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.)

Well, That Was the Debate That Was

We're within a month and a half of the elections.   We now have to just make sure everyone goes out to vote on Election Day.  I'm new to this business, so I don't know how mail ballots and stuff work.  But normal ballots: you go to the poll place on November 5th, line up, sign in, and vote. There are some older people there who compare your signature with one that they've got in a book, if they approve, they give you a ballot (for us it's just a scantron form), you sit at a table with screens on either side, mark in your votes, take it up to the girls who manage the voting machines, and feed the ballot through the slot. 

I usually find out who is running for the local races (mayor, DA, dogcatcher, etc), because if you don't know their names, it becomes messy.  There have been times when the Democratic candidate was a bit of a number, while the Republican wasn't too bad. 

It's hard to keep up enthusiasm for such a long time, but because of Trump's shenanigans, it's a little easier. 

Honestly, I do not want another debate—except, a walz-Vance debate might be entertaining.  Someone should give Trump a Word Find puzzle book.

Flip-Flopping

'Ti's the season for candidates to accuse their opponents of flipflopping on the issues.  In border policy, on abortion, on tax policy; practically everything. 

(I'm not talking about the Republican candidate, here, though I think he should be allowed the same degree of flip-flopping as anyone else.)  I'm talking about Kamala Harris.  When deciding on what, and how much to tax, it all depends on what everyone can tolerate.  During debates, of course, each side is trying to trip the opponent up, making them say things that can be used as fuel for TV ads, and so on.  But it makes no sense to hold them to opinions they expressed five years ago.  Conditions change.  Trump himself trotted around the globe, destroying diplomatic agreements, making threats, threatening allies; he changes everything, and sucking up to national leaders the US has generally regarded with suspicion.  (One of his stated goals has been to build a reputation for himself as being difficult to anticipate.  Which could also mean that he's undependable.)

Arch

Books on Politics

There are a huge amount of books that have been published, both by commentators, and by politicians themselves.  This disclosure may completely discredit me with the cognoscenti, but I haven't read any of them, except Andy Borowitz's 'Profiles in Ignorance.'

I might have remarked about that one soon after I read it.  It was tough to read, but I learned a great deal from it, basically how widespread conservative ignorance was.  Well, it's probably a matter of choice; conservatives just don't want to know data that they consider irrelevant.  Like Sherlock Holmes's fictitious brain, they must consider that their own brains have finite memory capacity, and unlike frantic liberals, they're not going to go out and get a larger memory, just so that 'socialists' can persuade them to their cause.  'Profiles' was a groan a minute, but it was fascinating to look back on Reagan, in particular, and see how he ran away with US—and World—politics. 

There are non-books, like 'The Art of The Deal', and real books, like 'Profiles in Courage', and Hitler's 'Mein Kampf', and similar books.  The closest thing to a book like that in my library is 'Life, The Universe and Everything', by Douglas Adams, but then he went and killed himself (I think), which gave the book the flavor of a long suicide note!  (No, it isn't; I should strike that out, and perhaps I will, someday.)

Joe Biden is a man from Pennsylvania.  We Pennsylvanians are cursed with being surrounded by New Yorkers, and New Jerseyites, and (now even) Ohians, writing books, and making noise with their elegies, and it drives our native sons to settle elsewhere, and yearn to leave a legacy.  Throughout his long political life, Biden has been driven by the desire to get something done for his home state of Delaware, and for the country at large, and to be remembered for his achievements.  He did lead us out of the Covid pandemic, with the help of Anthony Fauci, but there is so much misinformation flying around, and so much disinformation being desperately passed around MAGA circles, that it would be hard for someone with the unique character of Biden to see himself as a hero, worthy of writing a book.  The laughable, but menacing character of Trump hangs over him, like a toupée, ruining everything.  But Biden will be remembered, mostly, for being the one who firmly put a stop to runaway Trumpism, though it was a laborious process that still hasn't ended. 

I feel bad at throwing shade at 'The Art of the Deal' without having read it.  But in my defence, there are numerous, more highly respected books, that I also have not read. 

Archimedes

Republicans at the Democrat National Convention

If you watched the final night of the DNC—and earlier too—you would have seen members of the Republican Party, supporting Kamala Harris.  Their main point is that the post-Trump GOP has developed (or regressed) into a personality cult.  The last straw was when they shut down a bi-partisan immigration and migrant control bill, at the orders of Trump.  It had not been an easy bill to put together, but it had somehow been gotten ready in December; but Trump did not want there to be any political victories for the Democrats, or for Biden.  So he called for that bill to be abandoned.

It was a foolish mistake, that few people would have made.  What did Trump think would have been the response of the Democrats to being denied the opportunity to pass the bill, and put it into action?  Of course, the Dems are mad as hell.  But the MAGA faithful in The House are content to take their cues from The Savior.  ("He knows what he's doing," they're thinking, against the evidence of four years.)

And, that action has given the leadership of the Dems so much ammunition to attack Trump!  Did he think they would be decent, and pull their punches?  Did he think the Dems would say: it was all our fault?  What an idiot. 

Of course, when the Dems are a minority in the House, they had to do a lot of compromising.  But this elections, there must be lots of Republicans coming up for reelection.  What are they to say when their electorate asks them what they did about the border?  They'll have to invent some fiction such as: "The Dems came up with a bill, but it was rubbish.  So Trump advised that we should not push it forward.  So that's what we did."

The main engine of the MAGA faithful and Trump is: dislike of foreigners.  If you remember, Trump signaled this by insulting the parents of an immigrant, a marine who was killed in battle.  Trump got a thorough scolding by the father, during the 2016 debate against Hillary Clinton.  This gives us a clue about how big this border control issue is, for both Trump, and the MAGA/Tea Party people.  It's almost as though there are only one issue for them.  Well, an issue and a half: how to fix the border, and prevent the wrong sorts of people from voting.

What a sad thing. 

Arch

Sophistry from MAGA

An interesting thing I have observed is that Mr Vance replies to questions a lot more intelligibly than Trump.

If Vance is asked about some action of Trump's that is not in line with what is expected of a presidential candidate, Vance has a response.   One time he said that the reason Trump entertained some Nazi sympathizer at his home, is that Trump is always willing to talk to anyone.  This  is actually an excellent response; probably a better answer that anyone could have got out of Trump himself.