Risotto and life

Yesterday I made risotto with shrimps and cilantro. The key for cooking rice is the broth, so I had made a chicken broth in the morning. I had high expectations because I had not made rissoto in a long time. In my risottos I use wine and garlic (nothing especial about that the recipe calls for them) and chicken broth, the rest is whatever I want to put on it. When I finished pouring the broth and adding the shrimps, green onions, celery, and cilantro I tested it and I did not like it. It lacked flavor. Cooking, I tell my children, is about being patient, about mixing flavors, about caring for the ingredients, about joy: I put all of those in this risotto and it did not work out. I think I missed the salt when I made the chicken broth: life is in the details.

Dolls and the Iraq War

Yesterday, my daughter and her friend were playing dolls; they were pretending that one of the dolls was at the hospital. My daughter said, "There is a war in Iraq, let's pretend she is at the hospital in Iraq." After a short silence, her friend responded, "No, let's pretend they belong to a different time." They continued with their conversation. They sounded striking similar to us, adults, in our conversations about this war of choice——if we talk about it.

#Suspending all Activites

McCain is suspending the debate with Obama, he explains that this is because he is going to Washington to discuss the financial crisis. Um. Is he trying to play the heroe? Did he panic? In either case, he has made a mistake: the debates are important and the country needs to hear the candidates, face to face, and make a decision as to whom would be our best leader. I do not have a doubt about it, and I am suspending all activities till the crisis is over.

Invasions and Generations

Between 1970 and 2003, the USA has invaded five countries——in what the US calls "operations":

2003: Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom.

1994: Haiti: Operation Uphold Democracy.

1989: Panama: Operation Just Cause.

1983: Granada: Operation Urgent Fury.

1970: Cambodia, part of the Vietnam War, not particular name.

People who were in their 20s in the 1970s have witnessed five invasions already. These people are now in their 50s and their children, if they were born in the 1980s, are now in their twenties (the same age of their parents when the invasion of Cambodia)——and an invasion has taken place every six years since they were born in the 1980s. It means that we are used to invading other countries, that we think it is something this country does as a matter of course.

Blogs

I am back to my blog. I was quite busy this week after my trip to Madrid. I met not only scholars in the history of alchemy but also practitioners of alchemy (distillation practices). This group came from Canada, USA, Germany, England, and Spain and they knew their symbols and recipes and talked about energy fields and lunar influences. The existence of this group was a surprise to me: I did not know there were practitioners of this art today.

Note: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is halted for the time being. There was an electric problem and a magnet failure. Too bad: I was hoping to get some answer about the origins of the universe but I will have to wait a little longer.

Economic Intervention

The Bush Administration is now in conversations with Congress to design $700 billion intervention plat to rescue the financial system. The Chavez administration has been intervening in the Venezuelan economy for some time now. As mentioned in previous posts, the Bush and Chavez administration share a number of striking similarities: both have placed their administration above their respective constitutions; both had bend the system to create a more powerful executive; and now both have intervened the economy. My sense is that their similarites come from the fact that both administrations are ideologically driven.