ohhhhh, cat love . . .

I had a whole series of anxiety dreams last night, one involving a police car parking in front of my house, presumably to take me away for something that I'd done. And the other, a very involved dream about filling up the bed of my pickup truck with piles and piles of garbage to dispose at the community dump.

I'm ready to get rid of the garbage.

Today was just fine.

Avoiding my work. Blogging on Kitchen Empress. I was sad to realize it had been months since I'd updated there. Things got busy, my computer crashed, and my camera was acting fussy. . .

There is much to be nervous about. Too much work, not enough money, and many other things. . .

I am tired.

I heart the interwebs -- alternative news round-up

One thing I like about reading my news from a custom-designed list that makes use of RSS feeds of a variety of international sources (NPR, New York Times, Al Jazeera, BBC, etc. . ) is that I'm able to see a lot more variation in the top stories than you do if you read the top US newspapers. It's even more interesting than the days when I read the World Press Review magazine.

Case in point: Although the New York Times is reporting on the German dairy strike, the US seems oblivious to the fishermen's work stoppages in Spain in protest of rising fuel prices: "'Compliance is total. The entire Spanish coast is at a halt," Jose Caparros, of the fishermen's co-operative in the major northeastern port of Barcelona, said." Apparently Portugal has already seen similar action and Italian and Belgian fishermen are expected to follow suit, according to Al Jazeera and the BBC.


Of course, I personally am interested to see social work and anthropology and Eastern Europe in the mainstream news today, and Roma in the international press.

First off, social work: The Supreme Court has ruled that child welfare workers in Texas overstepped their bounds in their removal of the children from the polygamist compound outside Eldorado last month.

Next, Eastern Europe: Croatia has jailed a war crimes general following his conviction in the Croatian court. As the BBC reports, "The UN war crimes tribunal's decision to transfer the case to Zagreb was in recognition of the progress Croatia had earlier made in dealing with war crimes investigations, the BBC's Balkans analyst Gabriel Partos said."

And finally, anthropology gets its five minutes in the spotlight. The secret to Stonehenge finally been uncovered (and now reported all over the mainstream press). My favorite commentary on the recent discoveries at Stonehenge has to be the interview with Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap.

Meanwhile, in northern France, archaeologists are "seeking to uncover a suspected mass grave of hundreds of Australian and British troops from World War I."

Also, there's also been yet another "uncontacted tribe" 'sighted' in the Amazon by Brazil's National Indian Foundation (Fundacao Nacional do Indio, whose website was down last I tried). True to the form of salvage ethnography, there are folks convinced we need to save them.

CNN reports:"'These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist,' said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International. 'The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.'" I just wonder how long it'll be before they send in a translator to communicate with them.

© Gleison Miranda/FUNAI

On the other hand, in the international press, there are some new, disturbing reports on Roma. One of the oldest Romani populations in the world, that of Istanbul, is experiencing dislocation due to urban renewal in Sulukule. Human rights advocates are very concerned for the Romani families who have been living in the neighborhood for centuries. There are allegations that illiterate families have been asked to sign papers they don't understand, and that "tenants in Sulukule were left on the streets as the houses they resided in were sold and then destructed by the municipality."

In Italy, meanwhile, schoolchildren's drawings are telling a frightening tale of xenophobia and violence underlying the recent firebombing of a Romani camp outside Naples, according to the Daily Mail.

"Burning the houses of the Roma is justified," wrote some children. Another said, "They steal babies and use them for begging or sell their organs for transplants." The frightening messages of hatred communicated without filter through the words and images of children give startling insight into the dangerous social situation for Roma in Italy.

Milk song

I had been wondering, ever since I moved to the countryside in Michigan, why I couldn't find anyplace around here that sold milk, although fresh eggs are readily available. You often see signs by the roadside out here on the country roads, and if you stop you will more than likely find that the egg sales work on the honor system, with just a little mini-fridge with boxes of eggs and a sign that says "Eggs $1.50 per dozen - leave money in the bottom-left drawer. Thank you". But milk is nowhere to be found, it seems.

I had suspected the regulations were just more stringent for milk, especially when I found out that part of the reason the Leopold Brothers were moving to Colorado from Michigan was for a more amenable system for distributing their house-made spirits. Well, today I confirmed my suspicion, when I followed some farming links from an enticing article on cheesemaking in Mother Earth News. I found, first of all, a handy directory of farms in Michigan that have pastured products. There's one farm here in Livingston County called Garden Patch Farm. So I finally found my way to Our Farm and Dairy in St. Johns, Michigan, which makes milk consumption possible for individuals through an innovative Cow Share Program!! (In the process of all this clicky-clickying, I discovered Lake Village Homestead, a farm cooperative in Kalamazoo that I definitely want to visit someday, since their unique educational programs sound rather similar to the ideas I have for if I ever voluntarily exile myself from academia.

In the process, I had a sad little chuckle as I happened upon Joel Salatin's book, entitled "Everything I want to do is illegal: War stories from the local food front". It does make me rather sad as an anthropologist, as I learn and teach about so many different adaptive strategies the world over, when I hear how constantly bogged down in government regulations local food producers seem to be. I want to live dangerously and eat raw-milk cheeses! (Like the Decemberists sing, "We are like vagabonds, we travel without seatbelts on, we live this close to death". . .) Given the nonchalance of the US government to allow citizens to be exposed to any number of frightening toxic chemicals in our air and water, I find it amazing how much they seek to control what we choose to put into our mouths . . .

So, when I can afford to do, I may purchase some cheese cultures and try my hand at the next variety of dairy products, having already happily created ricotta and yogurt that are incomparable. Oh, and I'll also replant my herb garden, since the cad my landlords hired to mow the lawn destroyed my giant tarragon and sage plants, along with the lavender and winter savory. Sigh.

And now, just for strange entertainment value, a video of Korean children advertising the benefits of drinking milk.

Update: Ask and ye shall receive! The lovely folks at Garden Patch Farms pointed me to a local goat herder at Heavenly Dairy in Pinckney, and an organic bovine dairy in Cohoctah Township called Dairy Delight, both also in Livingston County. :) In the words of Kris Unger of Dairy Delight: "We disasterized the food system," she said. "How dare the government tells us we can't drink raw milk."

Gary Kasparov and the Flying Penis

I really wish this had subtitles. Russian chess champion and political dissident Gary Kasparov is giving a presentation that gets interrupted in a highly unexpected way:

Apparently, according to one blogger,

After the security guard [has] swatted it to the ground, Kasparov says, "I think we have to be thankful for the opposition's demonstration of the level of discourse we need to anticipate. Also, apparently most of their arguments are located beneath the belt." Someone in the audience shouts, "Finally the political power shows its face!" Kasparov quickly replies, "Well, if that's its face..." to laughter from the audience.

Baking bread, breaking bread

Last night I baked my third yeasted loaf since I got out the Tassajara Bread Book again after years of it hiding in my boxes and/or cupboard. This time, since I was running low on almost all the flours, and need to restock, it was a weird hodgepodge of things: buckwheat, spelt, and regular (white) bread flour, 9-grain cereal, and cornmeal, with leftover sweetened condensed milk, a few eggs that needed using, a bit of leftover brown rice, a little lowfat milk, some almond oil, and of course sea salt, yeast, and filtered water, with raw sunflower seeds on top.

I was getting toward the end of the second rising when Katie and John arrived in the evening, so Katie helped me knead and shape a couple of the loaves. And then I baked it, while we sat back and chatted and enjoyed the smell of freshly baking bread. And it came out . . . brilliant! The uncooked cereal and cornmeal gave a great crunchiness throughout the loaf, but the overall texture was soft and delightfully chewy, with a lovely crust that was notably crusty without being "painful" like some crusty breads, as John pointed out. We ate almost a whole round loaf together, straight out of the oven, with organic butter and organic strawberry jam, me and my companions. . . :)

My camera batteries need replacing, but maybe I can get one more shot out of them to add here . . .