And here's the brochure about Meredith Kercher being handed out to passersby

Maybe Diane Sawyer will be one of those passersby?

Live from New York, a child releases 21 white balloons in memory of Meredith Kercher.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month: In Memory of Meredith Kercher

 

 

Did you know that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the United States? Someone is sexually assaulted in this country every two minutes. Each year, there are 207,754 reported victims of rape and sexual assault. Of course, the number of unreported rapes and sexual assaults remains high.

When people think about sexual violence, they generally imagine that the victim does not know the attacker - that the assault involves a stranger. In fact, the reality is startlingly different: among female rape victims, 51.1% of perpetrators are reported to be intimate partners and 40.8% are acquaintances. In total, more than 90% of all reported rapes are committed by people who know their victim. And in more than half of these case, the perpetrator is more than just an acquaintance.

The photo here is of Meredith Kercher, the British exchange student to Italy who was tortured, threatened, physically assaulted and then killed in the cottage she shared in Perugia with three other women. Three people, all of them known to Meredith, were convicted of these heinous acts, including one of Meredith Kercher's roommates. Another person who was convicted, Rudy Guede, opted for a fast-track trial and is currently serving his sentence. The roommate - Amanda Knox - and her then boyfriend - Raffaele Sollecito - were unanimously convicted by the eight-person panel that heard the case and then released on appeal. Those familiar with the case AND with knowledge of the Italian system of justice were surprised by the acquittal and fairly certain that the Supreme Court would annul it. Those who looked to the US mainstream media for information were fed a pack of inventions fabricated by the multi-million dollar PR campaign on behalf of the American, Amanda Knox, who was convicted along with Guede and with her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.

Knox and Sollecito lost no time signing book deals and working with co-authors to pen their memoirs. Sollecito's book was published months ago and Knox's is scheduled for release along with her exclusive interview with ABC on April 30. Knox was allegedly paid an advance of 4 million dollars for the book, which appears to be a 462 page turkey that HarperCollins hopes will appeal to the tabloid junkie lurking in some human souls.

Remember the old rhyme? Thirty days has September, April, June and November... April 30 is the last day of the month of April, the month designated in the US as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

On Sunday, April 28, a rally will be held at noon in connection with Sexual Assault Awareness Month in New York City. This rally is dedicated to Meredith Kercher. I have read that participants are asked to meet at the Lincoln Center Fountain. I wonder if Diane Sawyer or any of the folks at HarperCollins will attend. You know, in honor of the victim of a hideous sexual assault that left her dead.

Incidentally, Italy's Supreme Court did annul the acquittal, though it upheld the felony conviction of Amanda Knox for having falsely accused Patrick Lumumba of killing her roommate.

Is it just me or is there something surreal about publishing a "memoir" written by someone convicted of a felony charge of lying, about a sexual assault and murder in which the question of her participation remains a pending matter, on the last day of the month of April, sexual assault awareness month?    

Some thoughts about Boston

Like everybody, I was shocked and saddened by what happened yesterday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Not one but two explosions, concocted to inflict maximum pain and disfigurement to ordinary bystanders. Lots of commentators and distraught observers are looking for a ray of hope in all of this, and we keep hearing the words of Mr. Rogers over and over again, which roughly come down to this: when something bad happens, look at the helpers. Look at the ones who are running toward and not away from the scene of destruction, the ones who are courageously trying to limit the loss of life and, especially in this particular tragedy, of limb.

When the eye witness reports started filling the airwaves, at first I was annoyed that every runner seemed to want to make sure that listeners got the vital information about their own accomplishment as a runner. I heard lots of things like "I was just crossing the finish line because I was going for my personal best" or "I wanted to finish in under four hours, so I was right there when the first bomb exploded" or "I was already back in my hotel room when the blast occurred, having finished in 3 and a half hours", etc. It seemed ridiculously vain to be talking about personal bests as reports of the casualties just got worse and worse: three dead, scores wounded, make that 120, many of them amputees.

When I mentioned my annoyance to my wise husband Walt, he said something simple and very true. He said, "but you have to remember that these people have worked very hard to get here and that finishing the marathon is a huge deal for them". I realized immediately that he was right and that what I initially heard as narcissim and vanity was really something else entirely.

It's hard to explain. I ran a marathon once, and have written about it on this blog. Once I had done so, however, I had no desire to run another one and in fact gradually stopped running, after traversing an unhappy period during which I hated every second of running and even had nightmares about running. But I will never forget what it took to get to the finish line of that one and only marathon and how explosively happy I felt when it happened. It took months of hard training, after several years of running 10ks. Many folks work their way up from 10ks to a half-marathon or two before tackling a marathon. I didn't go that route. Instead, I decided to pass directly to the 26.2 mile race and began training in earnest just five months prior to the big day. I followed a plan that was published in a running magazine, tailored to the needs of first-time marathoners who worked full-time. For five months, I either got up at the crack of dawn to run before work or ran after work, usually after dark and often in the rain. I got permission from my boss to do one long run each week at lunchtime, which meant taking a much longer lunch hour than was allowed. So every Wednesday, rain or shine, I changed into my running clothes and ran from Belltown up to and around Magnolia and back. And every weekend I took one long run, which started at ten miles and got a little longer each time. As I recall,  my goal was to run at least 35 miles per week. On the day of the marathon, my longest run had been 19 miles.

The first 19 miles of the marathon felt good. My ex-husband (we were married at the time), who had already completed several marathons, ran with me - which meant running a slower pace than he was used to but at a fast clip for me. It felt exhilarating. Running, I felt like a gazelle, until I hit 20 miles, at which point I came smack up against the proverbial but very real wall. How to describe it? I began to feel not like a gazelle but rather like an old elephant. I felt heavy and clumsy and acutely aware of my legs and how tired they felt, of how tired I suddenly felt all over in fact. I found myself trying to remember what it was about running a marathon that had ever appealed to me in the first place. A nagging pain in my left foot (which turned out later to be a nascent stress fracture) began to scream at me: Stop! Now! The thoughts inside my head soon took over, until they were all I could hear. This might have been a good development had they been happy, positive thoughts. But they were not. They were dark thoughts. What were you thinking? They said to me, in indignant disbelief. What is so great about running a marathon? I felt defeated and just wanted to quietly exit the course and blend in with the crowd. Just then, I was abruptly yanked out of my own head by a burning sensation in my foot that was spreading up my leg. I stopped. What's wrong, asked my husband/pacer. I stepped on a rock, I yelled. It was true. I had stepped on a sharp rock and the pain was unbearable. Don't stop, he said. When I did just that, he told me I would get excruciating cramps if I didn't cool down first. Just walk, he said. You don't have to run. Just keep walking. So I did, limping a bit and cursing him under my breath. What did he know? That's about when the crowd came to my rescue, not just encouraging me but also appealing to my orgeuil.  You're almost there, they yelled. You're doing great, they yelled. And though it was not true that I was "doing great", it was true that I was almost there. As I returned to the reality outside my head, I heard someone yell - to me! - C'mon, you've got less than a mile to go!" This was meaningful to me and it was galvanizing. I thought to myself, no matter how I feel I know I can run one lousy mile. This thought go me moving more quickly, jogging at first and then running. I had no idea until I saw the photo below (and now I can't remember if it was an official photo or one taken by a friend) how visible on our faces was the sheer joy we felt at finishing that damn marathon. Look at us. We are grinning madly, almost laughing. We are about to cross the finish line!

In the end - and perhaps only because this photo is the sole physical reminder I have kept of the event (unless you count the lingering pain of my decades old stress fracture when I walk barefoot) - what I remember about the marathon is this: the absolute joy I felt at crossing the finish line and the deep gratitude I felt toward the cheering crowd of mostly strangers.

And that's what makes yesterday's Boston Marathon so deeply horrible: the fact that the simple, sheer joy of this event was obliterated for many participants and spectators by a bomb. A bomb designed and then assembled to suck joy out of this world and this life.

My old friend Michael Mosher, who continues to run at age 70, posted this on facebook today:

I am reposting something from Brian Bort which was posted on the meet-up page of the Berkeley Running Club (BRC). It seems like the right thing to remind people of after yesterday.

Dear Runners,
Thanks to Anya for checking in with our BRC Boston Marathon runners; they are all fine. Running is an extremely peaceful endeavor, and it will remain so. I hope you feel that peace on your runs, and remember that every step running is a step in the right direction.
Thanks for what you do and who you are, keep running. +brian

My run has slowed to a walk, but in my head I am still running with all of you runners out there as you lead us in the right direction.

HarperCollins UK suspends publication of Knox "memoir"

Victim Meredith Kercher as a child



http://www.thebookseller.com/news/hc-uk-puts-knox-memoir-hold.html


This is welcome news and a no-brainer. Can you imagine HarperCollins US publishing Jodi Arias's memoir right now, with her trial for murdering Travis Alexander pending? But this is precisely the situation Knox is currently in, except that the murder victim was English and the alleged crime took place in far-off Italy. I'll try and make this as simple as possible: When Knox signed her book deal with HarperCollins, allegedly for a 4-million dollar advance, she was not yet out of the woods legally.

Several of us pointed this out at the time. But in the headlong, greedy rush to make out like bandits, none of her handlers or advisors seemed to be paying attention. Here's the truth: Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were initially convicted for their role in murdering Knox's roommate, Meredith Kercher. In addition, Knox was convicted of calunnia, or defamation, a felony in Italy, for falsely accusing her boss, Patrick Lumumba, of the crime, claiming in addition that she was an ear witness. Both the prosecution and the defense teams filed an appeal, the prosecution because it felt that the sentences were too lenient in light of the heinous nature of the crime and the attempt to derail the investigation by (i) falsely accusing an innocent man and (ii) tampering with the evidence to suggest a break-in. The subsequent appeal trial was quite strange, against the backdrop of US media vying for the rights to an exclusive with Knox. If you are interested in the details of this media circus and the trial itself, you can read my other posts or go to the website True Justice for Meredith Kercher (.org).

Oddly, the Hellmann court "acquitted" Knox and Sollecito but upheld Knox's conviction by the first court for aggravated calumny. Both the prosecution and the defense teams appealed this court's ruling. I bolded that line because it is important. As far back as October of 2011, it was virtually certain that the case would go to Italy's highest court for a decision. In other words, the matter was still pending and you can safely ignore all of the ignorant commentary in the US about double jeopardy. A few months later, the actual appeal was filed by PM Galati. The discussion board I moderate (pmf.org) translated this document. You should read it. The grounds for appeal were very strong indeed. Too bad the folks at HarperCollins did not read the appeal; I guess they were too busy working out the details of the infomercial with ABC, which outbid the other networks for the chance to sit down in a carefully controlled setting and throw softballs to Knox, kicking off her book promo.

Truly, the only real mystery is how a bunch of people who should know better went ahead and negotiated a book deal and then a promo gig with someone whose legal status was and is still pending. The Italian Supreme court heard the appeals and issued its decision in late March. And the decision is without a trace of ambiguity: the court overturned the Hellmann court decision in all of its aspects except for his decision to uphold Knox's felony conviction for calumny.

In other words, that conviction is now final. As for the rest, a new appeal trial will be held in Florence, Italy. The calumny conviction will loom large. In the meantime, will HarperCollins realize the folly of its plan to publish a memoir co-written by an individual who is a convicted felon for the crime of lying to police and accusing an innocent man of murdering her roommate in her presence? How credible is a memoir written by a co-narrator who is prima facie unreliable? Maybe HC should take my advice and rebrand the book as fiction. That would certainly be more honest, assuming that truth in advertising matters.

Why kids are getting fatter: it's the environment, stupid

According to the latest research on why children are getting fatter, the main culprit is the environment. Take kids with normal genes and normal activities and put them in a fattening environment and they will get fat. Seems fairly obvious, right? But what is meant by "environment"? What are these environmental factors that are producing more obesity in children than ever before. It turns out that they range from the seemingly small things - like plate size - to the more substantial things - like not getting enough sleep because of school-related tasks. And then there's the rest: fast food, technology, more eating out, more exposure to food advertising, more processed foods and sugary drinks, larger serving sizes, easy access to all this shit (think vending machines, sporting events, giant home refrigerators and pantries loaded up for Armegeddon), etc.

The good news is that parents have some control over many of these environmental factors. For example, they can make sure their kids get to bed at a decent hour and buy smaller plates. They can prohibit sugary drinks in the gigantic home refrigerator and refrain from buying processed foods to be served as snacks. They can buy apples, oranges and pears instead. They can insist on home-cooked meals and - this is not on the list above but is a pet peeve of mine - they can stop acting like short-order cooks. This requires planning and making a meal, not anticipating a myriad of individual whims and wants. They can lock up their pantries and tell the kids to go out and get some fresh air. In other words, they can create an environment that resembles nothing so much as the one I grew up in, way back in the 1960s. My mom never bought Hostess twinkies or pies or "pop", which is what we called soda. She never bought those little packages of potato chips and fritos that the other kids got in their lunch boxes. We didn't even have lunch boxes. We carried our lunch to school in brown paper bags. Lunch was a sandwich on brown bread (which filled me with shame and indignation), a piece of fruit (usually an apple) and a small box of sunmaid raisins. I suppose we got homemade cookies once in awhile. Occasionally, my grandmother would bring us a bag of forbidden booty: red whips, packages of chips, mini boxes of sugar cereal, 7up... It never lasted long. We snarfed it up like famished street urchins. But I digress. I used to love to babysit for people (which girls were encouraged to do from about thirteen on) because it was an opportunity to raid their pantries for ding dongs, hohos, Hostess cherry pies, twinkies and other delights. I once ate dog food during a babysitting gig, but only because I was curious about the taste. It tasted like dog breath, pretty much, but I liked the captain crunchiness of the kibble.

I'm not suggesting that parents give their kids dog food, but reading about the importance of environment in curbing obesity, I was reminded of my dog Neko. At Neko's last visit with the vet, I was alarmed to see that she was a pound above her top winter weight. This may not sound like much, but Neko's normal weight is 20 pounds. In the winter, she generally puts on a pound. This winter, she put on 2. I decided it was time for a change. I was truly worried she would get diabetes. After analyzing the situation, I quickly realized that Neko's major obstacle to weight loss was her handlers. We control her environment. Even if she understood what it was for, she could not open the refrigerator and pull out a hunk of meat. Neko's weight gain was mostly due to being fed from the table, being given too many snacks, her getting cat food from the floor and her eating cat poop from the litter box. On these last two points, in our defense let me say that one of our cats is severely disabled. We cannot put the litter box downstairs; nor can we put the cat food in a place where Neko cannot get to it. It has to be served on the floor. However, it does not have to be left on the floor at all times. I told Walt that our five-year experiment with Neko had yielded the following finding: Neko, like all dogs, will eat whatever she can get to. Ergo, it was time for her handlers to make some changes. I bought some high fiber kibble that's lower in calories and supposedly more filling. We started feeding Neko at the same time as the cats, 5 pm. Before, Neko was a late diner like us. The first few days, she thought she was getting two meals, but now she has the drill down. One of us patrols the kitchen during the feeding minute (this event sometimes lasts just 30 seconds for Neko) and then removes the leftover cat food as soon as the cats walk away. I watch over the litter box like a hawk, cleaning it several times per day. Not one morsel of kitty roca goes undetected. We have stopped setting aside a bit of our dinner on a special plate, just for Neko. She had trained us to do this as a sort of ransom for allowing us to eat in peace. She was getting regular exercise, but now she gets a 45-minute walk every day.

It has been about two months since we altered Neko's environment. I think she is down at least a pound, which is five percent of her total body weight. She has more energy. According to her many fans, she looks better. She still tries to get in the litter box whenever she thinks my back is turned and has taken advantage of a couple of ill-timed phone calls to shove our disabled cat aside and steal food, but these are rare occurrences now. At first we thought we could train her out of her bad habits, but this is like thinking we could train her to be something other than a dog. We have come to accept that we are the ones who had to be retrained. And whenever we get distracted, she grabs a bit of cat food or poop. So we are working on staying focused. And Neko looks fabulous!

Today's epiphany, brought to you by Buddha

Let go or be dragged.

What's Nina Burleigh Got against Women?

I get up quite early because my clients have a nine-hour head start on me. Today I woke up to the usual flurry of work-related emails plus a message directing me to Nina Burleigh’s Time blog post devoted to the “haters” – i.e., the many people around the world who have expressed their support for the family of Meredith Kercher and who are convinced that Italy’s first instance court got things right when it convicted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for their role in Meredith’s brutal murder. Italy’s highest court has just overturned the acquittal and definitively upheld Knox’s conviction for the felony offense of falsely accusing an innocent man of murdering Meredith Kercher. In that false accusation, Knox placed herself at the scene of the crime.  

In her blog post, Burleigh once again misquotes an off-the-record conversation with me, though I set her straight the first time she did it and asked her to cease. She also wrongly asserts that I am a “housewife” and “former” translator.

For those who may have missed them the first time around, the two blog posts I wrote that got Nina Burleigh all riled up can be found at TJMK or here, under 2011 posts.

First, a bit of background: Burleigh spent a lot of time in her book maligning two of the best reporters covering the case, one of whom, like Burleigh, wrote a book about it. Since I wrote my review of Burleigh’s book and then pointed out that the New York Times was critical of her advocacy masquerading as journalism, time has passed. According to her online news site (thefreelancedesk.com), which focuses on current events in Italy, where she lives, Andrea Vogt has been working as a reporter for 20 years and writes for, among others, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Seattle Times and The BBC. As for Barbie Latza Nadeau, in addition to her frequent reporting for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, she is also a regular contributor for CNN. Both are excellent journalists whose work speaks for itself. But what's up with Nina Burleigh? I honestly don’t know what she was thinking when she decided to belittle their accomplishments in print, not to mention her decision to misrepresent my own rather more modest ones. Is she just angry because she got this case so wrong? Is this a simple case of sour grapes from a sore loser? It probably doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things. But I would caution anyone who talks to a reporter off-the-record to beware. I have talked to many reporters off-the-record, and they have all respected this agreement, except for Nina Burleigh. In addition to breaking a promise, she misrepresented what I said.

And now that she has had her public snit, may I suggest that the focus now shift from these petty personality clashes - between Knox’s fan base and anyone who doesn’t share their views - and onto the facts? I think the tone needs to change as well: facts are best discussed rationally, calmly and respectfully.

For the record, I have nothing against women who choose to be homemakers.

I think it is important not to give this latest episode/rant more attention than it deserves, however. Ironically, in the final analysis Nina Burleigh has unwittingly done Meredith Kercher and the truth a huge favor by attacking her supporters as “haters” and, in doing so, giving our efforts a needed plug. It’s too bad that she could not resist plugging Knox’s upcoming book as well, although she only succeeds in proving the point made by the New York Times: that Ms. Burleigh is treading what she must know - as a seasoned reporter - to be a very dangerous line, that which separates journalists and advocates. She seems to have lost her way and, instead of figuring out how to get back on track, has decided to lash out at those advocating for truth in reporting. Where does that put her?
 

Update: Knox and Sollecito's bizarre acquittal is overturned!

I'll be back with a post on the subject in the near future. I just wanted to say that the Kerchers are one step closer to getting the justice they deserve, which they have been waiting for with such patience and grace.

For some background, read Andrea Vogt's excellent piece here: http://thefreelancedesk.com/?page_id=148

Steubenville: will there be a book deal or two?

http://bellejarblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/i-am-not-your-wife-sister-or-daughter/


I have been too busy to do much blogging lately and also kind of rethinking the whole idea of keeping a blog. I've got other projects in mind.

In case you care, Italy's Supreme Court will rule next week on the acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for their role in the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in November of 2007. Knox and Sollecito were convicted in the "first instance" trial and then, against the backdrop of a zero integrity, PR-driven media campaign, they were acquitted, though the calunnia conviction against Knox for falsely accusing an innocent man of the crime (placing herself at the scene) was upheld. This entire charade left a lot of people scratching their heads.

After the acquittal, which came in October 2011, both Knox and Sollecito and their various handlers got busy hammering out the book deals. Knox is much more high-profile, of course, and will be interviewed in an exclusive by Diane Sawyer in late April. I don't expect any truth-telling or hard questions; this is part of the book promotion. According to the twitter feed, Sawyer was recently in Perugia doing some background research (which amounted to asking young American women if they felt safe over there?!).

I'm reposting this blog post about Steubenville as a reminder that violence against women is distressingly common and that it will continue to be for as long as we reward perps, feel sorry for them, excuse their behavior, blame victims and so on. All the stuff we do so well.

Knox allegedly got a 4 million dollar advance for her co-written book. As for Sollecito, he faces defamation charges in Italy for some of the absolute nonsense he and his "co-writer" (read: the journalist who wrote the book for him) came up with. Even his own father felt compelled to go on television in Italy and deny the worst of it.

What a world, eh?

By the way, Happy New Year

I'm just too dang busy to tend to this blog right now. Maybe I'll be back one day, to protest an unspeakable injustice or celebrate a small miracle. The unfolding story of the unbearably brutal death of Reeva Steenkamp (her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius, aka The Blade Runner, has been charged with premeditated murder) is on my mind, in part because of the rapidity with which his family hired a PR firm. Does this remind anyone else of another unbearably brutal death, that of Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy, in late 2007? Two of the three people convicted in the first instance trial of her murder were acquitted on appeal but Italy's Supreme Court will have the last word, in March of this year.

Both Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox have written books to pay off the high cost of running a trial by media strategy. Sollecito's was written by Andrew Gumbel, who seems to have merely scribbled down Sollecito's dubious claims. Sollecito now faces libel charges in Italy for some of the whoppers he thought he could get away with (after all, he got away with something far worse, according to many who followed the case). As for Knox, her book is scheduled for release in late April, at which time she'll be sitting for a disinfomercial chat with Diane Sawyer. In a recent tweet, Knox (or someone pretending to be her) committed a nice Freudian slip, referring to her book's title as "Waiting to Me Heard" instead of "Waiting to Be Heard". Either way, this is a very strange title for many reasons. For one thing, Knox does not seem to have waited at all; unlike Sollecito, she was only too happy during the trial to ramble on at regular intervals. For another, the world is all ears should she wish to offer up a coherent account of her words and deeds, including falsely accusing an innocent man of the heinous crime.

Sollecito's book is not very good and did not take the world by storm. His US book tour seemed more like an excellent vacation paid for by daddy, with a couple of lacklustre interviews thrown in for good measure. Now he spends his time dancing at what look to be sparsely attended school dances and then posting videos of himself dancing on youtube. He runs a FB page that is frequented by a small group of his diehard fans and his agent, the one who got him the book deal. Occasionally, he asks for questions from the audience but then folds his tent when they become too uncomfortable. Which they quickly do. He seems to be hungry for attention.

Maybe I'll get to the strange saga of Francesco SFORZA one day. He's the Perugian blogger who is a legend in his own mind. I briefly helped him edit his blog; that was a mistake. He turned on me after I dared to write for publication that Frank Sfarzo was his "stage name". It would seem that he was willing to be sold to the highest bidder. Since then, his fortunes have diminished, with at least two arrests in North America for assault... against people kind enough to host him! The fallout from this has been sadly hilarious to watch. SFORZA already faced charges in Italy, where he allegedly resisted arrest after his own mother and sisters called the cops to report domestic violence and then assaulted the arresting officers.

All of the above has been duly noted and discussed "on the internets", so anyone who is interested can read all about it.

Winter sky

Instead of complaining about the ground service at Charles de Gaulle since Delta began running the daily non-stop Paris-Seattle flight, let's focus on the winter light in the Marais.

Regarde le ciel - Look at the sky.

So my suitcase did not make my flight. It arrived two days later and I got bumped up a class.

The news of the Sandy Hook massacre broke while I was in Paris. It cast a long and chilly shadow. People kept asking me why. Why does this happen in America? What is wrong with America? Why is America so violent? Why are there so many guns? I don't have an answer. Well, yes, I do have one but it takes about three hours to lay out and it involves talking about things like the nature of American capitalism, the myth of self-reliance, the reality of what and who get left behind on the path to success and wealth.


The shadow is long.
But there is always a slant of light, however thin, however distant.
Even in the dead of winter.

Keeping the apple pie tradition on the table

This quarter (see photo below) of what was just yesterday a whole apple pie may not look all that impressive to you, but consider this: it was made by two people who have, up until now, left the making and baking of desserts to other, more qualified, bakers.

My excuse has always been that I lived in Paris for 20 years. And that's a pretty good excuse. When you live in the heart of a city that boasts a pâtisserie (and a pharmacie) every 50 meters, why would you ever want or need to make a dessert? The only person I know in Paris who actually has been known to make desserts for his invités is my friend Pierre, who was married to my friend and fellow translator Cathleen. Cathleen, who died a couple of years ago, was diabetic, and her husband Pierre managed her diabetes by managing her menu planning and food preparation. Pierre retired long ago from the EDF, where he worked as a lawyer. But he has never retired from his vocations, which are painting, writing poetry and cooking beautiful, elaborate meals, served in Pierre and Cathleen's apartment in the 13th. It is a magical place, literally stuffed with books, art and knick knacks of all kinds. The kitchen is so full of utensils and stuff you can't see inside. But I digress. The point is, I had no reason to ever pick up a rolling pin during my formative potential adult dessert baking years, spent in Shanghai and then Paris. I can assure you, I sampled some exquisite desserts during this period.

Walt's excuse up until recently was his mother, an extraordinary baker who excelled at all kinds of cookies, pies and cakes. She set the impossible standard for desserts, and she did so effortlessly. Well, I'm sure she sweated during the process, but all we ever saw was the result. She would sometimes engage in self-criticism, but we would shush her up between bites by waving our forks. No, we would say, it's fabulous your apple pie. Or blackberry pie. Or whatever. Jo Cougan died in mid-October, but we have had her personalized glass pie dish, with her name ("Made with Love From Jo's Kitchen") emblazoned on the bottom. When Walt said he wished someone from my family had made an apple pie for our Thanksgiving last Sunday, I sensed a wistful tone. We agreed that we would never again be the privileged recipients of one of Jo Cougan's pies and that we needed to do something to keep the tradition alive.

I suggested that we try, as a joint venture, to make an apple pie to take with us to the Thanksgiving meal we had been invited to share with friends in Anacortes. So the two of us went out in search of ingredients to bake an apple pie. We should have started earlier, but we did passably well considering the late hour. Now I know: our unsalted butter should have been a bit colder. And Christina, our hostess for dinner, suggested that we chill the bowl in which the crust is made. Fantastic idea! She learned that when she worked at an ice cream store where one of her jobs was to make certain desserts. Also, a word about the top crust. That didn't come out as I was planning. I got overly ambitious and had visions of lattices dancing in my head. But I got a little distracted by the filling, which Walt was in charge of, while making the top crust (since the pie itself was an afterthought, we had not made enough crust for the top) and, as a result, left it sitting in its rolled out state a little too long. Something weird happened to the dough and it formed little patches that refused to come together as one. So we decided to call it a "patchy" apple pie and put the patches on top. That name evolved into "Apache" Apple Pie, which seems fitting on this particular holiday, wherein America turns its slaughter of the indigenous population into an orgy of eating followed by a hysteria-driven shopping frenzy.

A word about the filling: at Walt's insistence, we used granny smith apples and one cameo. We added sugar, brown sugar, a little salt and the required amount of flour. The recipe I found online, confidently titled "Perfect Apple Pie", called for lemon juice, which we did not have on hand. So we used the juice of half an orange instead, which gave me the idea that a little grand marnier would be a nice touch. We also added cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. I think that's all.

The "Apache" Apple Pie

The result: Our pie did not look like Jo's pies. The top crust looked like it had a case of shingles. But it passed the taste test. The filling was heavenly, our fellow diners all agreed it was, and our crust tasted right. But I know we can do better, with colder butter, a cold bowl and more patient rolling out of the dough. Walt is very competitive and would probably go so far as to try and surpass his mommy in the pie department. Let him dream! In the meantime, a pie "Made with Love from Jo's Kitchen" gracing our Thanksgiving table brought a little slice of Jo back.

On a related note, recently we spent a long weekend in Las Vegas, where we had the good fortune to NOT spend a minute in the casinos after one night at the MGM Grand for a fundraiser/birthday party. Our old friend Lisa Lundt lives there with her family, and she graciously offered to show us the non-casino side of LV and the area. On Saturday, the day after Dia De Los Muertos, after visiting the fantastic new neon "boneyard" museum in the Fremont section, we visited the Springs Preserve, which is both a park and a museum in Vegas. The outdoor part of the Preserve was dotted with publicly created altars and catrinas honoring the dead. And there were lots of cool sugar skulls, like the ones below. All of the alters featured the favorite food, drink and, in some cases, smokables of the departed loved ones for whom they were lovingly and painstakingly created. Anyone who has ever taken part in a Mexican Dia De Los Muertos celebration knows how colorful, upbeat and almost hallucinatory they are. I kept seeing ghosts among the living as we walked from altar to altar. I would do a double-take and they would be gone. I certainly felt the presence of Jo, and I know Walt did too. It suddenly hit me - simultaneously - that she was both gone forever and yet among us. She lives on in the pies we will make and in all the things she created and loved during her generous life. This year, I give thanks for having had the opportunity of knowing her. I grabbed a little notepad she was using when she died. On the cover and on every otherwise blank page, it says When Life Becomes a Roller Coaster, Climb into the Front Seat, Throw Your Arms in the Air and Enjoy the Ride. I also grabbed a paper weight on which is written NEVER NEVER NEVER QUIT - Winston Churchill. And I can say for a fact that she never did.

 

 

There's a kind of hush all over the world!

Happily, I won't be giving Mitt Romney another thought, since he promised to retire from politics if he failed to buy his way into office. Well, he didn't exactly put it that way, but this is the gist of it. As everyone knows, he offered one more glimpse of the True Mitt as his parting shot, in a post mortem debrief with his biggest fat cat donors, wherein he suggested - nay, he shouted ex cathedra - that his rival won because the losers people who vote for the dems just want free stuff. Actually, Romney just demonstrated that he pays attention when Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are talking. O'Reilly, you will recall, said exactly that in his little hissy fit on Fox, where he bemoaned the demise of "traditional" America, by which he means an America where a certain type of white male runs things. Imagine a big fat guy in a shirt with horizontal stripes that accentuates his moobs, smoking a cigar and spewing his hatred for anything and anyone who isn't just like him... that kind of guy.

So, anyway, Romney rambled on to his donors about how families making 25 or 30 thousand dollars a year are unable to resist the candidate who offers them 10 thousand dollars worth of free healthcare and about how he as a Republican just could not compete with that. What I find interesting is that he admits healthcare has a price tag that puts it out of reach for many of the very people he and his kind exploit in jobs that pay such lousy wages they can't escape poverty, let alone buy healthcare. What a douchebag! To the bitter end! And I do mean bitter. What a smug, bitter little man he turned out to be.

Enough about him already. May he spend the rest of his days riding up and down in his car elevator!

 

 

 

 

The Right Thing

I have posted this poem on my blog before, but that was years ago. I was reminded of it today when I read this interview, with author Cheryl Strayed (Torch, a novel; Wild, a memoir; Tiny Beautiful Things, a compilation of her work as "Sugar," an online advice columnist). In the interview, Strayed is asked what she thinks impedes or detracts from her happiness, and she says it is the tendency to say yes:

Saying yes. Yes and I have a long history. Yes is generous and open-hearted. It’s kind and fun. It’s led to so many good things in my life. But everything in balance, as they say, and I’m feeling a strong need for a bit of no. Yes has become a shackle to me. It’s keeping me from spending my days in ways that make me the happiest. I’ve been reflecting on this lately because with the amount of things people have asked me to do in this past year, I’ve realized how difficult it is for me to say no. I mean it kills me. Probably because it goes way deep into my psyche and my ancient desire to be loved. People love you if you say yes to them. It’s an incredibly effective survival technique. So now I have to learn a new way to survive. What will happen when I say no? I’m going to try it and see.

Her words reminded me of one of my favorite lines from another of my favorite poems, Theodore Roethke's poem The Right Thing: Time harried prisoners of shall and Will.

Sometimes, I am that time harried prisoner.

Yes, I memorized this poem as well, when I was about 16. I had no idea who Roethke was at the time. I did not know of his connection to the English Department at the University of Washington, nor of his struggles with mental illness and the bottle. He died at the age of 55, after suffering a heart attack in a friend's swimming pool.

The Right Thing

Let others probe the mystery if they can.
Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will—
The right thing happens to the happy man.

The bird flies out, the bird flies back again;
The hill becomes the valley, and is still;
Let others delve that mystery if they can.

God bless the roots!—Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Child of the dark, he can out leap the sun,
His being single, and that being all:
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Or he sits still, a solid figure when
The self-destructive shake the common wall;
Takes to himself what mystery he can,

And, praising change as the slow night comes on,
Wills what he would, surrendering his will
Till mystery is no more: No more he can.
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Romney and Ryan: Today's Hollow Men

One of the first poems I ever memorized was The Hollow Men, by T.S. Eliot. It may seem an odd choice at the age of 13, but I won't deny that I was an odd child. I liked the cadence of this poem, which was sorrowful, urgent and incantatory, like a prayer. There is an apocalyptic weariness to The Hollow Men that makes it timely today. Even if you don't know the poem, you probably know how it ends, since the final refrain took on a life of its own that is probably eternal. It sounds more like a children's nursery rhyme: "this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."

 

In other words, we all fall down.

 

 

Here is the first verse:

 

The Hollow Men

I

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

More to life than smoothies

As we move into fall, I find there is nothing more satisfying in the morning than a bowl of hot cereal. Since we discovered Wheat, Montana, on our way back from the cabin, that's where we buy our steal-cut cereal. This morning's serving, shown here, is topped with half a banana, sliced; two fresh figs, sliced; a green grape, quartered; a handful of pomegranate seeds; a dollop of my neighbor Genevieve's plum, lime and ginger jelly; and some oat milk. As with smoothies and fashion, color coordination is the key to success when it comes to a bowl of hot cereal. Enjoy!

Famous Men

With just under two weeks to go until election day, I would like to crawl under a rock and hibernate. And I don't even live in a swing state. I swore I would not set foot in the US for as long as George W. Bush was in the Oval Office but ended up returning to the US to live before he slunk away, never to be seen again. It was a strange time: the entire American public seemed to have given up on or even actively repudiated Bush, his policies, his politics, his wars, his neocons... As his presidency wound down, the subprime crisis emerged and the housing bubble burst. This came as no surprise to me, a virtual newcomer to the US, where everyone I met was involved in the mortgage refi or real estate business, or was married to someone who was. This can't be a good sign, I thought. Turns out it wasn't. (Note to the 40-somethings who were riding high during that time but who have since lost jobs and extra cash: you are crazy if you think a Romney presidency will bring those crazy money jobs back. Once Romney eviscerates the mortgage interest deduction,the housing market will scream in pain.) I'll never forget where I was when I heard, on the radio, that Lehman Brothers had collapsed. I was driving south on I-5 to join my husband for a post-charity golf tournament dinner. I literally looked up at the sky, to see if it was falling. The election of Obama marked a turning of the page, symbolically, but many people seem not to have realized that the economy, in free fall, would have to bottom out before it could begin to heal. Since my work involves deciphering economic texts, I was privy to what the non-partisan economists - most of them not American - thought about the global financial meltdown. They all agreed it was a long overdue and hence necessarily brutal correction, and they all agreed that the recovery would take a long time to materialize and that it would be characterized by weak job creation. Guess what? They were right! Let's not dwell on these complex matters. Let's instead just say that, given the slow nature of the recovery and the weak net job creation numbers to date (partly due to the huge number of jobs that disappeared, see above), it is amazing that the sitting President has never fallen behind his challenger and often has in fact led in the polls. This can only be due to one thing: an incredibly weak and lunatic field of Republican contenders resulted in an incredibly mediocre, hollow and unfit candidate, the man we know as Mittens. Had the Republicans come up with a strong or even adequate Republican candidate - someone with genuine, enlightened conservative values, substantial governing experience and charismatic leadership skills - they would be running ahead in this campaign. Instead, they chose someone who exemplifies everything that is wrong with latter-day capitalism and the corporate mindset. If Mittens does end up pulling out a victory, it will not be due to his leadership, experience, genuinely conservative worldview or anything like that. He does not have any of those things because he is fashioned out of silly putty. It will be due to voter intimidation and chronic mendacity combined with that lethal, uniquely American blend of apathy, fear and greed. The stock market took a big tumble yesterday, falling by something like 248 points on worse than expected corporate earnings numbers. According to the corporations in question, these disappointing numbers are attributable to the global slowdown (led by slower Chinese growth, now at single digits) in general and the European recession in particular. Okay, this is logical: US corporations are multinational, in part, ironically, to spread their risk of exposure to economic cycles. When Chinese GDP growth is double digit, this is good for everyone who does business with and in China. When the Euro Area is relatively strong, trade is more robust for everyone. This is called globalization. As a CEO, Mittens knows all about this. Which brings me to my next question: if Mittens is elected, and after he has spent the week repealing Obamacare and rolling back a half-century of women's rights, how is he going to create 12 million jobs if America's trading partners are suffering? I'm afraid that while America's multinantional corporations can "explain" their poor performance by pointing to slower growth in Asia and a recession in Europe, American voters will see this as an excuse, and an inexcusable one at that. As a CEO, Mittens is probably used to dictating a set of "must have" numbers and then getting them. This would be a lot harder to accomplish if he were CEO of America. These days, I find myself thinking about the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I read it as an undergraduate and have never forgotten either the austere, gripping photos (by Walker Evans) or the complex, poetic text (by James Agee), documenting the lives of three white sharecropper families living in Southern Alabama during the Great Depression. The foundations for what we think of as the social safety net were laid at this time by FDR. He succeeded Hoover, who had presided over the start of the Great Depression and who made things worse by stubbornly clinging to the idea that business would correct the economy without government interference. When that did not pan out, he said let the state and local governments take care of the problem. The problem was that they simply did not have enough money to cope with the magnitude of the misery. And the rest, as they say, is history. And as we know, those who do not learn from history tend to repeat it.

A Walker Evans photo from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Not about Myth Romney this time: how about Bob Dylan?

We got free tickets to the Bob Dylan concert at Key Arena last Saturday night. If I had a bucket list, which I most certainly do not, I would be able to cross one more item off. Everyone knows that Dylan's voice has.... umm, changed over the course of his long career. You can read the polemic surrounding this fact on the internets, so I will spare you. Yes, his voice has changed. Yes, it was distinctive but not great to start with. And yes, it is still distinctive but has gone from not great to truly awful. How awful? Most of the time it takes awhile to figure out what song he's singing, even if you know his music well. He has rearranged the songs, in part to work around the severe limitations of his current voice. All singers do this more or less. To cite but one case among many, we saw Joan Baez a couple of years ago at a Zootunes concert, and it was clear that her voice had aged. But it had aged well and her workarounds were as lovely as whatever she was working around. Bob Dylan is in another category altogether. His voice is a wreck, and not a fine one. Every once in awhile, he hits a note at the same time he hits a word, but most of the time he sounds like a baby who has cried its lungs out but continues to cry. An angry crying baby. There was one moment that may have made the evening worthwhile, however. It was the moment when a light shone on the dark stage and all that was visible was Dylan's light-colored hat. Then Dylan's face. And I thought to myself, behold the man: one of the most well-known names on the planet. There he is, standing before me. I also appreciated his playlist, though most of the songs were not immediately recognizable. They were only recognizable when a word and note combined with clarity. "Oh," Walt would say with a laugh, "that's Tangled up in Blue". Or "Wow, that's All Along the Watchtower". "Highway 61!" Etc. Mark Knopfler opened for Dylan. It is hard to imagine Knopfler opening for many people - Dylan is one of few who has that kind of stature. I mean, Knopfler is pretty mythical himself. I had seen him once before, in Paris. It was 1986. I was actually attending an Eric Clapton concert, and Knopfler's appearance onstage came as a total surprise for everyone. When we emerged from the Zénith after the show, exhilarated, snow was falling. It took hours to get out of the parking lot and then endure a slow crawl back to Paris. But what a night! Knopfler continues to amaze. He is certainly one of the best if not the best guitarist alive. His voice is distinctive but not great. Unlike Dylan, however, his has not changed much. It is still distinctive but not great. He seems to be just a guy who wants to surround himself with the best musicians and jam. That's what he did on Saturday. I am sure half the crowd was there to see him, including the increasingly insistent loudmouth who wanted him to do "MTV". Knopfler ignored him, though he ended with a relative oldie, So Far Away From You.

Elizabeth Warren demonstrates why she should be the next Senator from Massachusetts and why Scott Brown should go back to doing whatever he was doing before

"I have no doubt that Sen. Brown is a good husband and a good father to his daughters. But this is an issue that affects all of our daughters, and our granddaughters. And what matters here is how Sen. Brown votes. So he's gone to Washington, and he's had some good votes. But he's had exactly one chance to vote for equal pay for equal work, and he voted no. He had exactly one chance to vote for insurance coverage for birth control and other preventive services for women. He voted no. And he had exactly one chance to vote for a pro-choice woman -- from Massachusetts -- to the United States Supreme Court, and he voted no. Those are bad votes for women. The women of Massachusetts need a senator they can count on, not some of the time, but all of the time. [...] "I am a mother of a daughter, and a grandmother of granddaughters, and this is about their future. And I want to be blunt: we should not be fighting about equal pay for equal work and access to birth control in 2012. These issues were resolved years ago -- until the Republicans brought them back."