I love the smell of brown sludge in the morning
When I get a snoot full of that brown sludge in the morning, it brings back warm memories. Doesn’t happen all the time. Not as often as I would like. The period for brown sludge is often almost over as soon as it begins, though when I was a kid at Stone Valley Lake, the period lasted for a good eight weeks.
Memories of cold mornings, even cold nights, sometimes lugging a sloshing bucket by headlamp, stumbling through the brush, tripping over vines and branches, picking bugs out of the buckets. Sometimes the bugs concentrate in the buckets, drawn by the smell, and the taste. Trying not to spill it, good God don’t spill it! And then the long nights. Yes, you might start in the daylight, but at six the next morning you were up all night, running for the bucket every ten minutes, tired out, cramping, sleepy.
You see, modern maple syrup is nothing like it was. It is now a victim of technology. Where maybe just five years ago maple syrup producers used fire to boil maple sap down, now they have reverse osmosis machines, and spectrometers and spectrographs that tell the syrup maker how concentrated the sap sugars are, and thus when to start and when to wait longer. When to keep adding to the huge coolers, and freezers, and when to begin condensing.
In the big maple syrup production outfits today, the sap collection is mechanized, run through a spider web of tubing across the sugar bush. The sap is pumped, and gathered in big tanks, then stilled, separated, distilled, purified, filtered over and over, sterilized and then jugged. This is maple syrup today. How it is created looks nothing like how it was made for the past 15,000 years until very recently.
And frankly, as a result of this industrial processing, it no longer tastes like maple syrup. It tastes bland.
Sure, you can try to buy the old Grade B dark brown maple syrup. You remember, surely, the maple syrup that puts the phrase “maple flavor” in maple syrup? You can try to buy it, and some sellers will try to sell it to you. And it will indeed look amber-ish, with a hint of brown. Now they will disclaim it, or add some caveats, or sheepishly try to explain that it is dark for maple syrup “these days,” but it is not quite like what you remember from just a half dozen years ago, let alone your childhood.
And you will taste it, this modern creation, and you will not taste maple syrup. Instead you will taste Maple Product.
Maple Product is the result of the industrialization of even hand-crafted specialties like maple syrup. It is mechanized, industrialized, and heavily filtered, and it has very little real taste. No rich taste, for sure, not the unique and authentic maple taste you came for in the first place.
That is why we have been making our own maple syrup. It started out really small, like when I was a kid using plastic milk jugs hung on string from hand- cut wood spiles. Maybe a couple cups of syrup, and it lasted one day. A treat from Mother Nature, the whole family enjoying it, gathered round like families have over nature’s bounty since time immemorial. A natural and innately healthy moment.
Then I ordered a bunch of old maple buckets with metal spiles, and boiled lots of sap on the stove top. That was a bad idea because the whole house steamed up and smelled vaguely of damp earth. The small amounts of sugar in the steam hardened to a clear armor on everything in the kitchen, and cleaning with water just made it sticky. Getting closer!
Then I ordered a stainless steel evaporator pan from a young guy in the Midwest. Couple hundred bucks and worth every penny. With a threaded spigot and a valve on the end, it can release as much boiled down sap as I want to take to the next stage of boiling. The only filtering we do is from the big sap collection tank in the back of the pickup, through an old cotton tee shirt, and some skimming in the evaporator. Bits of bark, the occasional rogue ant, “stuff” from inside the maple trees is all skimmed off. But what we do not do is filter out the taste.
We gently and carefully finish off the concentrated brown sap inside on the stove top, and then pour the finished syrup into old whisky bottles with cork stoppers. This is real maple syrup, and it is so rich tasting it knocks your socks off. This is what maple syrup used to taste like, and it is what maple syrup is supposed to taste like.
So when I hit the bottom of one of those old whisky bottles because the syrup was mostly poured out over pancakes or hot cereal, then all that remains is the thick brown sludge. This is the stuff you could make maple candy from. My son and I pour cold milk into the bottle, swill it around until the brown sludge has turned the milk brown and slightly viscous, and we heartily quaff it down.
You just can’t beat it.
p.s. sorry we make just enough for our own family use, and we do not sell it. But you can make your own, and because you worked so hard to make it, you will truly enjoy every drop, every molecule, every rich taste you take.
Anti-Jewish activity in your town? Thank Obama
Over the past week a spate of vandalism and bomb threats against Jewish community facilities and cemeteries nationwide have not only scared people, understandably, but brought out the very worst from within the American Jewish community. Hate to say it.
Yesterday morning I was walking into the Harrisburg JCC at about 10:00 am. It is two blocks from my home and I am a member there; at around ten in the morning the gym is practically vacant. It is perfect time alone for me to do physical therapy on my knee and do some body-wide muscle conditioning. After all, keeping off all the weight I lost in hunting season is only possible if I keep on moving. When the gym is empty, I can do my routine unimpeded.
As I walked into the building, staff told me to turn around and walk out as a bomb threat had been phoned in, and everyone was being sent outside.
What followed over the next twelve hours is simply shameful. Disgusting, really, and self-defeating.
Constant emails, texts, and FakeBook posts from members of the Jewish community flooded in to the newspaper, TV news, and Harrisburg residents, every single one of them blaming Trump and his supporters for the bomb threat. Even today the emails continue to fly, with people blaming “ethnic nationalism,” ie the patriotic pride people like me felt when Trump ran and then got elected.
Even US senator Al Franken got in on it, headlining a Democrat fundraising email that somehow found its way to me. Sorry, goofball Franken, I won’t be donating.
There is no evidence that Trump or his voters have anything to do with the vandalism and threats, and yet so many American Jews keep publicly demanding that there is an association.
Folks, if you really want to upset people, keep poking them in the eye. Keep telling them how horrible they are, how racist they are, how antisemitic they are, how “intolerant” they are, when in fact they are none of those things, and in fact are the best friends Jews ever had. At some point you will burn out your fellow American and they will become tired of being unfairly maligned.
The overwhelming proportion of the people making these unfounded accusations are liberal Jews who emphatically embraced Obama, who overlooked all of his failures and bigoted associations. Obama was surrounded socially and professionally by a huge number of proud anti-semites. Not the least of which is his spiritual guide, Jesse Wright, who is also racist against whites.
During the past eight years, under Obama’s disastrous watch, the federal government willfully ignored federal law and allowed millions of illegal aliens to simply walk into America. Some fake notion of fairness was the public excuse, but the private purpose was to artificially bolster Democrat voter rolls with new recruits.
Well, among these illegal invaders are declared Islamic extremists associated with ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Hizbulla. All of these groups have pledged openly to bring destruction to America and to American Jews specifically. What happened over the past week is most likely a result of these kooks beginning to implement their plans. After all, Trump is incredibly supportive of Israel and Jews, and that upsets the kooks more than anything.
And Trump is starting to weed them out, and they know they have to act soon.
So if you are really looking for someone to blame for this spate of anti-Jewish activity, you can blame Obama, the guy who happily allowed the anti-Jewish kooks to walk right in to America. Either as illegal aliens or as un-vetted refugees from Muslim countries torn apart by intolerance.
The problem is, most American Jews are so liberal that they are committed more to one single political party than they are to their own safety. So they will continue to protect their political allies like Obama, and blame their political opponents, and not their actual, known enemies.
Someone somewhere said Jews are smart. Sorry, I am not buying it. There is nothing more stupid than self-destruction.
UPDATE: At least eight bomb calls and several email threats to Jewish institutions around America were made by one guy, according to the FBI. A young man who was a former reporter is accused of a significant portion of those crimes. Was he a “Trumpie” as my lawyer friend Devon said he would be? Was he a “white nationalist” as so many others said? The answer is No. The man is a super leftwing black Muslim anti-Trump activist. But hey, at least he votes, so he gets some credit there. But he also appears to be seriously disturbed. How many other threatening calls and emails come from leftists is unknown yet, but it is probably most of them.
How is sexualizing children “open minded”?
For about a decade proponents of “alternative” sexual identities have been increasingly promoting the ideas that sexual identity begins at age four, that government must use its coercive force to promote this, and anyone questioning it is a bigot subject to the greatest displays of public shaming since the Catholic Church’s Inquisition.
After our 2012 primary campaign for state senate, in which the PA GOP gerrymandered me out of the senate district at the last second, and the state supreme court put me back in at the last second, and we went on to do extremely well and change the outcome of the race, a lot of us spent time on FakeBook lamenting the outcome but enjoying the policy debate shift in our direction.
One of the policy subjects was sexual identity, which in that debate quickly was posed as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition by one side. Anyone who similarly stuck to their guns on the other side, usually due to religious beliefs, was mob attacked and accused as a “bigot.”
In that debate, one unanswered question kept coming up, and that was why so many activists believe it is necessary to discuss sex with little kids, tiny children, not their kids but the children of other people, who traditionally have been shielded from sexual subjects for obvious reasons.
This question is up front again, in light of a recent National Geographic magazine cover that invaded our home a few months ago, and in light of recent comments by reporter Chris Cuomo.
National Geographic magazine recently posed a small child on its cover, with the title that sexual identity is fluid and begins at a very young age. How this pertains to geography is a question unanswered by NatGeo.
Last week Chris Cuomo stated matter of factly on public television that if a twelve year old girl does not want to see a penis in the locker room, then “she is not open minded enough.”
Added into the mix here is the recently debated idea that men, women, children should all share the same bathrooms simultaneously, taking hold in some places and being soundly rejected in others.
I cannot help but ask: Why do children now have to be sexualized?
How is this being construed as being open minded?
Why is there no safe space for little kids to retain their innocence?
What does someone truly need in all this, or is it just an adult fantasy playing out as a legitimate policy issue?
Sexuality is powerful, it is potent, it is dangerous, and it can be toxic when misused. Why are some adults getting away with sexualizing our children in the name of being “open minded”?
And how are protective parents like me ‘bigots’ if we reject this notion as anything but poorly masked pedophilia?
I am a protective parent because I love my children. Like all children, mine deserve to be kids, to have kid thoughts, to be left alone from the adult world of politics, especially identity politics. Yes, I understand that many gay people felt different at pretty young ages, usually around twelve or thirteen, and I have two gay friends who did not know they were different until they were eighteen years old. But what does this have to do with someone else’s kids?
Do you really believe that your interest in my kid’s welfare is greater than my interest? And do you really believe that this entitles you to talk to my children about sex, graphic sex?
I have to admit that this whole idea makes me angry, because I feel like I am watching mass pedophilia unfold in front of my eyes, and the force of political correctness is so strong that normal, healthy, good people, good parents, are being damaged and mowed down by bullies in control of government force, while simply trying to protect their children’s (my children’s) innocence.
If a tolerant guy like me is starting to feel this way, then I can only imagine that a lot of other Americans are feeling a lot more upset. This does not bode well for true and honest tolerance for adult behavior among consenting adults, which has unfortunately become part and parcel of an open war against childhood innocence and on children. Either you stand with the kids, or you stand against them.
National Geographic and Chris Cuomo are against all kids, against my kids. Duly noted.
Tyranny by Ten
This Tuesday, two and a half days ago, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals created a new law about guns and gun ownership in America out of thin air and completely contradicting recent US Supreme Court decisions the lower courts are bound to follow
If you want to see why citizens’ faith in the judiciary branch has declined, this bizarre decision is the best latest example.
It is gross over-reach far exceeding the court’s authority, and nullifying all of the judicial precedent litigated and decided before by the highest court.
Recall that judges cannot make up law.
They are fully bound by precedent.
They cannot make up policies.
They cannot come to a conclusion that is outside the subject of what has been litigated in front of them.
They cannot second-guess Congress.
They cannot ask what personal motives were behind a president’s executive order.
It does not matter what a judge personally thinks. None of this is supposed to enter into a judge’s ruling. When it does, the ruling is meaningless garbage.
Judges can only interpret the laws that are passed by Congress and signed by the President, or the state equivalent. That is it. That is their sole scope and ability.
At their most precise and honest moment, judges simply determine if a law is Constitutional, or not, or if it needs to go back to the state or federal legislative branch for re-work.
Brazen activism like this week’s decision serves only to undermine the judiciary, not strengthen it, because people will either utterly ignore these wayward judges, or they will seek to have them removed from their office, for good cause. Or both.
I myself do not feel bound by this illegal decision, and I will not comply with it no matter who says I must. These ten judges-gone-wild do not outweigh the collective decisions of the populace. If this court wants my guns, the authors of this decision can come to my home and try to take them away.
Come and (try to) take them!
In this particular instance of judicial malfeasance, ten of the court’s fourteen judges decided on their own that a new legal test was needed, a test that had never been used before by Congress, by the framers, the Constitution, or prior courts.
These ten judges decided to call it the “weapons of war” test, and they simply state that the Second Amendment never intended for American citizens to possess “weapons of war,” which according to these judges include the basic AR-15 rifles that are commonly used to hunt coyotes every week across the nation. Never mind that this new test would have eliminated from their personal possession the very military grade guns the American Patriots used to defeat the British.
But obviously logic is not of concern to these judges. The language of the majority decision and supporting decision is florid, full of political and emotional hyperbole, uses sophomoric logic and impolitic language (“the American people deserve a break”), and is simply disconnected from Constitutional text or legal precedent.
It is the equivalent of my kids saying “So, there!” in an argument.
But wait, there’s more!
Beyond being merely political, the majority bizarrely state that the decision is consistent with the US Supreme Court’s Heller decision, when it is in fact completely contradictory. Talk about shades of Orwell’s “1884,” where up is down, black is white, etc.
This is not a legal decision, it is a political decision. It is a bold, defiant “I dare ya!” act by ten radical politicians wearing sombre black robes. And it is not just about guns. This decision is about rogue, out-of-control judges destroying the fabric of our Republic, which was not designed to turn over all issues to the judiciary, as if they make our every decision for us. This court throws the whole delicate machine of democracy out of kilter.
These judges are anti-democracy, plain and simple. They want a certain policy outcome, and because they cannot get it legitimately, legally, through the established legislative process, they simply want to wave a magic wand and make it so.
As much as this illegal decision shocks me, I do have to thank these judges, because they have outed themselves. By engaging in such egregious over-reach, illegally reaching deep into the realms of policy and law, they have willingly exposed themselves as frauds deserving of the most serious correction our system of government allows for – removal from the bench.
Now it is up to those American citizens who want to ‘drain the swamp’ and reclaim American government so that it serves We The People, to remove these anti-democracy activists from their sacred judicial roles. We can push to have them impeached or removed administratively.
Either way will do. Tyranny by ten cannot stand. We the People demand our rights.
“Jews For America”! Have the cavalry arrived?
Occasionally someone else’s writing gets posted here, either because it should be seen more, or because I could not say it better myself. Here is a unique one, a statement from the group “Jews For America.”
Think on that. That some American Jews even see the need to say this about themselves is quite a statement, and it is happy evidence that not all is lost in the American Jewish world.
Jews For America
Immigration Statement
For Immediate Release
Contact: Rabbi Aryeh Spero
(212) 252-6861 rabbispero@yahoo.com
New York, February 6, 2017 — Rabbi Aryeh Spero, spokesman for Jews For America, stated today:
“We support and commend President Trump for following through on his campaign pledge to protect the American people by stemming migration into this country from high-risk places posing a security threat to America and Americans. Beyond doubt, it is the first and most important duty of a President, or any leader, to protect the lives of a country’s citizens, especially where a possibility exists of terrorists being embedded within a particular immigration flow.
“Securing a country’s borders until a more fool-proof method of vetting is established is unassailable and vital, especially in light of how in Europe and here in America lax vetting has resulted in horrendous explosions and deaths of dozens of innocent people as seen, for example, in Orlando, St. Bernardino, Columbus, Paris, Nice, Berlin, Boston, and Barcelona, as well as other places infiltrated by terrorist plants within certain immigrant groups. Some unvetted or poorly vetted migrants or their offspring may possess ideological and religious hostility to Americans and our way of life and our laws. Saving lives of American citizens is a religious, historic and civic duty.
“There is no parallel between the Jews who fled Europe in the 1930s, who were, as Jews, specific targets for death and Nazi concentration camps, and many today wishing to escape civil war and turmoil in their Mideast countries. There were no Nazi agents embedded within the fleeing Jews nor did any of the Jews harbor a cultural or religious ideology wishing to sew physical destruction on the American people. There were no rabbis in the 1930s sending forth commands worldwide to destroy the ‘infidels’.
“Many initial roll-outs are subject to some confusion and mishaps; however, we believe that protecting a country’s borders and thereby its citizens is an age-old and reasonable imperative as demonstrated in Scripture, which warns of the need to be wary ‘Lest those that may be your enemy enter your domain and become thorns in your sides and pins in your eyes’.
“Hopefully the situation will one day change, but until then, we applaud President Trump for doing what is in the best interests of the American people.”
The Pope is Your Man
If you live in Europe, North America, or South America, you are greatly influenced by the Pope in Rome.
Whether you know it or not, the Pope is usually going to bat for you every day. You don’t have to be Jewish to like rye bread, and you don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate and value the Pope, who fills a unique role for all humans.
While it is true that Roman Catholics have a special role for the Pope/Papacy in their theology, a role that non-Catholics find tough to accept, the fact is the Pope is the West’s leading voice on morality, charity, gentleness, kindness, and the other positive little acts that knit together our civilization. At his best he is a public advocate for all the important little things between people that are right and true, necessary for happiness on our planet. In that way, the Pope is your man.
Over the past 1,500 years popes have played varying roles in politics and the advancement of civilization as we have come to know and treasure it today. Some were better or worse than others. A few were truly bad, and quite a few were truly great leaders. The Church built much of Europe’s civilization (some of it built with money stolen through the Inquisition, the Church’s darkest time), and we all have gratitude for that stable society we now enjoy.
The pope we have today is pretty controversial, and I will admit I am not his biggest fan right now. Oh sure he says a lot of things that are important for all humans to hear, and I value that. But he also says things publicly and quietly does a lot within the Church that are contrary to how our civilization works.
Gentle critics ascribe this to his South American slum “liberation theology” and his Jesuit training. Harsh critics, including some of my most religiously observant Catholic friends, are much more blunt about their dis-satisfaction. I won’t repeat any of it here, but I will admit to missing very much the somewhat recently departed Pope John Paul, a really inspirational leader and powerful voice for goodness and right action across the planet.
Dear Pope, I hope you find your voice, because it is a voice for all of us. I am not Catholic, but I am a human who benefits from you when you are at your finest. Hurry up, please.