Stu News and Photos

Scary to watch, yet I'm glad he's happy with what he's doing.

I may be calling the pot a little early, but I was bowled over by the pilot for Tim Roth's new show, Lie To Me. Produced by Brian Grazer, it is delectable. The subject matter is close to my heart, so I may be allowing bias to hamper my gambler's mind. Still, I'm going to the $2 window and placing a bet down on this show.

Me, Senior Prom, and my friend Mike's date

My buddy Mike has an entry in the Food Network/Welch's Grape Jelly contest - do me a flavor and vote for him, as he's a gentleman and a scholar, and his daughter is really cute! Here's the link to load the voting page (you click on the rate this link and give it 5 Jelly Jars)

And here's the vid by itself, so feel free to watch it here and then click on the above link to vote - Thanks!!!



And

*EDIT*

At 7:35pm EST, President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of The Office of The President of The United States a second time - flawlessly reciting the oath, and cementing his status as the 44th President Of The United States. Gotta respect a person who respects the rule of law - this is a really good sign.

*EDIT*

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Allow me to say at the outset that I'm pleased as punch that the people voted to have as their leader Mr. Barack Obama.

But he's not the President, at least not as of this writing, at a little past 2pm PST on Wednesday, January 21st.

If I understand the Constitution Of The United States as clearly as I think I do, here's the deal:

Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 says, "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Do to the unparalleled bout of stage-fright that consumed Chief Justice Roberts, the exact words that Mr. Obama uttered were,

"I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute...[pause while the Chief Justice fumbles] ...the Office of President of the United States faithfully and will, to the the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Certain folks will immediately point you to the 20th Amendment, Section 1, which reads:

"Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin."

Here's my argument (which is the argument of some others, so I'm not alone here,) - while the 20th Amendment indicates a term, it refers to the person who is President. And you can't be the President until you've been sworn into that office, and that involves saying the correct oath. Article II clearly uses the word "shall," in case there are any dissenters at this point.

Obviously there's no precedent for the oath of President being muffed. Presidents Coolidge and Arthur took the oath twice, but neither was required, they were both, essentially, given a formal swearing in for show.

So what's the next step? My opinion is that Mr. Obama needs to have the oath administered again properly and with due haste. If I were an arch-conservative, I would be waiting in the tall grass, ready to file suit against the first most-hot button topic that Mr. Obama has taken action on (like shutting down Gitmo).

And to anyone who is thinking that I'm making too big a deal out of this, allow me to respond: We are a nation of laws. The law *makes* us a nation, a united group. We all, *all* of us, accept the Constitution as inviolate. And while I am a fan of the defiance of certain laws, there's nothing unjust about the oath. At the highest levels of authority, it is imperative that the law be followed to the letter. For those who have forgotten the last eight years, allow me to repeat, it is *imperative* that they follow the letter of the law.

Thank you for your time.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

This one's for Amy - She's into solo piano music, so I thought I'd introduce her to Keith Jarrett:

Not that any of you would have really noticed (maybe a few of you did)... but... I had a problem with my feed - the account was setup using an old, and now defunct, email address. Well... Finally... I got Google to reset my password and now everything is cool.

So, for one thing, if you want to email me back when you get a post, the reply-to field should have a good address for me.

And another thing, now I can keep tabs on my subscribers. Anyone not subscribed? Now's your chance!

And lastly, I'm in the mood for requests. Anyone want to see a video on specific topic, or genre of music? Anyone want me to write about anything special? Anyone awake?

My bud Sully pointed out that I mention a lot of dead folks on my blog, so here's someone who is alive and great: actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, who celebrates a birthday today, January 16th.

I'm in my forties - yes, it's true. And some things change, whether you want them to or not. One of them is the intestinal system, especially if you eat terribly, like I do. So when the need for fiber first hit me, I thought figs and such would be the way, except eating stuff like that was more a chore than anything else. And they didn't have enough fiber per serving - I mean, most fiber-rich fruits/veggies average about 5 grams of fiber per serving.

I may not be into fruits and vegetables so much, but I sure dig me some breakfast cereal. So I started looking at the fiber count of certain cereals and discovered that some had about the same amount of fiber. Unfortunately, the taste was kinda eh.

And then I discovered Fiber One. Not the yummiest cereal ever invented, 'cause, y'know, not a lot of sugar in it, but it's got some brown sugar in it, so it's pretty decent. And the fiber count? 13 grams per serving. No guff, Chet, 13 grams. That's enough to clean out your system, let me tell ya.

So if you're tired of eating figs and prunes and black-eyed peas all the time in order to keep your plumbing up to code, give yourself a break, buy a box of Fiber One (with honey clusters - yum!) and settle back on the couch.

Hey. What's up? It's been a while, I know.

Leslie is about to head to another meeting in Dallas. I plan on eating nothing but butter until she returns.

The kids are great. Noelle is really becoming an artist with her makeup, especially her eyes. She watches youtube tutorials and really gets into it. Nich is plodding along, dealing with the demands of sophomore year education and sports. It drains him, but when I ask him if he wants to stop, he says no, so what can I do.

I've got my GNMParents essay up, which you can read if you click here.

The rest of my week will be spent organizing bills, grocery shopping, and annoying my children.

How's by you?

Not sure how many people are reading this (feel free to let me know via comments) - I haven't blogged in a bit - been pretty preoccupied by the war in Israel.

I've grown up as a Jew, raised in what would reasonably be labeled as a conservatively Jewish household - I was taken to temple every Saturday morning and most Friday nights and Sunday mornings, I went to Hebrew school through to high school, and I ate a lot of Chinese food.

Another thing about growing up Jewish was learning that there were a whole bunch of folks who didn't like me because of it. Throughout our temple/Hebrew school were reminders of the Holocaust (this picture, which was used as a poster in one of the classrooms, still sticks strong in my memory).

In addition to this history of Antisemitism that I was taught, there were moments in my life where I was a direct victim: Getting pennies thrown at me while on the bus to school during seventh grade - our house getting spray-painted with swastikas and hate speech - and others.

I see how the media is playing the coverage of the current war - trying to balance things, and that's me being kind - really, it's unbalanced. When Israel accidentally hits a civilian, or when they specifically target a building where Hamas terrorists hide behind schoolchildren or medical staff, the media spend a lot of time, showing a lot of footage. When Hamas terrorists fire rockets from Gaza into Israeli towns like Be'er Sheva and Ashkelon and Gedera, not a peep from the major media.

So, to the average American, it appears that Israel is the aggressor. And yet that's just not the case. As early as the eleventh century BCE, Jews have organized towns on the land that is now labeled as Israel. Since that time, they have been persecuted and chased from their rightful land (a strip of desert the size of Connecticut) by the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Syrians, etc. This continues to this very day, and yet despite this horror, Jews have maintained some form of presence on that land.

And they have worked that land, and they have built it into a home, and they have sought nothing more than to live in peace, to be openly Jewish on the street, to pray in their temples, to gather together and feel proud of their heritage.

But that's just not ok with some people. And so the story gets turned around and the anti-Jew conspiracy tales are told, and now it's 2009 and Jews still don't have a safe place that they can call home. Other religions have homes that are peaceful - Jews, not so much.

What will happen next? Will other religions, other nations clear their heads, read some legitimate history texts, and organize to keep Israel safe? Or will the world continue to believe ideas such as what was expressed by the philosopher Voltaire: "The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous - cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity."

So that's what has been on my mind.

My mother makes the best potato pancakes in the world (this has been verified by NASA and Condé Nast). I made my own version of them last night, using my mother's recipe as a basis, and they were magnificent. It was a thoroughly invigorating experience.

A few folks asked for the recipe, so here's my version. A bow of respect to my mom, as this recipe is 90% hers - I just added an egg and peeled the potatoes and such. So if you make these and you find them as delightful as I do, full credit goes to my mother, who is one o' the greats.

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Latkes

Ingredients and Tools

A whole mess of paper towels
1 decent-sized blender
1 large mixing bowl
1 spatula
8 good-sized Russet potatoes
1 large onion (your choice on variety)
Matzo meal - you'll need about a cup for each batch
Canola oil (enough to fry this batch, maybe half a cup or so)
Salt
Pepper
4 Eggs

First I'll do a brief on the recipe and then the details:

To make the latkes, scrub, peel, and cut up potatoes. Cut up onion into chunks. Add a little oil, the eggs, the 'taters, and the onion to the blender and blend on low setting. Once it is blended, pour the mush into a big bowl, add the matzo meal. Then get your biggest frying pan, add enough canola oil so that there is about a quarter-inch of oil. Get it good and hot, then spoon in the mixture. Wait until the sides get brown, flip 'em over, wait 30-40 seconds, pull 'em out onto paper towels, let 'em cool for as long as you can stand it, then shove 'em in your eating hole.

Ok, now the full thing:

Prep

Get out a large mixing bowl that you will use for the final container of the potato mush. Set it aside.

Get out a large lasagna-style baking dish (for keeping the latkes warm in the oven). Put in a few layers of paper towels and put it near the stove, if not on one of the empty burners.

Get out your biggest frying pan. Higher sides are better, because their will be spatter from the hot oil. Deal with the pain of the burns, the taste will make up for them. Set the pan on the stove.

Get out the ingredients and a large spoon (larger than a standard tablespoon, but not huge)

Get out your biggest blender. Plug it in.

Scrub the potatoes.

Peel the potatoes, though no need to be overly-clean. Getting most of the skin off is the idea.

Cut potatoes in half, lengthwise, then half again, lengthwise. Line up the four long strips and cut them into one-inch chunks or so. Don't sweat it, it's just to make it easier to put into the top of the blender.

Peel and cut the onion into quarters.

Grab the oil and put about a teaspoon into the blender. Follow it with the eggs (yolks and whites), and start blending on a low setting.

Add potatoes and onion chunks.

Add salt and pepper (your choice on how much)

Wait until the largest chunk you see is the size of a pea. No need to liquefy this stuff, just get it goopy.

Take the goopy potato mixture and pour it into the large mixing bowl.

Slowly add one cup of matzo meal. Stir as you add.

When that's done, put about a quarter-cup of canola oil into your frying pan and get it good and hot. Make sure that there's about a quarter-inch of oil in the pan - don't have any exposed bottom surface.

Take your bowl of potato goop and bring it to the stove. When the oil is hot, take your bigger-than-a-tablespoon spoon and get a healthy amount of potato goop. Slowly add it into the hot oil, moving your spoon as you go, so you get an oval-shaped layer of goop cooking.

Do that again, maybe do three the first run.

Watch the edges. When they get brown, take your spatula and flip them. The tops should look decently cooked. Then count to 30 or so, flip them again, make sure they look cooked, then take 'em out and put 'em on the paper towels.

After they've drained a bit, put 'em on a plate and eat 'em, or put 'em onto a baking sheet. If you're making this whole batch, when you get 'em all on the baking sheet, you can pop 'em in the oven and set it to warm, so that they stay fresh for when you are ready to serve.

Lastly, think of taste - they're great by themselves, but some folks love them with applesauce or sour cream or whatever.

Enjoy!