After yelling that at the TeeVee commentators on the sunday shows who called it everything but, I read Sullivan’s skewering of the pro-torture “enhanced interrogation” crowd’s defense of the indefensible.

Moreover, it is worth pointing out that even if you accept the preposterous notion that waterboarding isn’t torture - something no legal authority in human history ever has before Dick Cheney came along - and even if you accept the amazingly detailed limits that Bradbury placed on the frequency and severity of waterboarding to make it “legal,” even then, we now know that the CIA violated those standards.

Anyone who participated in these war crimes should have the evidence against them weighed and appropriate measures taken. Prosecution for some, embarrassment and professional ruin for others. Let’s start with impeaching Bybee, the sham he put on at OLC should be enough to end his legal career.

I’ve been fascinated with Dubai since they started direct flights from SF and advertising them heavily. At first I thought it was kind of a mid-east Las Vegas: vast stretches of ridiculous urban development in the middle of a desert. I think the reality is much, much different.

Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out.

…

As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don’t like it, the company told him, go home. “But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket,” he said. “Well, then you’d better get to work,” they replied.

Ugh. Just ugh. All this makes me feel extremely fortunate.

So protesting stuff is a matter of tradition in San Francisco. There’s all kinds, from the ones you don’t hear about to the massive market street demonstrations that properly get permits to shut down lanes and allow buses to be rerouted. My favorite/most hated variety are the type that take obscure issues and foist them upon us San Franciscans by preventing us from going home. Bonus points for property damange. The best ones are timed with the 5pm rush hour to inflict maximum pain.

Note: I’m being this specific because I don’t want to conflate any of this with the good kind of public demonstrations, for example, the candle light march at the conclusion of Milk is particularly moving and is very much woven into the fabric of the culture of this city.

So what happened on Monday that cost me 45 mins on the bus ride home? A former Berkeley tree sitter was critically injured when he went to Israel and got hit in the head with a tear gas canister at a pro-Palestinian rally. I feel bad for the dude, clearly he’s passionate about his cause. Without commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I’m pretty clueless as to why it’s necessary to have a rally in San Francisco that stops people from getting home, fucks up people’s cars and assaults some police officers. I’m sure Cricket would be proud of everyone who went out there to inflict misery on the city and beat up some cops and cars. The Israeli police forces will certainly be reviewing their crowd suppression practices after this public outcry.

From the Chronicle editorial board:

Their purpose clearly was not to express ideas, but to interfere with the lives of other people, particularly people with real jobs and places to go. And for some - those who showed up with masks because they planned on breaking the law - the point was to disrupt and intimidate citizens.

I don’t agree with the sneering attitude of the columnist on Monday’s market street demonstration and I think many of her points could have been made more potently had she decided to forgo the smugness and ad hominem name calling. But honestly, who do these people think they are and what do they think we are going to do about the fact that their buddy got fucked up because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Oh well, and Cricket, if you’re out there, I hope it made your day that your friends caused some misery half way around the world on your behalf.

Jill and I just got the first produce box of year (what a friggin’ growing season we have in SF!) and among the goodies were some amazing looking italian parsley, beets, and spring garlic. Spring garlic is the stuff that looks like scallions but tastes like garlic instead of onion. I usually try to substitute the garlic for scallions in recipes with mixed results. This time, fresh off of watching the mayo episode of good eats, I went for the gold. I’ve been hearing the benefits of homemade mayo from all sorts of people and have been dying the try it out, and I have to say, the results were amazing. The recipe below comes from the Two Small Farms website (our CSA).

The mayo comes out with a good dose of garlic flavor, but light and fluffy with a nice rich taste to it. Nothing like the strong flavor of packaged mayo. Put it this way, I happily spread the garlic mayo over toast and thoroughly enjoyed it. In contrast, I’d never eat store bought mayo as the primary flavoring for anything (yuck).

Anyway, here’s the goods. You’ll need a food processor and lots of patience (though it really only takes like 20 minutes to make this).

Ingredients:

• 4 stalks of spring garlic, prepared like a leek (cut the green parts off, and chop the white parts roughly. Don’t worry, it doesn’t take much to get the garlic flavor in there)
• 2 eggs
• 3 tea spoons of lemon juice
• 2 tea spoons of white wine vinegar
• 1 tea spoon of dijon mustard
• 1/2 tea spoon of salt
• 1 1/4 cups of vegetable oil (I used soy oil)

Directions:

Everything but the vegetable oil goes in the food processor and whipped together thoroughly (use the blade attachment). At this point, set the food processor pretty high (I did the ‘puree’ setting) and slowly drizzle the oil in. I mean like painfully slow. In fact, my processor has a food pusher with a tiny hole in it. I filled the pusher and let it drizzle in over the course of about 20 minutes. After the oil is in, let it go for a minute or two and voila! You should have fresh mayo.

I can’t wait to use this stuff on sandwiches and on the leftover mushroom burgers from the other night. In the mean time, I’ve been spreading a thin layer on toast. Yes, it’s that good.

Everything imaginary chess is supposed to be:

No shit. These things taste great. I didn’t come up with the recipe for the burgers, but you can find it here along with a self-help video: Mushroom Veggie Burger.

I actually substituted the white cap musrooms for three big portabellas chopped finely. Other ingredients:

1 1/2 lb mushrooms sliced
1/2 Finely chopped onion
4 minced cloves garlic
2/3 instant oatmeal
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
2 beaten eggs
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Robert’s mods: Portabellas, more black pepper and oregano and 2 tablespoons of worcestershire sauce in the mix. A dusting of garlic salt on the patties before they are cooked.

Make sure you brown those things good and a nice slice of cheddar on a toasted bun with all the burger fixin’s and you’ll have tasty treat.

As for the sweet potatoes***, get the orange kind, peel them and slices them into fry sized pieces. Soak in cold water for 15 minutes. Heat about an inch of oil in pot/pan good for frying. Drain the potatoes and pat them dry. Fry them in small batches for 2-3 minutes at about 325 and pull them out when they’re soft. Bring the temp up to 375 and fry them for an additional 2-3 minutes until they’re browned and crispy on the ends. Drain on a rack and serve! Stick in a 350 degree oven if you’re not ready to eat them. Jill came up with the idea of using sour cream as a dip, and by golly it tasted pretty great.

*** Make sure you know what you’re doing with frying before attempting this. If you don’t know what you’re doing, go watch the “Fry Hard” episode of good eats.

Maybe I’m getting dumber? I was angry at the last two episodes of a “good” TV show, Battlestar Galactica, and picked up a magazine halfway through last week’s episode. Yet I actually managed to watch most of the Bachelor finale when my neighbor (who lacks a TV) wanted to come over and watch it.

Edit: I lack a proper TV category.

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