My Gift to You

    As a way of introducing myself to anyone who reads this (anyone?) I am going to give you the best gift I have to offer; how to make the absolute finest Italian tomato sauce known to man.  After years of experimenting I now make the greatest sauce (gravy to some) in the world.  You can too if you do what I tell you.
    Put a good size pot on the stove and add about a 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil.  Get a small to medium size onion and dice it up as small as you can without cutting any fingers off.  Take that diced onion and put it in the oil, stirring a little so it is evenly distributed.  Next dice up 3 or 4 decent sized cloves of garlic, again as small as you can to expose as much surface area of garlic as possible.  Turn on the burner now to medium-high  and saute the onion, stirring a few times to keep it evenly cooking till it gets pretty soft, about 4 minutes.  The onion smells really good but don't cook it too long.  It is here, as the onion is cooking, that I add my secret ingredient which I won't tell you about at this time but your sauce will still be the best you have ever made.
    While the onion cooks open a 28 oz. can of whole peeled tomatoes (Hunts, Redpack, Pine Cone) and have it at the ready.  When the onion is good throw in your garlic.  VERY IMPORTANT!  DO NOT BURN THE GARLIC!  If it turns brown it is burned and will have a strong bitter taste ruining the sauce.  Stir it with the onions for 30 seconds then shut off the burner and take the pot off the heat.  Strain the oil into a small bowl, removing the garlic and onions from the oil.  Press what's in the strainer with your spoon (wooden) to squeeze every bit of flavor into the oil.  Return the oil to the pot, put the pot back on the burner and put the burner back to medium-high.  Depending how long the oil has been off the heat let it get back up to saute temperature, you should hear it sizzle a little.
    When the oil is right dump in the can of tomatoes and fill the can about 3/4 full of water.  Dump it in the pot.  Add about a tablespoon of salt, grind a good amount of black pepper in, add a few shakes of garlic powder, throw in oregano and basil  (maybe four shakes oregano and six shakes basil for my taste, you may adjust the next time you cook it), two good shakes of hot red pepper and your ready to go.  Bring the pot to a boil then turn it down to a simmer.
  Fill another good sized pot about 3/4 full of water adding a serious amount of salt to it.  Using a spoon skim some oil off the sauce and add it to the water.  Put the water on medium letting it heat up while the sauce simmers.  Figure on simmering the sauce about an hour but if you need to cook it faster let it boil for five minutes before reducing the heat to simmer or it can simmer for a few hours if you desire.  After the sauce has been simmering a while take your potato masher and mash up the whole tomatoes two or three times while it is cooking, also stir the sauce every few minutes.
    When the sauce is just about ready  turn the water up to high and get it to a screaming boil.  Dump in one pound of your favorite pasta, stirring the water so the pasta doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.  Depending on your choice of pasta it usually takes 8-10 minutes to be al dente but try a piece first to make sure.  When the pasta is just about done turn the saucepan burner up to medium and take about 3/4 cup of the pasta water and dump it in the sauce, stir it good.  Strain the pasta in a colander, shake it but do not rinse it and dump it in a big bowl.  Pour the entire batch of sauce over the pasta and mix it good.  Serve right away with some nice grated Parmesan.  I told you it would be good!
    If you follow these instructions faithfully you can't miss.  After you have cooked this once, message me for the secret ingredient that takes things to another level.

We Want to Live Not Just Survive

Is there a working (or not working) person out there today who doesn't in their heart already know this. The chart illustrates worker's share of income since 1940, however  it's the last 10 years  that really scare the shit out of me.  As jobs continue to disappear overseas, American workers are being squeezed like never before.  The politicians in Washington are so out of touch with what Joe and Jane Sixpack need to survive it's not funny.  Meanwhile the middle class continues to shrink and the disparity in income between the top 1% and the other 99% grows.  It's obscene.

Will we ever wake up in large enough numbers to put a stop to the rape of the American people by the corporate-political elite?  The change promised by Obama is no change at all.  It's business as usual in Washington with deep pocketed lobbyists (thank you spell check) buying politicos by the bushel and Republicans telling us that more tax cuts for the rich will create more jobs.  How's that been working out for the last 30 years? Instead of re-electing the same bums who cozy up to Big Business I think it's time for a discussion about term limits.  2 terms and out, go get a real job.  The time has come to elect citizens and not lifetime politicians who have no concept of what it takes to live in 2011 America.  It isn't a two party system; it's more like corporate ownership of our government with the elites all in the same bed, irregardless of which side of the aisle they are from.  Instead we are heading for a two tier society where the Lords and Ladies (them) rule over the serfs (us) just like the good old days.

 

Thomas Jefferson: Rolling Over in His Grave

   Memorial Day 2011.   The rights and freedoms Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers fought for are being taken from Americans every day. On the day we honor those brave men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for  this country we can watch an example of Patriot Act fever abuse those rights and freedoms.  This video is a sad commentary on the way things are in the United States on Memorial Day 2011.  Can you believe dancing in public is an arrestable offense now?  This is protecting us from terrorists?

    It seems to this Creepyolderguy that it's Joe and Sally Sixpack who are the real targets here and while a few arrests at the Jefferson Memorial may seem a frivolous thing, the usurping of our rights is not.  How we defame the lives given defending our Constitution and Bill of Rights so America can remain the "Land of the free and the home of the brave".  Illegal foreclosures, full body patdowns, warrentless wiretapping, government bailouts for banksters; the beat goes on.
    On this Memorial Day 2011 honor our fallen soldiers and think about what they died for.  Then watch a group of American citizens get arrested for dancing.  What's wrong with this picture?

   " A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. "

      "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

    "Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

    Thomas Jefferson

Holy Shit!

Divide and conquer, its a strategy used for thousands of years to defeat one's enemy and its come home to the class war currently being fought in this country.  The ruling, moneyed elite have successfully framed the economic crash perpetrated by Wall Street criminals into a battle between working people.  State budgets are under pressure why?  Because of the economic meltdown created by the manipulations and greed of  the billionaires running the country.  Not because  a teacher or janitor has decent health care or a living pension.  The millions of lost jobs, foreclosures, business closings and other effects of the crash have decimated tax revenues and left the country reeling.  So what to do?  Well how about taking away the right of workers to bargain as a unit, collectively.

The billions stolen by devious Wall Street banksters leaves the rest of us fighting for our share of the crumbs left over.  Union or non-union workers it doesn't matter, we of the shrunken middle class have a lot more in common than not.  Do not the public sector or private sector janitor confront the same problems and worries?  Raising a family, putting food on the table, insuring the car, paying the mortgage, saving for college, taking a vacation, improving our lot in life and giving our children the best life possible?Aren't we all being ripped off equally?  Is it too much to ask the ultra rich to pay their fair share or is it better to grant them tax cuts (we did) and pick on teachers and firemen?  The sad thing is the aristocracy has us fighting each other to keep to spotlight off the immoral behavior of the elite.  They want it all.

What's happening in Wisconsin should be an affront to all working people.  The Kochsuckers, would strip worker's unions of all rights on their way to raking in more billions.  One thing that makes me laugh (ruefully) is the part of Governor Walker's bill that privatizes state utilities with NO BID CONTRACTS and that happens to be the Koch's business, never got a mention.  The issue however has been cast as the huge salaries and benefits for public workers, what a blatant misdirection play.  Are teachers getting rich at the expense of taxpayers or are billionaires bleeding all of us, union and non-union, public and private workers?  Think about it.