Hidden Gem

Marion's Sew & Vac
234 Pulaski Blvd, Bellingham, MA
https://www.marionssewandvac.net/

Marions Sewing and Vacuum
234 Pulaski Blvd
Bellingham Mass , Massachusetts 02019
Phone: 508-883-4777
Email: marionssewandvac@verizon.net

Why

Why you need an Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker)

You can make true one pot meals in your Instant Pot.
If you forget to start your slow cooker, you can make dinner fast in your Instant Pot.
You can safely and effortlessly cook meat from frozen.
It’s a hands-off way to cook. You don’t need to watch a pot on the stove or a pan in the oven.
You can make many meal prep staples quickly and easily, including shredded chicken, hard boiled eggs, steel cut oats and cooked beans (from dry).
The pressure cooking process develops delicious flavors quickly. I’ve never had a better chili than my Instant Pot Turkey Chili!

Carla Hall recipe: Sweet Cream Biscuits with Fresh Blueberry Compote

Carla Hall recipe: Sweet Cream Biscuits with Fresh Blueberry Compote

Carla Hall’s dessert take on Southern style biscuits adds a fresh blueberry compote and tangy whipped cream to the sweet cream pastry. (©19 Robert Bengtson)
By Linda Zavoral | lzavoral@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
August 31, 2019 at 6:55 am

Celebrity chef Carla Hall’s recent appearance at Macy’s in San Jose included a culinary demonstration of her signature biscuits, and tips on how to create those perfect flaky results. Here, she’s adapted a recipe from her new cookbook, “Carla Hall Soul Food: Everyday and Celebration” (Harper Wave, 2019), for a more dessert-like indulgence topped with a fresh blueberry compote.
Sweet Cream Biscuits with Fresh Blueberry Compote and Whipped Cream

Serves 16

Sweet cream biscuits:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for the pan

2½ cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping the dough

1 tablespoon baking powder (aluminum free)

½ teaspoon baking soda (aluminum free)

1 cup heavy cream

¾ cup full fat sour cream

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons fresh lemon zest

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

2 tablespoons trans-fat-free vegetable shortening (Crisco is best)

¼ cup heavy cream for glazing

2 tablespoons sugar for dusting on top

Blueberry compote and softly whipped cream, for serving (see recipes below)

Directions:

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the stick of butter in the freezer and freeze until hard, about 10 minutes. Butter a half-sheet pan.

Mix the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl with an open hand, using your fingers as a whisk. Set aside.
A perfect Southern biscuit is not that difficult to achieve, says celebrity chef Carla Hall. (©19 Robert Bengtson)

In a deep bowl or 4-cup liquid measuring cup, combine the heavy cream, sour cream, water, sugar, salt, lemon zest and vanilla scraped from the vanilla bean. Add the shortening. Blend together with an immersion blender until emulsified.

Using the large holes of a box grater, grate the cold butter into the flour. Toss until all the pieces are coated. Add the cream mixture to the flour mixture. Using a stiff rubber spatula, gently mix until there are no dry bits of flour left. The dough will be sticky.

Lightly coat your work surface with nonstick cooking spray, then flour. (The spray keeps the flour in place.)

Turn the dough out onto the prepared surface and gently pat into a ½-inch-thick rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with flour, then fold it in thirds like a letter. Repeat the patting, sprinkling and folding twice, rotating the dough 90 degrees each time. Pat the dough to a ¾-inch-thickness. It should no longer be sticky.

Flour a 2-inch-round biscuit cutter and press it straight down into the dough. Transfer to the prepared pan, placing the bottom side up. Repeat, cutting the rounds as close together as possible and spacing the rounds 1 inch apart on the pan. Stack the scraps, pat to ¾-inch-thickness, and cut again.

Brush the tops with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake until the tops are golden brown and crisp, about 16 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes on the pan before serving hot with blueberry compote and a dollop of soft whipped cream.
For more food and drink coverage
follow us on Flipboard.

Fresh blueberry compote:

2 cups fresh blueberries

1 cup blueberry jam

½ cup water

2 teaspoons fresh lemon zest

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of coarse salt

Directions:

Combine all compote ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until fruit is soft and mixture is thickened, about 10 minutes. Serve warm. (Makes about 2 cups.)

Soft whipped cream:

½ cup heavy cream, chilled

½ cup sour cream, chilled

1 scant teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Place heavy cream, sour cream, sugar and vanilla in a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whip on medium-high until soft peaks begin to form. (Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. Transfer the cream to a fine-mesh strainer set over a bowl.)

— Adapted by Carla Hall from “Carla Hall’s Soul Food” (Harper Wave) for Macy’s Culinary Council

Buttermilk and Biscuits Southern Soul Food Rocks!

Carla Hall recipe: Chopped Salad with Buttermilk Dressing
Chopped Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

Serves 8

Ingredients:

½ cup buttermilk

½ cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons fresh or jarred horseradish

½ small garlic clove, grated on a microplane

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

15 cups fresh vegetables, chopped

Directions:

Whisk the buttermilk, mayonnaise, horseradish, garlic, vinegar, cayenne, and ½ teaspoon each salt and pepper until smooth. (Makes 1¼ cups dressing, which can be refrigerated for up to three days.)
Carla Hall’s latest cookbook is “Carla Hall’s Soul Food”

Toss the chopped vegetables in a large bowl. Season lightly with salt and toss again. Drizzle on just enough dressing to coat and toss gently.

— From “Carla Hall’s Soul Food: Everyday to Celebration” (Harper Wave)

Maria Montessori

It's the birthday of Maria Montessori (books by this author), born on this day in Chiaravalle, Italy (1870). She was a bright student, studied engineering when she was 13, and -- against her father's wishes -- she entered a technical school, where all her classmates were boys. After a few years, she decided to pursue medicine, and she became the first woman in Italy to earn a medical degree. It was so unheard of for a woman to go to medical school that she had to get the approval of the pope in order to study there.

As a doctor, she worked with children with special needs, and through her work with them she became increasingly interested in education. She believed that children were not blank slates, but that they each had inherent, individual gifts. It was a teacher's job to help children find these gifts, rather than dictating what a child should know. She emphasized independence, self-directed learning, and learning from peers. Children were encouraged to make decisions. She was the first educator to use child-sized tables and chairs in the classroom.

During World War II, Montessori was exiled from Italy because she was opposed to Mussolini's fascism and his desire to make her a figurehead for the Italian government. She lived and worked in India for many years, and then in Holland. She died in 1952 at the age of 81.

She wrote many books about her philosophy of education, including The Montessori Method (1912), and is considered a major innovator in education theory and practice.
Writer's Almanac

Darkness Visible

It's the birthday of Armenian-American writer William Saroyan (books by this author), born in Fresno, California (1908). His parents were recent refugees from the Turkish massacres in Armenia. His father died when William was three. Saroyan's mother, placed her children in the Fred Finch Orphanage in Oakland, California. Saroyan spent five years there before his mother was able to claim him.

His mother worked with other Armenian immigrants picking fruit for large farms and working in canneries. Saroyan started selling newspapers on the streets of Fresno when he was eight to make ends meet. He liked school, but left at 15. He haunted public libraries, reading anything he could get his hands on, but especially Sherwood Anderson and Guy de Maupassant. His first short story, "The Broken Wheel" (1933), was published under the name "Sirak Goryan" in Hairenik, an Armenian journal. Not long after, Story magazine published a vibrant and romantic short story called "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze"(1934). The story was a hit, and Saroyan began to write feverishly, completing a collection of stories with the same name. The book became a best-seller. His play "The Time of Your Life" won the Pulitzer Prize for drama (1940), but Saroyan rejected the money, saying, "Businessmen shouldn't judge art."

Saroyan's stories almost always centered on young boys and the immigrant life in Fresno. His characters were brash and irreverent, capable of celebrating life in spite of poverty.

Towards the end of his life and dying of prostate cancer, he called the Associated Press to give a statement to be released posthumously. The statement was: "Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"
Writer's Almanac

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness is a memoir by American writer William Styron about his descent into depression and the triumph of recovery. It is among the last books published by Styron and is widely considered one of his best and most influential works.
Pages‎: ‎84
Publication date‎: ‎1990
Author‎: ‎William Styron
Publisher‎: ‎Random House

Authenticity

Authenticity: The Ultimate Act of Self-Care
By Melody Moezzi

Collanders, Tea Balls and YOLO

We're dressed up for the Matunuck Light Parade.

Paul Newman

“I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.”
― Paul Newman

“A man with no enemies is a man with no character.”
― Paul Newman

“You only grow when you are alone.”
― Paul Newman

“We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”
― Paul Newman

“I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?”
― Paul Newman

“Those with a moral deficit put on a good show, and sleep like a baby.”
― Paul Newman

“The problem with getting older is you still remember how things used to be.”
― Paul Newman

“On adultery: "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?”
― Paul Newman

“I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don't want any woman to look under the carpet, guys, because there's lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, 'Mr. and Mrs. Bridge' comes closest to who I really am. I personally don't think there's one character who comes close . . . but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don't have a solid opinion about.”
― Paul Newman

“It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, 'I'm terribly sorry. I'm tired.' [After winning his first Oscar after so many losses]”
― Paul Newman

“There are two Newman's laws. The first one is "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." The second is "Just when things look darkest, they go black.”
― Paul Newman

“It's been a privilege to be here.”
― Paul Newman, Paul Newman: A Life

“The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films.”
― Paul Newman

“It's always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black.”
― Paul Newman

“I picture my epitaph: 'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.”
― Paul Newman
tags: humor

“When you see the right thing to do, you'd better do it.”
― Paul Newman

“On considering adultery - Why go out for hamburger when I can have steak at home?”
― Paul Newman

“It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now - my good Lord - look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd.”
― Paul Newman

“There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.”
― Paul Newman

“I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.”
― Paul Newman

“Of course I know Julie Andrews. She's the last of the really great broads.”
― Paul Newman

“Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.”
― Paul Newman

“To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting.

Quoted in "Paul Newman's Road To Glory", interview with Paul Fischer, Film Monthly (2002-07-01)”
― Paul Newman

“Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”
― Paul Newman The Color of Money

“Honey, Don't go shooting all the dogs 'cause one of them's got fleas”
― Paul Newman

Albert Einstein

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate

Man and Woman

“A man's center of gravity, the substance of his being, consists in what he has executed and performed in his life; the woman's, in what she is.”
― Isak Dinesen, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays

The Cure

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.”
― Isak Dinesen,Seven Gothic Tales

“It is a good thing to be a great sinner. Or should human beings allow Christ to have died on the Cross for the sake of our petty lies and our paltry whorings.”
― Isak Dinesen

“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”
― Isak Dinesen

“After a little while you became aware of how still it was out here. Now, looking back on my life in Africa, I feel like it might altogether be described as the existence of a person who had come from a rushed and noisy world, into a still country.”
― Isak Dinesen

“Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty. See! That which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another!”
― Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny

“Natives dislike speed, as we dislike noise, it is to them, at the best, hard to bear. They are also on friendly terms with time, and the plan of beguiling or killing it does not come into their heads. In fact the more time you can give them, the happier they are, and if you commission a Kikuyu to hold your horse while you make a visit, you can see by his face that he hopes you will be a long, long time about it. He does not try to pass the time then, but sits down and lives.”
― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“Life and death are like two locked caskets, each of which contains the key to the other.”
― Isak Dinesen

“Truth, like time, is an idea arising from, and dependent upon, human intercourse.
— The Roads Round Pisa”
― Isak Dinesen

“All the sorrows of life are bearable if only we can convert them into a story.”
― Isak Dinesen

“Very old families will sometimes feel upon them the shadow of annihilation.”
― Isak Dinesen, Ehrengard

“But by the time I had nothing left, I myself was the lightest thing of all for fate to get rid of.”
― Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

“After being told that the Professor “found it possible to believe for a moment in the existence of God,” Isak thought, “Has it been possible to God, at Mount Elgon, to believe for a moment in the existence of Professor Landgreen?”
― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“Camping-places fix themselves in your mind as if you had spent long periods of your life in them. You will remember the curve of your waggon track in the grass of the plain, like the features of a friend.”
― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“People work much in order to secure the future; I gave my mind much work and trouble, trying to secure the past.”
― Isak Dinesen, Shadows on the Grass

“The plan which I had formed in the beginning, to give in in all minor matters, so as to keep what was of vital importance to me, had turned out to be a failure. I had consented to give away my possessions one by one, as a kind of ransom for my own life, but by the time that I had nothing left, I myself was the lightest thing of all, for fate to get rid of.”
― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“The old lady continued, "We women, my child, are often very simple. But that any female would lack reason to such a degree that she would start reasoning with a man--that is beyond my comprehension! She has lost the battle, my dear child, she has lost the battle before it began! No, if a woman will have her way with a man she must look him square in the eye and say something of which it is impossible for him to make any sense whatsoever and to which he is at a loss to reply. He is defeated at once.”
― Isak Dinesen, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays

“If a man can devote himself undisturbed to the work which is on his mind, he can, as far I have observed, completely ignore his surroundings--they disappear for him; he can sit in filth and disorder, draught and cold, and be completely happy. For most women it is insufferable to sit in a room if the color scheme displeases them.”
― Isak Dinesen, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays

“It is when people are told their own thoughts that they think they are being insulted. But why should not their own thoughts be good enough for other people to tell them?”
― Isak Dinesen, Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard

“Truth, like time, is an idea arising from, and dependent upon, human intercourse.”
― Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“It is impossible that a town will not play a part in your life, it does not matter whether you have good or bad things to say of it, it draws your mind to it, by a mental law of gravitation.”
― Isak Dinesen

“The true aristocracy and the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy. To them it is the fundamental principle of God, and the key,—the minor key,—to existence. They differ in this way from the bourgeoisie of all classes, who deny tragedy, who will not tolerate it, and to whom the word of tragedy means in itself unpleasantness.”
― Isak Dinesen

“I have read or been told that in a book of etiquette of the seventeenth century the very first rule forbids you to tell your dreams to other people, since they cannot possibly be of interest to them.”
― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass

“It is more than their land that you take away from the people, whose Native land you take. It is their past as well, their roots and their identity. If you take away the things that they have been used to see, and will be expecting to see, you may, in a way, as well take their eyes. This applies in a higher degree to the primitive people than to the civilized, and animals again will wander back a long way, and go through danger and sufferings, to recover their lost identity, in the surroundings that they know.”
― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“How beautiful were the evenings of the Masai Reserve when after sunset we arrived at the river or the water-hole where we were to outspan, travelling in a long file. The plains with the thorn trees on them were already quite dark, but the air was filled with clarity,—and over our heads, to the West, a single star which was to grow big and radiant in the course of the night was now just visible, like a silver point in the sky of citrine topaz. The air was cold to the lungs, the long grass dripping wet, and the herbs on it gave out their spiced astringent scent. In a little while on all sides the Cicada would begin to sing. The grass was me, and the air, the distant invisible mountains were me, the tired oxen were me. I breathed with the slight night-wind in the thorn trees.”
― Isak Dinesen

“A man's center of gravity, the substance of his being, consists in what he has executed and performed in his life; the woman's, in what she is.”
― Isak Dinesen, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays

“From my journeys in southern Europe I have gained the impression that in our time the Virgin Mary is the only heavenly creature who is really beloved by millions. But I believe these millions would be uncomprehending and perhaps even offended if I were to tell them that the Virgin Mary had made a significant discovery, solved difficult mathematical problems, or masterfully organized and administered an association of housewives in Nazareth.”
― Isak Dinesen, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays

“But the cultivation of race gets nowhere, for even its triumphal progress becomes a vicious circle. It cannot give and cannot receive.”
― Isak Dinesen, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays

John Perlman

https://countryvalley.wordpress.com/john-perlman/

Philanthropy Fantasy

My longtime philanthropic fantasy would be to build a pool in Woonsocket Rhode Island and admission would be FREE and the water would be nice and clean and cold. Swim lessons for all ages would also be free. It would be located next to the public library so the summers would be a free campus for families and children to swim and read at no cost.

6PM

I went to bed and slept well at 6PM last night. Sometimes you just need sleep. The pain from biting my tongue finally caught up with me. The good news is I woke up at 4AM bright eyed and bushy tailed. Monk's hours!

This time of year my insides spin faster than my outsides and in order to balance the two I swim like a speed demon. But that said when things reverse I continue to swim for the same reason. My life is a Buddhist Proverb.

After the cold water swim I am hungry! After any swim I am hungry.

I love my appetite. I am lucky, my favorite food is broccoli grilled with olive oil and Adobo in my gigantic cast iron pan.

Ridiculous!

What the hell?

Priyanka Dayal McCluskey

‘Deportation . . . with this type of medical condition is a death sentence’: Outrage grows over federal policy change
By Priyanka Dayal McCluskey Globe Staff,August 29, 2019, 8:25 p.m.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/08/29/deportation-from-united-states-with-this-type-medical-condition-death-sentence-representative-ayanna-pressley-said/I2Fm6F5b85EKKdLMaLMi3M/story.html

Sirlen Costa of Brazil held her ill son, Samuel, after a press conference in Boston this week.

A new Trump administration policy to deport families of seriously ill children receiving treatment in the United States provoked fresh outrage this week, as health care providers feared for their patients, elected officials demanded oversight, and advocates planned lawsuits to stop the action.

Senators Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley said Thursday that they will send a letter to the administration demanding internal documents on its decision to suddenly end what’s known as “deferred action” — a policy that allows some immigrants to remain in the United States legally while they receive medical care for complex conditions.

Lawyers for some of the immigrants said Monday that US Citizenship and Immigration Services has begun informing families that it no longer considers requests for deferred action, and that the families must leave the country within 33 days. The change applies to children and adults with cancer, cystic fibrosis, HIV, epilepsy, and other diseases.

The policy change came as a surprise to patients, caregivers, lawmakers, and some federal officials, with no formal announcement.

“It is absolutely immoral to be deporting children with cancer,” Markey said Thursday. “We cannot and will not allow this to stand.”

Critics called the decision a new low for an administration that has aggressively targeted immigrants.

“Deportation from the United States with this type of medical condition is a death sentence,” Pressley said.

She and Representative Judy Chu of California also called for congressional oversight of the administration’s decision.

Massachusetts’ prestigious hospitals draw many patients from around the globe. Immigration lawyers estimate that at least 40 families in the state are vulnerable to the change in policy — with thousands affected nationally, said Mahsa Khanbabai,who chairs the New England chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Nationwide, about 1,000 people per year request deferred action for medical and other humanitarian reasons, according to the association.

Meanwhile, the change appeared to stir confusion among federal agencies. Officials at US Citizenship and Immigration Service, which has been notifying affected families, said the responsibility now falls to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Neither agency responded to requests for comment Thursday, but according to published reports and immigration attorneys, ICE officials appeared blindsided by the move.

“The agencies haven’t talked to each other,” Khanbabai said. “This is a haphazard attempt to try to create more fear and confusion.”

It’s unclear if the families told to leave the country would even be able to do so. Khanbabai said she has two clients who are in no position to return to their home countries: one young man is hospitalized for a mental illness, and the other, a 14-year-old girl, needs ongoing treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital for a complex heart condition.

The change in the deferred action program is one of many steps the Trump administration has taken to tighten immigration. The New York Times reported that in a separate action, the administration was clamping down on a special protective visa, known as the U visa, that allows crime victims who have helped law enforcement authorities with investigations to stay in the United States.

The policy change for sick immigrants drew a rebuke from Democratic candidates for president, including Warren, who called it “heartless,” and former vice president Joe Biden.

“There is no national security justification for further traumatizing sick kids at their most vulnerable,” Biden said on Twitter. “Like all bullies, Trump is purposefully targeting the little guys — but I would have thought even he would understand that kids with cancer and cystic fibrosis were off-limits.”

Markey tweeted that ICE officials told his staff they would force the affected families to go through deportation proceedings before deciding their fate, which he called “dehumanizing,” while immigration lawyers called it a grueling and unworkable option for people receiving medical treatment.

Legal groups are considering litigation to try to halt the policy change.

“The ACLU will fight to protect these sick children and their families, and to hold this administration to account. Every option is on the table, and we’re currently exploring litigation options,” Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement Thursday.

Children’s Hospital officials said in a statement that they are deeply concerned about the policy change.

“We are encouraged by the visibility that has been generated by the many advocates who share our concern,” hospital officials said. “We are hopeful that their advocacy on behalf of children will result in a reversal of this policy.”

Boston Medical Center officials said in a statement that they “oppose any actions that could prevent people from accessing the health care they need.”

Dr. Fiona Danaher, a pediatrician at Mass. General’s clinic in Chelsea, said 33 days is not nearly enough to plan the transfer of a patient overseas. And for some children, the treatment or equipment they need — such as breathing and feeding tubes — may not be available in their home countries.

“This administration has been taking many steps to undermine the health of immigrant children, and this is just the latest,” she said. “It’s appalling.”

Priyanka Dayal McCluskey can be reached at priyanka.mccluskey@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @priyanka_dayal.

First Rule of Holes

“The first rule of holes: When you're in one stop digging.”
― Molly Ivins

“Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?

“I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.”
― Molly Ivins

“When politicians start talking about large groups of their fellow Americans as 'enemies,' it's time for a quiet stir of alertness. Polarizing people is a good way to win an election, and also a good way to wreck a country.”
― Molly Ivins

“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention."

[Shrub Flubs His Dub, The Nation, June 18, 2001]”
― Molly Ivins

“It's all very well to run around saying regulation is bad, get the government off our backs, etc. Of course our lives are regulated. When you come to a stop sign, you stop; if you want to go fishing, you get a license; if you want to shoot ducks, you can shoot only three ducks. The alternative is dead bodies at the intersection, no fish, and no ducks. OK?

(Getting Control of the Frontier, Gainsville Sun, March 22, 1995)”
― Molly Ivins

“So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds,
but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Be outrageous... rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through celebrating the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was!”
― Molly Ivins

“I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil.
And that no one knows the truth.”
― Molly Ivins

“There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity -- like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule -- that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar. ”
― Molly Ivins

“There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack.”
― Molly Ivins

“I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.”
― Molly Ivins

“What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.”
― Molly Ivins

“Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world.”
― Molly Ivins

“It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.”
― Molly Ivins

“As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office.”
― Molly Ivins

“I don't so much mind that newspapers are dying - it's watching them commit suicide that pisses me off.”
― Molly Ivins

“Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.”
― Molly Ivins

“I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point--race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything.”
― Molly Ivins

“One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't was a lot of time thinking about the people who build their pyramids, either.”
― Molly Ivins

“I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.”
― Molly Ivins

“One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope.”
― Molly Ivins

“All of which indicates that he's quite a fast learner. When you approve of a politician, this is known as flexibility; when you don't, it's called lack of principal - but in fact, politics requires accommodation.”
― Molly Ivans

“The odd thing about these television discussions designed to “get all sides of the issue” is that they do not feature a spectrum of people with different views on reality: Rather, they frequently give us a face-off between those who see reality and those who have missed it entirely. In the name of objectivity, we are getting fantasy-land.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

“All right, all right, so I love Lubbock. I never claimed to have exquisite taste. I’ll be there with the diehards to the end, trying to explain, “No, this is a griddle with some Monopoly houses on it: this is Lubbock.” Still, the life of all us Lubbock-lovers would be a lot easier if the Chamber of Commerce hadn’t adopted the slogan “Keep Lubbock Beautiful.” Keep?”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

“The only problem was, the founders left a lot of people out of the Constitution. They left out poor people and black people and female people. It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America. And it still goes on today.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

“Carl Parker observes, if you took all the fools out of the Lege, it wouldn’t be a representative body anymore.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

“I like to think of this as ecological journalism: I recycle.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

“The victor in the Democratic primary was State Senator Bill Sarpalius, who got a leg up one night in January when a disgruntled patriot slugged him so hard it broke his jaw and the jaw had to be wired shut for most of the campaign. For most politicians, that would constitute an electoral handicap, but since Sarpalius is not bent over double with intellect, it proved a boon. He’s a tall, nice-looking, apple-cheeked fellow, and if you don’t have to listen to him, he looks good.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

“Confusing the academy with the world is a dumb and dangerous thing to do. In the real world, money talks, bullshit walks. In a state legislature, clout meets clout, money meets money, interest fights interest, and only the strong prevail. Which is why ordinary folks keep losing. Should this strike you as an unduly Darwinian view of what is, after all, a liberal, Western democracy, I can only commend you to Reality School. Go and study how the laws are made and then tell me if I lie.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

“Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, reflecting on Bush’s “stay-the-course” strategy, said, “If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want the drillin’ rights on that man’s head.”
― Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Vintage Books Edition

Painfully Good

It’s the birthday of the journalist and humorist who said, “The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.” Molly Ivins (books by this author), born in Monterey, California (1944) and raised in Houston, Texas.

Molly Ivins once said: “I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.”

She went to Smith and to Columbia’s School of Journalism and spent years covering the police beat for the Minneapolis Tribune (the first woman to do so) before moving back to Texas, the setting and subject of much of her life’s writing. In a biographical blurb she wrote about herself for a website, she proclaimed, “Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated political columnist who remains cheerful despite Texas politics. She emphasizes the more hilarious aspects of both state and national government, and consequently never has to write fiction.”

Ivins especially liked to poke fun at the Texas Legislature, which she referred to as “the Lege.” She gave George W. Bush the nickname “Shrub” and also referred to him as a post turtle (based on an old joke: the turtle didn’t get there itself, doesn’t belong there, and needs help getting out of the dilemma). She had actually known President Bush since they were teenagers in Houston. She poked fun at Democrats, too, and said about Bill Clinton: “If left to my own devices, I’d spend all my time pointing out that he’s weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal.” Clinton later said that Molly Ivins “was good when she praised me and painfully good when she criticized me.”

She went on to write several best-selling books, including Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush — which was actually written and published in 2000, before George W. Bush had been elected to the White House. Ivins later said, “The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention.”

Molly Ivins died of breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 62. She once wrote: “Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.”
Writer's Almanac

Molly Ivins: Raise Hell

“You have to have a good time while you’re fighting for freedom. It might get to be the only fun you ever had!”

Political commentary can be both caustic and incisive. Molly Ivins showed America how.

The new documentary Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins explores the famed columnist’s life and legacy.

“I need you to go see this play, Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. It’s starring Kathleen Turner.” I said, “What’s it about?” And he said, “Molly Ivins.”

I said, “Molly Ivins — why do I know that name?” He said, “Well, you’ve gotta go see it. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

So I bought the ticket, I went, and I was blown away. The material was Molly’s material — her words. It was brilliant. It was hilarious. I was so intrigued by Molly.

You know when you go to see something, you come home and you start Googling? I Googled! I found all these C-SPAN clips of Molly, and I started to watch them that night, ’til 2 or 3 in the morning. I was blown away. She was hilarious! She was brilliant, and so spot-on.

So I called James the next morning and gave him my reaction. And he said that there were no films or documentaries about her. There was a book, but that’s it. So we reached out to her estate [about making a film].

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/28/18276087/molly-ivins-raise-hell-janice-engel-interview

Eric Berne

The term Child ego state, which in some models is called the Inner Child, was originally coined by Eric Berne, a Canadian psychoanalyst and the founder of transactional analysis, also known as TA.
source

Family Secrets

Heal your family secrets or pass them on to your children.
John Bradshaw

I scouted about and tracked down a bunch of family secrets.

1. my parents eloped.
2. my bio dad wanted my mother to abort me.
3. there was mental illness in my mother's family.
4. my mothers father Grandpa Nat's sister Gloria died of anorexia.
5. there was alcoholism and abandonment and orphanages featured on my father's side of the family.

The Genius of the Instant Pots

Now college dorms are equipped with meal-making capabilities. Instant pots and microwaves!

Benjamin Disraeli

‘Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.’
Benjamin Disraeli

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Born Aug 28.

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part

“I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”
― Johann wolfgang von Goethe

“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part

“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Collected Works

“If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I bid the chords sweet music make,
And all must follow in my wake.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities

“Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.”
― Goethe

“By seeking and blundering we learn.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A person hears only what they understand.”
― Johann wolfgang von Goethe

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.”
― Goethe

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
― Johann wolfgang von Goethe

“Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and -- if at all possible -- speak a few sensible words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Instruction does much, but encouragement everything."

(Letter to A.F. Oeser, Nov. 9, 1768)”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Early and Miscellaneous Letters of J. W. Goethe: Including Letters to His Mother. With Notes and a Short Biography

“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”
― Johann wolfgang von Goethe

Fabric Dreams

Last night we joined the throngs at Walmart to buy colored markers and back to school notebooks and tissues. The annual supplies for my husband's physics classroom. While we were there we had a peek at the fabric selections. I immediately fell in love with numerous bolts of cotton fabric. "These could be made into dinner napkins, how about curtains or a dress," I said holding the bolt to my chest. My husband reminded me of the cupboard of fabric I have untouched. It's true but that need not stop me from more fabric dreams.

Take Comfort

“To those who swear our young are on the road to perdition take comfort in this- every generation has felt somewhat the same for two or three thousand years and the still the world goes on.”
― Karen Hesse, Witness

Find a Way

“As long as you live, it is never too late to make amends. Take my advice, child. Don't waste your precious life with regrets and sorrow. Find a way to make right what was wrong, and then move on.”
― Karen Hesse, Safekeeping

The Rain

“I hear the first drops. Like the tapping of a stranger at the door of a dream, the rain changes everything.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

Overwhelming Odds

“Sometimes, a flame can be utterly extinguished.
Sometimes, a flame can shrink and waver, but
sometimes a flame refuses to go out. It flares up from the faintest ember to
illuminate the darkness,
to burn in spite of overwhelming odds.”
― Karen Hesse, The Stone Lamp: Eight Stories Of Hanukkah Through History

Drowning

“I don't know what I am thinking. But I am alone. I am trapped in the net of the room. In the net of humans. I think maybe I am drowning in the net of humans.”
― Karen Hesse, The Music of Dolphins

John Locke: Thinking

It’s the birthday of the man who said, “The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts”: British philosopher John Locke (books by this author), born in Wrington, Somerset, England (1632). He believed all of our knowledge is derived from the senses. He also believed that we can know about morality with the same precision we know about math, because we create our ideas. His Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1688) was an instant success and sparked debate all across Europe.

Locke said, “Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

The Writer's Almanac

Love is the master-key

It’s the birthday of the man who said, “Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!” That’s 19th-century poet and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (books by this author), born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1809).

He ran in the same circles as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and other Boston intellectuals. He helped found The Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1857, and it was Holmes himself who came up with the name. He published his poetry and articles in The Atlantic Monthly at the same time he practiced medicine and taught at Harvard Medical School. He’s also the father of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

He’s perhaps best-known for his essays that make up the “Breakfast Table” series. In The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872) he wrote, “We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.”

He said: “Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.”
Writer's Almanac

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker, who once advised aspiring musicians:
“You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”
Writer's Almanac

Troubling

One of the things that irks me is the mismatch of what people say and how they behave. For example taking a lift from the pool with a friend who drives like an angry speed demon. What's the rush? This is not an ambulance. My other friends hold annual new years parties with specific instructions: no perfume or deodorant due to the hosts severe asthma. But then they smoke dope constantly and frequently fly to Florence and go to Esalen. Did they send out the same instructions to Esalen, Air France, and the City of Florence? I know some other folks growing pot in a walled off room in their cellar. As if their very smart adult kids didn't know. What does this do to a family? The truth is dad went from perpetual drunkenness to a constant state of being stoned. Another family I know has a diagnosed bi-polar daughter. The mother drinks with the daughter acting like two valley girls talking about nail polish and their SUV Lexus'. What the hell is going on?

Food Music

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2017/09/the-hidden-language-of-food-in-mexican-ranchera-music-corridos-gustavo-arellano/

The Hidden Language of Food in Mexican Ranchera Music
Listen carefully, and you’ll learn a lot about life in the fields.

Gustavo Arellano
Bio

Listen

https://bleedinggoldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bg082-9-tracks

Bramley Mermaids Club

Bramley Baths swimming pool re-opens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCEqW4DNrp8&t=24s

by Hello | Monday, January 21, 2019 | News Article | 1 comment
Bramley Baths swimming pool re-opens

Our swimming pool has now re-opened, following £500,000 work to establish a new eco-hub at our Edwardian Grade II Listed building.

We hope the eco-hub will reduce energy costs by up to 40%, reducing our environmental impact and allowing us to re-invest the savings into other projects.

Bramley Baths CEO Sue Stones thanked all customers and supporters for their understanding and patience throughout the closure period.

She said the investment has replaced the existing ageing machinery and hopes it will reduce to ‘practically zero’ the number of pool closures due to technical problems. Sue added:

“This investment will ensure we can continue to provide services to the community for many years to come.

“This is just the first phase in our plans to invest in the building. We hope to follow this up with a project on a similar scale to update the rest of the Baths.”

The funding has provided:

A new pool plant, with new filtration system, pipework and valves. The new pool filtration system will mean we will be able use less chlorine. The pool plant area will also have a new roof.
Three new boilers and two new hot water tanks (which have recently been installed).
New air handling units on poolside and new air conditioning in the gym and studio.
A complete clean and maintenance of the pool, including re-grouting of tiles.

The improvements will lead to improved water clarity, meaning the pool will be even cleaner than it is now. Improved water quality will also reduce the need for chlorine in the pool.

The air filtration system will lead to better air quality. A computerised system will be able to better control temperatures in the pool area, studio and gym and achieve a better balance between humidity in the building and water temperature. New air conditioning will also mean much lower energy usage.

Photo: Courtney Harrison

The Enemy

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

ANNE LAMOTT

79 Degree Pool

CCRI's 79 degree pool was motivating me to swim faster! I love it! I'd need to take the bus to get there or get a lift. Oh well. I saw Greg the former Spring Lake lifeguard. He's still working there. As long as I carry a book I can take the bus.

Robert Merriam Memoir

The Torpedo of St. Yvon

How the only Nazi bomb to hit North America in WW II nearly got me.

“Millions of people were killed in WW II and frightful damage was done; but only one Nazi bomb hit North America, and that was in a faraway corner of Quebec. It was a peculiar bomb, and by chance I happened to be near.

“In September 1942 U boats were sinking our ships faster than we could build them. I was between freshman and sophomore years at Harvard working at the Liberty Shipyard in Providence, R.I., often with twelve hour days and six day weeks trying to build Liberty ships faster than the Nazi subs could sink them. When fall term was near I decided to take a break and travel north on my old motorcycle to visit school chums and cousins.”

Read the complete story of The Torpedo of Saint Yvon (PDF) →



Indian motorcycle

St. Yvon torpedo
Author Robert Merriam Posted on May 9, 2016Categories Personal Stories
https://newsm.org/memoir/torpedo-of-st-yvon/

Yankee Steam-Up

Yankee Steam-Up
The Original Old Fashioned YANKEE STEAM-UP
NEW ENGLAND’S OLDEST ENGINE SHOW
New England Wireless & Steam Museum
1300 Frenchtown Road • East Greenwich • RI 02818
Saturday, 5 October 2019 • 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Admission: $15 – $7 students • Plenty of free parking • Food available
Merriam Steam Building A panoramic view of many of the large engines that will be running. steam_table Air and steam tables are always busy with models and small engines.
Featuring

Huge historic Rhode Island steam engines restored to running condition and operating on live steam! These engines represent Rhode Island’s legacy as an industrial power in manufacturing.
Model and small engines running on steam, gasoline and compressed air.
Antique autos, launches, maybe even a popcorn machine.
The Massie Wireless System station ‘PJ’ and the museum’s extensive wireless collection.

Exhibitors
FREE ADMISSION
Your ingenious relics and your exquisite models make the show.
Steam, gas, diesel, hot air or electric. Engines, intriguing mechanical devices, antique autos & motorcycles, boats, steam bicycles.
Help make this a dynamic display!

P.G. Wodehouse

I should think it extremely improbable that anyone ever wrote simply for the money. What makes a writer is that he likes writing. Naturally, when he has written something, he wants to get as much for it as he can, but that is a very different thing from writing for money.

P.G. WODEHOUSE

Pants

Every year my husband buys khaki black cotton slacks on sale for teaching. Midway through the year they are worn out, mostly from leaning against the lab tables. This year he decided to buy Jewish style, 6 pairs on sale to be delivered before school starts. Yesterday we were sent a notice that they had been delivered at noon to the front door. There was no package anywhere. My husband was frantic! He raced down to the post office at 4:50PM to talk to Randy and explain what happened. I emailed the Chief of police and Deputy because that's the kinda gal I am. I'd put out an APB if I could! Then there was a confident knock at the screen door in the back, right where I was, at my desk. I jumped. It was detective Adam in a blue bicycle helmet and police uniform here to listen to our story. I told Romeo to go lie down and asked Bill to come out. He was on the phone with Kohl's. We had a nice visit and explained the goods were sent in two packages. 4 pairs stolen two pairs due today. "We were home eating lunch when it was stolen" I said. "Tomorrow we'll eat on the front porch and keep our eyes out!" There has been some blatant thievery recently in the 'hood, my friends Barb and Red had a brand new mattress stolen from their foyer and they even watched it being carried over to the house near the corner. Barb is a black belt in karate. She walked right over and poked her head in and reclaimed her mattress! Way to go Barb! But as far as our pants are concerned I am wondering if they will turn up at the Saturday Flea market.

Gaston Lachaise

I aspire to be more Gaston Lachaise versus Alberto Giacometti.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_Lachaise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Giacometti

Attitude is Everything

"Attitude creates reality. How you view a situation can have an enormous impact on how you live. Some people see setbacks as absolute devastation, whereas others view them as opportunities. At the end of the day, the choice is really up to you."
— Edward T. Creagan, M.D.

Attic

“Each morning I work, up a narrow flight of stairs, in the attic beneath the roof. Through the little window (which lets in the rain) I can see the sky. If it is blue and inviting, then, in the afternoon, I shall be happy to accept its invitation.” -C.R.Milne

Woke Up

Winnie-the-Pooh woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and listened. Then he got out of bed, and lit his candle, and stumped across the room to see if anybody was trying to get into his honey-cupboard, and they weren’t, so he stumped back to bed. -A.A.Milne

August Monday

Of all the Bank Holidays the Monday in August seems the most genuine. Whit Monday, like Easter Monday, moves with the compulsion of the moon. August Bank Holiday depends upon nothing but itself. It is a gift-day, out of, and generally under, the blue.”
-A.A.Milne

Goldfish

"We had hundreds of goldfish in the stream. They made themselves at home in the weeds and reeds, and we saw less of them than we hoped, but on hot afternoons they lay about in glittering pools of light like a Turner sunset reflected in still water." -A.A.Milne

Nadja Spiegelman

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/t-magazine/summer-swimming-exercise-essay.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Now every summer, whenever I can find a pool, I do the laps. The size of the pool may vary, but I always swim until 100. At the ocean, I choose a point as far away as I can — a distant boat, a rocky outgrowth — and swim to it and back. The pleasure is partly in the terror, halfway there, when the beach umbrellas are as small as glitter, that I will never make it back. The pulse of deep water, the blue-black whisper of down down down, the atavistic tremor as my body realizes, as all bodies have always known, how slight it is against an ocean. And then the adrenaline: thighs and waist and biceps concocted into ropes of steel, hands that slip and reach under the surface as softly as under a skirt, feet that pound impossibly far behind, until I am as long as the shoreline. I’m a strong swimmer but not a good one, and I gasp only to the right, eyes stinging with salt, until I can hear the shrieks and lifeguard whistles and ice cream bells, the sounds of the civilization I almost slipped away from. In the water, my body expands, loses itself, weightless. Back on the sand, blood still pulsing with the ocean’s beat, I contract back into shape, my shape, whose boundaries are finally my own.

Nadja Spiegelman is the author of “I’m Supposed to Protect You from All This.”

Staying Awake

'Staying awake all night helped treat my depression'

People with bipolar disorder are being asked to stay up all night to treat their depression.

Doctors in Italy say that sleep deprivation therapy can have a remarkable effect for some patients when done under medical supervision.

We followed a group of people through their treatment.

A film by Daniel Gordon for People Fixing the World.

24 Aug 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-49413215/staying-awake-all-night-helped-treat-my-depression

Delusional Disorder

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42951788

Four years ago, still trying to understand why Stan had concocted the elaborate hoax, Pauline came across an article in a medical journal about a condition called delusional disorder.

"As I read this article I thought, 'This completely describes Stan, somebody who is in every respect normal and competent, but has this crazy delusion,'" she says.

Pauline contacted the author of the paper, a psychiatrist at Harvard University. He was very excited to hear her story. Stan had all the hallmarks of a person with delusional disorder, he said. Another academic, the leading expert on the disorder, agreed.

Finding a reason for what Stan did to her family may have helped Pauline come to terms with her past, but it can't ever repair the damage that he did to their lives.

"I feel very sad for my mother," Pauline says.

"She had such a difficult life and she was vulnerable to Stan, mostly because he was a gentle, caring guy - too bad he had this terrible delusion.

"But I also feel sad for myself and my brother - two little kids whose lives were hijacked."

Pauline Dakin worked for many years for Canada's national broadcaster, CBC, and is now assistant professor at the school of journalism at the University of King's College, Halifax NS. She is the author of Run, Hide, Repeat: A memoir of a fugitive childhood, published by Viking.

Margo Perin

The idea that helping other people to express themselves through writing would bring her catharsis was never really on Margo's radar, but when she began teaching creative writing and poetry in prisons she found that she really identified with the incarcerated, powerless men and women she was working with - because that's how she'd felt as a child. Her parents had been her jailers.

"The violent men were letting me see the humanity inside them, and that was very comforting," she says. "I felt loved by them, and I never got that from my father." Not only was she helping the prisoners come to terms with their pasts through their writing, she was coming to terms with her own.

Helping others to overcome trauma has become the central point of her teaching. Personal stories of healing are also at the heart of her three published books.

Processing her childhood has taken Margo years - she's had decades of therapy - and it's a work in progress. But her father was a sociopath and she's not like him, nor "twisted" like her mother. As her therapist keeps telling her, she's nothing like the two people who brought her into this world.

"I have a very loving relationship, I'm not violent and I don't rip people off," says Margo, who returned to the US in 1986. "I should look back on my life and feel good about myself and everything I've achieved in spite of them."

Margo Perin is the author of an autobiographical novel, The Opposite of Hollywood
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-49397198

James Baldwin

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.
JAMES BALDWIN

Ella Mandel, West Los Angeles

Letters to the Editor: A Holocaust survivor’s invitation to Nazi-saluting students
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-26/holocaust-survivor-garden-grove-nazis
Pacifica High
Students from Pacifica High in Garden Grove were filmed last school year giving the Nazi salute and singing a Nazi anthem.
(Los Angeles Times)
Aug. 27, 2019
3 AM

To the editor: I would like to issue a personal invitation to the group of high school students in I read about in the Los Angeles Times. They were caught on video at a gathering giving the “heil Hitler” salute while singing a Nazi marching song. The kids in the video were smiling and having a great time.

But for me, those sounds and images bring back painful memories of death and destruction. I’m a Holocaust survivor.

I was a few years younger than the students when my life was turned upside down, when I was robbed of everything dear to me, just because I was born a Jew.

I’m inviting these students to come to the Museum of Tolerance, to come and listen to survivors tell their stories. Only then will they begin to understand how much pain they have caused those of us who lived through those dark times. Only then will they begin to understand that hate speech can never be tolerated -- not even in jest.
Advertisement

I hope they take me up on my invitation and bring their parents too.

Ella Mandel, West Los Angeles

Raised by a Borderline

Home
Learn More
Mental Health Conditions
Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder

Overview
Treatment
Support
Discuss

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a condition characterized by difficulties regulating emotion. This means that people who experience BPD feel emotions intensely and for extended periods of time, and it is harder for them to return to a stable baseline after an emotionally triggering event.

This difficulty can lead to impulsivity, poor self-image, stormy relationships and intense emotional responses to stressors. Struggling with self-regulation can also result in dangerous behaviors such as self-harm (e.g. cutting).

It’s estimated that 1.6% of the adult U.S. population has BPD, but that number may be as high as 5.9%. Nearly 75% of people diagnosed with BPD are women. Recent research suggests that men may be equally affected by BPD but are commonly misdiagnosed with PTSD or depression.
Symptoms

People with BPD experience wide mood swings and can display a great sense of instability and insecurity. Per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual diagnostic framework, some key signs and symptoms may include:

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment by friends and family.
Unstable personal relationships that alternate between idealization (“I’m so in love!”) and devaluation (“I hate her”). This is also sometimes known as "splitting."
Distorted and unstable self-image, which affects moods, values, opinions, goals and relationships.
Impulsive behaviors that can have dangerous outcomes, such as excessive spending, unsafe sex, substance abuse or reckless driving.
Self-harming behavior including suicidal threats or attempts.
Periods of intense depressed mood, irritability or anxiety lasting a few hours to a few days.
Chronic feelings of boredom or emptiness.
Inappropriate, intense or uncontrollable anger—often followed by shame and guilt.
Dissociative feelings—disconnecting from your thoughts or sense of identity or “out of body” type of feelings—and stress-related paranoid thoughts. Severe cases of stress can also lead to brief psychotic episodes.

Causes

The causes of BPD are not fully understood, but scientists agree that it is the result of a combination of factors, including:

Genetics. While no specific gene or gene profile has been shown to directly cause BPD, studies involving twins suggest this illness has strong hereditary links. BPD is about five times more common among people who have a first-degree relative with the disorder.
Environmental factors. People who experience traumatic life events—such as physical or sexual abuse during childhood or neglect and separation from parents—are at increased risk of developing BPD.
Brain function. The emotional regulation system may be different in people with BPD, suggesting that there is a neurological basis for some of the symptoms. Specifically, the portions of the brain that control emotions and decision-making/judgment may not communicate optimally with one another.

Diagnosis

There is no definitive medical test to diagnose BPD, and a diagnosis is not based on one specific sign or symptom. BPD is best diagnosed by a mental health professional following a comprehensive clinical interview that may include talking with previous clinicians, reviewing previous medical evaluations and, when appropriate, interviews with friends and family.
Treatment

An effective treatment plan should include your preferences while also addressing any other co-existing conditions you may have. Examples of treatment options include psychotherapy; medications; and group, peer and family support. The overarching goal of treatment is for a person with BPD to increasingly self-direct their own treatment plan as they learn what works and what doesn’t. Please visit our BPD Treatment page for more in-depth information.

Psychotherapy—such as dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic psychotherapy—is the first line of choice for BPD. Learning ways to cope with emotional dysregulation in a therapeutic setting is often the key to long-term improvement for those experiencing BPD.
Medications may be instrumental to a treatment plan, but there is no one medication specifically made to treat the core symptoms of BPD. Rather, several medications can be used off-label to treat various symptoms. For example, mood stabilizers and antidepressants help with mood swings and dysphoria. And for some, low-dose antipsychotic medication may help control symptoms such as disorganized thinking.
Short-term hospitalization may be necessary during times of extreme stress, and/or impulsive or suicidal behavior to ensure safety.

Related Conditions

BPD can be difficult to diagnose and treat, and successful treatment includes addressing any other conditions a person might have. Many with BPD also experience additional conditions like:

Anxiety Disorders
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Bipolar Disorder
Depression
Eating Disorders (notably bulimia nervosa)
Substance Use



Reviewed December 2017

cheese finally slid off his cracker?

By Jonah GoldbergColumnist
Aug. 27, 2019
3 AM
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-26/president-donald-trump-behavior-mueller-powell
Last week there was a sharp uptick in speculation that President Trump is a few fries shy of a Happy Meal.

Obviously, this is not the first time the idea has popped up that the commander-in-chief’s cheese might have slid off his cracker. Early in his presidency, and again in 2018, there was a lot of chatter that Trump should be removed via the 25th Amendment. Through it all, the president responded by insisting he was a “very stable genius.”

But after what has seemed like a personal best in whackadoodle statements over the last few weeks, cable news networks and prominent Twitterati are ratcheting up the talk that the president’s wheel might still be turning, but the hamster’s dead.

Whether it was his tweet declaring that American companies “are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative” to doing business in China or his decision to cancel a trip to Denmark because the Danish prime minister didn’t have a “nice” reaction to his desire to buy Greenland, or his suggestion that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell might be a greater enemy than China’s premier-for-life, it did seem like the West Wing’s nurse might have accidentally switched his meds for M&Ms.
Advertisement

“This is not normal. And I don’t mean that as in, ‘Trump is violating the shibboleths of the Washington establishment,’” wrote the Washington Post’s Megan McArdle. “I mean that as in, ‘This is not normal for a functioning adult.’”

CNN’s in-house media critic (who often seems to define “media” as Fox News) said over the weekend: “He’s getting worse. We can see it. It’s happening in public but it’s still a very hard, very sensitive story to cover. I’m talking of course about President Trump, about his behavior, about his instability.”

I’ve long thought that Donald Trump was a perfect illustration of the old observation that rich people are never crazy; they’re just “eccentric.” But I am skeptical that the president’s mental state has gotten worse.

Instead, his situation is getting more precarious and that is making Trump’s Trumpiness more obvious. Specifically, I think the fizzle of the Mueller probe was a grievous blow to the president, for the simple reason that it removed an extremely useful political and psychological bogeyman.
Advertisement

Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation allowed Trump to give voice to his persecution complex. In his mind, at least, the “witch hunt” was an all-purpose excuse to whine about “fake news” and distract from other controversies. But it also served the same function for much of the right-wing media, giving them a ratings-and-clicks-rich topic to focus on.

In a sense, Mueller was a substitute for Hillary Clinton. His 2016 opponent was such a reviled figure on the right, she gave many Trump-skeptical voters the excuse they needed to overlook his shortcomings. After the election, Mueller and his “angry Dems” of the Deep State served as a serviceable alternative for imposing cohesion and message discipline on the right. Just consider all of the books and thousands of hours of TV programming dedicated to the subject.

With Mueller gone, Trump is left scrambling to find a replacement. The “squad” -- the four left-wing Democratic first-term congresswomen -- are, collectively and individually, candidates. And they certainly have their political uses, given their radicalism, hostility to Israel, etc. His base is happy to go all-in against them. But attacking four women of color has its limits as a political strategy, especially given that Trump’s electoral Achille’s heel is suburban moderate women.

Also, they pose no serious threat to Trump’s presidency the way Mueller seemed to, so they do not focus Trump’s mind the way the special prosecutor did.

Right now, the leading candidate for Trump’s Mueller replacement is Powell. And that dog won’t hunt. Trump is clearly convinced that the Fed chair is trying to destroy his reelection chances by not lowering interest rates to goose the economy past the 2020 finish line. Some will think this is bat-guano bonkers, others won’t, but the political reality is that this storyline is just too complicated to replace the Mueller narrative. It doesn’t attract allies the same way, and the talking points required to sustain it are just too convoluted.

Whether or not he’s a stable genius, the Trump on display now is the same one we’ve always seen. What’s changed are the circumstances. Like an unsteady man long held upright by pushing on a locked door, he’s tumbling now that the path is suddenly open. He needs some new enemy to brace against, and he’s flailing around in search of one. That makes him appear wobblier than before, but he’s exactly as unbalanced as he’s always been.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com
OpinionOp-Ed
Newsletters

Discrepancy, Lack of Integrity

noun
noun: discrepancy; plural noun: discrepancies

a lack of compatibility or similarity between two or more facts.
"there's a discrepancy between your account and his"
synonyms: inconsistency, difference, disparity, variance, variation, deviation, divergence, disagreement, dissimilarity, dissimilitude, mismatch, lack of similarity, contrariety, contradictoriness, disaccord, discordance, incongruity, lack of congruence, incompatibility, irreconcilability, conflict, opposition
"the discrepancy between the two sets of figures"


Synonyms of discrepancy
the quality or state of being different

the discrepancy of the calculations of my bill by the hotel and myself was a matter of concern

Synonyms of discrepancy

contrast, difference, disagreement, disparateness, disparity, dissimilarity, dissimilitude, distance, distinction, distinctiveness, distinctness, diverseness, diversity, otherness, unlikeness
Words Related to discrepancy

deviance, divergence

differentiability, discriminability, distinguishability

change, modification, variation

conflict, discord, discordance, dissension (also dissention), dissent, dissidence, disunity, friction, strife

variability, variance

anomalousness, dichotomy, incompatibility, incongruence, incongruity, incongruousness, nonconformity

disproportion, imbalance, inequality, nonequivalence

Tomber Amoureux

“Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“Language is the only homeland.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.”
― Czeslaw Milosz, Selected Poems Selected Poems

“The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.”
― Czesław Miłosz, The Issa Valley

“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“You see how I try
To reach with words
What matters most
And how I fail.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“Tomber amoureux. To fall in love. Does it occur suddenly or gradually? If gradually, when is the moment “already”? I would fall in love with a monkey made of rags. With a plywood squirrel. With a botanical atlas. With an oriole. With a ferret. With a marten in a picture. With the forest one sees to the right when riding in a cart to Jaszuny. With a poem by a little-known poet. With human beings whose names still move me. And always the object of love was enveloped in erotic fantasy or was submitted, as in Stendhal, to a “cristallisation,” so it is frightful to think of that object as it was, naked among the naked things, and of the fairy tales about it one invents. Yes, I was often in love with something or someone. Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love. That is something different.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.”
― Czeslaw Milosz, New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001

“And Yet the Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

Czeslaw Milosz

“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”

― Czeslaw Milosz

J. Scott Applewhite: A Master Photographer

https://apimagesblog.com/blog/2017/6/13/36-years-and-five-presidents-the-work-of-j-scott-applewhite

Scott was born in Texas and raised in small towns in Kentucky before moving to Louisville in his teens. A friend at Western Kentucky University was a photographer on the college paper, the College Heights Herald, and Scott found himself spending more and more time in the darkroom. Soon, he had a camera of his own and was shooting every day.

“We all skipped classes and worked long hours at the school newspaper,” he says. “I may have been taking college courses, but this is where I got my education.”

A highlight of Scott’s college years came with the devastating 1974 outbreak of tornadoes in Kentucky and a dozen other states. The Louisville Courier-Journal arranged for Scott to travel to a devastated area -- by helicopter. “I thought, ‘People do this for a living?’ I was hooked.”

“ In essence, we are always in a state of transition. The business of news may have suffered, yet today more people get their information visually than ever before — we are a big part of that.”

— - Photographer J. Scott Applewhite

The Pen is mightier than the Sword

You can solve problems or achieve your purpose better and more effectively through communication with words than by violence with weapons. Edward George Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873), an English novelist, wrote this for the first time in 1839.

Anthony Bourdain

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/06/08/anthony-bourdain-was-the-best-friend-i-never-had/?utm_term=.7aa15b1864ab


By Tim Carman
Food reporter/columnist
June 8, 2018

Tall, tattooed and quick with a barbed comment, Anthony Bourdain, who died Friday at age 61, loved to project his steeliness out into the world, as if nothing could ever penetrate the invisible armor he wore with such bravado. He was a cool, tough guy, a refugee of brutal, high-volume Francophile kitchens, and he often carried himself as such. He loved to mock the kind of people who ate tofu skewers and listened to Mumford & Sons.

But Tony — I’m sorry, but I’ve known him long enough that I only feel comfortable calling him Tony in this personal context — was more complicated than his public persona would lead you to believe. I wasn’t a friend to Tony, but he was always friendly to me. We had a few conversations over the years. We traded emails regularly. He once asked me to appear on his show as tour guide, back when he was on the Travel Channel. He knew me well enough that he could tell me when I was full of it.

[‘Brilliant, fearless spirit’: Fans and friends mourn Anthony Bourdain, who died at 61]

Yet even if we weren’t drinking buddies, I soon became one more journalist who studied the life of Tony Bourdain. I watched his shows. I pored over his books (even the dashed-off collections like “The Nasty Bits,” which sometimes read like half-formed sketches penned after one too many shots). And I reveled in the fights he would pick on Twitter. He was a force of nature, a man who read extensively and was not afraid to pummel people with his knowledge. He was endlessly curious, a fact reinforced through his cable shows, which ventured to the farthest corners of the world for something good to eat.

[In an age of celebrities, Anthony Bourdain fought for the underdog]

I don’t want to say that Tony’s outward-facing persona was just a show. It wasn’t. He was a thrill seeker, a former heroin addict who ditched the drugs and discovered that travel could be just as addictive. He was also hard on people, full stop. But that wasn’t the full extent of him. Tony, I frequently thought, was a romantic trapped in a punk’s body. He was not a nihilist. When he loved things, he loved them with abandon: He discovered a passion for French oysters as a boy. As an adult, he became a serious fan of mapo tofu from Sichuan Province. He arguably adored Vietnamese cuisine above all.

Anthony Bourdain in Queens in 2016, for the filming of his television show “Parts Unknown.” (David Scott Holloway/CNN)

His love of Vietnamese cooking, in fact, came sharply into focus in 2008 when I took Tony and his crew to the Eden Center in Falls Church, Va., for the Washington episode of “No Reservations,” which aired the following year. As we toured the delis and restaurants of the shopping mall, Vietnamese expats and their children started to magically appear on the sidewalks, eager to get a glimpse of the man and maybe, possibly, to persuade Tony to appear in a photo with them. (This was way before everyone had smartphones, too.) To them, Tony was a Western confirmation of what they already knew: Their food rocked.

I fully expected Tony to politely brush them off. He had the perfect excuse: We were filming and had a tight production deadline to meet, with other stops scheduled that day. But he didn’t. He stopped for them all. He posed for pictures. He shook hands. He wore his celebrity status so lightly that it almost blew off in the breeze of production.

I realized then that there was a fundamental humanity about Tony, this affection and compassion for people that he did not exhibit often. I suspect he learned long ago that people could abuse and exploit such vulnerability; his rise to superstardom would have only hardened his resolve to keep these finer qualities under wraps.

[How Anthony Bourdain became one of the strongest #MeToo allies: ‘I’m reexamining my life’]

Before I ever met Tony — before I became a food writer, in fact — I had read “Kitchen Confidential,” the memoir that made Anthony Bourdain a household name. It was published nearly 20 years ago, and it laid bare the unseemly underbelly of the culinary world, at least in the mid-level kitchens where Tony washed dishes and, later, flipped pans. He wrote about the knives, the fire, the violence, the drugs, the sex, the machismo.

If you’ve never read “Kitchen Confidential,” you should. As the son of a mother who was a copy editor at the New York Times and a father who was a classical music executive for Columbia Records, Tony came to the writing project with a clear understanding of style and prose. Bourdain’s essay, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” which would evolve into the full KC memoir, was originally published in the New Yorker after editor David Remnick found himself “entertained by and riveted by” the piece. “Kitchen Confidential” became the blueprint for many food writers, mostly male, who came after Tony. Few, if any, were as talented (save perhaps for Josh Ozersky, another bright light now extinguished).

But when the #MeToo movement marched into the restaurant industry last year, sweeping up Tony’s friend Mario Batali in the process, “Kitchen Confidential” took on a more sinister persona: In some circles, the book was seen as an early glamorization of the savage kitchen — the hotheaded chef who belittles the staff and assumes women are readily available for a quickie in the back alley after the dinner rush.

Tony clearly struggled with his part in romanticizing what he described as the male meathead culture of restaurant kitchens. In December, he wrote a mea culpa for Medium, which included this confession:

To the extent which my work in “Kitchen Confidential” celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we’re hearing about all too frequently is something I think about daily, with real remorse.

But the day before that short essay was published, I traded emails with Tony, offering my own thoughts on some of the forces driving the bad behavior in kitchens. I theorized that many of these men are emotionally stunted, unable to process their fears and extreme stress except through the most grotesque behaviors. Tony wasn’t buying it. He, after all, had his own in-house mentor on the subject of detestable men and sexual harassment: His girlfriend was actress Asia Argento, who told the New Yorker last year that the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein had raped her.

“Some men are just pigs,” he emailed back. “Fame and power allows them to be bigger more dangerous pigs.”

This was classic Tony. He had a strong sense of right and wrong, as defined only by him. When he thought others had strayed from the right path — it might be food writer Alan Richman or it might be President Trump — Tony could level the most withering criticism, the kind that made for widescreen, surround-sound Schadenfreude. The thing is, Tony could turn that critical eye on himself as well, if he felt he had strayed off course. His contrition over the book that made him a star is Exhibit A through Z.

I don’t know where Tony’s apparent suicide falls on that moral compass. I know it pains me to think that Tony’s body was found in a hotel room by chef Eric Ripert, his closest friend on Earth. When you’re in serious pain, I suspect you don’t think about things like that.

Tony lived 61 years, and I have to think the invisible armor around him largely did its job. It protected him from a public always demanding more. But, today, I realize that armor failed to protect Tony from the cruelest force: the enemy within. It makes me unbelievably upset to write these words. I guess I was fooled, too: I thought he was invincible.

Tim Carman
Tim Carman is a food reporter at The Washington Post, where he has worked since 2010. Previously, he served for five years as food editor and columnist at Washington City Paper.