Dear NFL: Sure, but what about the White National Anthem?

The NFL is considering opening the season with what the NAACP designated in 1919 as the "Black National Anthem" a spiritual called "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

In the current environment, anything remotely associated with race is a political statement, so some wags, reactionaries, and assorted social commentators have not unfairly asked whether a white national anthem" shouldn't but be played as well.

But there is no white national anthem! is the retort. Well, yes there is, at least unofficially--and I say the answer to music is more music. Music is the universal language, and the brother hears it just fine. Go for it, America! You have nothing to lose but your blues!

TVD's Manly Salmon Cakes

or: The Idiot's Guide to Heaven on Earth

For your consideration, in guy-recipe form:


TVD's Crab-Salmon Croquettes

1 big can salmon (drained, reserve liquid)
1 little can crabmeat (ditto)
4 diced celery stalks
1/4 cup minced green onions, onions, or a little dried onion, onion powder, whatever
1 golfball-sized hunk of mayo
3/4 cup smashed crackers or matzo meal, or a combo of both
5 splashes Worcestershire sauce
1 or 2 eggs, whipped up with a fork
Juice of a 1/2 a lemon, or a blast of that ReaLemon® that's been sitting in your fridge for like 12 years


any dried seafood seasoning
lotsa paprika
cayenne pepper
go easy on the salt, if you use any at all


Paradise. 

(If you don't have crabmeat, just use the salmon and only 1/2 a cup of the cracker crumbs. Tuna fish will do in a pinch, too.)


Mix it all up gently in a bowl, easy does it. We don't want a paste. Add the reserved liquid a little at a time, just enough to keep it medium-wet.

___________________________________________________

**CRITICAL MYSTERY SOLVED** Before cooking, put the mixture in the fridge for an hour first or the freezer for 30 minutes, and your croquettes won't fall apart, leaving you with fried fish dust. This is the secret for all successful croquettes.
___________________________________________________


Make little hockey pucks out of the cooled mixture. Preheat a frying pan with a thin layer of oil (butter's even better), and put your hockey pucks in. DO NOT TOUCH them for at least 12 minutes---they have to set up. You can smush them down a little with the spatula (that's an egg turner thingee). When the bottoms are safely brown, you can turn 'em over and finish them off with another 10 minutes of cooking. Put them on a plate covered by a couple of paper towels.


You can lo-cal them using only a little oil or butter in the pan---just cook 'em under a lower heat for a little longer. The mayo makes 'em creamy, but if they're still a little dry for you, Campbell's Cream of Celery soup (no water) heated up is a great topping sauce. Don't be afraid---even the cookbooks say it's OK.

Put some parsley on top. Civilized people do that.


Makes about 10 hockey pucks. Try 'em with fries, a splash of vinegar, maybe some cole slaw. Now you're stylin'.

Taking over LA

Got the Vibe

The Newest Clipper

The Clips traded a[n] historic amount of assets to acquire this guy so that world-class free agent Kawhi Leonard would agree to join the team.

Frankly, it might turn out the other way around--that the prospect of signing Kawhi Leonard got Paul George to demand a trade to the Clippers---and the Oklahoma City organization agreed to do just that, to preserve their reputation as a small-town team which, if you join us willingly, will never hold you against your will.

This is good  21st century professional athlete politics.

Hunting Down TVD

Greetings to readers of other blogs, who frequently track me to this page wondering what this Van Dyke fellow is all about.

Best to find my latest here, as contributor and putative editor of newreformclub.com. And I'm Twitterish @DykeVanTom. And do scroll down and try the salmon croquettes recipe below. It gets the most traffic here, and for damned good reason. Yum.

The Karass

* Odubel - GSmith
* Cutch - TVanD
* Arrietta - Larry K.
* Bryce - Bert
* Realmuto - Etter
* Eflin - CAZ
* Franco - Jeff Scott
* Robertson - Marty
* Nola - TK
* Rhys - MT
* NickW - Smitty
* Johnny Sure - BG
* Adam Morgan - Rocky
* Tommy Hunter - Berky
* Hector - G-man
*Gabe - JK

Avery Bradley's New Home

A gathering of vultures

The Love That Dare Not Speak its Name

My name is Tom and I'm a Clipoholic.

The Baby Doc Rivers Fan Club [L to R]: Messrs. X, Y und Vee

The Baby Doc Rivers Fan Club

The man, the legend, the photo covering up all those Lakers championship banners.

Why We Fight

(A version of the following was published by The American Spectator Online in June 2007.)


Via CBS News, what we should come to call The Iraqi Orphanage Nightmare:

Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children, the soldiers found more emaciated little bodies tied to the cribs. They had been kept this way for more than a month, according to the soldiers called in to rescue the 24 boys.

"I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their body that were so skinny, they had no energy to move whatsoever, no expression on their face," Staff Sgt. Michael Beale said.

"The kids were tied up, naked, covered in their own waste — feces — and there were three people that were cooking themselves food, but nothing for the kids," Lt. Stephen Duperre said.

"I got extremely angry with the caretaker when I got there," Capt. Benjamin Morales said. "It took every muscle in my body to restrain myself from not going after that guy."

"I picked him up and then immediately the kid started smiling, and as I got a little bit closer to the ambulance he just started laughing. It was almost like he completely understood what was going on," Beale said.

Later at the hospital, Lt. Jason Smith brushed teeth and helped clean up the boys. He and his wife are both special education teachers, and he was proud to tell her what the soldiers had done.

"She said that one day was worth my entire deployment," Smith said. "It makes the whole thing worthwhile."

It was even worse than that---this is just an excerpt. Fortunately, CBS News was there, which means it really happened. Do read the whole thing, and remember this in the coming days, which will get worse. Remember.


We here in the fat, relatively happy and somewhat civilized west take order and minimal humanitarian conduct for granted. But we forget that just over sixty years ago, westerners conducted a Holocaust themselves, and worse, it was by intention, not mere neglect.

The Bushies, associated neo-cons, and anti-warriors alike misunderestimated the depths of human depravity when it came (comes) to Iraq. The Cradle of Civilization refuses to cease making our jaws drop in uncomprehension.

CBS News

It was said, and fairly, by our troops in Vietnam that they were the unwilling doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful. That's not the case here. Our troops are willing, doing what is necessary, and every person of good will toward men is grateful.

"I picked him up and then immediately the kid started smiling, and as I got a little bit closer to the ambulance he just started laughing. It was almost like he completely understood what was going on," [Sgt.] Beale said.

We all do, Sgt. Beale, we just want to pretend that we don't, back here at home. I don't blame any of us, because it's only human. But I do not see how we can pull our heroes like you and Benjamin Morales and Jason Smith away from what is manifestly a sacred mission. I just don't. God bless, and Godspeed.

Mini-Sudoku for Dummies

Solution below.

Crab-Salmon Croquettes, or: The Idiot's Guide to Heaven on Earth

For your consideration, in guy-recipe form:


TVD's Crab-Salmon Croquettes

1 big can salmon (drained, reserve liquid)
1 little can crabmeat (ditto)
4 diced celery stalks
1/4 cup minced green onions, onions, or a little dried onion, onion powder, whatever
1 golfball-sized hunk of mayo
3/4 cup smashed crackers or matzo meal, or a combo of both
5 splashes Worcestershire sauce
1 or 2 eggs, whipped up with a fork
Juice of a 1/2 a lemon, or a blast of that ReaLemon® that's been sitting in your fridge for like 12 years


any dried seafood seasoning
lotsa paprika
cayenne pepper
go easy on the salt, if you use any at all


Paradise. 

(If you don't have crabmeat, just use the salmon and only 1/2 a cup of the cracker crumbs. Tuna fish will do in a pinch, too.)


Mix it all up gently in a bowl, easy does it. We don't want a paste. Add the reserved liquid a little at a time, just enough to keep it medium-wet.

___________________________________________________

**CRITICAL MYSTERY SOLVED** Before cooking, put the mixture in the fridge for an hour first or the freezer for 30 minutes, and your croquettes won't fall apart, leaving you with fried fish dust. This is the secret for all successful croquettes.
___________________________________________________


Make little hockey pucks out of the cooled mixture. Preheat a frying pan with a thin layer of oil (butter's even better), and put your hockey pucks in. DO NOT TOUCH them for at least 12 minutes---they have to set up. You can smush them down a little with the spatula (that's an egg turner thingee). When the bottoms are safely brown, you can turn 'em over and finish them off with another 10 minutes of cooking. Put them on a plate covered by a couple of paper towels.


You can lo-cal them using only a little oil or butter in the pan---just cook 'em under a lower heat for a little longer. The mayo makes 'em creamy, but if they're still a little dry for you, Campbell's Cream of Celery soup (no water) heated up is a great topping sauce. Don't be afraid---even the cookbooks say it's OK.

Put some parsley on top. Civilized people do that.


Makes about 10 hockey pucks. Try 'em with fries, a splash of vinegar, maybe some cole slaw. Now you're stylin'.

Global Warming: What You Can Do

(A version of the following was published by The American Spectator Online in February 2007.)


I've been on the fence about this thing until America's most highly-paid newsman Katie Couric wrote this on her blog:

"And all the experts agree. Well, almost every expert. (There are a handful of scientists -- many of them on the payroll of big oil companies -- who wonder if global warming is a reality.)"

Oil companies. I should have known. They want us all dead so they can have all the oil to themselves. Still, as a Republican, the question I really have to ask is, what's in it for me??

It's another perfect day here in Southern California, a nippy 69 degrees, and the value of my house has doubled in the last 5 years. What if everybody had nice weather, the chilling thought went down my chilled spine. My obscene profit, up in smoke like from the tailpipe of a Hummer. And if it gets as warm as Mexico here, why, they sell land as cheap as dirt!

We have to do something about this, like now. As Al Gore said while snarfing up his well-deserved Oscar, this is a moral issue. Quicker than Gore flunked out of divinity school, I came up with this helpful list. Clip and save:

---Plug in your clocks only when you absolutely have to know what time it is. If you need the alarm, get up five minutes early to set it.

---Al Gore says cigarettes are a significant cause of global warming, so quit smoking and sell him the carbon credits.

---Your kids are useless for pushing your car up to highway speeds, but they can increase your mileage considerably around town. Use your headlights only when there's no moon, and remember, your horn uses less energy than your turn signal.

---Stairs make you huff and puff and expel carbon dioxide. Use the elevator. And sports are carbon-intensive too, so do 'em on your X-box.

---Take as long as you want browsing in the fridge. Leaving the door open cools the world off.

---Down more Slurpees, or better yet, nice frosty margaritas. See, this isn't so bad.

---Lower the thermostat in your Gulfstream jet, and make the help wear sweaters.

---We need our corn for ethanol. Switch from Fritos to pork rinds.

---Do not use a television or radio unless it's bicycle powered, like Gilligan's.

---Turn your computer off right now. Turn it off, get up out of your chair, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Then sit down quietly. Moving, talking and breathing should be kept to the absolute minimum. Human life is eco-unfriendly, and should be lived as little as possible. It's the moral thing to do.

Nine

9. Mini-sudoku solution, as promised.

The Left Is Right

Live 8, besides calling for debt relief for Africa, asks for free markets for African products, which cannot compete with European products because of EU subsidies.

The playing field isn't level---African producers get no help from their governments, because their governments are focused on corruption and Swiss bank accounts. How can Africa compete in the poker game of life when France keeps slipping chips into her stack?



Screw you, world poverty, we're all free traders now. 


Trade makes everyone richer. I can make 20 bottles of wine a week or 2 loaves of bread, my choice. Grapes grow easily where I live, but wheat doesn't do so well. You can make 20 loaves of bread or a bottle of wine for similar reasons. If we trade, we both got bread and wine every night.

But if my government pays me to grow wheat, that's what I'll do. Too bad for you.

That's the trade situation right now for Africa. European nations "protect," no, reward their crappy "wheat-growers," their "farmers," so Africa can go to hell. Live 8 says later for that. Cool.

Universal Health Care, Armageddon, or What?

Caught Christian apocolyptic author Tim LaHaye on Sunday's blab TV. Seems the Book of Revelations sez the anti-Christ isn't some weirdo like Christopher Walken, but someone who's "attractive, intelligent, and articulate." Somebody who isn't seen as bad, but good.

Whew. Great news for our friends on the left---they can stop worrying about the current Republican White House occupant.

Now, the wife thought he looked kinda cute in that flight suit, but "intelligent" is never used in conjunction with "Bush" (unlike his fellow Yale C-student opponent in the last election), and even the president's non-reality-based supporters can't prop up the whopper that he's "articulate."

I mean, there are limits to partisan self-derangement, even for conservatives.


But on the horizon there's only one political figure whom none can deny is "attractive, intelligent, and articulate":



Repent now and avoid the rush? 


The "smartest woman in the world" is also hot. I trust you, the discriminating reader, will examine the evidence closely, because your eternal soul might depend on it. Word up.

The 'Dude Rocketh On

My pal Philosoraptor gave me a generous plug, even though I give him nothing in return but existential grief, pain and suffering. He urges me to rock on, and I can now reveal how wise and knowing he is, in that Kantian sort of way of his.

The humble narrator of this blog has been away to the land of Miami, mastering an album for his all-time favorite band, The Cookies. (As a matter of coincidence, he was a member of that particular band.)

A sneak peek at a couple of the raw tracks is here.

The 'Dude wrote the first one but not the second, did the lead vocals, played bass, and recorded the whole mess with his own bare hands.

The story is kinda cool---this was my favoritest band I was ever in. We broke up, in fine and predictable rock band fashion, but Diamond Jim, the drummer, caught me on a gameshow (yeah, I did OK) and tracked me down through my wife's acting union. I mentioned that I co-owned a recording studio and voila!, the guys were on my doorstep a few months later to make the album we never did get to make.

We're putting it out on vinyl on an esoteric label for esoteric-minded True Lovers of Great Art. I'm told that indy god Robert Pollard thinks it doesn't overly suck.

But now I gotta go buy a turntable. Do they still make 'em?

The Whole Truth and Nothing But...

Since Watergate, the press has put itself in opposition to whatever the current administration says, to balance things out. But what if what the administration says never sees the light of day?

Detainees “provide useful information on locations of training compounds and safe houses, terrain features, travel patterns and routes used for smuggling people and equipment, as well as for identifying potential supporters and opponents.” U.S. questioning has “expanded our understanding of the extent of their presence in Europe [and] the United States…”

“Detainees provide information that helps sort out legitimate financial activity from illegitimate terrorist financing operations,” the report says.

One detainee “identified a complex detonation system…that had been used in the Chechen conflict, and now is being used on IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] in Iraq, helping U.S. forces to combat this lethal weapon.”

Despite this apparent cooperation, enemy combatants remain viciously anti-American and dedicated to mayhem, even after release.

“I will arrange for the kidnapping and execution of US citizens living in Saudi Arabia,” one detainee threatened, if freed. “They will have their heads cut off.”

“There is no need to ask for forgiveness for killing a Jew,” another said. “Israel should not exist and be removed from Palestine.”

One detainee reportedly warned that “upon his release from GTMO, he would use the Internet to search for the names and faces of MPs so that he could kill them.”

Among 167 detainees freed from Guantanamo, the Pentagon has identified “about 12” who have resumed terrorist operations. Last October, two Chinese engineers were kidnapped in Pakistan. “Former detainee Abdullah Mahsud, their reputed leader, ordered the kidnapping,” the report states.

“Another released detainee assassinated an Afghan judge,” the document continues. “Several former GTMO detainees have been killed in combat with U.S. soldiers and Coalition forces.”

.


Well, that's the administration's story, that this Guantanamo mess has saved many innocent lives. But I for one never heard it until now. Have you?

Nah, I didn't think so. We get the truth, but it's half the truth, which is worse than no truth at all.


Some can't live with moral dilemmas, but we must. The moral dilemma is the probability of depriving an innocent of his freedom vs. the probability of the rest of these maniacs taking innocent human life. You make your best 51-49 call and live with being a moral leper with the other who are down with the 49.

So me, I make my call based on detentions being temporary and death being permanent. I have to live with that, and so does Bush. Anyone who wants to release these guys to preserve the principle of due process has to live with the deaths of who these guys kill. There is no escape from moral dilemmas. That's how this funky world works.