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I’m thinking if Obama really wanted to stimulate the economy, he would use those 900 billion dollars to pay off credit card debt. At the end of 2002, Americans owed about 750 billion dollars on credit cards. No doubt that total is much higher now – 2002-2007 were boom years, after all – so let’s say that number by now is 900 billion. The math works! A massive infusion of cash to the banks plus with their accounts back down to zero, Americans will begin spending again! A win/win situation all around!
Government economists are just not thinking creatively enough.
In other news, Sir Galahad visited the store yesterday.
For real.
He was this utterly guileless and beautiful young student of Arabic from the Defense Language Institute, a linguistic savant of sorts, obsessive about chilis and barbecue.
“I only found out about you today,” he said, as though he were a guardian angel apologizing that I got hit by a bus because he was sleeping on the job.
I smiled, shrugged. “We don’t have much of a marketing budget.”
We started talking about Peru’s infamous aji pepper, moved on to chile de arbol, thence to the best place locally to buy brisket (Shopper’s Corner in Santa Cruz) and finally to the state of the world: “You know I did my mission in Compton, and it was eye-opening – people scrubbing clothes in their bathtubs. I mean, it’s not the Third World but still –“
“It’s poverty,” I said.
“It’s unfair.”
“It’s how most of the world lives.”
“Yeah. They’re training us for surveillance, you know, listen in on the bad guys’ conversations, see what you can pick up. And there really are some bad guys out there! But I can’t help thinking –“
He’s in the military, he can’t say those sorts of things, so I said it for him. “Sometimes you can understand it. ‘Cause it’s like the personification of the United States to them is Paris Hilton, shallow, materialistic, self-involved. It’s hard not to hate –“
“I just want people to understand each other, you know? To see that we’re all human –“
“Are you LDS?”
“Yeah. Well. Not actively. I had a crisis of faith, you might say.”
He was just the most beautiful guy, inside and out. I looked in his eyes and saw an amazing purity that was just very touching to me.
This is what I’m going to miss about the store when it finally goes under. How else would a person like me – middle-aged, scraggly-haired refugee from Berkeley and the Sixties – ever have a conversation with a person like him without it? I feel so enriched for having had the opportunity over the past five years to get to know – even in a small way – so many people who are different from me. When I go back to living in a narrow, horizontal rut, I’m going to miss it very much.
And... Scorpion Bay went out of business. Real pity. They made three of the most culinarily interesting chili sauces around: a green sauce made from tomatillo, jalapeno and avocado, excellent on rice; a red sauce made from chile de arbol, excellent on burritos; and a chipotle that uses dark chocolate, excellent as a quick and dirty molé (you just grind half a cup of peanuts in a coffee grinder, add them to the choclopotle, simmer for half an hour.)
Plus when I can track down the Sicilian dialect word for "eggplant," I will be finished with Chapter 2.
Government economists are just not thinking creatively enough.
In other news, Sir Galahad visited the store yesterday.
For real.
He was this utterly guileless and beautiful young student of Arabic from the Defense Language Institute, a linguistic savant of sorts, obsessive about chilis and barbecue.
“I only found out about you today,” he said, as though he were a guardian angel apologizing that I got hit by a bus because he was sleeping on the job.
I smiled, shrugged. “We don’t have much of a marketing budget.”
We started talking about Peru’s infamous aji pepper, moved on to chile de arbol, thence to the best place locally to buy brisket (Shopper’s Corner in Santa Cruz) and finally to the state of the world: “You know I did my mission in Compton, and it was eye-opening – people scrubbing clothes in their bathtubs. I mean, it’s not the Third World but still –“
“It’s poverty,” I said.
“It’s unfair.”
“It’s how most of the world lives.”
“Yeah. They’re training us for surveillance, you know, listen in on the bad guys’ conversations, see what you can pick up. And there really are some bad guys out there! But I can’t help thinking –“
He’s in the military, he can’t say those sorts of things, so I said it for him. “Sometimes you can understand it. ‘Cause it’s like the personification of the United States to them is Paris Hilton, shallow, materialistic, self-involved. It’s hard not to hate –“
“I just want people to understand each other, you know? To see that we’re all human –“
“Are you LDS?”
“Yeah. Well. Not actively. I had a crisis of faith, you might say.”
He was just the most beautiful guy, inside and out. I looked in his eyes and saw an amazing purity that was just very touching to me.
This is what I’m going to miss about the store when it finally goes under. How else would a person like me – middle-aged, scraggly-haired refugee from Berkeley and the Sixties – ever have a conversation with a person like him without it? I feel so enriched for having had the opportunity over the past five years to get to know – even in a small way – so many people who are different from me. When I go back to living in a narrow, horizontal rut, I’m going to miss it very much.
And... Scorpion Bay went out of business. Real pity. They made three of the most culinarily interesting chili sauces around: a green sauce made from tomatillo, jalapeno and avocado, excellent on rice; a red sauce made from chile de arbol, excellent on burritos; and a chipotle that uses dark chocolate, excellent as a quick and dirty molé (you just grind half a cup of peanuts in a coffee grinder, add them to the choclopotle, simmer for half an hour.)
Plus when I can track down the Sicilian dialect word for "eggplant," I will be finished with Chapter 2.
