Words Less Spoken

I would have never thought of mixing fresh fruit into a green salad until I tried this recipe this weekend at a rehearsal dinner. It’s a great cool, crisp, light salad for the summer. It’s very very easy and delicious.

Fruity Green Salad

Ingredients:

• Chopped Lettuce
• Sliced Strawberries
• Pineapple Chunks
• Chopped Walnuts
• Balsamic Vinegar

Chop your lettuce, slice fresh strawberries, and drain a can of pineapple chunks (fresh sliced pineapple works best). Mix in the fruit and walnuts and toss with a little Balsamic Vingerette dressing to taste (less is more). Proportions are up to you, but it’s best with more lettuce and less fruit. It doesn’t take much fruit to give it a nice sweet kick.

The key to making it best is to only mix what you intend to eat for that meal. After sitting in the fridge even for the afternoon, the fruit juices and dressing will make the lettuce soggy. It’s not good without being crisp. I recommend keeping the ingredients separate, so you can toss a fresh salad whenever your ready. Enjoy!

My wife observed that I’ve been watching MSBNC and CNN more than Fox News lately. I used to only watch Fox. I told her Fox doesn’t even try to hide their bias anymore. I can’t take it. Apparently, my religious views aren’t the only thing that’s changed in the last few years. I have always been a Republican and have only voted for Democrats in local and state races where personal integrity was more important to me than political branding. For the record President Bush has been an enormous disappointment to me, although I believe he has been much better than the alternative of Al Gore or John Kerry. Aside from the early Bush tax cuts and the pastoral duties he pulled after 9/11, the rest of his administration has been a joke to me. It pisses me off that we could have a Ivy League graduate for president that can’t speak the English language. What? Did he cliff note his way through college? In hindsight we got more of the conservative agenda passed with Bill Clinton as president than we have with George W. Bush.

Having said that the field of Republican candidates has been a joke. Is this the best they can come up with? Early on I liked Thompson until he came out, if you will. Talk about a ‘thud.’ You have to wish someone would stick a live 110 volt wire up his ass just to see if he would jump while at the podium. Totally lifeless. Taking all the right positions in an campaign means nothing anymore. It’s just spin. G.W. did the same and look where it got us. He’s effectively destroyed the Republican party.

So, I liked Huckabee when I heard him. He’s smart and witty. He seems to make sense and be saying what a lot of normal people I know think. The whole pastoral thing didn’t bother me much because I followed him a little bit as Governor of Arkansas. I was really pulling for him until I saw him stumping from pulpits. Then he started saying wierd stuff about the ‘Word of God’ being more important than the Constitution and how the Constitution should be changed to line up with the ‘Word of God’ and not the other way around. Stop the presses! That’s a whole lot of fundamentalism coming from a supposedly populist/moderate candidate. Even if he’s just placating to the evangelical base, it still scares me. I’ve had more than enough of G.W.’s Christianity being espoused from the White House. He’s done as much damage to the image of Christ followers in the world as he has to Republicans. So, I think I’m done with Huckabee.

I never liked Guiliani despite his 9/11 rant and lead in national polls all of last year. He effectively imploded. You can blame his Florida-only strategy all you want. It was him that was the problem. Something just bugged me about him as a person, and no, it wasn’t his multiple marriages or social positions. Romney? I’ve got to be honest. I cannot get past the fact that he’s a Mormon. Most people in the South can’t either. I know it’s religious bigotry or something, but as hard as it has been for me to take evangelicals seriously since I’ve deconverted, it is impossible for me to take Mormons seriously in their magic underwear. On top of all the Jude0-Christian spin we’re supposed to take literally, Mormons believe Jesus showed up in America in the 1800’s, and golden plates descended from heaven to Joseph Smith with the book of Mormon on them? Can’t go there. I have a general knee-jerk reaction to anyone who wears their religion on their shirt sleeve. G.W. may have used the Texas Air National Guard to get out of Vietnam, but Romney was a Mormon missionary during that time! I’ve had enough of religious nuts in the White House. Sorry. Not to mention Romney looks as fake as a daytime soap star. He has changed his positions depending on whether he was trying to get elected the Governor of Massachusetts or POTUS. It’s just more spin.

Everyone wants to pay homage to McCain’s POW years and that’s respectable. I even gave money to him the first time he ran against G.W. in 2000, but this is not the same McCain. He’s waffled on so many things. He’s sold out the party on more than one occasion and now expects the party to fall in line behind him. He’s been playing to ‘his friends’ in the Senate for the last 8 years. Let them put him in the White House if they want to. I don’t like his temper. I agree with him on pork spending, but he wants to keep us in Iraq indefinately. What the hell? Time to pack up and hit the road.

I think the best thing for the Republican party is to lose. They can have a gut check and get with the program if they want to win again. Once they got power they did the same things the Democrats did. Spend, spend, spend, and increase the size and power of the federal government.

There is nothing in me that will allow me to pull a lever for Hillary. If Bill were running right now, I’d vote for him again in a heartbeat, but not her. Her claim to fame is that she is his wife. She’s been in the Senate for a term and a half. That’s it. No other elected office. I don’t like her personally or politically. Now, Obama. I really like him. It may be a generational thing, but he resonates with me. I can find plenty to pick apart with him on policies, but I think the country has swung way too far to the right. It’s past time for a correction. V for Vendetta illustrates well the extremes of the far right if left unchecked. It’s not really all fiction. Obama has tapped into the pulse of the country. I can’t really pick anything he’s said that I whole heartedly disagree with. Give driver’s licenses to illegals! I really don’t care. They’re driving anyway aren’t they? If people would just build a damn fence from Texas to California and deport any that commit crimes, I could care less if the rest of them stay here or not. Can you imagine the humanitarian crisis of a massive forced expulsion of millions of people? Could we possible retain our humanity and heard millions like cattle? I digress. I’ll be blogging more about Obama and the race later. Suffice it to say for now, that I have to pull the lever Saturday for a Republican because we have a closed primary system in Louisiana, so I’ll probably pull it for Huckabee because he’s not Romney and won’t win anyway. In the general election I’ll pull for Obama. If he’s not on the ballot, I’ll be ticked. If Hillary’s the nominee, I may have to pull for McCain and live with it. What a sad day it will be if we miss the opportunity to put Obama in the White House. I think John Mayer’s song “Waitin’ on the World to Change” embodies the sentiment of so many. Obama said that ‘we are the change that we’ve been waiting for.’ I believe that, and I hope he is too.

I don’t know if I would have made it without my DVR Saturday night. LSU played Auburn, the Sox were playing the Indians, and election returns were rolling in. Not to be overwhelmed by a challenge with remote in hand I successfully navigated the night watching the Tigers, the Sox, and Bobby Jindal roll to victory. Wow!

Before the season is over Les Miles is going to give every Tigers fan ulcers. It was really good to see Doucet back on the field again. I can only imagine what a difference it would have made to have him playing at Kentucky last week. Dorsey was struggling with injuries and the offense just didn’t seem to be connecting in the first half, but did they ever make a comeback. A field goal would have done it, but Miles rolled the dice on near 30 yd pass into the endzone. I still don’t understand that move, but I am sure glad it paid off. After the game against Florida, a couple plays against Kentucky, and the Auburn game, my hat’s off to Miles. He has got the cojones.

It was sweet to see Boston beat Cleveland Saturday night and again last night. I think they also must enjoy torturing their fans. It’s definately a gut check for everyone. Fenway has a home field advantage like none other and Boston proved it with 12-2 and 11-2 wins to take the series. It’ll be exciting to see them in the World Series. I hope they get rested by Wendesday against a very rested but possibly rusty Colorado. I think Josh Beckett is going to be the starter for the opening game which will be at Boston. Hopefully, they’ll put the first two games on the board quickly before going on the road for Game 3. (more…)

Much talk has been raised once again about hate crimes following the incident in nearby Jena, Louisiana. Around August 2006 three white boys hung three nooses in a schoolyard tree after black students wanted to sit in the popular hangout of white students. Racial tensions escalated until in December 2006 six black students, now known as the “Jena Six,” got into a fight with a white student beating him unconscious and bloody on school grounds. Was the act of hanging the nooses in the tree a hate crime? The FBI ruled that it wasn’t. Was the beating of a white student, which stemmed from the same ongoing racial tension, a hate crime?During the march in Jena today Martin Luther King III said that federal hate crimes legislation must be forthcoming to address noose hangings. Other speakers also raised the question of hate crimes regarding the public displays of confederate flags on some houses enroute to Jena from Alexandria this morning.

It seems that liberal Democrats face quite a dilemma. Is it possible to champion the burning of an American flag in protest as protected free speech, yet ban hanging of the confederate flag or nooses as hate crimes? I find both equally offensive, but are we really going to start criminalizing the ignorant opinions of the extremists in our society? That seems to be a very dangerous door to open to pandora’s box. What do you think? Share your opinion.

What in the world is going on in Jena? Well, I live about 45 minutes from there, so I read about it everyday in the paper and see the latest on the evening news every night, as well as follow the national feeds. As I understand what happened, some black kids wanted to sit under a tree at school that some white kids had always sat under. The next day the six found nooses hanging from that same tree.

On December 6, 2006 a ”unrelated” school yard fight broke out in which six black students, now known as the “Jena Six,” beat up Justin Barker, a white student, leaving him unconscious with a bloody face. Barker was treated at the hospital and released three hours later. The Six were consequently arrested. The first to be charged was Mychal Bell. The LaSalle Parish DA Reed Walters not only charged Bell with attempted murder but also wanted to try him as an adult. Last week the Court of Appeals threw out the case saying that Bell could not be tried as an adult. The DA now has to decide whether to retry Bell as an adult on lesser charges, try him as a juvenile, or drop the case altogether. Four of the five students have already had their charges reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to do the same prior to the ruling. The court of appeals ruling will likely have an impact on the remaining students awaiting trial. The DA plans to appeal the decision. Meanwhile the entire area is bracing for a rally expected to draw thousands this week, originally scheduled to coordinate with Bell’s sentencing hearing which will not take place.

1. The white kids responsible for hanging the nooses in the tree should have been properly punished. An FBI investigation concluded that the act did not constitute a “hate crime,” (more on that shortly) but surely, they could have been suspended or something. Nonetheless, anger led to retalitation.
2. The “Jena Six” responsible for beating up Barker should have also been properly punished. Most schools have a zero tolerance policy on violence, which includes automatic suspension if not expulsion from school. No amount of prejudice or racism ever justifies violence. Having said that, they should have never been tried as adults nor tried for attempted murder. Barker was out of the hospital three hours later. Tennis shoes are not loaded handguns. They do not constitute weapons. If Bell was already on probabtionary status due to previous offenses, it should have been addressed appropriately in juvenile court. DA Walter Reed is looking more and more like disgraced Duke rape case prosecutor Mike Nifong.
3. Although the FBI ruled the noose hanging was not a hate crime, those sympathetic with the DA are calling the attack of the “Jena Six” a hate crime against Barker. I’ve got a big beef with the whole concept of “hate crimes” in general. Murder is always hateful no matter what color the two parties are, and so is assault. It is ridiculous to charge somebody with murder as well as with hate crimes. If someone is guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison or with the death penalty, how do you increase such a sentence? Do you execute them twice? Do you give them two life sentences? If hate crimes could have been applied anywhere to this case, it should have been to the nooses in the tree which was punishable by no other applicable law. In the end while it may be racist and the spark that ignited this fire in Jena, hanging rope from a tree is probably protected speech under the 1st amendment, although it should have at the very least been dealt with swiftly and severely by the school system within their power.
4. I think the “Jena Six” should have been tried fairly in juvenile court according to the laws that apply to their actions and punished accordingly from the beginning, but given the escalated state of the case and the Nifong-like manner in which it’s being prosectued, the cases may be beyond damage control.
5. Barker has already been punished. His accomplices have yet to be. They should be expelled from school.
6. The black community has every right to protest and be angry, but do not hold these boys up as heroes and role models. What they did was wrong. Bell has already served more 10 months in jail. His should be charged as a juvenile and credited for time served.