor kids have to look left at the camera and then move gracefully to the right and look into camera B longingly as if they've lost someone they really care about. All of those theatrics (combined with the dumbest Auidence; swaying thiner hands back and forward during every slow song and clapping at any horrible performance)must make it hard to concentrate on FEELING the music. Ever seen Tina Turner on stage? She most certainly doesn't have the time to worry about Camera B and looking pretty so that every shot they take of her can make the A.M. news the next day.

#4: It's on T.V.! Just being on the television already takes away from your musical credibility; if you can't make a song SOUND good you can't substitute that for making a song LOOK good.

If you want American Idol to be credible...

Put it on the Radio.

At home, my mother told me about the forts that the Spaniards built on her island of Puerto Rico. Some of these forts were started as early as the 1540’s and were added to, for the next several centuries. While some Spaniards were building these strongholds in PR, others led by Coronado, for example, were marching across the southwest US in what is now New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, also discovering and claiming new lands for the monarchs overseas.

In our school books, Columbus was described as the discoverer of the New World; but then came the Conquistadors with names like Cortes, Pizarro, Balboa and even one Cabeza de Vaca (cow’s head). I found it easier to pronounce these names than my teachers did, but that didn’t help my understanding. The story I was learning now, was getting very confusing. These small bands of armed men were roaming around the American countryside discovering and renaming things the people they were conquering, had already discovered and named. Even today, the southwest and west of the US echoes in its names, the passage of this history in places like Colorado (reddish), Nevada (snow covered), Montana (Mountain), Los Angeles (the angels), Palo Alto (high pole), El Paso (the passage), and hundreds of others.

So what did Columbus have to do with US history? I didn’t get it. He was an Italian sailor, backed by the Spanish monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. His voyage opened up a trail for other Spaniards looking to discover new riches and claim lands in the name of the Spanish throne. There did not seem to be a connection between Columbus and the United States, really. In his four trips to the New World, he never made it further north than Central America. But what Columbus did, was begin a great story about what happened when these two different worlds met. He began a narrative with heroes and villains, and set up a framework for our national mythos.

On my last visit to Puerto Rico in 1981, when I was fourteen, we visited one of the Spanish forts, Castillo de San Felipe del Morro, named after King Phillip II of Spain. I remember being impressed by its size and by the weight that the place seemed to express with every thing; the iron work, the bolts in the floors, the anchors for the cannons. We were able to explore several dark passages where there were holding cages for prisoners and traitors. My mother refused to venture in to see these rooms because as a little girl she was told that they also held slaves and natives in those rooms. From this fort and others like it, the Spanish held off the other powers of the old world and held el Puerto Rico (the rich port) for themselves for nearly four centuries.

What Columbus started in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, a small group of religious separatists were about to duplicate in the colder northern part of the Hemisphere. We learned in school the amazing story of the Pilgrims and the Mayflower who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and suffered, unprepared, through a harsh New England winter, I endure yearly now. What the textbooks didn’t say was that there had been nearly twenty other unsuccessful ventures that tried to establish a foothold in the north for the British monarchs. The books also fail to mention that the Mayflower’s passengers had obtained a deed to found their colony in Virginia, close to the already established Jamestown colony. Had the Mayflower not been blown off course, however, we wouldn’t have the first great chapter in our national story, that of Thanksgiving, and we’d have to invent some other heroic beginning. What began with Columbus’ landing, continued in the north with the establishment of the British colonies.

It’s no coincidence, of course, that our part of the country is called New England. Here too, the past echoes its roots in the names of places like Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford, Gloucester, New London, and hundreds of others. My father, after whom I’m named, was born in 1945 in Manta, Ecuador, far from this part of North America’s eastern seaboard. Even though no one in my father’s family spoke English, they understood the power of the language and the call of the American dream. They were given names like Walter, Edison, Daniel, and Gladys. My father’s name is Henry not Enrique, and his middle name which he passed on to all three of his sons, is Wilson. There was not a Jose or Manuel or Carlos in the bunch when they arrived in New York City in 1964 seeking their fortunes.

Like everyone since Columbus landed somewhere in the Caribbean, my parents came to the New World seeking fortune and opportunity. In the story of the US, the original settlers first had to combat the elements and the no-longer-so-friendly natives to pursue this cause. As I was learning about the establishment of our fledgling country, the heroic names of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and others replaced the stories of the conquistadors. Around this same time, I also discovered books that described the horrible encounters between those explorers I once viewed as heroic and the natives of my mother’s island and my father’s homeland. I was confused again about Columbus Day and why we celebrated it in the United States. I read the first hand accounts written by Bartolome de las Casas of the brutality inflicted upon the natives all over the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America by the Spaniards. During the course of this civilizing campaign, the Spaniards took with them overseas corn, potatoes, vanilla, tomatoes, papayas, bananas and whatever precious gems and metals they could.

In my home, I heard stories from my radical uncles about revolutionaries named Simon Bolivar, Antonio Jose de Sucre, Pancho Villa, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. These were men they told me, that led the charge for independence from their colonizing Spaniard masters. For too long, Spain had oppressed not the natives of these places, necessarily, for they were powerless, but the people who had learned enough about history to demand an equal station in the world. Likewise, in the thirteen colonies, the revolt against British rule came from a group of educated men who were prepared to demand recognition as a sovereign body, even as they shackled actual bodies in pursuit of wealth. I could no longer keep the story line straight in my little head.

In a fifth grade social studies report, I questioned whether Thomas Jefferson was really a hero, since my uncle Edison told me that he had slaves and a black girlfriend. I thought I was fair, having copied straight from the encyclopedia evidence that Jefferson’s genius extended to writing, architecture and statesmanship; but my teacher still disagreed with my final conclusion that he was not a hero, but just a man. Columbus too, I could no longer see as a hero. By the time I was in high school, I was reading books like the Autobiography of Malcolm X and a host of other writers that had come from the civil unrest of the 1960s. They reinforced my perspective that Columbus’ landing had started something that wasn’t solely worth celebrating … it wasn’t like he had landed on the moon, for example, where no one was conquered.

But the story of the United States, didn’t seem to me early on to be about conquest. The Pilgrims were seeking religious freedom. The colonists were defending their territories. The pioneers were looking for new opportunities. The narrative was clear, the heroes were defending the pursuit of freedom against the elements and the savages. I just wasn’t sure what side I was on.

In appearance I look to be a typical Caucasian male of some mixed background. I have been mistaken as Italian, Greek, French, Turkish, and even Japanese (only in Hawai’i). On my mother’s side I have family members who are dark skinned, but can’t trace their history on the island of PR very far. My father’s side, which comes from Ecuador is equally curious. I have relatives who claim to be descendents of the Inca, while other members, like my father’s father who had gray eyes and dirty blonde hair and was nicknamed by his American co-workers, Il Duce, obviously come from European stock.

Which leaves me being born in Brooklyn in 1967, to a brown-skinned, teenaged Puerto Rican mother, and a pale-skinned, twenty-something Ecuadorian father. We spoke Spanish at home as I learned English from television and the streets, before I started attending school in 1972. Public School 299, where I went until the fourth grade is in the middle of the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Today, just as it was when I was growing up, it is a predominantly black neighborhood with pockets of new immigrants still arriving from south and central America and the islands of the Caribbean. The landscape is dominated by three story tenements and the weaving metal course of the elevated train. Three hundred years before I was born, the Dutch named this area "Boswijk" meaning "heavy woods" or "town in the woods". The British who took it over called it Bushwick Green. By the time my family arrived to the area, there were few trees to be found.

When we moved in 1977 to a different Brooklyn neighborhood on the border with Queens, our new home had a small backyard with a tree that produced nasty, green apples. Instead of renting an apartment, this time my parents bought their first home. A brick-faced, two-family row house with a finished basement in Cypress Hills. Like Bushwick, there weren’t many trees in my new neighborhood, except for the eponymous cemetery that seemed to stretch for miles when I saw it from the elevated train. But this neighborhood was different because here there were Italian-Americans who lived on my block. For these guys, Columbus was still a hero, and Columbus Day was a holiday worth celebrating.

But that wasn’t the most serious point of contention between us and the "white boys". We didn’t argue politics or understand history. We just knew we were different because of how we dressed and our tastes in music and what we caught each other eating on the front steps of our houses. We made fun of their rock bands with long hair and screaming singers. They yelled back that what we were listening to wasn’t even real music. We accused them of being greasy, they accused us of being lazy. In the end, it was settled with a soccer match; in the streets, during weekdays, and on the local high school field on the weekends.

The Hispanic kids in my new neighborhood came from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, and El Salvador. Still, we bragged about Argentina’s and Brazil’s World Cup prowess. The "white boys" didn’t care so much for West Germany or England. Their soccer heroes were Italian, and the first back-to-back World Cup championships belonged to them only. When Italy won the World Cup in Spain, of all places, I was fifteen and the matches on our street, as well as the talk and braggadocio, got pretty heated. By the time Argentina reclaimed the title, four years later, most of the white families on my block were gone.

Christopher Columbus did not come up once in our arguments or disagreements, but I believe that he was part of why we were in conflict, and why they moved away. And why I’m still confused about what to do on Columbus Day.

© 2008 henry toromoreno

Last Thursday when I gotten my free sandwich from AQ Kafe, I walked over two blocks to the Time Warner Building to visit Bouchon Bakery for something sweet to cap off my lunch. When I peered in their refrigerated pastry case, I saw something I haven't eaten since I was a wee lass, Ho-Hos.

That's one fancy Ho-ho...

Knowing that Chef Thomas Keller likes to play with desserts and nostalgia (for example, their TKO is an upscale version of the Oreo cookie and the Nutter Butter) with pretty good results, I thought I might as well give it a try. Just looking at it before starting to ingest this baby, it's quite large and promising.

Innards

When I took a bite, I was relatively disappointed. Bouchon's Ho-Ho is definitely elegant but the ratio of vanilla-specked whipped cream to cake is practically 3:1. Don't get me wrong, I love whipped cream but it was overkill for my preference. The cake was moist and chocolate-y as the crisp, chocolate coating (due to tempering) was good. I think what threw me off was the fact that I'm expecting the original Ho-Ho, which obviously doesn't work out.

Pumpkin Pie-OH-MY! (Really)

After my work day was done I headed over to Shake Shack since I had time on my hands until I have to head over to the Serious Eats office to pick up macarons from Mitzy. (I'll talk about that later.)

Pumpkin Pie-Oh-My! Concrete

Despite the fact that's it's almost 5 PM, the A-line (the line for burgers and everything else) was quite long. I would estimate a 30-minute wait by the time I would be ordering, if I felt hungry enough to eat a burger. But it wasn't my craving. I wanted (or desire?) their Pumpkin Pie-Oh-My! concrete. Even though I had to linger for 15 minutes or so, it was worth the wait.

The dense, creamy vanilla custard blended with chunks of nicely spiced pumpkin pie. Not too sweet, not too heavily spiced that I was in custard heaven. Also the amount of whipped cream wasn't off the wazoo compared to what I ate earlier at Bouchon.

There's a tree house?

But while I was taking my time eating my concrete and people watching around the park, I realized that there's a tree house. That struck me as...odd. Since when was this up?

Mitzy's Macarons of AWESOMENESS!

As I've mentioned earlier, I've been graced by Mitzy's macarons. She came in from New Jersey to drop them off at Serious Eats' office. Here's a photo splodge of the macarons she gave me to sample:

MACARONS!

In case you haven't her post about her class with the legendary pastry chef Pierre Herme, I suggest you to read it. She has learned a lot from this man (or should I say, pastry god?). She's inspired to start a macaron business hence the reason why she (along with Robyn and a few other lucky people) trying out her delightful experiments. I'm seriously grateful to be her guinea pig.

I have no doubt that she would crush pretty much all of the competition in NYC. Each time I've eaten her macarons, they keep getting better and better. The crust is perfectly thin and crisp. The crumb is fluffy, not too moist and flavorful of whatever flavor it supposed to be (like pistachio actually taste like a pistachio, not some alcoholic almond flavor). The fillings are spot on in terms of sweetness. I cannot find a flaw in these macarons except wanting more of them. Now I feel like I'm going through macaron withdrawal since I'm hankering for one now...

Bouchon Bakery
10 Columbus Circle, 3rd Floor
New York, NY (map)

Shake Shack
Southeast corner of Madison Ave & 23rd Street
New York, NY (map)

Last week, I heard the best compliment about the United States. Two LLM international law students from Ghana were talking about their lasting impressions of the United States and the University of Minnesota Law School, respectively. Unlike Europe, they both said, no one in the U.S. has ever asked them when they were going to leave.

This could be written off as merely overblown American pride. But it could also be the expression of something much deeper, much more important. Perhaps Brihan and Peter have never been asked about their exit because it is assumed they are here to stay and succeed, like so many other immigrants before them. And although the melting pot is a flawed metaphor, the beauty is that everyone is accepted because everyone is assumed to be striving for the same acceptance, same success, the same happiness.

Yesterday I found myself at Castle Clinton in Battery Park of New York City. Standing inside the circular battlements first designed to ward of the British in the War of 1812, I thought of the new welcome people receive coming to our shores. Since the World Trade Center towers fell just a few blocks from here, America has doubled its Border Patrol agents, tripled its budget, and is spending millions deporting some 250,000 extralegal immigrants every year (http://visalawcanada.blogspot.com/2008/10/interesting-perspective-on-canada-us.html). Lines lengthen on our northern border and nativism heightens on our southern boundary in the form of a border wall. Gone are the orange cones between Vermont and Canada which once designated the border and represented our mutual trust.

In 2001, Tom Ridge was instrumental in passing the Smart Accords, border security measures which simultaneously attempted to curb criminal activity on the border while expediting legitimate economic activity. The idea was to “manage risk” by submitting questionable vehicles to lengthy inspection while speeding daily commuters through on their weekday drive from Detroit to Windsor. Canada even went so far as offering the United States a section of Canadian ground for pre-clearance facilities, to cut down on border wait times. The U.S. government, however, pushed for full sovereignty on Canadian soil, and so this Smart Accords measure has stalled.

This guide came about as a direct result of feedback from www.12StepTreatmentCentres.com our sister guide. Those registering with the guide and then recieving much higher volumes of traffic to their own web page pointed out that there was also a need for this service for all forms of addiction services and not just for there 12 Step specific client basis. Very quickly we realised that plenty of potential visitors where accessing the internet and other guide's looking for all forms of addiction help available. The feedback we recieved regarding the frustration some of those visitors where experiencing was quite extreme. Not being able to find an addiction service heard about but not knowing the exact name or exact spelling of a webpage, was leading some to letting go of the possibility of finding any help at all. ( this cannot be allowed to continue )

What we are doing here is offering one guide that will list all forms of addiction services so those seeking help can quickly and easily find what they need when they are needing it. We know this can and does change if contact isnt established with an organisation very quickly. This guide is aimed at providing an informative resource to people searching for assistance while either still using ( harm minimisation ) or looking for help with the process of stopping for either themselves or other family members. In this guide organisations can clearly explain their services aims and objectives and what you can expect or what the procedure is once contact is made. Services also show a good clear picture of what sort of environment they are working in by using the display for up to four clear pictures within there own page on the guide.

Our job section page is particularly busy with both service providers and visitors to the guide. An ideal opportunity to see what is available in the Addiction field through free adverts placed by those organisations already registered.

There is also an articles section on the guide that contains relevant information about addictions, alcoholism and various forms of treatment. We encourage those registering to donate there own articles of interest to the guide for publishing. This further gives a clearer picture of services and what sort of work they are doing.

So whether you are looking to book a place in an Addiction Service, chat about your situation or if you are an Addiction's Service provider we hope this guide helps to provide you with the necessary information and help you need for everything connected with your needs.

It's worth noting that 'Standard English' is also a national standard developed in nations other that England or the UK.  For example American Standard English would still be different to British Standard English.

There is a part of me that hopes to wake up one day and fit in effortlessly with Italian culture.  Go have my cappuccino, speak effortlessly to everyone I pass by, and never give a second thought to peoples whispers and glances.  However I would probably not be so intrigued by Italy if it were so easy.

Lately I'm feeling really detached from everything, friends, family, politics, and America in general.  My friend Barbara said she thought I was French until she heard me speak which, I took as a compliment but it’s really more of an observation.  I don’t really flaunt the fact that I’m an American.

Maybe I've been alienating myself too much from my country, maybe not openly expressing your from a country is worse than having it be obvious you're from a place that you're not especially proud of.
Is it all politics? Have I only become ashamed in the last eight years due to the distaste I have for the president? I wish I could lay all the blame on him but honestly I think he only added to my cause.  Hamburgers, sweat pants, microwaves, and to go cups this is what first comes to mind when I think about America a few seconds later I think of hard work, rolling fields, Chevy trucks, and excellent barbeque.

Now keep in mind, I’m in the first cycle of living in Europe where everything seems better and more efficient.  I know in a few months the pull of life long American habit will come (I have a strange craving for mac and cheese) and then the wishing (if only the showers were a little bigger) and finally full faced admitting it (I love it here but I need a fucking dryer that doesn’t cost me 6 Euro).  By the way hardly anyone owns a dryer here.

Now, I'm just trying to figure out what it really means to me to be an American, certainly I am forever thankful for the amazing opportunities I've recieved simply from being born on US land but that doesn't mean I am not critical of the abuse of power my countries leaders have made.  I'm trying to find a good balance and spread the word to Europeans about the America I love and break some of the stereotypes that make me cringe.  One thing is for sure, I'll always be American.

By Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 13, 2008; Page B06

Donald J.M. Blakeslee, 90, commander of the first American fighter squadrons to reach Berlin during World War II and one of the most successful combat fighter commanders in the history of the Air Force, died Sept. 3 of congestive heart failure at his home in Miami.

Over the years, he shunned would-be biographers and publicity of any kind, said his daughter, Dawn Blakeslee of Miami, his only immediate survivor. She said she did not announce her father's death last month because of his reluctance to call attention to his wartime heroics.

On Jan. 1, 1944, the Ohio native was named commander of the 4th Fighter Group of the 8th Fighter Command. He assumed command at a time when the German Luftwaffe ruled the skies over Europe.

Roy Heidicker, the 4th Fighter Group historian, recalled that Col. Blakeslee's message to his pilots was simple and straightforward: "We are here to destroy the Luftwaffe and shoot the Germans out of the sky, and that's what we're going to do."

Read the rest:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2008/10/12/AR2008101202095.html

Col. Blakeslee flew Spitfires early in World War II

Carmit Bachar

Emmy Rossum

Tila Tequila

AnnaLynne McCord

Janie Bryant

Nicole Chavez

Kristen Bell

Jamie Lynn Sigler

Holly Madison

Los chicos de MGMT nos traen un nuevo vídeo, y esta vez la canción elegida ha sido "The Youth".

El vídeo ha sido dirigido por Eric Wareheim, que lo posteó en su Facebook para darlo a conocer. Debajo del vídeo tenéis el enlace para descargarlo con buena calidad.

Vídeo en alta calidad

As documented here before, Reno has a new brewery, Buckbean Brewery.

Now, it has a medal-winning brewery in Buckbean!

Buckbean's Black Noddy Lager won the bronze medal in the schwarzbier category at the 2008 Great American Beer Festival in Denver. It's the first and not likely last medal.

Congrats to Doug and Dan in Reno!

Nice place and excellent food.

Good ambient and food. I loved the baked Cheddar Eggs with raisen fennel toast, apple butter & grits. The apple butter was delicious.