an oxymoron is a set of contradictory words that don’t fit.

 Article about the Kennedy Center

Love Anne Lamott's Advice

Stop NOT writing. Just do it, badly. Just write the thing you need or want to write, that you are avoiding. That avoidance is costing you greatly, isometrically, and in general well-being. So can you find one measly hour, to write, badly?

ANNE LAMOTT

Norwegian Krumkake Maker fans

 I have used the krumkake maker more times at Christmas than any other time , I be live it would be safe to say that it was used at lease for forty years , what I do is use a wooden dowel about 1 1/2 to 2 inches and make the cookies that way, grand kids love them that way.  This has been a great item to use,,,thanks for being there to make the kids happy,,,they are now making them for them/self…

its a long tradition on my mothers side of the family to use this krumkake iron not for krumkake, but for fresh corn tortillas. the design it puts on the tortillas always gets comments from guests.

source

Pizzelle Fans Write Back

I was reading about pizzelle and loved the comments on the recipe at Proud Italian Cook. Link below. 

I got hooked on pizzelle by a friend whose grandmother made several hundred each Christmas. (She’s Croatian, but there’s a lot of cross fertilization of recipes in Europe.) I got my first pizzelle iron on eBay–there are so many beautiful designs you could end up with a dozen irons. Plus, pizzelle are the gateway drug, but from there you can go to krumkake, gaufrettes, goro, oblaten, etc…

–Cristina

My tips:
1) Use a coffee measure to measure your batter. I have used melon ballers and teaspoons, but I had the best and most consistent results with a coffee measure and a very small spatula to scoop out the batter onto the pizzelle maker. Keep a plate next to the bowl to rest the messy spoon and spatula on.
2) Make the dough the evening before, it will thicken and it is easier to work with.

I downloaded at least half a dozen variations on pizzelle recipes from the Pittsburgh Gazette a few years ago. I still use my grandmother’s recipe, my Mom uses a different variation. You are right they are all similar.

Last, watch your cord. I had to replace mine after a decade of use.

https://www.prouditaliancook.com/2011/11/making-pizzelle.html

 

Simon Aron

Last summer, I read “Achieving Our Country” by Richard Rorty. He argued that America is an imperfect project that has never been realized. It took a mass shooting for me to understand what achieving America meant.

Right now, and in so many other times during the Trump presidency, I have seen the dwindling of the radical hope that our country can be a bastion of safety and freedom for everyone. Some people believe that it is too late: Politicians have ruined America forever. Others believe that compassion must be narrowed: Only some of us deserve these things. Both of these reactions are failures of courage.

In the midst of constant tragedy, it feels easy to give up on this ambitious and imperfect project. It is easy to turn inward to our families and niche communities and say that only the people closest to us matter.

Patriots and America-skeptics alike, I challenge you to do the opposite. As Miriam Kaba says, hope is a discipline.

The version of our country that is failing does not fully represent the American people or our dreams. We are so much more than our government. We owe it to ourselves to believe in a better future.

Simon Aron is a sophomore at Brown University and the co-president of Brown Rise Up.

 https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/22/metro/brown-shooting-commentary-radical-hope/

As Miriam Kaba says, hope is a discipline.

 Miriam Kaba

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. Albert Einstein

A person hears only what they understand.

―   Johann wolfgang von Goethe

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

 ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Collected Works 

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

 ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.

 ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part 

“True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others.”

― Edward O. Wilson

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

 ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part 

“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

“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

 “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

“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

The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.

― Edward O. Wilson

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does, the better. André Gide

education and physical activity

In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these means, man can attain perfection. Plato

God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us – in the dreariest and most dreaded moments – can see a possibility of hope. Maya Angelou