Real-Estate Barons

I have noticed, in my moderately long life, that there are people in certain occupations, who have a tendency to forgive themselves quickly, for any pain or discomfiture they cause anyone.  Principal among these occupations is: commercial real estate. 

One can only speculate as to why this is the case‐--and I'm surely not the only one thinking along these lines, seeing as this was the occupation for one of our least truthful and altruistic presidents--- and many of the most troublesome and stubborn citizens are real estate developers. 

One reason could be that they have discovered---or been taught, by parents---that there's really hardly any downside to being ruthless and vindictive to anyone.  (This must be broadly true about any capitalist, and is the driving force today for forming trade unions.)  Great wealth conveys great power, and power, most of all, to punish and retaliate against perceived slights and transgressions.  'An eye for an eye' is much too mild for some of these people.  They are primitives, and follow a code that predates the Mosaic law: if a man wrongs you, exact twice, and even many times, what he took from you.  Some people admire this attitude, which they call 'strength'.

In Clinton County, for instance, there are laws that any real estate constructions—parking lots, for instance—must satisfy certain rules, especially to accommodate water runoff.  (A large parking lot, for instance, can result in a veritable river of water, that can erode the surrounding soil, if careful preventative measures are not taken.)  Naturally, large developers are impatient with these regulations.  "We should be allowed to build anything,  anywhere we want!"  And the response of some of these entities is to go ahead and build, leaving the paperwork until county administrators draw attention to them.  And then, too, drag their feet as long as they can.  This makes it impossible for the county planners to insist on any construction details that would have minimized the environmental impact of the development. 

And now, our former president is exploring the possibility of unconstrained presidential action.  He has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on this principle, to which they have wisely responded in the negative.  A good executive, Trump seems to say, like any scofflaw real estate developer, should be permitted to exercise his creativity.  (Judging from his buildings, unless we're careful, we might end up with very garish ('Beautiful!') things.

The Election!

It's coming home to me just how much the outcome of this upcoming election is going to depend not on how the electorate feels, but on exactly who is motivated enough to come out to vote.

The GOP is a fragmented group of people.  They've always been that; whoever runs for president on the Republican ticket has to persuade people that he supports all the numerous things that that confused party has under its umbrella: anti- socialism; US jingoism aka neo conservatism; opposition to welfare (including opposition to 'Obamacare', the IRS, Public Education, and other topics that fall broadly under the heading of Racism); opposition to immigration (which can be construed as also falling under the 'Racism' heading, but deserves it's own bullet point); opposition to Gun Control; opposition to Clean Energy; opposition to postal ballots; opposition to birth control; opposition to abortion; LGBTQR+ folks, and a number of other things.  There are a few things that they are for, such as school prayers, Christianity as State Religion, packing the Sipreme Court with conservative judges, lowering taxes for rich people, etc. The Bush presidents didn't have trouble doing this.  Mitt Romney did; we know how that turned out.

Lately, though, Democrats have also been fragmented.  Some, frustrated with the decades of compromise where the Democrat administrations have given breaks to big corporations, hoping they will be nice to their employees, want more definite pro-worker agendas.  The Republicans were quick to label these as Socialists and Communists.  In fact Trump declared that Global Warming was an invention of the Chinese government.

You can easily see, therefore, that if Biden isn't charismatic or glamorous enough to entice the entire Democratic Party to come out to vote, and if by some twist of fate, the entire, discouraged GOP, most of which has lost faith in Trump, and which is currently egged on by strange people such as Large Marge, and others of doubtful mental capacity, we have an election in which it would be hard to get people motivated to vote. 

One thing that would get Democrats motivated, is the fear that Trump might really destroy the Washington government structure (which all Republicans hate, though it hasn't been as tough on them as it should be).  Trump is a bigger embarrassment to the US than he was before.  But Democrats-- despite the accusations of the Republicans-- are not a vindictive lot.  We're protective of minorities and women, to a certain degree; we're cautiously supportive of teachers and higher education, though the anti- intellectual conservatives have been grinding away at the universities. 

College-educated liberals will definitely vote, and against Trump, (except the MBA's, who expect that Elizabeth Warren will make life hard for businesses).  This could become a mess. 

Arch

Licker License

More about Bruce.  Aka Brucie, or Bru-bru.  Over the years, he has gotten very fond of Katie.  When it's getting close to mealtime—5:15 p.m.—he goes and sits in front of her and makes puppy eyes at her.  When she makes as if to get up, he races over to his water bowl, and starts drinking.  ("Now you have to give me dinner.")  All this Katie worship doesn't prevent him from turning to me when he wants to go out at night, etc. 

When we come downstairs first thing in the morning (the critters are forbidden from going upstairs without supervision, because of shedding), Brucie is ready with his little blanket to greet Katie!  Same, if we've gone out anywhere; he races up to welcome Katie back from, you know, foreign parts.   Katie's sister calls his blanket The ceremonial Blanket, very High Church.  Sometimes he forgets the blanket, and races back into the house to fetch it and present it.

Sometimes when we arrive at home from some sortie, Katie says, I'm going to water the flowers, just take my purse in, please, so when I open the door, Brucie sees just me, but he's all set to jump up and lay a kiss on Kate, so he gets me on the face instead.  Thank God he isn't any taller; at least he doesn't get me in the eye, you know. 

That dog is sort of insane, but getting pretty affectionate.  But the barking has to stop. 

Arch.

Choose Field

Bruce, the Reverse Leader

So our dog, Bruce, is named for famous Scottish leader, Robert the Bruce.  At night, he often tries to herd me towards the back door; this means he either (1) wants to check whether there are any enemies out there, or little defenseless possum babies, or (2) obey an imperative of nature, namely to pee.  It should be noted that Brucie came with an extended reservoir, which enables him to water every tree and suspicious shrub he encounters in our walks around the neighborhood.

I walked up to the back door, and looked out through the glass.  Very often, there is our (indoor/outdoor) cat waiting to gain admittance.  Sometimes Brucie hears her at the door, and lacking the means to be specific with what he wants, he uses the old 'Want to pee, or something' routine. 

So I looked out, and announced to Brucie "There seems to be a watering-can that's trying to come in.  Be careful, Brucie."

He just looks at me like, OK, OK, this is all good, lemme out!  And I let him out. 

He races to the bottom of our yard, ready to bark at anyone or anything that moves.  All the squirrels know his limitations, and just stop what they're doing and freeze when he's looking in their direction.  He then barks at cars,  bicycles, and pedestrians.  (Hey, I'd bark at pedestrians walking in our back alley at night.  What the heck?)

I call him in, because the wife does not appreciate the barking, which offends her sensibilities.  He's half Beagle, which we verified through an impartial agency.  The rest of him is poodle, and other things.

Next door, there is a canine bulldozer of a dog, called Tex.  I call him T-Rex, for short.  T-Rex's BFF is Brucie.  When he gets bored--usually in the daytime--he issues a quiet 'woof!'  The wife does not mind that.  In contrast, when Brucie gets excited, he issues a full bore howling bark, which we can hear inside the house, 100 feet away.  (I mean, the wife can; I'm half deaf, for reals.)

I don't have a punchline to end this post, but it's clear that I'm practicing all my Dad Jokes on little Brucie.  A watering can that desires ingress?  I ask you ...

Arch

Smashburgers!

"Was ist das?" you might ask.

It's  a way of making hamburgers that's liked by a large number of people, including me!  I recently had a hurried hamburger at Burger King, and it was so good that I cudgelled my brain, to try and remember exactly what the reason for the yumminess was.  Then I saw a lot of hoo hah about Smashburgers, and I put the two together and got this blogpost!!

All you need to do is sift through the six million links that come up when you search on smashburger, and you're set for life.  I'll give you an abbreviated introduxion. 

Get some hamburger, some garlic powder (o), some onion powder, some salt (o), and some pepper (o), mix them together, make into a ball, and put the ball on a cold griddle (or frying pan, or frypan, as they say in parts of the country).  (o)=optional.

Turn the heat on the griddle to medium-low.

Use a heavy wooden spatula, or those weight things they use on bacon, to SMASH the patty into a thin disc.  Flip the patty when the edges are brown, scraping up every bit of crunchy crusty burger.  

I'm told on good authority that it's those crunchy bits that make the burgers special. 

Once both sides have been fried (bim* the second side fries a lot faster) put on hamburger bun.  Add any extras you want, e.g. onions, cheese, ketchup (if you must), mayonnnaisse (if you must), bbbaaconn (if you must), and pickles, put on its headdress, and there you go!

Today, for lunch, I made a tiny slider-sized hamburger this way, except I forgot the salt. I sprinkled garlic powder and onion powder on top, since I had forgotten them too.  (Halfway through, our dog trotted up, and I guessed he liked the way this was going.)

Fried the thing to a turn (a phrase I never figured out, but this blog is a place where I try things out!  Oops) and put the corpus delecti on a slice of Aldi bread.  I'm not sure what sort of bread it was, but the patty was so small I had to cut the slice in half. 

Delicious.  Just like Mom would have made, if she had ever made one. I don't think this recipe alone is enough to establish my reputation as a cook, but— give it a shot!!

Arch

P.S. I can't remember what I intended "bim" to mean.