American Exceptionalism (or Who Do You Think You Are, Mr. Putin?)

Who says America is not exceptional? Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, for one. He said so yesterday in an opinion article he wrote - an article that the New York Times thought was worthy of publication. Maybe you would have to be my age to see the irony in this.

My generation grew up during the Cold War when the Soviet Union was our arch enemy.  The Cold War was the back drop of our childhood years.  We had drills at school so we would know what to do if the Soviets (Russians) bombed us during school hours.  Every little town in America had meetings about how to prepare your family in case of a Russian attack.  A lot of people had bomb shelters built in their back  yards.  My parents considered doing this, although they never quite got around to it.  I remember that they went to a meeting once to learn how a bomb shelter should be constructed.

I remember the cranky Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who liked to bang his shoe on the table to be sure he had everybody's attention.  In 1956, at a meeting in Moscow with Western diplomats, he shouted, "We will bury you!" - meaning America.  Now it's said that this statement was mistranslated, and that what Khrushchev really said was, "We will show you!" or "We will outlast you!"  Whatever.  He was mad when he said it, and it came across as a thinly veiled threat.  That's when the bomb shelter business started to boom.

Needless to say, I never thought I'd live to see the day when a Communist Russian leader could get an article, critical of the United States of America, published in the New York Times.  But this is 2013, and President Obama has had a great deal of success in "fundamently transforming America."  Read Comrade Putin's entire article here.

I'm not going to say that there's no truth in Putin's article.  Even the devil has been known to speak the truth when it suits his purposes.  But don't be deceived by Putin's saying that Americans should not think of their country as "exceptional" - that it's even dangerous for us to think we're exceptional.

What does "American Exceptionalism" mean anyway?  President Obama has put his own erroneous spin on this phrase.  In his recent speech about Syria, here, he said this:

" . . . when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That's what makes America different. That's what makes us exceptional."

When you put it that way, Mr. President, who can argue with the goodness, the rightness, the virtue of keeping children from being gassed?  But alas!  That's not what is meant by "American Exceptionalism."  I begin to think there is at least as much truth in Putin's article as there is in Obama's speech.

We have to review history to understand why America is exceptional.  Since the beginning of recorded history, far more people - the vast majority of people - have lived under monarchs, dictators, or tyrants.  Whatever rights they had were given to them by the monarch, dictator, or tyrant to whom they were subject.

But God created human beings, and the rights they have come from God himself, not from any earthly ruler.  Throughout history human beings have instinctively known this and have made various attempts to assert their God-given rights.  Some attempts have been more successful than others.

In 1215, on a summer's day, a group of feudal barons met at Runnymeade, about 20 miles west of London, England; and here the Magna Carta (Great Charter) was born.  This document was a milestone in human history because it limited the king's powers and guaranteed the baron's rights.  An ancestor of mine, named Fitzwaren, is said to have attended the meeting at Runnymeade, but he refused to sign the Magna Carta.  He didn't think it was strong enough to accomplish what he and the other barons wanted to accomplish - securing their God given rights.  He may have missed out on the fame of having history record him as a signer of the Magna Carta, but history proved him right.  As time passed, most of the clauses of the Magna Carta were repealed. Today the United Kingdom has a lot in common with a socialist state where individual rights are more restricted than they are here in the United States.

The French were a bit more strident in their efforts to get out from under the rule of Royalty.  They beheaded as many members of the aristocracy as they could get their hands on during the French Revolution (1789-1799).  What they ended up with after the revolution wasn't exactly freedom - it was Napoleon Bonaparte who declared himself Emperor.  By 1814 the French had had enough of Napoleon, and so they ousted him.  There were a few royals left who still had their heads, so Louis XVIII was installed on the French throne.  Today France, like England, is socialist in nature.

And then there's Russia, Mr. Putin's country.  The Russian Revolution began in 1917.  The Russians forced Czar Nicholas to abdicate.  Later they executed Nicholas, his wife, his son, his four daughters, the family doctor, a maid servant, and the cook - and maybe the family dog, too.  I don't know.  At any rate, I guess the Russians thought they had been thorough enough that freedom would surely reign for the common people.  But what did they get?  Communism and tyrants far more ruthless than the Czar and his family.

It's worth noting that both the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution were atheistic in nature.  Napoleon went so far as to come up with his own calendar that had nothing to do with Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Success in the Russian Soviet Union required publically professing atheism and avoiding religious activities.

After discussing failed attempts to lay hold of God given rights, let's talk about a successful attempt - The American Revolution, wherein we won our independence from Great Britain and King George.  The aftermath of the American Revolution saw the creation of a political system that had never been seen in the world before - a system of laws to protect its citizens, and - at the same time - a system of rights that gave the individual an opportunity to flourish whether that individual's origins were humble or great.  When we compare this to the rest of the world's history, how can anybody say that the United States of American is not exceptional?

Why was the American experiment so successful in spite of its internal squabbles and flaws?  Because we were not founded on atheism.  We were founded on a belief in God Almighty.  All those who were instrumental in the founding of this country believed in God, and most were professing Christians.  God blessed us with success.

And now - a cautionary note.  Just because we have been and are exceptional does not mean we always will be.  We're skating on thin ice now as we let atheistic forces have undue influence, and as we allow truth to be sacrificed on a daily basis on the altar of political correctness.  May we see the error of our ways!

But in the meantime, don't let Mr. Putin tell you we're not exceptional, and don't let Mr. Obama change the definition of American Exceptionalism to some watered-down politically correct idea.  The history of the world is evidence of American Exceptionalism, and so is the fact that millions of people all over the world are striving to come here.  God bless America!

Needles Galore!

I took a twenty year hiatus from sewing.  I didn't plan to be away from my sewing machine that long, but that's how it turned out.  Now that I'm back to sewing, I'm amazed at how many different sewing machine needles there are now.

Years ago, I seldom changed the needle in my machine.  When I did, it was usually because I tried to zigzag with the wrong foot and broke a needle.  If I was mending jeans, I knew I needed a bigger needle than when I was sewing lightweight cotton.  At any rate, needle changes were not frequent.

But wow!  Things have changed!  In addition to regular sewing machine needles in various sizes (sometimes called universal needles) there are ball point needles (sometimes called jersey needles), special needles for topstitching, and twin needles (sometimes called double needles).  Since many of the new sewing machines do embroidery, there are special embroidery needles.  All these special needles come in various sizes, too.  (And to complicate things even more, sergers have their own array of needles, but that's another story.)

Needles usually come in little plastic cases - anywhere from four to six per case.  Some cases come with an assortment of sizes.  Once I've used a needle, I don't like to put it back in the case with the new, unused needles.  Needles get dull after so many hours of use, so I like to keep new and used separated.  But once a needle has been out of its case for a while, a question arises.  What kind of needle is this, and what size is it?

Size is usually etched on the shank of the needle, and twenty years ago I could read these tiny numbers.  Not now.  I have a jeweler's loupe that I bought to read information on fountain pen nibs.  I have to use it to see the numbers on needles these days.  But even if I can read a needle's size, I still have to determine what kind it is.  Fortunately, embroidery needles have a red mark at the base of the shank.  Both embroidery and topstitching needles have long eyes.  If a needle has a long eye, but no red mark, I assume it's a topstitching needle.  I don't know how to tell the difference in a regular and a jersey needle.

To try to bring some order to the confusing world of needles, I've made a needle "book" out of felt with different pages for various sizes and types of needles.  I place a special pin (with a blue head) to mark a place for the needle that is currently in my machine.  If - after a few days away from my machine - I forget what needle is in it, this saves me from having to take the needle out just to identify it.  

To make my little book, I cut four pieces of felt with pinking sheers - each one approximately 6 x 8 inches.  I folded each of these in half, making them 4 x 6 inches.  I punched three holes along the folded sides.  A regular paper punch won't work.  I used a hole punch and hammer from my MakingMemories Tool Kit.  I love it when paper crafting and sewing can use some of the same tools.  I cut a 4 x 6 inch piece of chip board, punched matching holes in it, and placed it on the bottom - under the pages - for some stability.  I bound the felt pages and chip board together with ribbon.  I used an alphabet font on my machine to do the lettering.  So there you have it!  Organized needles!  

Blogging on the Go

Here I am with my iPad on my lap, making a blog post - thanks to a recently purchased iPad app called BlogTouch.  Before BlogTouch, I had to be at my computer to make a blog post; and I'm not parked in front of the computer much since the iPad entered my world.   But with BlogTouch I don't have to be anywhere near my computer.  I can blog in the car - not while driving, of course.  I can blog while waiting on the Dow train between here and Baton Rouge.  I can blog at the doctor's office, the beauty shop, or while waiting in line at the store.   The result of having BlogTouch should be more frequent blog posts.  Time will tell.  We'll see.

Although I have an external keyboard that I can hook up to my iPad, it's a little cumbersome when you're on the go.  It has taken a lot of practice, but I'm fairly proficient at typing on the on-screen keyboard.  It was maddening at first!  A slick screen is nothing like a real keyboard.  I had never thought about how much "feel" has to do with typing.  Since there's nothing to feel on the screen, I have to look at the keys as I type.  At first I thought that on-screen typing would ruin me on a real keyboard, but it hasn't.  My brain seems to have accepted that these are two different skills.

As much as I love technology, it has occurred to me that it has a tendency to multiply and devalue things.  Think about it.  In the early days of photography, photographs were rare and highly prized.  A lot of people probably didn't have more than a half dozen pictures taken of themselves in a lifetime, so descendants often fought over photographs long after great-grandpa was gone.  Fast forward to modern digital photography.  Photographs have multiplied like rabbits!  We take hundreds - maybe thousands of them in a year's time.  I'm trying hard not to think of them as a nuisance.  They take up space on all my gadgets.  They have to be constantly sorted and organized if they're ever to be of any use.  And who needs 345 pictures of the cat, chasing a ball even if it was cute to see at the time?  You see what I mean?  Pictures just aren't as valuable as they were when they were rare.

And I fear that the same thing is true of the written word.  Once upon a time books and written documents - where people babbled on about experiences or opinions - were rare and highly prized.  Now modern technology and the internet have multiplied the written word to astronomical proportions.  Anybody can write anything and publish it instantaneously.  So . . . will the world be a better place because the BlogTouch app makes it easy for me to make frequent blog posts?  Nah, not really.  But all bloggers love to drone on, and if the readers get bored, a mere click will take them somewhere else.  Or, better still, they can set up their own blog. 

(The cute red car above is courtesy of www.carclipart.com)

"The Entombment of Christ" by Caravaggio

The New Orleans World's Fair was a big deal in 1984.  We saved our pennies, put the kids in the car, and went.  There was a lot to see, and we didn't see it all by any means. 

Most of my memories of the exhibits at the Fair have been blotted out by that one memory from the Treasures of the Vatican exhibit.  We entered the Vatican Pavilion and wandered through exhibits of interesting artifacts, intricately carved sarcophagi, sculptures, and other works of art. 

The smaller exhibit rooms opened into a large room - a gallery where  pictures lined the walls.  And then I saw it - "The Entombment of Christ" by Michelangelo Caravaggio, and I've never been quite the same since.

I've always loved art, but having no formal education in art history, I couldn't identify this painting.  Fortunately, there was a plaque there that gave the name of the painting and the artist's name.  Before leaving the Vatican Pavilion, we went to the gift shop where I bought a very small print of  "The Entombment of Christ" which, by the way, is also called "The Deposition."  I still have it.

Since then I've learned a few facts about this painting.  Michelangelo Caravaggio painted it in 1602 for St. Maria in Vallicella, a chapel in Rome.  Today a copy hangs in this chapel, and the original painting resides in the Vatican.

I like realism in art, and Caravaggio was a leader in the realist trend of the seventeenth century.  He arrived in Rome when he was in his early twenties.  He didn't lack for work.  Huge new churches were being built, and Caravaggio did his part to meet the demand for paintings to fill these churches.

There are three women in "The Entombment of Christ."  Mary, the wife of Clopas, raises her hands to heaven as if to ask why this thing has happened.  Mary Magdalene looks on with bowed head and a look of resigned grief.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, spreads her arms wide over her son's body as mothers often do in their efforts to protect their children.  I can almost hear her say, "Careful.  Don't drop him." 

Jesus is portrayed as a muscular man - a realistic interpretation, I think, since after all, he was a carpenter and had spent his adult life lifting and fashioning wood into useful objects or dwellings. 

It is Nicodemus whose arms are circled around and under Jesus' knees.  There seems to be some confusion about who Caravaggio was portraying in the shadowy figure who supports the upper part of Jesus' body.  Some art experts say it is the disciple John, and others suggest that it may have been Joseph of Arimathea in whose tomb Jesus was buried. 

It's an understatement to say that this is a large painting.  It's 6.5 feet wide and 10 feet high.  It is bigger than life.  In the gallery at the New Orleans World's Fair, it was hung fairly low to the floor.  I felt like I could almost step into the scene.  And indeed Nicodemus looked straight out at me and said, "For you.  He died for you."  It was quite an experience.  I didn't hear an audible voice that people around me could hear, but I heard it nonetheless. 

Until that moment, I thought he had done it for other people - people who were more righteous that I was.  Sometimes I was more hopeful and thought that he died for humanity in general, and maybe - just maybe - by the skin of my teeth I could be accepted as a member of that human sea. 

But Caravaggio's masterpiece brought me an epiphany - the knowledge that Christ sacrificed himself for me - the individual person, me!  - as he also sacrificed himself for the individual person, you!  Thanks be to God.

Ninja Notes - the Oven Setting

I'm continuing to give the Ninja Cooker a work out since posting my last Ninja Notes here.  I've done three things in the Ninja on the "Oven" setting - beer bread, a flan (custard), and pork roast.

For beer bread I used the recipe found here.  The cooker's instruction book says that there's no need to preheat; but if I understand correctly, you should never use the cooker on the oven setting without having water in it.  The purpose of the Ninja's oven feature is to do "steam infused" baking or roasting.  I put four or five cups of water in the cooking vessel, placed the rack in the water, and the loaf pan with batter in it on the rack.   The water level was just below the pan - not touching it.

The Ninja's lid has a vent hole that measures almost three-eighths of an inch - pretty large for a vent hole.  An incredible amount of stem pours out of this hole when on the oven setting.  I admit it - I thought about plugging the hole, but my more responsible genes kicked in and I decided to read the instruction book - yet again.  Plugging the hole is a big no-no, and I think I see why.   If the vent hole was plugged, the water would probably boil right out of the pot and flow into the heating unit that the cooking vessel sits in which would probably ruin the Ninja, electrocute any by-standers, and burn the house down - maybe even the whole neighborhood.  Perhaps I'm exaggerating the possible outcome, but don't plug the hole!

However, I'm using the Ninja almost daily, and all my kitchen counters have wall cabinets above them.  I don't like the idea of all that steam going up under the wall cabinets.  If I was building a new house, I'd design the kitchen so that there would be a few feet of free counter space with a vent fan over it just for the Ninja and all the other small electric appliances that put out steam and heat.  But the only vent fan I have is over the stove, so I put a cutting board on the stove burner grates and set the Ninja on it.  You can see all that steam going up to the vent exhaust fan. 

I have to tell you that this is a no-no, too, according to the instruction book.  It says not to put your Ninja anywhere near the stove or anything that is hot.  Ok, I get what they're talking about.  But my stove is not hot when I put the Ninja on it.  I won't try to use the stove and the Ninja at the same time.  Of course, this might not be a good idea if you have children or loony adults at your house who might come along and turn the stove on while the Ninja is in residence.  And it's really a no-no if you have an old gas stove with pilot lights.  But since we don't have children or pilot lights and neither Jerry or I are loony - yet, I think it's ok. 



Before the broiler



After the broiler

Now, back to the beer bread - after baking for an hour, the beer bread was done, but not brown at all - not very appetizing as you can see in the picture.  As far as I am concerned, bread that is sickly pale just will not do!  I put it in my regular gas oven  under the broiler - after moving the Ninja off the stove, of course. I kept a vigil because usually bread will burn after two or three minutes under the broiler.  It took seven minutes to get this bread to brown!

By now you might be wondering how the bread turned out.  I've baked beer bread in the regular gas oven before, and Ninja "steam infused" beer bread is - well, different.  On the positive side, the texture is very fine.  Once the bread cools you can get nice slices that don't crumble.  Beer bread baked in a regular gas (or electric) oven has a coarse texture and tends to be a little bit crumbly when sliced.  But the regular oven produces much better tasting beer bread.  The Ninja bread didn't taste bad, it was just sort of blah.  I just don't think infusing steam into bread is a good idea - it makes a fine textured, heavy, relatively tasteless bread.

To be fair to the Ninja people, they didn't tell me to bake beer bread in my Ninja.  I just thought I'd give it a try.  But from now on I'll be baking my beer bread in the conventional oven.  I'm inclined to think any kind of bread will be better in the conventional oven.

The beer bread may have been disappointing, but the flan and the pork roast were big successes.  But this post is already too long, so I'll save them for the next Ninja Notes.
 

The Morning Update

It's cloudy and 80 degrees.  I'm looking out on our maple tree.  It has clothed itself with fresh new leaves.  Even the pecans trees are putting out new foliage, so spring is here in earnest.

I've written a post card to a new Fountain Pen Network friend.  She lives in Ynys Mon, Wales - the Isle of Anglesey.  I've been "visiting" there via the internet.  It's an intriguing place! 

Last month I received the First Day of Issue Cover that I ordered from the Royal Mail.  It has the new United Kingdom stamps commemorating Jane Austen and the six novels she wrote. A First Day of Issue Cover is an envelope with newly released postage stamps affixed and post marked on the first day the stamps are authorized for use.  I have a First Day of Issue Cover from 1956 with stamps commemorating Grace Kelley's marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco.  I was a serious stamp collector when I was a child.  I still have my collection, but have only recently started to add to it.

I've had to turn the TV off.  It's so frustrating to hear about all the suffering brought on by the bombings in Boston and know that you are helpless to do anything about it.  Pray.  That's all I can do.  Pray for all those who are injured and the families of those who have died.  It's heartbreaking.

I'm off my housekeeping schedule.  The laundry should have been done Monday, but I'm doing today.  While the new washer is making all its strange sounds, I'm upstairs - in the Far Corner - my refuge from the activity of downstairs.

But now it's time for me to go back downstairs and check on the corned beef brisket that simmering on the stove - and get butternut squash ready to go in the Ninja Cooker.  More later . . .

Ninja Notes

Is there no end to small kitchen appliances?  No, apparently not.  Jerry and I both are fascinated by them.   I have to confess that we've been known to buy these gizmos and not use them much after the new wears off.  When was the last time we used the Showtime Rotisserie?  Don't ask.

Jerry has been interested in the Ninja Cooker for a while now.  I did everything I could to discourage him, thinking that it was pretty much like the two slow cookers we've already got.  And I figured if it wasn't like them, surely it was a clone to the three West Bend cookers that I've had for at least 25 years.  (One of these West Bend cookers was inherited from my mother.)  I like the West Bends and use them fairly often.

So I asked myself - Why do we need a Ninja Cooker?  At $159.00, it's got to be more than a cool-looking appliance with a cool-sounding name.  What does it do?  After doing some internet research, I found that it really is a different animal from the other appliances in our kitchen collection.

I read the fine print on my 20% off Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon and saw that Ninja Cookers were not listed in the exclusions.  So off I went to Baton Rouge.  I came home with a Ninja Cooker from BB&B and a nice little enameled cast iron Dutch oven from Walmart - but that's another story.  When I went to bed that night, the Ninja was unpacked, washed, and ready to go the next morning.

What sets the Ninja apart from our other appliances is that it has both Stovetop and Slow Cooker settings.  The Stovetop settings (high, medium, and low) make it like cooking on top of the stove.  It gets hot enough to brown meat or sauté vegetables.  The Slow Cooker settings (high and low) turn it into a slow cooker.  There is also a Buffet setting which keeps food warm after it's done.  And if all this is not enough, there's an Oven setting - more about that later. 

I had not been grocery shopping for ingredients to make one of the recipes in the little book that comes with the Ninja.  Besides, I wanted to see if I could fix my old favorite recipes in this critter.  It was 8:00 a.m. when I got out a frozen block of ground meat and put it in the Ninja on the low Stovetop setting.  About thirty-five minutes later, the meat was completely defrosted.

I could have probably defrosted this meat in a skillet on top of the stove in fifteen or twenty minutes, but I would have had to stand over it, scrapping layers of meat off as it defrosted, and watching to be sure it didn't burn.  In the thirty-five minutes that the Ninja took to do this job I made the beds, straightened up my bathroom, and did a few other chores.

I turned the Ninja to the Stovetop high setting and browned the ground beef - it sizzled, just like on top of the stove.  Then I added chopped onion and bell pepper, turned it to Stovetop medium, and let that cook a few more minutes.  The plan was to continue on and make my homemade spaghetti sauce.

But about that time, it came to my attention that the CPA needed a piece of paperwork from us before he could file our taxes.  Since this was the Friday before taxes were due, I had to race off to Baton Rouge to deliver the needed document.

I started to turn the Ninja off and forget about cooking until I got back, but then I remembered it's a slow cooker as well as a stovetop.  I gave up on my homemade sauce recipe since I knew it would be lunch time by the time I got back home.  I dumped a jar of ready-to-use spaghetti sauce in with the ground beef and vegetables, stirred, turned the Ninja to Slow Cooker high, put the lid on and headed for Baton Rouge. 

When I got home two hours later, the sauce was perfect!  I think I'm going to like the Ninja.  It takes interruptions in stride, and interruptions are all too common around this place.  Cleaning the non-stick, lightweight cooking pot was quick and easy.  There's more to tell about the Ninja.  Stay tuned.