Kamala Harris

One interesting thing about Vice President Harris is that she always speaks in complete sentences.  That might be annoying to some of Trump's most ardent supporters, but for those who are drawn to his style: four years is all we've budgeted for you.  For those who run with Trump supporters for fear of taxes: you can hope for compromises.  For those who fear for the economy: the Dems are doing fine; there's nothing better for the economy than a myriad middle class families stocking up on luxuries.  For those who are anxious about immigration insanity: that's not a uniquely Republican issue.  Straightening up the border problems will be a bipartisan objective, even if Republicans like to pretend that they own it.  Ẅhat the Dems do not like is unnecessary cruelty for the sake of deterrence. 

Interesting that Trump thought he would be hale, and in full possessions of his faculties through a second term.  But this second term, delayed by four years, has pushed Trump past his shelf life.

We can only hope that Kamala Harris will be the first of a new generation of younger, more capable presidents. 

[Added later Oct 25:]

Once again—and this is becoming common inthese latter years—the election is likely to be decided not by how people vote, but rather by which voters decide to turn out on election day.  There certainly are a few voters who haven't made up their minds yet—and I'm not going to waste my scorn on them!—but they are few.  (Lots of analysts are persuaded that these 15 voters are going to decide the election, but I doubt it.)

On the other hand, voters are getting lazy and unmotivated to actually leave their houses and go vote!  This is yet another instance of the decline in discipline that I'm seeing; people don't do what they know they should do, so parents (and schools, and colleges, and governments, and churches) have to make everything easier.  There's doordash, and bluetooth, and starter buttons on cars, all to make things easier.  I'm certainly not to be excused; the only reason I'm still alive today is because all the things that a diabetic is supposed to do have been made easier, e.g. taking insulin. 

Anyway, don't read this post now, read it shortly before election day, like, for instance, the day they do Fall Back (November 3rd), to get motivated.

I wish I could get some AI apps to write this blog post for me, but I'm afraid that it will have terrible spelling and grammar (more terrible than usual, anyway).

Arch

Pastries!

By now, my readers have concluded that I was not born in the US, but elsewhere, though you might still be uncertain as to exactly where!  I was born, and grew up in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon.  ('Sri', in Sri Lanka, is equivalent to 'Great' in Great Britain, so we could leave it out, really.)

In 1505, Portugal invaded Ceylon, aiming to cut out the middlemen in trading for spices.  (They might have aimed for India, and hit Ceylon, due to the vagaries of the currents.)

Later, the Dutch invaded Ceylon—again with a trade motivation—and colonized the entire seaboard.  Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch shipmen were encouraged to marry among the native population, and over the years, influenced Ceylonese cuisine quite strongly. 

The British succeeded the Dutch (I apologize for not giving the dates of these incursions, but I'm only confident in the 1505 date.)

The Dutch colonists picked up English quickly, and established a symbiotic relationship with the British.  But, most importantly, they set up some businesses that specialized in livestock.  It was no surprise that they also created stores that were effectively delicatessens.

When I was a kid, there were outlets all over the country, which were pastry shops.  Unlike the pastry shops we have around here, most of the snacks that they sold in these stores were savories, not sweets!

There were patties, which were circles of pastry, with a meat filling in the center (the pastry would be folded in half, and pasted together).  Cutlets were balls of beef, or chicken, or fish, or simply mashed potatoes, seasoned nicely, dipped in beaten egg, then in breadcrumbs, and deep fried. 

There were baked snacks, too; hard-boiled eggs, sometimes with a morsel of bacon, rolled in bread dough, and baked.  Pancake rolls were made to accommodate Ceylonese tastes, and were a meat curry mixture, with shredded vegetables, rolled inside a thin pancake covering (much like Chinese Spring Rolls), covered in breadcrumbs, and deep fried. 

When I visited Colombo around 2010, these sorts of stores were flourishing.  Most of the Dutch colonials—descendants of the original Dutch colonists, who had inter-married with Ceylonese—had emigrated to Australia around the 1970's.  But Sri Lankan businessmen had taken over the pastry shops, and though to some degree the quality had declined, the variety of offerings was being maintained. 

This brings me to my sad point: are there no businesses that offer these sorts of foods in the Eastern US?  Pigs in Blankets come close, and—I just remembered—some offerings in gas stations are a little like Ceylonese pastries.  But there really aren't anything that comes any closer to the pastries that I remember!

Arch

Are our Social Media Controlled by Foreign People?

For a long time, I have deplored the spelling, the grammar, and the choice of words used in posts on Facebook, and now on YouTube as well.  Earlier, I would make a comment, correcting the mistake; that's easier when the mistake is merely bad spelling, or a bad choice of words.  But sometimes, the correction requires a complete reformulation of the sentence; something that is a much bigger undertaking. 

So, I kept noting these errors glumly for years, and it began to dawn on me that these mistakes are not commonly made by Americans at all; they certainly appear to be authored by foreign folk.  I don't know enough about these things to be able to identify what nationality the posters belong to, except that they're very likely not native English speakers!

All around the world there is a thriving industry of establishing fake IDs, on Facebook and YouTube, and posting messages and videos intended to make readers angry.  (Whoever pays these jokers to methodically establish IDs, and then write these incendiary posts, doesn't realize that angry citizens are more likely to vote.)