On the state and local level, I'm not a big fan of term limits - citizen politicians need time to get up to speed in order to be able to outflank the permanent lobbying corps. On the national level, though, I think term limits are just peachy - especially the 22nd Amendment, which is about to rid us of George W. Bush.

In a mere 10 months, The Worst President of All Time™ will be out of a job. Since he's such a take-charge, manly man I can't imagine him settling for six-figure speaking fees or a cushy think-tank appointment. No, this man of action will want to face the future with a smile on his face, a spring in his step, and a dedication to ensuring that the America he's created stays on the straight and narrow.

So what area of American life should Bush deign to grace with his presence? Hmm... Well, he was once an oil company CEO and at another time an oil company board member, but neither of those experiences turned out all that well. One doubts he'll re-enter the energy field - that is, unless his buddy, the appropriately nicknamed Vice President, can find a soft spot for Bush to land amongst his many friends at Halliburton.

Professional sports? No, not as an athlete, or even in his previous role as a cheerleader, but as an owner. Well, probably not, seeing as how he failed as the owner of the Texas Rangers (even after extracting millions of taxpayer funds to pay for a new ballpark). To Rangers fans, Bush will forever be remembered as the guy who traded Sammy Sosa.

So what was the peak moment of Bush's most-recent employment, the one that he'd most like to relive in the remaining years before his retirement?

I've got two words for you: "Mission Accomplished."

I'm sure that Bush fondly remembers how wonderful it felt to be flown onto the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, to stand before an armada of cameras (after, of course, the carrier had been angled so that the San Diego skyline couldn't be seen in the background), and to declare that "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended." He promenaded himself costumed as a victorious warrior, even though he had never spent one moment of his entire life in the terror of actual combat.

Well, in 10 months he'll have the opportunity to live out that fantasy.

Mr. Bush, may I suggest that when you've retired from your position as Commander in Chief, you enlist in the United States Armed Forces, and put your own life on the line? Yes, you may be a bit older than most cannon-fodderites, but I can only assume that you have the pull required to finesse a few regulations. Hell, a signing statement or two might be sufficient.

After all, you've told us for years how important it is to stop the "terr'ists" in Iraq so that they won't "follow us home." You've repeatedly emphasized the importance - even the nobility - of fighting and dying in Iraq.

Put your money where you mouth is, George. Enlist. [back to top]

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The death of four thousand American service men and women marks a tragic milestone. Add to that the deaths of well over one thousand American contractors, and we're approaching mid-five-thousand American deaths in this insane boondoggle - if you're keeping score at home.

To Iraqis, however, the tragedy is orders of magnitude more appalling.

Yesterday I listened to an interview with a young American woman whose husband had been killed in Iraq when she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. The poor woman's life has been completely upended, and although she tried to sound strong and composed, it was clear that joy had exited her life, perhaps forever.

Hers was, of course, a piteous tale, and one that over 5,000 American families are soldiering through along with well over 20,000 more families that are working to hold together the bodies and minds of their sons and daughters, shattered in Bush's adventure.

It's important to note, however, that the woman being interviewed talked not only of the emptiness she felt, but also of all the support she receives from family and friends, the benefits of her ongoing one-on-one counseling, plus the help she receives from Fort Hood's HUGSS (Helping Unite Gold Star Survivors), which offers such services as a Grief Camp for kids and helps survivors navigate the complexities of the Army's various support and compensation services. (The contractors' families? I haven't been able to find any firm data, but my guess is that they're S.O.L.)

Far be it from me to minimize the interviewed woman's loss. The mere thought of my wife or kids being ripped out of my life sends a spike of stark terror down my spine. Whatever I feel about this insane war, and even though I believe that not only is "Support Our Troops" a cudgel wielded by ill-informed hawks, but also that many of our troops do not deserve our unquestioning support, it's clear that the losses suffered by many Americans are real, pitiable, and wrenching.

That said, these losses are being endured in a peaceful, functioning country, and those that suffer them have available to them a rich set of support services.

Not so the Iraqis.

It's impossible to know how many Iraqi families have suffered the same loss as has that woman from Fort Hood. The highly reputable Iraq Body Count effort, which tallies only those deaths reported "from cross-checked media reports, hospital, morgue, NGO, and official figures," lists the number of Iraqi civilian dead as of Monday, March 24th at between 82,408 and 89,928. Way back in 2004, a carefully prepared and conducted survey published in Lancet, the British medical journal, concluded that around 100,000 Iraqis had been killed; a follow-up study conducted by the same researchers in 2006 raised that figure to over 650,000.

Reasonable people may disagree over these figures, but the mere fact that there is no accurate accounting of Iraqi suffering is reprehensible.

One thing, however, can be said with deadly accuracy about the Iraqi dead: Their survivors live in a war-torn country, and they do not have available to them counseling, support services, or government assistance. They're on their own.

Imagine for a moment the toll that this massive amount of unrelenting, unrelieved suffering is taking on the collective consciousness of Iraqi culture. The entire country is suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, with no services in sight. No, scratch that - remove the "post." This traumatic stress is ongoing.

An entire generation is being driven slowly and inexorably mad. Some will find the strength to pull themselves together, but many will not - and the country will be torn by their reaction to their individual, personal pain and damage for decades to come.

And then there are the refugees. According to the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration, nearly 5 million Iraqis have been displaced by the war: 2.4 million internally, 1.5 million in Syria, and over 1 million in Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Gulf States. And this, remember, is in a country whose population was about 24.5 million when we invaded in 2003; an equivalent number of displaced Americans should such a tragedy befall us would be over 61.3 million people - that's approximately the combined populations of New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.

(And how many Iraqi refugees have been resettled in the country that has wreaked five years of havoc upon them? As of two weeks ago, according to the Department of Homeland Security, we've "welcomed" 7,118 displaced Iraqis - that's a pitiful 0.14% of those whom our actions helped drive from their homes. Seven thousand, one hundred and eighteen helped, and only about four million, nine hundred and ninety-two thousand, eight hundred and eighty-two to go. At this rate we'll have them all resettled by early May in the year 4112.)

On the fifth anniversary of this catastrophic fiasco Bush had the temerity to say that "the world is better" than it was before our invasion. Not for the Iraqis, Mr. Bush. And despite what our Commander in Chief calls "progress," Iraq won't be a better place for a long, long time. [back to top]

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IMPORTANT UPDATE: March 23
Two days after I posted the following recipe, my wife Marilyn and I both came down with serious rashes. At first the maddening itch and the general grossness of the pustules on both my palms led us to believe that we had somehow contracted poison oak. Strangely, though, the rash soon spread all over Marilyn's body and a fair amount of mine. Tonight we did a bit of Web research, and could find no evidence of poison oak rashes that even approximated the odd finger-like pattern of hers on torso and legs.

Also, we hadn't been near poison oak for 10 days or more - a long time for that asshat of a plant to wait before wreaking its vegetative havoc. So, Marilyn and I reviewed everything that we had both done together recently, especially those things that strayed from our normal quotidian quietude - visits, trips, friends, food...

Food! We had, indeed, recently tried a new food: dried shiitake mushrooms. In fact, we had eaten about two dozen good-sized ones in the two-day period during which I perfected the recipe below.

A quick Web search led us to an article that referenced possible rashes cause by shiitakes, and which also pointed to a 1992 article by one Takehiko Nakamura that discussed "shiitake dermatitis," an all-body rash contracted by eating uncooked shiitake mushrooms - which the recipe below uses in profusion. (A PDF of Dr. Nakamura's article can be obtained here, if you want to see photos of exactly what Marilyn's rash looks like.)

So, tomorrow we're off to the the local dermatologist, Mark Illeman, with a copy of Dr. Nakamura's article in hand. Interestingly, our Web research also turned up another article from 2006 that discusses the first case of shiitake dermatitis to have been observed in Europe (Nakamura's work was done in Japan). Perhaps we'll make Dr. Illeman famous for uncovering the first American case.

Stay tuned for Illeman's opinion. Oh, and the recipe remains, since you may not be as susceptible as Marilyn or I, or you may not gorge yourself on the little suckers as we did over a two-day period. And fear not, 'shroom lovers, shiitakes are perfectly safe if you've cook 'em, which the recipe below doesn't ask you to do. From now on, to be sure, I'm cooking every shiitake I meet to within an inch of its tasty little life.

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Tomorrow, the tragedy of the Iraq invasion turns five years old. There'll be plenty of time for writing about that benighted country's ongoing agony tomorrow - but for today, let's carbo-load with a hyper-hearty pasta dish in preparation for the heavy lifting ahead. Yeah, it may indeed seem more than a little flippant to think gastronomically during such a dark time, but life goes on - at least for those of us fortunate enough to live in safe, sunny San Francisco.

So here's a recipe that's a variant on one I found in The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen, one of the Breakaway Cook cookbook series by Eric Gower. His recipe is for a simple shiitake pesto - but when I made it I found it a bit too homogenous in taste and a bit too thick when using the proportions he outlined. So, in the Isaac Newton tradition of "standing on the shoulders of giants," I've adapted Gower's recipe - here goes...

INGREDIENTS:
• 10 to 12 medium-sized dried shiitake mushrooms - You can find dried shiitakes in most decent grocery stores, but you'll be paying too much for them at places where mostly white folks shop. If you're lucky enough to live in a town with an Asian community, pick up your dried shiitakes at one of their stores. Shiitakes, which originally grew only on fallen timber ("shii" in Japanese means "oak," and "take" means mushroom), are popular in both Japan and China, so you should have no trouble finding them in stores that cater to those communities. Just make sure that the mushrooms you pick are rock-hard dry.
• one-third cup of smokehouse almonds - You can actually use any flavor of roasted almonds (or no flavor at all), but I'm partial to Blue Diamond Smokehouse.
• one-third cup of extra virgin olive oil - The lighter, the better.
• two or three good-sized cloves of garlic - Minced or crushed.
• one-half cup of carrot juice - The fresher, the better - although Odwalla or other brands are just fine. Make sure to check the date stamped on the bottle to make sure that it's mighty, mighty fresh.
• one tablespoon of cream cheese - I know it sounds weird, but this little addition does smooth things out wonderfully and adds a bit of lovely creaminess.

Those are the ingredients for the basic shiitake pesto, with my adapted amounts. The following are my additions. You can, of course, substitute anything else your little heart desires. I want to try some shelled edamame, for example, and some finely cut shiso - but, hey, it's your kitchen. Improvise.

• three-quarters of a cup of cheap-ass sake - There's an old saying that you should only use wine in cooking that you wouldn't feel embarrassed serving to guests. Well, that's all fine and good if you can afford it. I can't, so I use low-end wine and sake (which isn't a wine, of course, but a brewed beverage) to cook with. Luckily, some low-end sake is definitely drinkable, such as Sho Chiku Bai Classic from Berkeley's Takara.
• six to eight umeboshi - These are the wonderful pickled plums used in tons of Japanese cooking. They range in price from quite affordable to somewhat exorbitant - get the affordable ones, but ask your Japanese grocer to steer you to affordable ones that aren't heinously salty. Pit them and chop the fruit - don't dice, just chop.
• one-half-pound boneless chicken thigh meat - Trim off the fat and cut into bite-sized pieces. And make sure to get free-range, well-fed, non-tortured chicken, or you'll spend eternity with giant, vengeful hens pecking at your liver. Just ask Prometheus how unpleasant that would be.
• one two-inch-by-one-inch piece of lemon zest - Prepare it as I describe in my earlier Salmon Alfredo recipe.
• a quarter cup of finely cut strips of seasoned nori or a teaspoon or less of your favorite furikake - We're simply talking toss-on-top condiments here. Finely cut strips of nori are great, but if you've explored the many different worlds of furikake, knock yourself out. From my mildly educated point of view, sato fumi furikake goes well with this dish - but I'm sure you could find a better-educated recommendation elsewhere.
• Your choice of pasta - Don't use anything heavy like penne - this needs a medium spaghetti or linguini. Also, make sure it's a good, dense, dried pasta - fresh pasta is too mealy and squishy. I'm a fan of Gragnano ("Pasta makers since 1555"), but even such standard brands as Barilla or De Cecco are better than fresh pasta. I use about half a pound of pasta for two diners.
• Fresh ground pepper and sea salt to taste - I prefer a boatload of pepper with this; you may or ume not (Ha! Bad Japanese-cooking pun!). Your call.

PREPARATION:
The pasta. Start cooking it. This recipe won't take much time, so get your pasta going.

The pesto. Gawd, this is easy. Put the dried shiitakes into a blender. Set the blender on low, turn it on, then wait for a minute or three until the shiitakes are turned into a powder - and I really mean a powder, not a buncha small chunks. Shake the bender if you have to.

When the shiitakes have achieved powderitude, add the cream cheese, almonds, garlic, oil, and carrot juice, and blend again. Here's where your judgment needs to kick in a bit. Depending upon the size and moisture of your shiitakes, you may need to add more carrot juice and/or olive oil. Just get the whole blended mass somewhat fluidic - sorta like a mildly watery mortar.

The add-ons. Put a teaspoon or two of oil into a small, coverable pan and turn it to alllllllmost high. When it's nice and hot, dump in the chicken pieces. Stir constantly until they're just browned; when they are, pour in the sake; stir a bit to make sure none of the chicken is stuck on the pan, then cover the pan loosely and turn the heat to medium low. After a minute, uncover the pan and let the sake reduce to about half ... or so ... whatever. When the sake has been reduced, add the chopped umeboshi, and heat briefly.

After the pasta's done, drain it and put it back into the pot in which it was boiled. Dump in the pesto and mix it until it's well-distributed. Now dump in the chicken 'n' sake 'n' umeboshi and fold until all is well-mixed.

Serve the mixture into bowls, and top with the sliced nori and/or furikake, plus the sliced lemon zest. Let your diners salt and pepper their servings as they see fit - although since umeboshi is usually pretty salty, you may want to recommend that they confine themselves to pepper.

I'm new at this one, and so over the next couple of years I'm sure I'll be able to perfect this recipe a bit - and I'll look back at amusement at this early, crude atempt.

But it does taste damn good. [back to top]

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As I'm sure you've heard, last week the EPA tweaked allowable ozone levels to a slightly lower amount than previous standards. You may also have heard that the EPA's chief health scientist, John M. Balbus, had recommended a lower standard that would help avoid, as he put it, "hundreds more deaths and thousands more visits to emergency rooms, and hundreds of thousands of more lost school days."

What you may have missed, however - due in no small part to the news-smothering media frenzy over Eliot Spitzer's flameout - was the revelation that President Bush himself was behind the last-minute EPA move to ignore its science and health advisors' advice, and to keep the ozone standard at the higher, more-dangerous, and more industry-friendly level.

It needs to be emphasized that more than one legal observer has concluded that Bush's eleventh-hour intervention was most likely an illegal one, seeing as how the Clean Air Act instructs the EPA to base its decisions on its own scientific findings, and not on instructions from the reigning executive branch. In fact, Bush's own legal team has been scrambling to develop quasi-legal justifications for his actions.

So here we have yet another possibly illegal act by an administration whose belief in the Unitary Executive concept has led it to ignore laws, to draft signing statements to pick and choose which parts of laws it wants to enforce, and to engage in any transparently illegal acts it deems fit.

And what has been the public response to learning that the Bush administration has again acted to warp a law to benefit its industrial supporters?

"Yawn..."

To be frank, the fact that we've become so inured to such power grabs that we don't even begin to rise up and demand that the separation of powers be reinstated is more worrisome than the power grabs themselves. After all, Bush will be gone in ten months, but I fear that our societal apathy will remain. We're acting collectively like a beaten dog, taking whatever the powers-that-be choose to dish out.

We expect to be lied to. We expect to be taken advantage of. We expect that the gap between rich and poor will continue to grow, that our influence on our own country's direction will continue to wane, and that we'll remain in Iraq, as John McCain says "is fine," for 100 years.

Folks, it doesn't have to be this way.

Try, if you will, a thought experiment: Imagine how your life would be different - socially, politically, and emotionally - under a responsive government that cared about the welfare of its citizens. That stopped shoveling billions of borrowed dollars into a Mideastern hellhole, stopped mortgaging our future, stopped enriching a few fatcats while infuriating entire cultures. That told the truth. That acted from reason rather than dogma. That worked to synthesize the disparate views of its citizenry rather than to play them off one another.

Try to imagine such a situation. Try hard.

It's not easy, is it? It's difficult to imagine a world so different, a government so different. And even if you succeed for a moment in imagining such a responsive, truly American government, it's painful to realize how far we've allowed our country to stray from that ideal.

But we must imagine such a future. And we must do even more - we must create it, as well.

There's (literally) a world of work to be done. So start by shaking off your cynicism. Imagine a future in which you're proud of your country, then talk to your friends and coworkers about it. I may sound like I'm channeling a certain Democratic presidential candidate, but I do believe that there's a lot of positive power in hope. There's a lot more to be done, of course, but a start is ... well ... a start.

Besides, I'm dead certain that if we remain mired in helpless cynicism, we're playing into the hands of those who are working to concentrate all power in the executive branch and its corporate supporters. [back to top]

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It's easy to get discouraged in a world in which idealism is equated with naïveté while negativity and fear-mongering are deemed "realistic," and that relying upon them in a campaign is not only effective, but considered smart politics - and you know who I'm talking about, don't you, Ms. Clinton? To reprise the spirit of my recent posting featuring sixties nostalgia, "It bums me out, man..."

To keep from becoming too thoroughly discouraged, it's always a good idea to reach back into the past and discover that times have been bad before, and that we've always managed to muddle through. For example, in the March 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine, Scott Horton offers a well-researched if somewhat disjointedly edited article entitled "Vote Machine: How the Republicans hacked the Justice Department." Horton details how our current rulers subverted our supposedly non-political Justice Department for their political purposes (illustrations for which, by Brad Yeo, I've appropriated here). In his article, Horton quotes Thomas Jefferson's reminder in a letter to his friend John Taylor that the political wheel does continue to turn, and that bad times will fade. Here's part of that letter, which refers to the ongoing battle between the Federalists and Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans (a now-ironic name):

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, & incurring the horrors of war and long oppressions of enormous public debt ... And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all..." - Thomas Jefferson, June 4, 1798

Jefferson's brave words help me believe that our current kakistocracy isn't a permanent condition.

And then there's another quote I came upon recently, from an early seventeenth-century Briton named Owen Feltham. His take on his culture's situation wasn't as optimistic as Jefferson's, but reading it today reminds me that our current state is far from unique:

"The distempers of these times would make a wise man both merry and mad.

"Merry, to see how vice flourishes for a while, and, being at last frustrated of all her fair hopes, dies in a dejected scorn ... To see how the world is mistaken in opinion, to suppose those best that are wealthiest ... To see how men buy offices at high rates, which, when they have, prove gins to catch their souls in, and snare their estates and reputations ... To see how foolishly men cozen themselves of their souls, while they think they gain, by cunning defrauding of another ... To see what idle compliments are current among some that affect the fantastic garb: as if friendship were nothing but an apish salute.

"Mad, on the other side, to see how vice goes trapped with rich furniture ... To see Machiavel's tenets held as oracles; honesty reputed shallowness; justice bought and sold ... To see how flattery creeps into favour with greatness, while plain dealing is thought the enemy of state and honour ... To see how well-meaning simplicity is footballed ... To see how religion is made a politician's visor; which, having helped him to his purpose, he casts by, like Sunday apparel.

"And, which would mad a man more than all, to know all this, yet not know how to help it." - Owen Feltham, c.1620

Yes, to quote those pesky French, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - the more things change, the more they stay the same.

3/5/08: A note from blog reader David Freeman: "Thanks for "kakistocracy". This is a word I have needed ever since Carter lost re-election after a too-short term of sanity in the executive office." [back to top]

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