28 February 2005

PittCon Blogging: The Pittsburgh Conference is the biggest show of analytical equipment in the US and maybe the world. Last year 35,000 people attended and its where I'll spend the next four days in Orlando. We did set up today and it always amazes me what things look like behind the scenes. It's been 50 years since the first GC was made by Perkin Elmer and they actually have one of the old ones at their booth. I'll probably update this at noon and tonight as my day will be spent on the show floor.

One interesting thing already noted is the loss of many of the small specialized instrument companies as they are bought out by the larger ones. While this normally means better prices and subjects, the loss is in the ability to market new technologies that represent total departures from the traditional. I know its cyclic and they will probably reappear again as new people start but I miss seeing them.

25 February 2005

The Carnival of Recipe is up and flying at Rocket Jones.  We'll have to see what he uses a larding needle for in space 'cause I don't think it'll work on space food.

Hooray!  There is a Carnival of Cordite out there too. Kewlness! Who knew? I wonder if they believe in Friday gun blogging...I've got to send a post next week and maybe they need another host?

In case anyone noticed, things were light this week. They kept us really busy at the meeting. Next week should be better...

For someplace that was originally desert and gold mines, the lakes sure turn it into a lovely place. This is Lake Las Vegas from my hotel room's window. I used a Panasonic SV-AV50. It's fussy and it doesn't work well indoors but it is no bigger than my cell phone and I could afford it.

22 February 2005

Forgot to write anything yesterday as the boys and I spent President’s Day bumming around.  We enjoyed the warm weather and read.  I think I never even remembered to boot the PC up.  Noah did and is slowly working thru a Flash MX tutorial, so yesterday he was making animated roaches…<sigh> The mind of a 12 is a very odd thing indeed.

I’m flying to Las Vegas today to attend a business meeting.  Most times flying on a Tuesday means a plane full of other wage slaves and techno-gypsies, but whenever I head to a vacation spot (rarely – I no longer fly for pleasure), I'm always amazed.  Now anyone who travels routinely knows that coach has basically turned into a bus, and that business and first class are pale images of what they were.  However, on a flight with people heading off for a good time, the bus reminds me of the buses in Belize and Central America back in the late 70s when I worked there as a research assistant.  I keep looking for the old grandmother with the rooster…

Tenure, Freedom of Speech, and University’s: While everyone seems to be aware of the Churchill mess over in Colorado, the attempts of censoring political speech at the University of North Texas by minority organizations has attached less interest in the blogsphere, even among Texas bloggers. Some of this may be because it really appears to be a fairly standard method of operation at universities today.  In the artificial hot house environment of the university, the exchange of ideas is limited to that which fits the approved doctrine or is safe and unthreatening.  The University with its own health center, security (at UNT that includes dogs and a SWAT team), internal ISP, libraries, food services, and living quarters has become an all encompassing and all controlling nanny state. The average student, not realizing the fees buried in their tuition and board cover all these things, seems to treat the services as free.  So what we have is, for the living on campus student, a little socialist paradise in the heart of America.

The problem is two fold: first, the Universities have created an unnatural environment where the actions that get you in trouble do not track with the larger world. Drunkenness and sexual license are fine but try free speech when it doesn’t fit the political correct mold.  Offending a minority student can be a expelling offense but you are perfectly free to abuse and mistreat non-protected groups. Hence, at UNT, LULAC wants the chancellor to resign, the student chapter wants all the Young Conservatives silenced, and except for Fox, there is no outcry. Imagine if the Young Conservatives were demanding the LULAC group be kept from advocating illegal immigration?  CNN and CBS would be living on campus.

Secondary, the heavy bureaucracy and the basically untouchable position of most tenured faculty creates a system almost no one can be held responsible for actions.  The Universities deny responsibility to the parents, to the students, and the state (for state schools). Under the guise of protecting free speech and expression, and assisted by some of the most Byzantine bureaucracy even created, the idea of responsible behavior, of obligation to the student/customer (sometimes the same person, often not – if I sent my kid to wrestling camp, they are responsible to me what he learns because I am paying) is lost in a little world of tin gods and private fiefdoms.  We won’t even start on graduate school, where the term indentured servitude could be used.

The good news about this, and why I think we are seeing more and more conservative students and new college graduates, is this is applied with the same heavy handedness used by Marxists and Socialists everywhere.  Dissenting voices are not reasoned with but shouted down and threatened.  Destructive and abusive actions by faculty approved groups go unpunished. Tenured faculty does not meet the research or teaching requirements.  A young person, still believing in justice and fair play, looks at this and starts thinking: “So this is liberalism….hmmmm… how bad can conservatives be?”  And they find out that due to the change in meanings over the years, the old style liberals are now republicans.

20 February 2005

Wow.  (I'd comment on the science but its Sunday and my thoughts have been on He Who created all this wonder.)

UPDATE: Okay, to be honest, the boys and I turned bowls instead.

Silflay Hraka has a link to the latest in the corruption scandals in the Greek Orthodox Church. Sadly its not just there. He makes the great point that nothing weakens religion like making it part of the government. Tsarist Russia and Modern Iran come to mind... Tsarist Russia in more ways than one: My grandfather believed that the Commies were God's Judgment on the Russian Orthodox Church for its large scale corruption and selling out to the Tsar. This from a man who was a devoted Christian and faithful member of the Orthodox Church his whole life. His example lead me home. Yet he was well aware of the dangers of Church and State mixing too close. Today in the US we are seeing the other extreme where religion is not acceptable in the public square. Hmmm. Extremes are usually bad...

The Christian Carnival is up at both Wittenberg's Gate and Sharing Spirit... passing the torch is always a bit messy. Thanks to Nick Queen for starting something and Dory of Wittenberg's Gate for being the new sexton. I first found the Carnival via a link to Dory... And yes, I forgot to post in time. Hopefully the below will make next week's.

Observations on American Christianity: Sola Scriptura and Over Simplification: Over at Nick's while trying to figure out the whole Carnival timetable, I read this post on the Gospel. Responding to Adrian's earlier post on what is required for salvation, Nick suggest that it is much simpler and uses the story of the good thief to illustrate the point. There is a lot of discussion on this: John suggests its as complex as God himself.

As an Orthodox Christian, I think what hits me most is the first the tendency to separate salvation into a series of steps, that apparently become irreversible at some point, like a series of vaccinations. Secondly, the arguments also tend to depend on isolated chunks of scripture. The gap between the theology of Orthodoxy and both Protestant and Roman Catholics has increased with the centuries, so I'll save the discussion of justification, God as a slave to necessity, mysteries and such for another day.  For now I'll just note that certain questions that exist in Western Christianity are not seen the same in the Eastern Churches: Faith versus Works for example or Scripture versus Tradition.

I have to disagree with both Nick and Adrian to a certain extent, although I fall much closer to Adrian's position. Nick's argument that belief in Christ alone with repentance is enough unfortunately is directly contradicted by many passages, most notably the story of the Ethiopian in Acts and Christ's own instructions. At one time, the Roman Catholics handled this by talking of baptism by water, blood and faith. The idea is that God is all merciful and accepts the intention when there is no alternative. With the good thief, baptism by water was not an option. (Beside Christ is God...) Outside of special cases like martyrdom, the early Church from Acts on considered Baptism a requirement for salvation. Without Baptism, one was still outside the Church and not saved.  An metaphor I use and the reason I think Adrian is right is simply getting onto a diet. I've known for a couple of years I need to, I agree with it, I know its the right thing. However, until I get off my butt and start, its not real. This is the thrust of James' Epistle, one which is hard enough to read Martin Luther reputedly even wanted to scrap it but couldn't find a reason.  Looking at all of scripture and the practice of the early Church, which decided which books make up our Bible, you can't escape it.  Until one gets themselves into the Church and accepts the Baptism in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are just talking the talk. If you don't obey Him in this, how can you say you are following Him? 

My disagreement with Adrian is the impression his list gives that salvation is finished or assured at the end. Maybe I'm reading into it but I think that is as wrong as Nick's position. St. Paul worried about his salvation, that having saved others he might fall short. Why? Well, because while God will not ever leave us, He has given us Free Will and He will let us walk away from Him. The Orthodox are fond of using marriage as an metaphor for our relationship with God. Think about the divorces that affect so many lives. How many of those people did not mean their vows when they took them? People make choices and change and some of those choices can take you very far from God. Not only people but organizations that once claimed to be his. How many of the mainline Churches now accept homosexuality and abortion as okay?  How many tolerate premartial sex? From the early days of the Church, these were considered wrong. God will never desert his Church but large chucks of it can and have left Him.

I think it comes down to a tendency, common today among all Christians, but worse in the Churches that accept Sola Scriptura, to over simplify the teachings of Christ. Part of it is the modern usage of simple as easy. Simple didn't always mean that. It had meanings ranging from a medicinal tonic or plant to unadorned to innocent. The idea of simple as easy is but one of many and I think, if I am reading the OED aright, a later one. So the simple gospel, unadorned, plain does not necessarily mean easy or un-complex. It is simple, of one piece. From Clausewitz in his "On War" to various writers in the sciences to many craftsman over the years, the message is repeated: "Simple things are not easy." Why should what is true of most parts of life be any difference at the core choice we need to make?

It's a simple, uncomplicated, choice: to chose Christ or not. The message is simple, i.e. straight forward, in that Christ God offers us hope of reconciliation with God. The method and the path is not simple by any means. It's simple to accept the Christianity of Middle America, which is to say you believe and not act on that. Sadly its easy to fall into that and one sees it happen all the time. It's harder and scarier to deal with the Christianity of the Gospels and of the historical Church, which demands a change of heart and of lifestyle, a training at being godly like an athlete trains for the Olympics. Sometimes it requires realizing I've become the "American Gods" Christian...and I'm answerable at the Dead Judgment Seat of Christ for that failing. It's not easy and it affects everything in life: politics, friendships, job, career, schooling. Read the writings and history of the early Church; read the lives of the Saints. Yeah, its simple but there ain't nothing easy about it.

19 February 2005

Venison Roast with sour cherries: The family gorging on meat continues as Great Lent draws near. The goddess went to the Festival of Orthodoxy today in Dallas with some great speakers. I had to stay home, teach class, drive the boys around, and cook.  The boys had never used a clay pot so we decided to try this old Russian recipe that always came out too dry for my taste.  For some reason, the idea of soaking the pot before use really amused the youngest.

4-5 pound venison leg roast (can use veal or pork - skip the fat and marinade then)

1 cup olive oil

1 chopped onion

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup wine vinegar

water to cover

1 pound fat back (pork fat...can use bacon or salt pork)

1 pound Morello Cherries (canned in light syrup - save the syrup)

1/2 cup sweet butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp cardamom

1.5 tbsp flour

1/2 cup Maderia wine

1 cup beef broth

1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Larding needle

Clay Pot

Parchment paper

Soak clay pot for a half hour in water. Line with parchment paper.

Marinade the roast overnight in the oil, onion, garlic, vinegar and water. Remove and pat dry. (Optional: You can brown the roast now by searing the sides in a frying pan if desired.)  Cut half the pork fat into narrow strips and pull thru the roast using a larding needle. Take 1/2 the cherries, cut small slits in the roast, and stick a pitted cherry in each slit.  Place meat in clay pot on parchment paper. Melt  all the butter but 4 tbsp  in sauce pan and brush on meat. Sprinkle roast with cinnamon, cardamom and flour. Drape remaining salt pork in thin slices over roast. Add 1/2 cup broth to bottom of pot. Close clay pot and put into a cold oven. Heat oven to 425 F  and cook for about 60 minutes.  

Combine the Maderia, 1/4 cup of the cherry syrup from can, 4 tbsp butter, sugar to taste and 1/2 cup broth. Open pot and pour over roast. Check internal temperature. Close and cook until it reachs 165 F internal temperature. About 30 minutes or longer.

Remove meat and let stand. Remove fat from meat.  Degrease sauce from pan and heat in sauce pan. Add remaining cherries and thicken (I use arrowroot).  Slice venison and serve with cherry sauce as gravy with a pilaf...salad, asparagus, fresh bread go well as sides.

It came out great: of course you can cook a boot in a clay pot and it will be edible.... (BTW its medium well...the goddess won't let the kids eat game any rarer. I will be so glad when they are both over 13).

UPDATE: A simple pilaf:  heat 4 tbsp butter until molten. Add 1 cup tiny thin egg noodles. Fry until brown. Add 2 cups white rice. Stir until butter is absorbed. Dump into a pot and add 5 cups boiling water. Cook rice as normal until done (simmer and sitting time). Add 1/4 cup slivered almonds and 1/4 cup sliced dried fruits. Mix in well. Cover and let sit 10 minutes.

Denton Record today: League of United Latin American Citizen's national president demands the resignation of the University of North Texas Chancellor Jackson because he did not selectively limit free speech for the Young Conservatives and censure them for the January 26 "Catch an Illegal" activity. Now, Jackson did issue a pretty sucking-up statement to try and pacify the minority groups on campus, who insist this was hate speech. (We won't touch on the stupidity of hate speech at this point). However, he did say the YC were within their rights. Actually that's more than I expected. The rest of the statement has all PC stuff about assuring people they are welcomed and valued on campus.

Not surprisingly, the student chapter of LULAC is demanding all free speech be pre-approved to make sure it isn't offensive. Approved free speech? Hello? What are they teaching at this school? It does go along with the continued abuse and harassment of Conservative, Jewish and Christian groups by minority, liberal, and Islamic students on campus. Instead of shouting them down and beating them up, LULAC just wants to revoke their right to free speech. How do you think they will react if the university decides one of their demonstrations is inappropriate? Maybe someone finds Cinco de Mayo offensive? The screams would be heard in Canada...

Give Dean Ballom credit thro. He said it isn't done and isn't going to happen. All they check for is if the activity is going to be physically harmful. Hey! Someone who actually get the idea of free speech.

Does the idea that an national special-interest group demanding the resignation of  a state university cah for allowing free speech in a designated free speech zone sound stupid? I think it tells us just how morally bankrupt organizations like LULAC have become.

UPDATE: Yes, LULAC is a misnomer. Franco, Italian, Portugese, nor Romanian -Americans, despite being Latin, are not accepted. It's purely Hispanic althro I heard other nationalities like Puerto Ricans are just kind of tolerated.  Not surprising that LULAC tends to support the Democrats here in Texas. Some day the majority of Hispanic American might notice how much the Democratic platform disagrees with their culture and their faith...

UPDATE: LULAC 's position that the Mexico-US border should be wide open and any Hispanic who wants to come in should be allowed to, legally or illegally. After that we should then support them and help them become legal. They say it prettier but that's the gist. They oppose the idea of ID cards that show citizenship and that could be used to validity residence for little things like voting. There is a word for selling your countries interest out....hmmmm...anyone want to guess what it is?

Ans what does the constant influx of illegal immigrants do to legal immigrants and poor Hispanic families? LULAC does not seem to care despite the fact many of my hispanic friends do...

Hmmm. It appears the idea of tenure being decoupled from results and ability is not only seen here in Texas. The Vodka Pundit has some damning details...It appears one department in Boulder agreed to take one for the team and tenure Churchill simply because he was a Native American. Oops. The quality of his work was unimportant.

There are roaches all over the reality based martial artist's sausage!!! But its not as bad a thing as you might think. Well, its not as dirty as it sounds. A new rant from our favorite arch-traditionalists in the martial arts...

18 February 2005

Catching Up on Stuff: Yesterday was one of those horribly messy traveling day so the stuff I typed then on the labtop is in with today. BTW, DFW Airport is dang scary at midnight. It makes you think the rapture happened and you were one of the select. (No,  I really don't believe it that.) Anyway on to things I should have posted earlier:

The Carnival of Recipes is up at Inside Allan's Mind. Cool corned beef recipe and one for Mac and Cheese in a crock pot. This Carnival may be an example of a self inhibiting system: how to you generate your own recipes for it when all these people post some many cools one I want to try? Even it you were hobbits, there are only some many meals in a day. Do folks drop out after a while and just cook? Or do we die off from heart disease and obesity?

Hey It's Friday and it's gun dreams time....

From Kimber's website, this picture is one of the nicest little carry .45s I've handled.  It shoots better out of the box than any Colt I've owned. <sigh>

16 February 2005

From the Orange County Register:  R. Duncan Luce, Raiffa's co-author on "Games and Decisions," has been awarded the National Medal of Science for his work on human decision making. Turns out he teaches at U. C. Irvine. Neat.

The same paper (I'm reading the print addition dropped outside my door) has this summary of local members of Congress on President Bush's Social Security Plan. It's pretty much a party line break. I was surprised at how red the area is: I know rural California is more conservative, I just wasn't aware it came into the LA sprawl this far.

15 February 2005

On the road again...Off to Orange County this time. It's easy to forget some days how small our world is becoming. I stopped at a coffee stand in DFW Airport and asked for a cafe au lait (you Starbuck zombies call it a mista or something. It's drip coffee and steamed milk, common on the Gulf Coast). The lady behind the counter looked at me and responded in French: "But of course. Regular or dark? Milk is on the counter behind you."  Iended up with drip<grin>

Orange County, California near the John Wayne Airport:  I took a walk tonight thru several strip malls in the area and was surprised to see no less that six places teaching ballroom dancing and two restaurant/clubs that advertised ballroom. All but one were busy and fairly full; the one was doing a private lesson with a couple. Everyone of the class seemed to be on one of the Latin dances: cha-cha, rumba, samba, tango, etc.  So is this the start of a new trend? I know that home in Texas, both  C&W and Latin dancing are very popular but that part of the US has always had a strong tradition of dancing. This is relatively new: I walked the same area about 6 months ago and none of these were here.

14 February 2005

Tenure considerations: I've been digging into why tenure for a bit now. Both the Ward Churchill mess in Colorado and local issues had made me ask the question why tenure? Now the fact the NEA is totally in favor of it immediately makes me suspect the worst, however I still went and read thru the list of stuff on their site. After spending a day or two chasing down where the idea of academic tenure (because tenure is also used in land uses, forestry, etc), I really still don't have a good idea on how this idea became the norm in academia.

Tenure basically says that a faculty member can't be fired unless he does something very wrong. The arguments for it are really pretty vague: freedom of speech (apparently this doesn't apply to real jobs), freedom of research (assuming someone supplies the grant money), and safety in ones position in exchange for the immense investment of time and talent one puts into your position (that's almost word for word from an NEA article . Excuse me? I don't invest time and talent into my profession because I work for a corporation? Bull shit.

Despite the crap, what tenure is, is a performance free job with minimal responsibility to the people paying you. I see the NEA numbers but the reality is different. A lot of faculty dramatically reduce their research after tenure and as to the teaching load, well, the dirty secret is a course is a lot of work the first time you teach it. After that however, its pretty easy to keep it update. If its a lower level class, updating isn't necessary. How often does freshman chemistry change? Not very.  It's no longer true that academic salaries are much less than commercial: several of my students have started teaching at close to what they would get in industry. So why do we continue to create this magically place where rewards are disconnected from actions.

If anyone wonders why so many students are turning conservative, look at the colleges they attend: faculty who aren't held accountable for their actions, special treatment for preferred groups, an interfering and all controlling university system staffed by people unresponsive to the students (who pay for this).  Now I am not claiming all universities are like this, but the sum of the system is enough to turn anyone off on the idea of the nanny state.

Tenure seems to one of those things whose time is past. Like Social Security, one has to wonder how it is going to survive when there are less students than faculty.

Happy St. Valentine's Day: Odd that feast day a early martyr for the Christian Faith who become associated with romantic love, a pagan goddess's love child, and little cherub thingies that were her attendants... Other still that while many Christian schools reject Halloween, they make a big deal out of today.

13 February 2005

Noah and I spent the afternoon finishing this project for his school and we got the first coat of tung oil and beeswax on just before dinner. We missed our workout but we got it done. It's still in the shop but looks pretty good ...

It's solid North American cherry with cedar drawers and popular as the secondary wood for frame parts. Knobs are hand-turned from cherry and the drawer fronts are all re-sawn from the same board. Drawer bottoms are 5-ply birch plywood. It came out pretty nice.  So three to five more coats of finish with a rub down with steel wool between each and its ready to go. Now, on to the icon stands, hutch, cradles, and bowls.

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Well, its been a heck of a weekend, with the boys running us ragged, a blue and gold banquet, and finishing the Shaker 5 Draw Chest for Liberty Christian School's annual auction. I forgot to gun-blog on Friday, but I did get to do some browsing today. Apparently, I am not doing something right:

The Carnival of Recipes is up and my posole recipe didn't make it. <sigh> I sent it early in the week and either the color didn't work (posole is kinda red-brown) or it just got lost between Beth and Kris. Anyone know where next weeks is?  I got this venison hindquarter I plan to cook in a clay pot.

The Carnival of Vanities is up and again, despite my trying, I missed that too. I could blame Wizbang or Adam  but again I suspect I am running on the wrong timetable. Most of my writing and recipe work is done early in the week, and maybe I sent it too soon...<sigh>The life of a technogypsy...everything fun is crammed in the weekends. Ah well at least Terry and Noah read this thing.

10 February 2005

The Christian Carnival is up. Some interesting stuff...I find the discussion of Lent interesting as it appears no one there noticed a bunch of us haven't even started warming up for Great Lent...

When the story about Dotson's Focus on the Family and SpongeBob came out, it didn't make sense as Dotson is one of the more rational voices for family values. I did some looking and it appeared to be wrong. Not that the liberals seemed to care: anything that hurt Dotson and, by association, Christians was good for them. Well the truth wins out sometimes.

The Churchill stuff continues to dominate the news in Colorado: Gov. Owens has called for Churchill's resignation and the Regents are investigating Churchill's record.  The name calling continues but that crack made yesterday about a faculty member of U. Colorado not being an employee of taxpayers was not well received.  Not surprisingly, Churchill claims this is all a right wing attack. Owens? Right wing? huh? Well, not by my standards...

Basically the left's moral and ideological bankruptcy is again on display. As Wretchard wrote yesterday, the left has nothing left but hatred and conceit, the conceit of a spoiled rich kid who believes himself free of the consequences of his actions.

HP got rid of Fiorina because of poor earnings. No biggie right, that's what CEO do and getting let go is part of the game. However, the Denver papers spend half the article talking to women from various business groups (for women) who all talk about what a blow this is to lose a role model CEO like this. Excuse me? She was doing a bad job: her sex, color, religion, sexual preferences and preferred brand of coffee are all meaningless. It's the profit that matters.

University Life: I had lunch yesterday with a faculty member from Colorado and he asked about the goddess.  I mentioned she is seeing a lot of college kids with depression these days and he said they saw the same thing out here. He ended with the comment: "All the material stuff just doesn't seem to be enough."  You know I kinda knew that?

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9 February 2005

Rocky Mountain News Print Edition: Ward Churchill again: I am not retracting anything and I do not work for the taxpayers. Ouch. Talk about the clueless. I wonder how long before Colorado sees a bill with the state increase its control over universities. 

Seperately my host at the Marne Inn (above - a delightful B&B) told me yesterday Russell Means of the American Indian Movement was on the news saying Churchill had their full support. So the Indian Nations deny him but the political activists see him as "having their full support." Sounds similar to what I've heard about LULAC and working class Hispanics in Texas.

8 February 2005

Colorado: It's white, with the heavy damp snow that coats everything. I hate this place....<grumble>.  Sunsets are nice though. I finally found out why Denver is so far from the mountians, something that has bothered me for years. Turns out it is in a small valley and the worst of the weather misses it.

But then why is the airport out on the plains?

Clueless: I got trapped at the DFW airport for a bit and ended up reading today's column of Dowd and Pitt. First question: Why the hell does Dowd have a column? That was more incoherent than most of the posts on my blog and I know I suck. Secondly, for years, it has been shown the movies and TV influence how people think and she doesn't get it. Is anyone checking the dosage of her meds?

More interesting was Leonard Pitt's column on how Africian Americans should stay loyal to the Democratic Party. Apparently for Pitts, its all about homosexuality (apparently abortion, belief in God, religion in the public sphere, education reform, and illegal immigration are not issues to blacks). So if you are a black Christian, you should deny the teachings of Christianity because those evil republicans (you know the party of Lincoln and the guys who pushed the civil rights stuff thro) are just going to use you. Like the Democrats haven't? So just piss on your religious beliefs and vote for stuff you don't believe in.  Mr. Pitt needs to get out more. A growing black presence in the Republican Party would not only strengthen the Religious Republicans (who tend to be more liberal than other Republicans because of their faith) on social issues but would increase their influence on the platform. This is the party that gave us Colin Powell and Condi Rice... real people in real jobs, not fluff.

7 February 2005

Posole: Yesterday was Scout Sunday and after going to church with my eldest's troop, we stopped at a little Mexican diner for breakfast: chorizo con papas, eggs with smoked jerky, and menudo. Now the goddess doesn't let tripe into the house (or organ meats, so I got to make the liver and onions in the back yard), so we decided to make posole. The recipe we used was altered from the boys Uncle Ed, who works on the theory tomatoes aren't the only way to turn a stock red.

5 pounds hominy (frozen or dried best, canned easiest...I used dried)*

5 pound lamb or lamb and pork chops or backs, cut into 1" cubes.**

1 large onion

1 bunch of carrots chopped

2 cups celery

1 cup diced bell pepper

1 cup diced green onions

4 cloves garlic

bones from meat, roasted

2 Tbsp dried oregano

1 cup powdered red chili (we use half chile pepper powder and half chipotile)

2 quarts water

black pepper, extra minced garlic and lime to taste.

Soak and wash hominy (unless using canned then rinse). Cook in a pot on low simmer until tender. If using canned, skip this step.

Add the bones,  veggies and spices (minue the oregano, hominy and meat) to the water and cook for about 2 hours on simmer (or 15 minutes at 15 pounds in a pressure cooker. If you do this, add 2 Tbsp vinegar too.) Strain off broth into a clean pot (throw away veggies and bones). Add the hominy and the meat and simmer until meat is cooked (about 30 minutes).  Add oregano and chili mix and adjust flavors with black pepper, garlic and lime. Simmer until flavors blend.

We think it tastes best the next day and serve with Indian Fry bread:

3 cups white flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

.5 tsp salt

1 1/3 warm water

Mixed dry stuff together and add water to form a soft dough. Fry in lard or shortening (bacon grease!!!!!) and turn once so it is brown on both sides. Serve with butter, honey and Sweet Spice Mix.

* for you Yankees, hominy is corn treated in lye. Dried needed to be soaked and washed. It's a common item in Texas and the southwest. I like yellow best but the recipe works with canned white just fine. Your local Mexican food store should have it.

** Save all the bones and roast them at 450 until the meat darkens. About 15- 20 minutes for me. I'll often grill them instead so I don't smoke up the house.

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Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech: Instapundit (scroll down past the last couple of days) links to a bunch of people on the Churchill mess and on other issues in academic freedom. However, my experiences as both faculty and as the wage-slave of a large corporation leads me to a question: why do this protection cover anything a faculty member does? Looking at it objectively, tenure today  basically means early retirement for some people?   Let me point out what we live with in the real world. If I say something that makes me a liability to my employer, I'm fired. It's like a having a concealed carry permit, the state may say I can carry but my employer can forbid me to do so on his premises as a condition of employment. Now, one has to wonder how this will hold up especially as Catholic Charities in California was told that they had to offer birth control as a benefit despite it going against their belief and what I would think was an implied condition of working there. It's not uncommon for religious related groups to say you need to follow their faith's rules if you work here.

Now I am a bit behind the power curve here but what I find interesting is that a lot of bloggers and news stories are pointing out a lot of problems exist in academia. The real clincher comes when you start looking at whole mess and then what the state legislatures are doing.  There seems to be a growing trend, driven in part by decreasing revenues and cost cutting, of the government looking at previously sacred cows. The Ohio bill was mentioned a few places: Texas several years ago looked at removing tenure to clean out dead wood. Lord knows there is enough. Back as far as my graduate days, there were faculty who did no research and taught the minimum required classes after they were tenured. Now these guys weren't the majority in the sciences, but there were enough. Since the taxpayers are really the employers, and state university normally recieve funding, perhaps it is logical to expect more control from the state.

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6 February 2005

Observations on American Christianity - Running Scared: Christianity has a history of being a very in-your-face religion. Early writers did not hesitate at all from contrasting how Christians lived to the way of the world: "we conceive children and do abort them,..." Augustine actually suggested that early missionaries build churches on top of where old temples were and set feast days on the dates of pagan holidays.  The fathers of the Church talk in many cases about using pagan customs to emphasis a point. This tendency continued up into the last century which people like Chesterton talking of "how only Christian men honor even pagan things" and Lewis talking about the same idea in many of his books and writing.

Now this isn't a call for what the Russians call "double belief", the survival of paganism along with and inside of Christianity. Its an attitude about sanctifying the world that seems to have been lost in American Christianity. Whether from buying into the societal myth of the separation of faith and secular life, or in response to the lies about the seperation of Church and State (See Althouse on the Nation's latest twisting of the facts), it seems American Christianity has lost the will to attempt to turn the secular to the sacred. 

My kids' school refuses to permit any Halloween parties, despite the fact Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows Eve and the western Church set All Saints Day (the Hallowed or Holy) intentionally on the old pagan feast of the dead to challenge the terror and darkness of that day.  I've seen some Orthodox Churches host parties where you come as a good creation of God or a saint, but its rare. Most places just say its non-Christian and run away from the issue. I know people who refuse to have a Christmas Tree and instead have a Christmas Cross (and I won't go any further into that blasphemy.) Christians in colleges isolate themselves in little groups and this has been going on for a while. I got some hard words from people in one Campus Christian group because I spent my Friday nights having beer and pizza with old biker friends. Other people were horrified to learn that the western name for Pascha, Easter, comes from the name of a Celtic goddess. Evolution is another good example. Rather than look at the teaching of the Church fathers on Genesis, what the theory actually says, and what the person pushing the theory really is saying most seem content to use Johnson's attacks on a straw-man. I've had it justified by people saying "well, learning the science is hard." Fortunately I was taught using a cluebat on a minister is not acceptable. So we teach our kids some crap form of creationism that denies large chunks of the rest of science too.  It goes on.

If we really believe in the Resurrection, if we truly believe Christ has triumphed over death, then why do Christians as a mass retreat from the challenges. Are we, am I, just American God Christians where we claim the title but lack the believe and willingness to take the whole challenge?  People that in Chesterton's word "will not have the Faith but do not have the fun?" Why are so many Christian prep schools identical in the problems of drugs, pre-martial sex, etc. the same as secular ones of the same social class?  Something is missing and the lack has us running scared. And we should be, but not of the world, but of He Who said "If you are neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth" and Who will sit in the Dreadful Judgment Seat when time ends.  Intellectual faith will not be enough: He said "your whole heart,  your whole soul,  all your strength, and all your mind" God have mercy for I know I can't pass that test.

4 February 2005

Free Speech on Campus: The University of North Texas has a little free speech area. The Young Conservatives did a thing where you could get a 100 Grand candy bar for finding the illegal alien (a kid in a orange tee) as a way to focus on the discussion. Fine, free speech right?  The local Latino groups (actually Mexican because French, Italians, and Spanish need not apply and I hear Puerto Ricans aren't that welcome either) objected and staged a counter demonstration the next day. Again fine, free speech.

Now, what is missing from the UNT newspaper, which was quoted in the local paper, was the comments of the protesters on free speech: "I'm in favor of free speech but this is racist. We need to change the rules of the free speech area to prevent people like this from using it." <paraphrased...see below> You need to read the letters to editor with all the legal immigrants who seem to think that this is directed at them and all the Hispanics who think its racist because anyone objecting to illegal immigration has to be. I'm not impressed with the logic or reading comprehension at UNT if this is representative of it.

 Oddly the only thing the YC mentioned was legal status; nothing in their handout was discussing race. Nice to know that the Latino groups on campus can read hearts and see these kids are racists. Nice also to know they don't believe in the law.

So lets see we got free speech areas (I guess its not allowed outside the zone), people demanding speech be censored because it might be racist , people threatening all sorts of stuff because they disagree (read the letters), college students who can't understand the difference between legal and illegal acts...

And people wonder why I only teach part-time...<sigh>

There is no link above to the Denton Record where I read this because they require registration and I ain't doing that. What happens when your small town newspaper gets bought by city slickers? Well, for one the quality crashes to the below level of the mainstream media. It's really sad. I used to like to read the Record, even when I didn't agree, but now its not worth the fifty cents.

UPDATE: Hey, look who noticed. And they got the whole quote with the "the dean should ban conservatives."

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Friday's Firearm: Today's gun is the lovely M1 Garand: This one is a modern gun from Springfield Armory (photo from their catalog), but I just got a lovely used one from the CMP. Now, some folks prefer the M1A or the Bushmaster, but I still think the Garand is one of the sweetest shooting military rifles out. Yeah, it doesn't take 20 round magazines, but with the 30-06 round, you don't need to shoot things multiple times. With the modern long eye relief scopes, you no longer have the issue of the scope needing to be offset.

2 February 2005

SOTU Stuff: A lot of people live blogged it and Instapundit has the list. A delightful surprise was finding Drumwaster. A really good set of comments on the speech and in it, a link to a really clear discussion of the differences between religious and conservative republicans. It makes more sense than 90% of what I've seen. He gets right the fact that certain positions are not negotiable for the religious and that in many ways, they are more liberal than the conservatives. Of course, Reynolds has to again mention he supports a whole list of immoral acts. Now he mentioned once he is the son of a minister, Methodist I believe,  - odd that - as he seems to reject Christian morality out of hand. Of course, he teaches law and a good friend of mine tells of how he was told by his professors that he could never be a lawyer until he got over ideas of right and wrong. I guess I shouldn't bitch about someone I read more than I admit and doesn't know I exist but he rolls in it as much as Sullivan does..

BTW, Whoever decided Sullivan and Cox were representative bloggers? CNN is really nuts. Sullivan is no conservative and Cox  is really a liberal gossip columnist.  Why the hell couldn't they pick people like the folks at Powerline, Gay Patriot, or one of some many other? Someone with some depth of thought and who actually blogs?

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Hey! It's Groundhog Day and in honor of that you should drop by CCI Ammo and shoot at the little pest. It'll help get it out of your system.

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Christian Carnival is up at Wittenberg Gate and thanks to Dory for explaining about trackbacks and Haloscan...A wide range of topics is covered including SpongeBob, life in world, and some good stuff on the price of faith.

1 February 2005

Huh? The American journalists are going overseas to teach people about a free and impartial press. Let's see: they can't admitted they skewed the news and published outright fraud to try and influence an election, they screen and twist the news out of Iraq so it is all negative, they exhibit massive bias against gun-owners, certain political and religious groups, and for others. They quite publicly support the enemies of our troops and basically act as an arm of the DNC.

Yeah right, their students are going to learn a lot...but impartiality and honesty doesn't seem to be in the curriculum.

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Hmmmm. Martin Frost gives up and Dean looks like the man for the DNC chair. Now, I'd really like to see a strong and sane second party but I am basically a republican so I am gonna go with this as good news.

And the Democrats vow to oppose judges appointments and any private social security account. Of course, as congressmen and senators they long ago voted themselves a much nicer plan. Can you say "scum?" I knew you could.

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The American Heart Association must hate Steve. I'm betting the contract will be taken out right after he does book 2. Not content with the world's most evil cookbook, he has now decided to perfect the turducken.  And on top of that, he doesn't invite me...  <sniff>