St. Patrick's Day Bread.

Treacle Bread is a slightly sweet Irish Soda Bread. It seemed an appropriate recipe for March because it is the month in which we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and most Americans pretend we are Irish for a day every year.

A thin slice of this bread well buttered or with a bit of jam and a cup of black tea in the afternoon is one of the finer pleasures in life. This bread toasts nicely too when it is a bit hard.

Miss Peggy Daum's Treacle Bread

3 cups sifted all purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon granulated Sugar
1 scant teaspoon Baking Soda
3/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup Molasses
1 cup Buttermilk, divided

Sift all purpose flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, and baking power into a large bowl. Thoroughly mix in whole wheat flour. Warm the molasses a bit and combine it with 1/2 the buttermilk. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and stir in the buttermilk mixture. You want a soft dough. So add the other bit of buttermilk as needed.

Turn out on a floured board. Knead only enough to shape into a ball. You do not want to develop gluten. Flatten the ball of dough into a circle 11/2 inches thick. Place into a greased and floured 8-9 inch baking pan. Dough does not have to fill the pan. Cut a cross 3/8 inch thick across the top and down the sides of the loaf.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake bread 40 to 45 minutes or until bread is browned and loaf sounds hollow when you knock on it. Best sliced thin and lightly buttered, toasted or untoasted.

Hot damn!

The Honorable Stephanie Flowers is a force to be reckoned with.  Watch as she ends a Stand Your Ground Bill in an Arkansas Judiciary Committee hearing all by herself. Spit-spot. 

Watch the man on the left try and stop her. Flowers' argument is sound and informed. I hope the dude is not a Democrat. If he is, he needs fired. Pay attention to this smart woman, Democrats. This is a/the winning argument.

Meet an ALT-Left Troll or Two

I hang at a "Progressive Website." The comments below are from a few regular posters who shall remain nameless.

Comments refer to Paula Duncan who appears in this video with Lawrence O'Donnell. Ms. Duncan was a juror in the Manafort trial. It is important to watch all the way through. Ms. Duncan, who is a Trump voter, is going to tell you why Trump has lost his war on America. We all, pro and con, know him better now.

COMMENTS IN QUESTION

Manny - No, you’re seeing the poorly educated in action. The fact that Dump hangs around all these convicted criminals means nothing to her. She just loved him on the Apprentice.

Mo - Her freaking eyeballs had a will of their own...bobbing about in their sockets...can't imagine speaking to her face to face....very disturbing and disquieting...

Jack - Agree. if she voted for President Stupidass, she's a stupidass and shouldn't be allowed to make any decisions.

Paula Duncan is an American Hero. She took a principled stand for the Rule of Law and simple civility. She did not allow her personal bias to affect her public duty. Praise her with great praise.

Duncan does not believe the MSMedia. She has no reason to respect them. First Trump was a star and now he is shyte? All this information coming out now was available when Trump was running. MSMedia pissed their pants from happiness over how exciting Trump was. They hung on his every word. We are 45th from the top in press freedom worldwide. Do you believe the Press? I am not fond of infotainment myself.

Paula Duncan has taught me to stop abusing the Trump voter. She renewed my respect for America and Americans.

Trolls come to play in social media. They are amateur and professional. They are Republican, Progressive, Russian, Marketing and/or Disinformation Specialists. They fly all flags and colors. Job #1 for these wankers is fomenting anger, division, and contempt among Americans.

What is the difference between the above Trolls and Donald Trump et al functionally? Not much. Not too damn much. And I smell hanky panky. One juror and one juror only who refused to convict on 10 counts. Old Man judge reduces the sentence and thereby makes the crimes look small. I smell Rat shyte.

Schultz for POTUS?

“never trust anyone
who says
they do not see color.
this means
to them,
you are invisible.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

I trust my gut. I cannot vote for Schultz. If I gaze at him in action too long, I want to shove my foot, in my work boot with cleats, right up his nancy ass.

I try to avoid men that arouse that sentiment in me. Not because I am particularly peaceful. Oh no, because I might do it on a good day and so far I have managed to avoid jail or the nuthouse.

NERD and MENTAT NINJA 2020 ! with Music

Elizabeth Warren

Stacey Abrams

2020 !

We need financial and voting integrity and reform bigtime. These women have been in the trenches fighting for a long damn time. They got the guts. Give them the glory. They have the experience. Anybody want to try an amateur businessman again?

Graphic below our heroes by Buddy McCue.

Morning in August - Real Philadephia - #1 - First Draft

I keep baker's hours. Snoring at nine p.m. and up at three a.m. Philadelphia time. My front step is on the pavement. What happens on the street happens fifteen feet from my desk. Dawn happening. Peace.

I began to feel vibrations in the ether. Maria de los Dolores passing: earrings flashing, bracelets clashing, accompanying cherubs jiggy jigging. Everybody calls her Lola. Lola is louder and crazier than I am. I find that soothing. Everyone else runs when they see her coming. Lola starts her circuit ride around ten o'clock most days. Big disturbance in the pattern means big news. It is the Cherubs. Little fuckers tell her everything. So I opened my door.

"What?"
"Baby Dee is dead. You got a stamp? Give me fifty cents and I get my own stamp."

Lola jiggy jigged away, Cherubs in tow and one dollar richer. I sat until the light told me it was coffee hour. I meet all my neighbors at the bodega, one time or another.

Robbers shot the clerk behind the counter at the bodega five years ago. Then they went straight home. Cops had them in 45 minutes. Robbers had a wee problem with drugs. We got new owners of course. They spent their first year looking fierce. Now as the hipsters and Art studios begin their invasion, they just look bored.

Everybody in the world goes to the bodega just the same. The bodega is our oasis in a food and sundries desert. I get mango ice cream and Dominican beef stew. I get the heat. I get succulent roasted pork leg. I get fly tapes, socks, lottery tickets and EZwider. I get the story.

When I rounded the corner onto Tangerine Street, I saw the Commodore and Shorty.  The Commodore looks like a mocha stork. Just as tall as can be. I call him the Commodore because he is a sharp dresser. Always looks like he is about to go sailing. Classic Sport, you know what I mean? Shorty is short and short.

"What happened to Baby Dee?"

"Maybe you don't know Baby Dee worked with these young druggy kids. One kid freaked and Baby Dee was trying to calm him down. Boy shot him 4 times. Shorty found him."

Shorty nodded. He short.

"What can I do?"

"Funeral on Thursday at the Baptist Church at three o'clock. They started putting candles and flowers around his door. Shorty put up a balloon say PEACE."

Shorty nodded. Just stood right there. Shortening.

I keep walking toward coffee at the bodega like always. I pass Baby Dee's altar. It grew over days. Candles, flowers, notes. He was the Mayor of the 'hood and kept the day folk nicely separate from the night folk.

Baby Dee and I, we had a thing. Knees. I would hobble around to the bodega on my (I can still walk and get my own coffee) mission every morning at 7 a.m. Dee ruined his knee being a football person. He would stop detailing some Cadillac, limp over and hug me. I am like a child. I thought it was forever. I can walk now and Baby Dee is gone to Jesus.

Miss Norma - Real Philadelphia #2

Midnight. It was a soft day. Now it is a balmy night. A gentle breeze is sending smoke from the chemical plant out to sea.

Miss Norma is parked outside my door in her running car. I can smell the engine and hear the exhaust. Norma is dancing in her seat with the windows closed and the bass turned up so high the car is pulsating. She has been tossing her hair and waving her arms about for 20 minutes now. Norma has good taste in music, thank you God.

Norma is living in the rowhouse next door with another single Mom and eight children. Norma is sheltering a family while their house is repaired after a fire. The combined children range in age from 3 to 14. It has been three months now. You would be pulsating in your car too. Norma was so trashed after the Eagles game that she was out there pulsating at 2 am. She told me "I do not think I can make it inside." Offers of aid were refused. All must be well because she is running another concert tonight.

Norma has five children. Rosy Posy is my favorite. I promised crayons to all the kidniks for Xmas and then I fell. For awhile I could not write a sentence or even read. I need the boxes with the sharpener and all the colors. Soon children, soon. The girls came by after Christmas and politely reminded me I made a present promise. They are beautiful and I love them.

Norma and I, we have an unspoken deal. I ignore the constant pile of dogshit in her backyard, and her blood curdling howls of frustration that penetrate the brick walls that divide our rowhouses, and she lets me borrow the children and pretend I am their Grandma. Solid. 

I just heard this...

Occasionally I write a Poem. Sometimes good and sometimes bad.
As long as the Poem floem,
I am happy and not sad.

I just heard this on the cable tv...

"...the rescue mission was successful.
Twenty three people died."

I thought to myself:
Self, "War is peace."

Then I thought:
I really ought to name this poem
Quotation to the Second Power
...and spoiled the whole reflection...erection...perfection. 

I am old as dirt.

Graphic by Favianna Rodriguez.

Bless me, for I have sinned. I have done everything. I have been everywhere and nowhere. There is nothing I have to do. I am not at all accustomed to this luxury.

I got married. I gave birth, not in that order. I worked. I went ornately mad. I 'tuned in, turned on and dropped out.' I did my Art. The only thing that is left for me to do is become a Real Girl. And die. That is a lot more challenging than it may seem to the casual lie...I mean eye. I am a Beast.

I am astounded these sentences have appeared. I am dry. I am empty. Lady Shrink says that like a computer, I am buffering. I am terrified I will be in nowhere blah forever. When my Eye is on my eye, I I I...

Thank you Jesus, I can write something again. I just wrote something again. I do not believe Jesus will save me. There is nothing to be saved from. I just enjoy the conversation.

Peace on Earth

There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace. -- Kofi Annan

Banner from D&B Graphics

Happy New Year, Cher Reader.

As we discovered on the train (terrain?), tomorrow never happens. It's all the same fucking day, man. - Janis Joplin

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” ― Neil Gaiman

MAGIC GOOGLE FINGER - TED CRUZ or Dancing the Sniveling Dip

So some brilliant comedian created the nickname TED OOZE for Ted Cruz. So funny I had to google it. This is what I found. I work to attribute work to the Artist but sometimes I can find nothing. Moral: sign your work always.

Ted Cruz...a poem
by a lot from Lydia

Ted Cruz tells Texas: fear Beto O’Rourke
He wants to take your guns, then your salt pork!
Be concerned, he’ll make us California!
Dye your hair, then remember… I warned ya
Of silicon… but I mean silicone
We’re the lone star state, just leave us alone
Don’t let smooth talker’s common sense dethrone
Me! We’re no tofupian, saxophone
Playing state. California ranked at 5
In world economies… who needs to thrive?
Be terrified, he’s ahead in the polls!
Vote for corruption… not cool guy Beto.

I am NOT shopping.

"Bah, humbug." - Ebenezer Scrooge

I remember when I loved shopping. My Nonna would get her shopping bag. She and I would go to Mazilli-Baptisti to buy Italian staples. There would be dried beans, chestnuts, and lentils in barrels. The smell of cheese and cured olives was overwhelming. Then we visit the Butcher. Then dish towels from the Lady-Who-Speaks-Italian-so-Fast I cannot understand her. Then the Baker where the scent of anise would make me faint with cookie anticipation. Shopping was a dignified sensual tour of the neighborhood. We got all the Chambersburg news and tangerines at Nelly's Fruit. It was the most exciting part of my week. I was about four when she started to take me shopping.

I am not shopping anymore. Shopping has lost its charm. Why? People are shooting each other in the stores. Every fricking thing for sale is made of or wrapped in plastic. You know, that stuff that is never going to biodegrade and is forming islands?  Most of the things that compose the seatrash were not even manufactured in the 50s. Somehow we lived without plastic bags. And lived well. The streets were clean even in poor neighborhoods. The beaches and the surf were pristine.

You know what happened to Mazilli-Baptisti? The last time I went there the place was dark, the door was ajar and there was almost no stock. It was dark and dank and smelled bad. Then the owners, the Grandsons, got busted for dealing cocaine in the 80s. "Mannagia America!" the old folks would say around the table.

I am not shopping. Mostly because I cannot afford to buy anything. Who is buying all this stuff? You got me. I only know one thing. As the Corpos who make everything we buy got larger and richer, the trash piles also got larger. And the jobs got smaller and meaner.

The Corpos privatize the profits and socialize the trash. You see them picking up any of this "convenient and disposable" crap? Or paying taxes for the city to do it? Plum Street is full of trash I pick up myself. Trash seems to flow down Plum Street from the Avenue like tampon applicators on the high tide.

I have had enough. I own enough. I am tired of dusting the stuff. I am not shopping. I wonder if I am alone.

http://grist.org/living/ask-umbra-what-do-i-do-with-my-worn-out-sponges/

Nobody died. Nobody got robbed. Not much of a crime says Ghouliani.

Last Sunday the 9th was my 75th birthday. I have been depressed and missing. I have been unable to write. All I was able to do was troll on social media. I just cannot figure out how to act. 

Between being sick for weeks and doctoring thereby, the ongoing mess in DC, and reaching this birthday, I was struck silent. I was so miserable my Muse left for more congenial circumstances. I never expected to live this long given the bipolar insanity. If you want to know what I mean, this video series explains it better than I can. This is the first of a 3 video series.:

I am back. It is clear I am not going to die for awhile, so that is good. Andiamo. Our POTUS is a crook. 

Generally, I ignore Rudy Giuliani. I cannot ignore this:

“Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed… This was not a big crime,” Giuliani told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. He added, sardonically, “I think in two weeks they’ll start with parking tickets that haven’t been paid.”

Yo Rudy, I got robbed of the sane experienced person I voted for being POTUS.

I got robbed of my national pride when my government kidnapped, caged and drugged children and caused them to be raped and/or die in custody. 

I got robbed of my peace of mind and dignity because I am a multiple rape survivor and I have been made to face the rape culture head on by REDpublicans daily and for years now.  Recall 'legitimate rape?' That was 2014. Remember the Republican Rape Advisory Chart?

We nearly got robbed of our Democracy, the system many Americans worked and died for over the centuries. I want to know who the Americans are who have accepted employment in American internment prison camps?

Reading Mark Twain makes me sane and gives me some perspective on the whole mess.:

“The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” ― Mark Twain

We have a lot more firing to do. Lots more.

Stanley - or - This story has no redeeming social value with Music.

I am single. I am bored because I have nothing and no one to do. One of my Viper Girls told me "Ma, you are not allowed to date anybody without a written permission. It is like you have this sign on your head flashing Weirdos Welcome!" Sadly, this is not unreasonable. 

I met Stanley at a screw-rinse-repeat joint in New York City called The Candy Box. I think it was 1976. Stanley was the bald bespectacled guy telling us he “screwed both bartenders and all the other whoo-ers sitting around on the bar stools." Stanley is still loud, profane and bespectacled as I write. A Caveat Emptor, "Whoo-ers are all no good", delivered in loud Brooklynese has to be experienced to be fully appreciated.

I do not know why exactly, but I took him home. He came with me because I told him I had a pool in my backyard. I think he thought I was lying or nuts. He was right about the nuts.

I always enjoyed Stanley. Stanley and I used to have the greatest fights. He was naturally funny. And he always left me money. He could be generous and stingy at the same moment. We hung out together for twenty five years. We made a porno. We ate at every great Italian restaurant in three states. We fought epic fights. He was mean. Years later I found out he used to stand behind me just out of hearing range and make fun of me to people I knew. Stanley financed every crazy thing I could think up to do. And I am creative. Laissez le bon temps rouler.

Everything was great until I got sober and truthful. One day I said to him

"Stanley, God gave you a package that cannot be beat. Even Ron Jeremy steps back. Nevertheless, you suck in the bed. Now that I am dually diagnosed, I am no longer de-generate and de-praved, and the government gives me $638.25 monthly, I do not have to fuck you. So just pay for the fricking thing and stop that whining."

It was the beginning of the end.

Stanley went and got married. He came to see me even after he got married. For a long  damn time. As a wedding present to him and his bride Angela, I taught him how to eat pussy. I know why I did not teach him sooner. He was always a bit prissy about the physical part of life. All that experience taught Stan nothing. It is kind of a turnoff if a guy is salivating copiously all over you at the critical moment because pussy has germs. I miss him still. I still meet him in my dreams.

Although his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis Redding was a singer of such commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music in its purest form.

His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. Redding left behind a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first sessions for Stax/Volt Records in 1963 until his death in 1967. Read more here...

Halloween Message from GrandMom and PopPop

Do not vote for the Orange Howler. I am repeating this because you did not listen to your Elders last time, it seems. I know - it was the Russians. More reason to vote.

Get your Hot Dog at Alzheimer's on the Potomac

The below graphic was a meme on Twitter. It implores us to contact these Senators. Do Democrats try for dumb? Waste of my time to contact these Hot Dogs. There is no evidence they can hear or think. Watch them sometime.

Convince me Chuck Grassley is not one of the two Senators taking Alzheimers Meds filled at Congressional Pharmacy. I been watching and Grassley been weirding wiggling waffling wandering all over the place. And I think there may be some outright falsehoods. I think it is hard not to see the dysfunction. I watched Grassley Town Halls. No wonder some folks do not want to do them. Town Halls are quite an education.

I am further saying Grassley rubber stamps anything his chief of staff puts in front of him cuz he just zombie into the gentleman's club.

Orrin Hatch is second of the Alzheimers Zombie Twins. I got 100 bucks says it is so. And I am financially challenged and I do not gamble. Hatch the Undead Corpse. I say doG??? Please have mercy on a weary people. doG say BE CALM. Breathe. Free will.

April in TX‏ @BGHeaven

Hatch and his invisible glasses.

Nick the Feminist Speaks Ex Cathedra

There was a band of GOP whiners
Could not keep their hands off vaginas.
First they tried to de-school them,
Then regulate and rule 'em,
Leaving women with less rights than most minors. 

- Nick Vanocur
sitting at his favorite table in the back

God? @#$%^!

God - Michelangelo

My friend, UnitarianUniversalist, asked me in an email "So exactly who or what is God to you."

Asking tough and interesting questions is the Unitarian Jihad! You can participate and get your Jihad name. I am Sister Axe of Sweet Reason.

I am a Fool. I am going to talk about God, in spite of Meister Eckhart's warning. What can I say -- I am imperfect:

"Be silent therefore, and do not chatter about God, for by chattering about him, you tell lies and commit a sin. If you wish to be perfect and without sin, then do not prattle about God. Also you should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: "If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God." If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance." - Meister Eckhart

I do not think God is a Who or a What or even a Why. I think God is a symbol or an idea. God is a construct in my mind that I measure my behavior by and for. The question "Does God have objective reality?" is not relevant for me. I have the God idea bad (or good, depending on where you sit and what cards you hold.

I wonder if I would ever have thought of God had I not been taught about God. There is some interesting stuff to read about a People that do not have a God concept. Nor many symbols at all for that matter. Piraha do not want them. Evidently, in their language they refer to themselves as The Straight People. They do have Fairies and Forest Imps. Think about that for awhile. We know about Piraha because of the work of linguist Daniel L. Everett.

My search for God/Truth/Light has taken me some interesting places, driven by lust and pride and fear in part. I want to avoid the pains of Hell.  I wanted to have that overwhelming religious experience that I had seen illustrated on religious cards, that ecstasy and enlightenment. I wanted to be St. Agnes in Triumph with Lilies.

I am troubled by my errors. I want to believe that there is order somewhere and that my actions matter in the grand whirl of the universe. Worst of all --  I wonder if maybe there is no meaning. And if there is no meaning to it all, is that bad or good?

I am having such a good time these days, I do not know what to do with myself. So when I am not eating bon bons, I write diaries. And smile a lot. And wait for comments, if any.

"Simply put, you can be a massive prick, despite what is in your pants." now with Music

Ha ha ha ha ha. Bwah ha ha ha ha. Gasp. Ha ha ha... 

And the Artist just keeps posting it to her Facebook page. 

And Facebook keeps banning and reinstating her thereby making the image viral.

This is the best election ever. The pastel portrait is, of course, for sale. And Trump, of course, is threatening suit thereby making the image viral. 

Illma Gore with her Portrait