I Know You Are, But What Am I?

 

Not long before he passed away almost 20 years ago, my younger brother Chuck and I were talking about how so many of our friends knew little or nothing about anything except for what they could see with their eyes or put in their mouths. He called it 'the Stupidization of America'.

From science to civics, from history to grammar, from common sense to basic life skills... Chuck's view that Americans were mostly unable to comprehend or understand facts and reality still holds true today and, IMHO is far worse than we're willing to admit.

In a society that has all the information in the world literally available at our fingertips, we're becoming increasingly uneducated, uninformed, ignorant, willfully ignorant, clueless and stupid. 

UNEDUCATED (adjective) - Lacking an education; poorly educated. "Larry had never heard of a wolverine."

UNINFORMED (adjective) - Not having or showing awareness or understanding of the facts. "Larry couldn't figure out why the wolverine kept trying to bite him."

IGNORANT (adjective) - Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated. "Larry didn't know wolverines made bad pets."

WILLFUL IGNORANCE (noun) - A decision in bad faith to avoid becoming informed about something so as to avoid having to make undesirable decisions that such information might prompt. "Larry didn't care if wolverines made bad pets."

CLUELESS (adjective) - Having no knowledge, understanding or ability. "Larry assured himself that raising a wolverine would be easy."

STUPID (adjective) - Having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense. "Larry decided to bring his wolverine to the birthday party."

For this essay, let's agree that none of these terms are inherently derogatory or abusive, but are simple descriptions of human cognitive conditions. They apply to many people, mostly a result of the current national apathy and hostility towards a comprehensive primary and secondary public educational system, K through 12. 

"If you think education is expensive, wait until you see how much ignorance costs in the 21st century." - Barack Hussein Obama

Charter schools have no overall discernable advantage towards education, nor do they produce better-educated students than public schools. Check out the following report:

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-are-charter-schools-and-do-they-deliver/

Private schools are the antithesis of public education. They bar students whose parents can't afford the cost to access the (supposedly) highest-end educators and facilities. That's Capitalism, baby!

Faith-based schools are the American version of Middle East madrassas. Students are marinated in a religious au jus which affects their worldview for the rest of their lives, but HEY... they'll be in Heaven eventually, so why worry about it, right?

Most of my public school teachers were committed to generating young adults with questioning minds, strong critical-thinking skills and an understanding of our collective social history, structures and moral guardrails. At present, we're losing qualified public school educators at a rapid pace, as they're choosing to give up on a cherished career path. It's the same with healthcare workers.

Maybe they're just burned out. Maybe it's because educators have grown tired of being treated so poorly by ignorant parents and clueless school boards. Maybe they're not thrilled about having to be both educators AND armed guards tasked with repelling school shooters while earning a measly salary as unappreciated and derided 'woke' educators. 

Maybe... just maybe... they see themselves as skilled and certified public servants who are treated like domestic servants that babysit students for ignorant parents who couldn't pass a U.S. Citizenship test if their lives depended on it.

As an aside, why is it that immigrants seeking to gain US Citizenship are required to verbally answer 10 random questions from a 100-question test, but US high-school students aren't required to pass that same test to earn a diploma? Just for giggles, have a look at the US Citizenship Test questions and answers:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/questions-and-answers/100q.pdf

Regardless of how educators feel about their role as glorified babysitters/armed guards, the impact of the public's apathy and conservative antipathy towards public education has real-world results. I can't blame educators for the situation we find ourselves in.

It's a generational decay that's been on the radar for decades, and it's becoming a national tragedy. We're now surrounded by an alarming number of citizens who, to put it bluntly, are just plain ignorant. At the same time, public school districts across the country are, at the direction of willfully ignorant school boards and local politicians, forcing teachers to use textbooks and study plans that are whitewashed of 'uncomfortable' historical facts and context, and instead are injected with simplistic, revisionist pablum.

Also too... they're banning books. (Sigh... facepalm).

Many citizens basically know nothing about US History or how our government functions. 

They don't know the difference between the National deficit and National debt. 

They don't really know or care much about voting. 

They know nothing about other countries, geopolitics, or the global environmental crisis. 

They don't know why the Civil War, World War 1 or World War 2 were fought. They don't know who Medgar Evers, Norma McCorvey or Clarence Darrow were. They can't explain the difference between capitalism, socialism and communism. They can't explain the difference between democracy, autocracy, theocracy and fascism.

You see where I'm going with this, right?

The nuclear-grade levels of fear, suspicion, hate and mindless violence we're seeing all over the country are directly tied to the overwhelming ignorance of our citizens. The societal guardrails are being removed, and now many citizens will believe almost anything because, well... they know almost nothing. 

I can understand why some folks are uneducated or uninformed, especially if they've never had access to a well-rounded primary and secondary education. On the other hand, ignorance is unacceptable, and willful ignorance is a plague that needs to be ended pronto because it leads to cluelessness and stupidity. And the danger of having a nation of clueless and stupid people is that they're too stupid to know how stupid they are, so they'll try to keep wolverines as pets.

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch

As leaders and citizens continue to devalue education, everything else becomes expendable, including the value of a meaningful existence. When that happens, the wolverines will have an easy time of taking over and keeping stupid humans as pets.

There's only one thing that can prevent this:

NO-COST COMPREHENSIVE PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR ALL, INCLUDING COMMUNITY COLLEGE. 

We dismiss the value of public education at our own peril, and that scares the shit out of me, but I'll likely be dead and long gone before the wolverine overlords usurp human authority.

At least I hope so. I really, really hope so.

All  images, Gracias de Google Images; all definitions, Gracias de Google Dictionary; all videos, Gracias de YouTube. All hail the Wolverine Overlords!!

Cool, Clear Water

I drink lots of water, prolly up to a gallon or two per day depending on how hard I'm working and sweating. It's one of the reasons I'm a fairly healthy (although quite rabid) wolverine, and slugging down that primal fluid quenches me thirsty and gives my sweat glands even more raw materials to work with.

On the other hand, it doesn't take very much of that cool, clear primal fluid to wreak havoc indoors where we don't usually like it to be flowing unchecked. The image above is a perfect example of what happens when even just a few gallons of water seeps out from well-defined copper tubing and into the surrounding area. This particular jailbreak occurred in the vicinity of the water line that feeds our fridge's ice maker, and the nicely-squared hole in the living room wall was my attempt to see if the leak was fixable by yours truly (it wasn't) or would require the expertise of a hired gun (read: plumber, and it did).

So I called the plumber.

He came very-highly recommended and was able to figger out a way to eliminate the leak and re-route the water line from the kitchen so as to avoid running an entirely new line in the attic or jack-hammering the concrete foundation that held the 40-year-old copper line in its cement-y heart.

The leak was discovered by The Artist on a recent Friday morning, so we had to make do with very limited water service over a single weekend until the following Monday when the plumber and his swarthy minion arrived and had their way with our pipes... oooh, baby! Since I had discovered the liquid jailbreak took about 30 minutes to seep from the dark concrete heart and into the harsh light of day, we spent that weekend turning the water main valve on, taking really fast showers while doing the laundry and other stuff requiring water, then shutting it off before the moisture could coalesce into a destructive puddle.

The Artist noted that it felt like we were camping, the having-no-water-at-your-whim reality we shared during those three long, semi-dry days. Honestly, the hardest part was not reflexively flushing le toilette after every use, as we tried to adhere to the concept of "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down".  Long-time California residents will remember that little ditty from drought days of the past.

Overall, with the exception of the carpet/interior/exterior wall repairs and cubic dollars expended for a professional pipe jockey, we both agreed it could have been much MUCH worse.  I've completed most of the restorations and repairs, even re-installing the carpet with some success. I am getting awesome at repairing drywall!

But the liquid jailbreak and subsequent damage and cost isn't the real subject of this essay.

During that semi-dry weekend, I began to realize (duh!) not only how inconvenient it was not to have running water at my beckoned call, but that we 'first-world 'citizens really truly do take this incredible luxury for granted. Just take a dump and flush the poo away. Just turn the handle and brush your canines. Just press the button and your skid-marked undies and vinyl bondage gear are swiftly laundered. Just step in the shower, turn the knob and wash away the buildup of dead skin cells, unidentified crust and leftover ziti from your matted fur.

According to a study completed in the distant past of 2014, nearly 1.6 million of us 'Murricans live in over 630,000 homes that do not have indoor plumbing.  Almost 2.6 BILLION earthlings... that's 39% of the Earth's population... do not have running water in the places they call home.

And I'M the one complaining about one semi-dry weekend.  Sheesh!

The more I began to think about it, I realized what a tenuous web of services we all rely on... water, electricity, natural gas, landline and mobile phones, wi-fi... to get through our normal lives, the stuff of so-called 'civilization'. I reckon it should be no surprise how little regard we offer these luxuries because, well... seems like we've always had them at or fingertips, always known we could wash our paws or grab a cold Bubble Up from the fridge without having to leave the warmth of the pad and trudge out into the wild outdoors. We just take these really important aspects of modern existence for granted, until all of a sudden we don't have them any more.

Try this mental exercise: close your eyes and imagine living in your lovely All-American home for just one week with no running water.  Sure, you still have electricity and natural gas, but you can't flush the crapper or wash your bondage gear or dishes or hands, can't fill a glass to have drink of water or shampoo the spooge from your fur.  No ice ready-made to chill your absinthe, no water to moisten the soil around your hydrangeas.  Can't wash your car or mop the kitchen floor or flush them pesky bloodstains off the back porch.

Nada agua de beber.

This isn't such a radical notion, having a water-less home. The town of Porterville (CA) is suffering terribly from the current West Coast drought because their wells have run dry, and the townspeople are scrambling to find fresh water for their daily use. Here in beautiful SoCal, we don't have mandatory water rationing yet, but my neighborhood has been notified that we are only allowed to water our lawns for 10-minutes a day on three alternating days per week.  I wish my neighbor across the street would pay attention, because she SOAKS her lawn every single night, with excess water streaming off the grass and flooding into the gutters.  What a dumbass.  I would say something to her about it, but she's something of an Amazon and could prolly kick my skinny ass up and down the block and her boyfriend is a biker.

In my own small way, I'm making changes to mitigate water usage in our home, and while it may be a very small amount of savings, I know it makes a difference.  I don't wash down the hardscaping after doing the yards... I only water the yards once a week... I dump excess ice into the bird bath or the garden... we only do full loads of laundry... I turn off the faucet while brushing my teeth or shaving... it all adds up.

But that dependence on the tenuous web of running water still spooks me, still makes me think of all those people without it.  Then I start tripping on how easy it is to take so many OTHER things for granted, things that are even harder to imagine losing but can be devastating when lost.

Like taking a dump.

Forget the water aspect of excretion, I'm referring to the ability to pinch a loaf... launch the Titanic... drop the kids off at the pool.  The very basic and vital ability to evacuate your colon is one of those physical processes that is completely and totally unremarkable and ignored until one loses the ability to do so.

I have a near and dear relative who suffers from a paralytic ileus, where the intestinal muscles become so inactive they prevent food from passing which leads to intestinal blockage... ewwww, sounds like no fun at all. This amazing person has lost over 60 pounds during this awful period because it forces him to cut down on his food intake so as to lessen the blockage, which takes an incredible amount of force to be moved... if it moves at all.

I know I know I know... sounds gross and awful, but remember:  most of us don't even think about taking a dump, we just do.  But when you can't, it becomes a terrible central issue that affects and complicates every other aspect of life. It makes you miserable and hungry and sore and angry and depressed and very very unhappy. If you've ever been in serious pain and taken loads of painkillers, you know what they do to your ability to take the Browns to the Super Bowl.

I use the running water and non-poo-ing only as examples of things we should always appreciate in our daily lives, lives that are chock-full of work and love and angst and busybusybusy.  It's sooo easy to be an unthinking wolverine, never paying attention to the grand luxuries we enjoy while placing unimportant things at the top of our consciousness, letting stupid stuff make us angry or unhappy or upset.  We have so much to be grateful for, the simple pleasures that come with paying taxes and eating right and being healthy and living the lives we do.

When your daily life becomes so intense, so frantic, so filled with impossible tasks that take your breath away, stop and think about the many little luxuries you have at your fingertips.  Revel in the fact that your car tires prolly won't explode on the way home from work because a government agency insures their safe manufacture. Be thankful that you likely don't have to depend on candles to read the next chapter of Howard Zinn's 'People's History of the United States'.  Don't like the meatloaf you were forced to choke down for dinner?  Dump that sucker in the trash and watch with pride as the big truck whisks it away to a far-away landfill that is closer than you think.

People often ask me why I am always in such a good mood, always smiling, always jovial and helpful and upbeat. Am I high or just stupid?  Answer:  I TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED.  I appreciate every large and small and infinitesimal bennie of living in an organized, civilized, tax-paying society. It could be so so so much worse, and for many it is, and I KNOW IT.

Will we have another water leak gurgling up from the slab of our home?  The Magic 8 Ball says 'Chances are good', but I ain'ta gonna worry about it, because I have running water for now and life is sweet and with any luck at all, I will wake up again tomorrow morning with a shit-eating grin on my face, ready to enjoy and appreciate my amazing conscious existence, the only one I'll ever have.

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."  -- Herm Albright

How To Stuff A Wild Taco

Probably the number one Mexican food item that people are familiar with is the taco (tah-co), but as with everything else, one man’s taco is another man’s burrito, or something like that. There are a multitude of taco recipes floating around using either corn or (shudder) flour tortillas, different cooking methods and an equal number of ways to stuff a wild taco.

For many folks, the only taco they know about is the fast-food type sold at Taco Bell or many other joints that hawk pseudo-Mexican food. Those of us lucky enough to live in the Southwest have access to countless small taquerias that sell a traditional style of street taco which features two small corn tortillas filled with meat, salsa and cilantro. Add a couple of slices of fresh radish and a spritz of lime and you are, as they say in the East San Gabriel Valley, ‘having things’.

For this recipe, I’ll focus on the traditional Tex-Mex taco I grew up with, the same style made famous at Manny’s Chile Bowl (now sadly closed) in Paradise, California: corn tortillas, quick deep-fried and then stuffed with tasty ground beef and veggies. The choice to go ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ totally depends on your personal preference, but these ‘soft’ tacos are WAY BETTER than the ones you get at The Crazy Chicken or places like that, where they use steamed corn tortillas and IT JUST AIN’T THE SAME!!!! My choice is always for ‘soft’ tacos, done a la Manny’s.

UTENSILS:
Short stack of cloth kitchen towels (NOT the good ones!), deep fryer, medium size frying pan with lid, various wood spoons, cooking tongs, paper towels, a Dos Equis and thee. If you don't have a deep fryer, BUY ONE... they're really inexpensive and you can then make tortilla chips or funnel cakes with it too! See the end of this recipe for my recommendation (hint: Presto Fry Daddy).

INGREDIENTS:
One (1) dozen fresh (packaged, non-frozen) corn tortillas, ½-lb. Cheddar or Longhorn cheese, vegetable oil, choice of meat (chicken, beef, pork, catfish, wolverine, whatever), lettuce, tomatoes, one (1) can sliced olives, one (1) medium size potato, taco sauce or salsa, fresh avocados if you have them. Note: you can use frozen corn tortillas, which I regularly do. Just pry them apart gently and lay them on a towel on the counter for about 10 minutes, turning them over every so often until they are soft and dry to the touch. They might curl up a bit, but no worries unless they crack and split apart, usually a sign they’ve been in the deep freeze a bit too long. Just make sure they are completely thawed before you drop them in the deep fryer!

WORK STATION:
My kitchen is laid out with a stovetop on my left and sink on my right, with a counter top in between. As I am right-handed, I work from left to right with the cooking and assembly, laying out the utensils with my assembly strategy in mind. I also like to cover the counter area with cloth towels to lessen any spillage mess. Hey, we’re cooking, right?

PREPARATION:
1. Cook your meat, heh heh heh. Now, this can be as simple or complicated as you wish, but for this recipe I’ll go with ground sirloin, browned in a pan and drained. Once returned to the pan, season to taste, shred half of the potato directly into the meat, fold in and simmer over semi-low heat for around 30 minutes, turning every 5 minutes or so until the potatoes have cooked properly (if you're in a time pinch, leave out the shredded potato). Then drop in a can of sliced olives with the water, season to taste again and continue to simmer while you take a swig o’ cerveza and prepare the other ingredients.

2. Grate the cheese, chop the lettuce (julienne-style) and tomatoes and stash in the fridge.

3. Set up the deep fryer on a covered surface and pour in about 1-inch of vegetable oil. Plug in and heat the oil until a small bit of tortilla dropped in will begin to sizzle and cook immediately.

4. Fold two (2) paper towels bi-fold, then fold two more – these will be used to pat-off any excess oil from the cooked tortillas.

5. Confirm your meat is completely cooked and the potatoes are the right consistency. You’ll note the ‘taters are slightly dry, and that is exactly what we want – NO DRIPPY CACA TACOS!!!

6. Set up the taco makin’ station with your cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, hot sauce and spices.

7. Raise your beer in celebration of the most-excellent tacos you are about to create!


(Taco-making sountrack... trust me.)

LET’S MAKE TACOS!!!
1. Using the cooking tongs, immerse one corn tortilla into the oil, allowing it to cook for 5 to 10 seconds, then flip it over and cook for another 5 to 10 seconds. Cooking time may vary depending on how soft or semi-soft you want the tortilla to be. Once done cooking, grab the tortilla and hold it over the fryer to drain off any excess oil. Use care if the tortilla begins to grow a pocket of hot air while cooking – gently poke a small slit in it with the tongs and it will flatten out, but watch out for the hot oil.

2. Place the cooked and drained tortilla onto the paper towel pad you’ve made, place the other paper towel pad on top and gently press down to soak up any excess oil. This is a very important step and will make or break your tacos. NO DRIPPY CACA TACOS!!!

3. Once patted dry, place the tortilla onto a plate and spoon on a heaping helping of taco meat, likely two spoonfuls or so. Make two more tacos just like this for a plate-full, then transfer the plate over to the makin’ station.

4. This part is TOTALLY FREE-FORM. Add the fixings any way you choose, but here’s my style, in order: shake of salt & pepper, a few drops of Pico Pica (my fave hot sauce), a few slices of avocados, lettuce, tomato, cheese, a bit more pepper and some more hot sauce. My wife likes to put some cheese directly onto the meat so it will melt, but that goes against everything I ever learned about making tacos. Or not… whatever. She IS smarter than me, so there’s that.

5. Repeat this process for each plate of tacos. If you have several people to feed for a sit-down meal, make each set of three tacos on a plate, then place them WITHOUT THE FIXINGS into a 200-degree oven to keep caliente until all the tacos are made and ready to be completed. Natch, be sure to use oven-safe plates! Make a few extras, put them on a plate, cover with a towel and stash in the oven for anyone (everyone?) who wants MORE TACOS.

6. Eat your tacos... drink your beer… make more tacos if needed! Oh yes… this will happen.

MEAT VARIATIONS
CHICKEN – this will take a little more advance planning than the ground sirloin. Bake a couple of chicken breasts ahead of time, skin off, dry-seasoned to taste. Once cooked, allow to cool for a bit, then shred the breasts with a fork and place in a small sauce pan over low heat. Simmer while adding your fave hot sauce and season to taste.

PORK – also referred to as carnitas (car-nee-tas), the variations for cooking are immense, but cook your pork roast (NOT CHOPS!!) to your liking, then shred or pull apart and simmer like the chicken method. Wait a minute... maybe pork chop tacos would RULE, so cook some up!

FISH – I don’t like fish tacos… I don’t cook fish tacos… never ate fish tacos when I was a kid… fish tacos are an abomination! That said, cook your White fish filet any way you like for the taco stuffing and don’t say I didn’t warn you (insert evil Vincent Price-style laugh here).

BREAKFAST – of course you can make breakfast tacos! If you’re like us, we can eat brekkie any time of the day or night. Eggs that are fried or scrambled are a natural taco stuffing, then slap some hash browns and cheese in there for good measure. The hard-core taco eaters out there may even want to whip up some huevos y papas con chorizo (scrambled eggs mixed with fried potatos and cooked Mexican chile sausage) and then stuff them in tortillas. ORALE’.

VEGGIE – a surprising taco stuffing that uses whole or refried pinto beans instead of meat can be very satisfying. You can also use seasoned fried potatoes or hash browns.

TORTILLA VARIATIONS
Hard taco shells are tricky to make without a wire deep-fry form, but it can be done. Dip the fresh tortilla into the deep fryer and while it’s cooking, grab one side of the tortilla with the tongs, fold over and hold just off the side that’s cooking. After a bit, turn the tortilla over so the other side is now cooking in the oil and hold the first side up… you’ll see what I mean. Keep doing this until the tortilla holds the desired U-shape and is slightly browned around the edges – this means the tortilla will hold its crispy shape. You could also buy those pre-formed shells from the store, but trust me: they sucko mucho.

Stove-top soft taco shells are really easy to make if you prefer them to the deep-fried style, and I like to vary between the two from time to time. The best way to make them is with a comal (ko-mal) or cast-iron tortilla griddle, which is essentially a raised flat frying griddle… you can also use a regular frying pan with a slick coating. Place the griddle on the stove-top at medium heat and let sit until a drop of water skitters across the surface. Place the tortilla on the griddle for about 10 seconds, turn over and let cook for another 10 seconds. Repeat this process until the tortilla reaches the color and ‘doneness’ you want, then stuff it.

Steamed soft taco shells are typical for fast-food joints and are not my favorite, but will do in a pinch. Take a short stack of corn tortillas, wrap them in a clean kitchen towel, sprinkle the towel with some water and microwave them 20 to 30 seconds, depending on your micro settings. They’ll be smokin’ hot when done, so be careful when removing them from the towel.

Flour tortillas were never meant to be used for taco making, but there are SOME PEOPLE who prefer them for reasons of their own (not me!). If your heart is set on making tacos with (shudder) flour tortillas, DO NOT DEEP-FRY THEM as they will turn crispy on contact with the oil and break as soon as you try to bend or fill them. My suggestion is to use the stove-top method on a comal or heated frying pan, cooking them until they begin to fill with hot air bubbles and start to brown.

Bizarre tangent – when I was a kid, I would take a flour tortilla and a slice of bologna, put each on a gas stove burner and cook them directly over the flame, turning them a few times until both were cooked/burned/charred, place the bologna on the tortilla, roll it up and hork it down. Always left a HUGE mess on the stove and made my Dad real mad… heh heh heh. Is this a taco or a burrito? Believe me when I tell you: the aroma of a slightly charred flour tortilla and bologna is simply awesome.

As with all of my recipes, don’t be discouraged if your first attempt to make tacos doesn’t meet expectations. It just takes a little practice to get the hang of making the meat and frying the tortillas. Having said that, I don’t recommend serving this dish to invited guests unless you’ve already made them a few times for good measure. I’m just sayin’.

I strongly suggest investing in a good deep-fryer like the Presto ‘Fry Daddy’, my weapon of choice. As I mentioned in the enchilada recipe from earlier this year, my first deep-fryer endured almost 15 years of regular use before it conked out, and the replacement cost all of $35 from Wal-Mart. A really good investment!

Be sure to avoid bargain-brand hot sauces or the really thick and chunky styles unless that’s your bag. As an adult, I simply cannot accept anything less than Pico Pica, something my Dad always had on hand and would put on everything he stuffed in his taco hole. I always thought it tasted awful, but time and temperament have changed my taste buds and it is now the only hot sauce I’ll use.

Sooo… I hope you’ll try out this recipe and let me know how it worked for you. The preparation… the cooking… the aromas filling your kitchen… the sounds of hungry wolverines scarfing down the tacos that YOU MADE, all fresh and healthy… it just doesn’t get any better. As the Dalai Lama said, “Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.”

Taco Bone image, muchismas gracias de crunchyroll.com; War 'Nappy Head' video, muchismas gracias de YouTube.