October 2024
The Glory of Scrapple
29/10/24 16:16
October 29, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 45) - If you are from the Mid-Atlantic states, you either love it of loathe it. If you grew up elsewhere, you probably haven't even heard of it. It is Scrapple, manna from heaven. It is exactly what it sounds like, pork scraps mixed with cornmeal to produce a sausage-like meat. Just like sausage, it is probably best to not know its precise ingredients. (I have the same attitude toward a lot of Japanese food - I really like it but really don't want to know what's in it.) The subject of Scrapple came up recently in my household because it was my turn to host an annual reunion of my surviving siblings. We were all raised on Maryland's Eastern Shore and Scrapple frequented our family meals. I remember liking it, especially with ketchup. But I hadn't had it in the 50 years since I left college and moved away from the Delmarva Peninsula. I thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be a treat to surprise my sibs with a culinary blast from the past?" I went on Amazon, typed in "Scrapple," and there it was! I ordered it in mid-September, thinking it would arrive in a few days and that I would have some time to practice cooking it. Unfortunately, it took nearly a month for this Pennsylvania Dutch treat to arrive. That gave me only two practice runs at cooking it. The first time has mixed results - some undercooked and others overcooked. The second time was more successful - except that the pork patties put off so much smoke that they set off my home fire alarms. (Note to self: Cook Scrapple outdoors.) When my siblings and their spouses arrived, I decided to solicit the help of my younger brother Howard to cook the Scrapple (outdoors) while I tended to the rest of the meal. He, in turn, sought cooking advice from his son Ryan, who still lives on the Eastern Shore and regularly consumes the stuff. The Bottom Line: It came off well. Everyone tried it. No one said they hated it. Nor were there any last-minute trips to the emergency room. I like it - even though its flavor is a bit stronger than you'd find in your run-of-the-mill sausage patty. My advice: Give it try. Oh, and cook it outside. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.Two Weeks To Go
22/10/24 20:21
October 22, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 44) - Down the stretch they come!!! The quadrennial horse race we call the presidential election is reaching its final stages. However, the horse racing metaphor doesn't really work here. This year's race for the White House has been more like a blood feud. And, as it has been since the turn of the century, the outcome is going to depend on GOTV - Get Out The Vote. Based on reports across the country, advance voting suggests that this year's turnout will exceed 2020's record turnout of 158 million. However, we have to remember that 2020 was a COVID year with a different dynamic, altogether. Who will a higher early turnout favor? In 2020, it clearly favored the Democrats. But this year, who knows? The Republican nominee, who saw advanced voting as fraudulent, this year has been sending his supporters mixed messages. (I wonder if he really thinks whoever is leading the vote count at midnight Election Night would be declared the winner?) All indications are that the margin of victory this year is going to be razor thin. And there is still plenty of time for an "October surprise," such as an escalation of the war in the Middle East or (God forbid) a terrorist attack someplace. In the meantime, Failure 45 appears to have run off the rails, using profanity this past weekend to describe Vice President Harris and engaging in a vulgar description of golfing great Arnold Palmer's manhood. Even more disgusting is the continuing deliberate misinformation about FEMA's hurricane disaster relief efforts in western North Carolina. (No one, including Republican office holders in the affected states, support the Defeated Former President's characterizations.) There has been an ongoing chorus of psychatric professionals who question the aging candidate's sanity. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has told her voters to cast their ballots on November 5. The Count of Mar-a-Lardo told his to vote on January 5. I'm fine with that. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.Somewhere between Ted Baxter and Clark Kent
16/10/24 02:55
October 16, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 43) - With this year's election less than three weeks away, it is only natural for me to look back at the elections I covered as a working journalist. I'd like to think I was pretty good at my job. And I have a number of local, state, regional and national awards as my bona fides. However, I also realize that I worked with journalists who, in hindsight, were much better than me. (Bill Leslie, Jim Axelrod and Bill Whitaker come to mind.) Truth be told, I was somewhere between Ted Baxter, the bumbling anchor on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Superman's alter-ego Clark Kent. No, I could not leap tall buildings in a single bound. But I could crank out a lot of stories under intense time pressure. The picture above was taken on the floor of the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Working a national political convention is hard work. However, it is also an experience I will forever cherish. It was also during that campaign year that I gave one of my best live reports from the middle of a rally with Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in front of an overflow crowd on the Fayetteville Street Mall in Raleigh. As you listen to this live report, you will hear that the reporting was solid and my timing was impeccable. Of course, I covered other campaigns in Rocky Mount, North Carolina; Beacon, New York: Americus, Georgia; and Milledgeville, Georgia. It was in Americus, just nine miles from Plains, Georgia, that I met and interviewed then-former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. After meeting him, I knew he would become president. (My family thought I was crazy.) Election season is almost like Christmas for journalists. And I remember spending long nights covering election results. Jimmy Carter wasn't declared the winner in his 1976 race against Gerald Ford until three o'clock in the morning. I also remember working late into the evening at the North Carolina Democratic Election Night Headquarters in 1984. For those who don't remember, Ronald Reagan took 49 states that night. Covering the Democrats that night was like covering the house band on the Titanic. Come this Election Day, I will miss being out there in the trenches. However, since it is very unlikely we will know the winner of the presidency on Election Night, I will, at least, have the option to go to bed at a decent hour. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle..
Lies, Damn Lies and Republicans
01/10/24 22:16
October 1, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 42) - Call me old fashioned, but I remember the days when most politicians didn't openly lie to voters. Instead, they would engage in what is known as "spin," where the candidates would disclose only those facts that are most advantageous to them. For example, politicians may say they are experienced in the private sector, not mentioning that their only "experience" was running a lemonade stand in their neighborhood at the age of five. Maybe it's not the whole truth, but it's not an outright lie, either. However, as we were reminded yet again tonight, the Republican Party has abandoned all pretenses of telling you the truth. In tonight's vice presidential debate, we witnessed J.D. Vance living in his own warped reality. I agreed with CNN's Abby Phillip who said Vance's role was "to launder Donald Trump's policies to Middle America." Remember, it was Vance who first accused Haitians of eating people's pets, later admitted that he had lied, and then continued to double-down on the lie. Even this evening, he tried to weasel-word his way out of that crazy word salad. Hell, Vance couldn't even admit that Trump lost the last election. Of course, he is an amateur in disinformation when compared to his running mate, The Cowardly Liar. Just this past weekend, Failure 45 accused Vice President Harris of being "mentally impaired." It doesn't take a Sigmund Freud to determine that it is Former President Pinocchio who is a few fries short of a Happy Meal - not to mention that he is also morally and criminally corrupt. Of course, Vance is the classic Trumpian sycophant, one has sharply criticized The First Felon in the past, only to flip 180 degrees to curry favor with the devil. I was once a proud Republican, even when it put me at odds with my fiercely Democratic community. Those were the days Republicans had backbones. However, the Republican Party of Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan - and, yes, even Richard Nixon and both George Bushes - is dead. It has been replaced with a confederacy of jellyfish. When the facts are against them, the Republican go-to strategy is to lie and make up crap. This trend continues down ballot, where Republicans such as Josh "Senator Skedaddle" Hawley run television ads filled with racist sludge and full-blown falsehoods. They have no idea what integrity is. Many of them can't even spell the word. Sure, tonight's debate was far more civil than the one last month. However, putting lipstick on a pig doesn't change the fundamental fact that it is still a pig. The fact remains: There are lies, damned lies and Republicans. And we don't need any of them. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.