Butter a metal loaf pan. Mix 1 1/3 cups of coarse yellow cornmeal, 1 cup of flour, 1/3 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, 9 tablespoons melted butter, and one beaten extra-large egg. Add this to the dry ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until well blended. Let it sit for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Pour the batter into the loaf pan. Bake about 40 minutes. Let it rest in the pan for 5 minutes then remove from the pan and let it cool on a rack.

Tags: recipes & food by Jessica Alfreds
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I recently returned from a four-day road-trip (with my nephew Noah and his parents, traveling separately) to some of the Civil War battlefields. It’s a pilgrimage I’ve made more than once over the years, a way of embracing both nature and history. (Those blood-drenched meadows look terrific in the spring.) Done right, it can almost feel like time-travel.

Confederate cemetery at Appomattox

[Read more →]

Tags: education, ends & odd, race & culture, terror & war, travel & foreign lands by Jeff Scheuer
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In the most recent issue of Action Comics, the fictional superhero character Superman, who flies around in a blue leotard with red underwear on the outside and a big red cape, renounces his US citizenship.

The key scene takes place in “The Incident,” a short story in Action Comics #900 written by David S. Goyer with art by Miguel Sepulveda. In it, Superman consults with the President’s national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to non-violently support the protesters demonstrating against the Iranian regime, no doubt an analogue for the recent real-life protests in the Middle East. However, since Superman is viewed as an American icon in the DC Universe as well as our own, the Iranian government has construed his actions as the will of the American President, and indeed, an act of war.

Superman is going to finally take a real stand. At the UN.

Superman made his first appearance in the first issue of Action Comics in 1938. Since that time, the United States government has rounded up and jailed people because of their Japanese heritage, dropped atomic bombs on Japan, knowingly infected Guatemalans with STDs to study their effects, fought against the civil rights of its own black citizens, entered the Vietnam war based on the “Gulf of Tonkin” lie, used chemical warfare against the Vietnamese, provided millions of dollars to Middle Eastern dictators in the name of “stability,” and fought a “war on drugs” that allows government agents to break into peoples’ homes and is directly causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people all over the world every year. Our current president has engaged the United States in yet another war in the Middle East, and claims to have the power to kill US citizens without a trial. And that’s just off the top of my head. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
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Tags: politics & government, travel & foreign lands by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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So what else happened Wednesday? Believe it or not, there was a tiny smudge of good news revealed at another of the historical firsts that are coming so fast and furious that the day’s incidence of historical firsts is itself a historical first. This first was the first ever press conference by the Federal Reserve. Sure, you’ve seen Ben Bernanke on the news before squawking about this or that but this was the first time the Fed apparatus has ever had a presser just like Barack Obama or Orly Taitz where it is convened for the communication of specific info with questions attending. This might seem to be a rather threadbare “first” until you understand that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and even the dozens of lesser figures who make monetary decisions have a power to influence markets that, believe me, they often wish they did not. The business press is always rumbling with the seismic analysis of Bernanke’s footsteps. How does he look? Chipper? Dour? Conscious? Did he get the thai chicken or a steak? Is he out shopping for new suits? Custom? Please god, tell me he’s not buying off the rack!

Fortunes are made and lost by the labors of the business paparazzi because Bernanke’s whims make dollars worth more, or less. Overnight. Like Midas, he turns things to gold. And also kills. [Read more →]

Tags: money, politics & government by Ken Watson
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Economics has long been referred to as the “dismal science” because, well, most people find it all so dry. Some creative economists over at George Mason University and elsewhere are challenging that view and having a little fun making rap videos full of economic lessons. I’ve linked the most recent installment below.

Granted, if you’re completely clueless of the arguments they’re making, a lot won’t make sense, but they’re fun to watch regardless.

Fight of the Century: Keynes vs Hayek (Rd 2)

Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Jay Baldwin
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Last Snow, Eric Van Lustbader’s new political thriller, picks up right where First Daughter left off.  Edward Carson is now the President.  First daughter, Alli, is recovering from her kidnapping ordeal, and Jack McClure is still talking to his dead daughter. The President is in Russia, negotiating an arms deal, when an important administration ally turns up dead. President Carson is counting on Jack to untangle a web of lies and keep Alli safe — which would be easier if he had some idea who was after them. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
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The racist loons infesting the Republicans and the Republic have truly achieved a frightening prominence. Consider these impolite and impolitic questions they are raining upon our beloved President:

First they demand a Full Name… FULL! With the middle, any suffixes, prefixes, titles, assignments, hyphenations… the full boat. The date of birth, place of birth and social security number. This the President must supply without fail. This may not seem too audacious but just you wait.

Then they demand a listing of all relations, living and deceased and their citizenship status. Stepfathers and mothers are as requisit as those who actually contributed a chromosome. The President’s well known herd of half brothers and sisters left by his father across every land and nation you could name is attacked, obviously and maliciously with this outrageous inquisition.

Then these freaks go from deranged to depraved with the following demands: [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, race & culture by Ken Watson
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I was in Washington, D.C. recently on a family vacation. At the Smithsonian American History Museum we saw a display of large model ships. A black woman was pointing out the cargo hold in one of the ships to her daughter, telling her about how slaves were transported in the ships and how terribly human beings treated fellow human beings. Next to them, not five feet away, and without any apparent awareness of the Gulag or a wall people risked being shot to climb over, an ignorantly hip white boy-man of about 19 was wearing this shirt.

Tags: fashion & clothing, politics & government by Scott Stein
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The other night, I caught the last hour of a movie masterpiece on TV: Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men. It is an inspiring film to watch, in and of itself, and it is full of that 1950′s mixture of sinewy intellect and bongo-driven, twelve-tonal avant-gardeness. It is a film that simultaneously, as much of the art of that period did, praises and condemns the register of human action and tendency. 

But the old stream-of-consciousness kicked in when I again saw Lee J. Cobb, the disgruntled father who wants a young man to hang as a result of his own feelings against his own rebellious son. Seeing Cobb made me think of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in which he played the first Willy Loman. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, creative writing by Chris Matarazzo
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