On Twinkies and Petraeus

Today we have a couple of unrelated items worth talking about-- though if Twinkie is a euphemism for....well.....If that is the case then maybe the two big items from the news over the past week have more in common then originally thought.

Yum?

First, the Twinke.  Hostess Bakeries are going out of business, and that has triggered a run on various baked goods not seen since the Panic of 1823 in London, when King George IV granted a monopoly to the Torquay Crumpet and Biscuit Company.  The fear of price hikes on a large variety of baked goods by TC&B's Dickensian owner Thaddeus Sneed triggered mass hysteria that left 17 people dead and not a crumb of biscuit in London's rat infested bakeries.

Quite frankly, I don't understand America's affection for the Twinkie, because in my opinion they are not just not very good.  Excuse me for a bit of tree-huggy smugness, but I had to laugh when Hostess said they are closing bakeries.  Twinkies aren't baked, they're manufactured.  I mean, look at the ingredients list:

Enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow No. 5, red #40

As recent photos of me in the press sunbathing on the French Riviera show, I'm no health nut.  This morning, for example, I ate buttermilk pancakes loaded with butter, syrup, sugar, -- a cornucopia of carbohydrates.   But if it wasn't healthy, at least it was made from scratch.  At least it was all real.  

Twinkies aren't real food.  Why do we love them so?  

We may, as a nation, love them because they hearken back to a time when the USA was Number 1, when America was up on top. If we aren't on top anymore, or if on the horizon we see a day where we are going to be eclipsed by someone else (which history shows is probably inevitable), it may be because we have eaten too many Twinkies, or have gotten too used to the instantaneous "pleasure" that the Twinkies and their ilk symbolize.

So even though I am sad about the lost jobs, I am not upset over the possible demise of the Twinkie.  We as a country can easily do without them.  

Speaking of instantaneous pleasure,  this man is sadly getting a lesson on ethical behavior in the work place:

I know that David Petraeus has his detractors, but I for one am sorry to see his career end because he was embroiled in something of a love triangle (or maybe more of a love square...thankfully not a love circle -- at least that we know of, though I am sure the FBI is getting to the bottom of that).  The man who rethought our approach to counter insurgency in Iraq and was poised to maybe do great things at the CIA that we would never know about has resigned because he exercised poor judgement.

Should his indiscretions have forced him to resign?  On the face of it, I would say no.  I obviously don't condone being unfaithful to your spouse, but I don't agree with the notion that someone in the public trust should automatically have to resign for cheating on his husband or wife.  I am also not sure the FBI should be spending time prying around in people's private lives the way they apparently have in this case.  The revelation that Broadwell may have had access to classified information are far more troubling and give more ground for dismissal.  

I don't believe any of the conspiracy theories about Benghazi and stuff like that.  I don't know if there is anything "fishy" going on, but I kind of doubt it.  Anytime this happens we put immense pressure on the subject official to resign to the point where it must be impossible to stay on the job.

Before we wrap it up, one question remains: is this really the end of these two?

I would say not.

As for the Twinkies, I have a horrible feeling that, like some horrible flesh eating monster from a 1950's B Movie, the devilish little yellow cakes are not dead yet.  Someone will buy up the Hostess "Bakeries" and will start extruding those things out of a tube whatever it is that they do to actually make 'em.  America's bodice ripping (or perhaps more correctly bodice busting) love affair with the Twinkie will in all likelihood continue after a brief hiatus.

I don't think we have heard the last of Petraeus either.  He'll probably lay low for a while, write a book or two, get into teaching and/or inspirational speaking, and then maybe re-enter the political arena. Will he get as far as he would have if he had managed to keep it in his trousers?  Maybe not.  But I imagine he will learn from his mistakes, dust himself off, and get back into the fight somehow.  From what I have read about Petraeus, that seems more like his style.

Twinkie Photo Credit:  (CC) Larry D. Moore

In Which Superdad Meets His Match

It may be a frightening thing to contemplate, and it's not something I think I have talked about much on the interwebs, but I am actually a Father.

That's right.  This guy:

the same guy who wrote this:

But if, say, Anne Hathaway met me at the 46th street gate with a dozen warm doughnuts (again, not of fund raiser quality), well, then we could talk.  No guarantees.  If she was naked, or even mostly naked, that may help sway my decision, but still won't necessarily carry the day in Mr.Cuccinelli's favor.

and this:

"Couldn't help but notice you were enjoying the jazz!!  I really liked the part where the trumpeter went 'skiddly bap bap do bap di dap dap dibbledy dibbledy doowhap POW POW POW BWAAA!  Yeah man, those cats sure can jive.  You gotta smoke?"

and this:

Amelie sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her bathrobe tightly around her body, trying to keep out the autumn chill that touched her soul like a distant longing.  She listened in the darkness to her husband snoring loudly with smug contentment.  She sighed.  It wasn't that James was a bad guy, but it was just so embarrassing to be with a man who was so worried about giving away Coke's "secret formula" when he was drunk at a party; so worried that he made everyone sign non-disclosure agreements on the back of napkins written in block letters with a sharpie.    

is a dad. A Father.  Ein Papa.   As proof, I submit the following picture of my daughter Elizabeth and me, taken recently as she painted one of the pumpkins we bought at the local pumpkin patch before celebrating Halloween:

Elizabeth and Me.  Photo props to my wife Trish.

Now I will be honest: looking back on it, the blessed state of Fatherhood was one that clearly I was not mentally prepared for.  It took a while for me to grow into the role of being a Dad; it's one that I continue to grow into more and more each day. 

If not mentally prepared for the change, however, I did turn out to be surprisingly adept at the stuff of fatherhood.  There were justifiable concerns in this area.  After all, one has to wonder if a man who once set his own eyebrows aflame during an outdoor candlelight Christmas Eve vigil (my cheeks were numb with cold, and the Andy Rooney like quality of my eyebrows makes them easily combustible)  would have any luck keeping his child alive without a very detailed instruction manual.

As the picture shows, so far so good.  I have a happy, healthy, smart little girl.  In fact, last week while I drove to church to meet my wife and daughter for one St. Mark Lutheran's weekly dinners (prepared by the talented volunteers at Cafe St. Mark) there was a comedy bit on the radio about being a guy being a new dad, the comedian lamenting -- without much hilarity -- the lack of the aforementioned manual. As I listened I gave myself a pat on the back with the knowledge that so far my foray into fatherhood could be considered a great success.

O Beware, those who suck upon the sour teats of Our Lady Hubris!

The church dinner was over, choir practice had begun, and it was time to take Elizabeth home.  Because I arrived late I had to move the car seat from my wife's car to mine (times are tough, the middle class is squeezed, and so we can only afford the one), and I put Elizabeth in the seat but did not strap her in, grabbed my keys which had fallen out of my hoodie pocket on to the bench seat, and closed the door.  The car beeped, indicating the door was locked.

No big deal, I thought.  I'll just take my keys out and unlock the door and....

What is this?  My keys are disconcertingly light.  Something is missing.  The car key and FOB are missing.  The door is still locked.   And it dawns on me that  I have just locked my daughter in the car.

You see, I keep my car keys on a little hook, a clip, so that I can detach my car keys from the rest of my keys.  I do this because I hate carrying my keys around in the pocket of my jeans.  I hate carrying around keys around in the pocket of my jeans because I like to wear tight jeans to accentuate my buttockular region, which if I do say so myself is quite exquisite.  Most of the time my keys live in my satchel bag (aka as a purse) along with whatever book I happen to be reading and some other stuff (mints, a flashlight, pens and pencils, a slide rule, knuckle dusters, flick knife, Hungarian phrase book, a Civil War bullet I bought at an antique store, a flip book in which two stick figures do it if you flip the pages real fast), but if I ever want to walk around without my murse I can just quickly disconnect my car keys from the rest of the set, slip the  FOB in my pocket, and then I can make the world a better place in my own particular way with my tight man booty.

The drawback of this system is that occasionally, just occasionally, my car keys disconnect themselves without me knowing it.  I think they are desperately trying to get to Japan where they were born.

Unfortunately for me they had rather unwisely decided to attempt their latest great escape while I was in the car itself getting my daughter's car seat in place (which naturally I did with great success, because this guy, who just locked his only child in the car, is something of a Superdad), and I was just short of a full set...of keys.

I'd like to say that coolness of head prevailed. It did not.  The problem was clearly too large for me to solve (and it turns out there was indeed a rather simple, elegant solution), all of my circuits overloaded, and I decided this was a matter for the Police, the Fire Department, the Kommando Spezialkrafte, or my wife.

I ran into the darkness of the parking lot, abandoning my now bewildered and frightened child, and went back into the church.  I poked my head into the choir rehearsal room, pointed at Trish, and motioned to her to come outside.   Clearly my face betrayed that something was very wrong, and she ran out into the hall.

"What is it?"

"I've locked Elizabeth inside the car!"

We both rushed out into the parking lot where Elizabeth, realizing the gravity of the situation and upset over my cowardice, was crying.  Much like any Tommy Lee Jones character in movies such as Law Enforcement Officers  of the USandA and The Man Who Ran Away From the Police, wife quickly wrested control of the situation away from the inept keystone cops who had so royally managed to screw-up (me, Superdad), and rapidly seized on the very simple solution I had missed: because Elizabeth was not strapped into her car seat, if we could convince her to get out of her seat and try pushing one of the buttons on the doors to unlock the car, we could get her out.  The Kommando Spezialkrafte would not be necessary.

Trish started talking to Elizabeth through the closed windows, and once Elizabeth was calmed down she happily made her way into the drivers seat where she started mashing all the buttons at my wife's direction; because there are like 8 buttons next to the drivers seat even in my run of the mill Subaru Outback Sport, and since it was dark, she just wasn't hitting the right one.

So it was that Agent Samuel Gerard sent Deputy Roscoe P. Coltrane back into the church to see if Gus, who is basically St. Mark Lutheran's Sargent-At-Arms, had a flashlight.  To do this I had to interrupt choir practice for a second time and as the choir director turned to me with a look of slight yet genteel exasperation I felt some kind of explanation was in order.

"Gus, do you have a flashlight?  I locked my daughter in the car!"

The wide range of human emotion that greeted the news was an amazing thing to behold.  On the women there were looks of shock, deep concern, and touching sympathy.

The men?  They all laughed at me.

Gus, ever resourceful, DID have a flashlight on the hip, and so I went back out into the parking lot only to see that Elizabeth was thankfully out of the car, cradled in Trish's arms, her tiny hands raised in triumph.  "We did it!" shouted Trish.  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

But one more problem remained.  For some reason my car's alarm had gone off in the process of extracting my daughter from its interior, and the only way to turn it off  was to insert the key into the ignition three times.  Not 4, not 2, and definitely not 5, but 3.

So I proceeded to search the car for my car keys.  I couldn't find them.  I thought maybe they had somehow gotten under the car seat as I was installing it, so I ripped it out.  All the while the horn is blaring and the headlights are blinking and the choir, now hopelessly distracted, is now starting to congregate in the parking lot to see what is going on.

The keys were not under the now dislodged car seat. Confused, I stepped out of the car to get a little fresh air and re-evaluate the situation.  I rubbed the back of my neck and looked down as I often do under duress...

I saw something.  I couldn't be sure...I couldn't quite believe it...

There, on the ground, sitting in a puddle of fresh November rain all this time--

My car keys.







 

A Final Post on the Election (Promise!) -- Who I Actually Voted for and Why

So we had an election last week, as I guess you know.  I was quite sure that I would end up going to bed on Tuesday night not knowing who was going to be our next President, and was about as surprised as Karl Rove when the media networks called the race for Obama at around 11:20 pm.  In the end, this close election was unexpectedly lopsided and Obama almost "made it look easy" to borrow a sports cliche that is completely inapplicable to the event because as of Tuesday morning there was really very little that Obama or Romney could do to influence the election.  

That being said, it was still pretty close.  Obama's margin of victory in many of the crucial states was razor thin, and as of a couple days ago Obama only had a slight edge in the popular vote tally (maybe 3 million or so - a mere 1% of the US population).  Upon reflection, there are only really a few things I think we really learned from this election:

1. The Republicans could really use a gut check towards the center.  
2. The Evangelical vote doesn't mean what it used to:  either the nation is growing more secular to the point where few people share that kind of worldview, or the Evangelical vote in and of itself is fractured between the Old Guard (Pat Robertson and Billy Graham) and new skippy-do-whippies (Rob Bell and a bunch of other people).  The Old Guard cares, perhaps, a little too much about who you are sleeping with and what kind of music you are listening to, where the new skippy-do-whippies (or perhaps more correctly labeled as the Emergent Church) are more concerned about spreading Jesus's message of love and living Christian values in a more corporate way.  
3. Romney obviously doesn't read my blog, because I never did get those doughnuts.
4. My desire to save some trees clearly outweighs any concerns about self-preservation I may have.
5. Obama can cry! He has tears! He is.....he is human after all.

I wish to elaborate a little more on point number 4.  I may have let it slip one time, but I do not, in fact, work at the non-existent Newport News Crackerjack Factory:  I work for Huntington Ingalls Industries - Newport News -- I think its pretty safe to say that without having DDS agents rappelling into my house and two-tapping me.  

At any rate, every time we have a national election I am confronted with the rather uncomfortable reality that a vote for the Republican candidate is typically in my best interest as a shipbuilder (which doesn't elaborate much on my job -- everyone at HII-NNS is a shipbuilder; I could be stocking the vending machines with crackerjack, or fixing leaky roofs, or playing the Goldberg variations for Mike Petters so he can get some rest during his lunch-hour; all of those jobs would still make me a shipbuilder, even though I am not welding plates or joining joiners or grounding things to the...uh...ground).  I am also confronted with the fact that I am a card-carrying member of the Military Industrial Complex who is simultaneously contributing to our defense and preparing our nation for future wars.  

I am not a pacifist, and I think the work I do is worthwhile, and I'm actually quite proud to contribute in my own very, very, very small way to our nation's defense -- though as veterans day is tomorrow I naturally give deference to those who have done so much more than I ever will.  But at the same time there is the reverse of the medal:  I view war as utter tragedy, and in a very, very, very small way I am taking part in my Country's ongoing romance with violence, death, and military might.  We as a nation may have soured on that romance now, but give us 10 or 20 years -- or less -- and I have a horrible feeling we will be at it again.  

Perhaps next time it will be for the right reasons...

At any rate, in an age in which we are so concerned about living out our values as inscribed on the rubber bands around our wrists and where eating a Chik-Fil-A sandwich becomes not only a gastronomical delight but an ethical dilemma, such a conflict can be rather disconcerting.  

That was at the heart of my indecision as a voter.  If I couldn't vote for Romney because the GOP is totally whacked out on their social policies, could I vote for Romney if I think it will make it a little bit more likely I will be able to keep putting food on the table for my family?  

Well, the day before the election I finally came to a rather elegant solution that left my battered soul in peace for a day:  I would vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party Candidate.  In this way I was able to vote with a nod towards my values (though admittedly the Greens are way, way left of where I am and Jill Stein's only talent seems to be getting arrested for various anti-establishment activities) but at the same time I knew that that nod would have no impact on my future in anyway because the Green Party had not a chance of winning.  

For Senate I voted for Tim Kaine because -- well, because he was running against George Allen.  That choice was an easy one.  Yet for the House I voted Republican.  This is a nod towards my self-preservation but also the belief that the people running on the Democratic Ticket didn't have the experience required to be a good congressmen, whatever that means.

As I gave my ballot a final glance I realized that it as incongruous as a lunch consisting of pork rinds and Diet Coke; I shrugged it off as the disjointed ballet of an unsettled mind, resolved to up my dosage of melancholia non magis, and looked towards putting this election behind me so that I could get on with the important business of building ships, raising a child, and writing (perhaps with an eye towards finally getting something published and getting paid for it -- stay tuned).     

What? The Election is Still Tied?? Grab All the French Bread and Cheese You Can and Head for the Hills!!

After more than a year of campaigning, thousands upon of thousands of political adds, and billions of dollars spent, this presidential election is still as tied up as a dominatrix at an S&M convention.  

Last time we were all privy to the joy of a presidential election we all heard about conservative voters making runs on weapons and ammo in case Obama won and took away their God given right to an AR-15.  But with the very real possibility that Mitt Romney just might squeak this one out, how are liberal voters getting ready for a Romney presidency?  We sent MM's reporter in the field, John Marinkovich, out to find out.

Me: Pozdrav, John!

John: And a motherfucking Здраво to you, Nick, you crazy croat bastard.

Me:  So where are you John?

John:  I am at the recently opened Whole Foods in Virginia Beach, where there has been an inexplicable run on French Baguettes and Camembert cheese.  

Me:  Seriously?

John:  Yes.  There is no concrete reason for it;  I think it might just be that people here are just very, very afraid.  There is a look of real terror in the eyes.  

Me:  What else are people buying? 

John:  Every possible type of contraception you can buy.  Condoms, diaphragms  spermicide, birth control pills, peanut butter, tin foil, it's all just flying off the shelves.  People are very worried that Mitt might try to pass legislation that will curtail their hard earned right to fuck whom ever they damn well please without great consequence. 

Me:  Interesting.  Have you  met anyone making preparations to leave the country?

John: Most seem willing to hunker down with their bread, cheese, and condoms and see how things go, but I have met at least one couple, the Featheringtons, who are seriously considering a run up to Canada.  In fact --- Hey!  Mr. Featherington!  Over here! --- would you be willing to speak to Miscellaneous Marickovich?

Mr. F:  What the hell is that?

John:  A blog of absolutely no consequence about nothing in particular.  

Mr. F:  What the hell.  Sure.  

John:  Earlier I found out that you were making preparations to leave the country in the event that Mitt Romney gets elected.  Is that right?  

Mr. F:  Yes.  I do not want to live in a country where French baguettes and Camembert cheese are taxed at 100% to fund the building of warships.

Me:  Ah, so that's what it is.

John:  You were saying earlier that this is a terrible time for you, personally, to leave the country?  Why is that?

Mr. F:  Well, after years of trying the wife and I finally convinced Ludlow Tamingham the Third, our cat, that there is no God.  We thought that it would be a liberating experience for him, to free his mind from age old myths and superstitions that keep getting in the way of human -- and feline -- progress.  

John:  But I guess LT Three didn't take it well?

Mr. F:  Who the hell is LT Three?

John:  Ludlow Tamingham the Third.  Your cat.  

Mr. F:  Ha ha!  That's really sharp.  I like that.  Geez, where did you get that from?  Did you just think that up?

John:  Haven't you been watching ESPN over the last -- you know what, It doesn't matter.  But as you were saying about the cat?

Mr. F:  Yeah.  LT Three...Haha!  I love it....LT Three did not take it well.  He just sits around, staring out the window, reading Sartre and smoking cigarettes.  In his fragile mental state, we are worried that a big move will send him over the edge and trigger some kind of full mental breakdown.

John:  "That God does not exist, I cannot deny.  That my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget".

Mr. F: Pssshhh!  Stupid cat.  Why doesn't he just cheer up?  I'll tell ya--

Mrs. Featherington:  Frankie!  I just got a call from my girlfriend Sandra!  They got 10 cases of Trojans down at the Walgreens on Holland, but they are going fast!  

Mr. F:  Well what are we waiting around here for?!  TALLYHO!

John: ....Well, I guess that about sums it up.  I'm not sure there is much more to be said.  

Me:  I quite agree John.  Thank you, as always, for your excellent reporting.  Why don't you go get out of the cold and get yourself some šljivovica?

John:  Don't you mean шљивовица?

Me:  Eh, fuck you John.

John:  Right back at you buddy.  See you at Thanksgiving, where we shall feast on pork, garlic, and Schlitz.

Me:  Sounds good.

So, what have we learned today?  Nothing much, except that if your cat believes in God, it's not a good idea to convince the cat otherwise.  Nothing makes life more dreary than a depressed cat.  They shed horribly, smoke like chimney's, and they care even less about you than a well adjusted and happy cat, if that is even possible.  

And that about wraps up MM's Election 2012 coverage.  While I am happy to see this election cycle FINALLY end (though I pray to God that it actually ends today, and not three months from now), I honestly don't know what I am going to write about moving forward.  I'll try to think of something, but as Sartre would say:

Baise-moi, je ne peux pas penser à quelque chose à écrire. Et je suis à court de cigarettes. Merde!

On Books: John Adams by David McCullough AND the BSE.

BSE standing for Big Scary Election, of course; though not as scary as Hurricane Sandy which slammed into the coast last weekend.  For those who were caught in the path of the storm and are still being affected by it, to those who have had their world's flipped upside down by nature's destruction:  our prayers are with you, for whatever that is worth.  Though it must be said that perhaps money and food may be worth more than the prayers of thousands.

More about prayer, perhaps, some other time, and more about the election in a moment.  First, the book I just finished this week:  John Adams by David McCullough.  It was rather interesting to read a biogrpahy of one of our founding fathers at the tail end of a presidential election, but the book is good enough that it would be interesting at any time.  McCullough is an very good writer, and time seems to have made him better.   This book has little of the monotony that his biography of Truman (published in 1992) was sometimes plagued with, and McCullough has actually managed to make his biography of Adams almost a page turner, which for any history book is high praise indeed.

It's a page turner because the life of Adams was so interesting, even if the man himself was not -- and by that I mean there were no French Mistresses, he didn't kill anyone in a duel, he didn't play Mid-Wicket for Kerry County Cricket Club.  Good character may make for a great man, but sadly not always a great character.

But as I noted:  Adams led an interesting life.  Coming from farmers stock out of Braintree, Massachusetts, law his chosen profession, he spent many years abroad as an ambassador in France and Holland during the Revolutionary War, and was the first diplomat from the new nation to meet with King George III after the country had won its independence.  He was key in securing credit for the new nation, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris. He was the first to experience the frustrating futility of the vice-presidency,  and the first one term president.  His biggest achievement as president, in his eyes, was avoiding all-out war with France, the possibility of which clouded his presidency and contributed to highlighting bitter partisan divisions.

Particularly interesting is the take McCullough has on Thomas Jefferson:  he seems almost to disdain him. Jefferson figures largely in the work, and I believe it was McCullough's original intent to do a sort of join s biography on both men, but he found Adams to be more compelling.  Perhaps it is because Adam lives his values; he his hard working, honest, and no friend to slavery.  Jefferson, the radical republican, half endorses the slaughter of the French Aristocracy even as he strives to live in grand style.  Jefferson, lover of freedom, never confronts slavery and never frees his own slaves.  Jefferson, always yearning for retirement and Monticello, is adept at leading a political opposition that propels him to the Presidency.

What does this have to do with the election?  Simply that when you read this you see how much things have changed, and yet how much they have stayed the same.  Party politics divides us today, and divided us then (the election between Adams and Jefferson in 1800 was particularly rancorous).  We've never been able to, as a country, find a consensus on what America means and on what it is; competing visions of America have existed since its founding.

Is that comforting?  Not really.  Back in the day we had men like Adams and Washington and even Jefferson who could somehow find a way to pull the disparate sides together and move the country forward?  Now?  Well, let me ask you this:  can you think of a leader in congress who would willingly sail across the ocean to Europe and spend years away from home and family working tirelessly for their nation?  Considering the typical "work week" of congress (fly into Washington on Tuesday, work on Wednesday, Thursday, and then its a long, hard flight back home on Friday to Anytown USA), I would say the answer is that there are not many.

In Conclusion:  Good Book.  Poor Leaders.  But everyone loves pie.