Social Weekend

After keeping pretty much to ourselves since J was born, we saw lots of friends this weekend. At one point, we had three other adults, none related to us, in our living room. Three weeks ago, we'd never have guessed it could happen. It all worked out great. Thanks, everyone who came over! (and, thanks, of course, to J, who's a great sport about all this)

I do not like Blue Bottle Coffee

for a couple reasons. First, they seem to focus on making an ever-so-smooth-and-subtle blend, while I seem to prefer a more idiosyncratic coffee with particular characteristics that jump out at you. Maybe I should try some of their single-origin coffees..? Except that the one time I tried their Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, it was terrible. The beans were of irregular size and misshapen. My father, who grows coffee in Kona, Hawaii, said, "It looks like our 'number three' - our trash," and the coffee had the strong flavor of artichoke stem.

The other thing I don't like is that they often don't roast their coffee as dark as I seem to prefer. This leaves a light-caramel flavor which I find a bit simple and cheap. I recently got their Bella Donovan, a Mocha-Java type blend which they call one of their darker roasts, and, because of this issue, I tried gently roasting it more in a small skillet. This improved it considerably to my taste.

Oh well, I'll just have to get to Cole Coffee in Oakland when I can. Someone recommended Sweet Maria's, also in Oakland, so maybe it bears investigation.

Escape from the bedroom

A couple days ago, L, J, and I with trepidation made our first venture forth since we brought J home nine days before that. (He's two weeks old today, and doing great.) We went across the Bay to run a couple errands and indulge ourselves: cakes at Crixa, fresh fruit from the Bowl, ribs from Flint's. J handled all this very well although, of course, much of our timing was on his schedule - stopping when he needed to eat, moving when he slept. We were worried he might have a meltdown on the bridge, when there wouldn't be much we could do for him stuck in his car seat, but everything was fine. I'm really looking forward to taking him on mushroom hunts this fall. The rain so far was only 1/3 inch, but maybe that will be enough for some Agaricus augustus to spring up.

The whole GOP meltdown

At least I hope that's what it is. As pretty much everyone is pointing out, there's the National Intelligence Estimate which says that Iraq has set the US back on the "War on Terror", there are the "revelations" in Woodward's new book, and finally, there's the Foley scandal dragging down Speaker Hastert and associated other Republican House leadership. On one hand, all this couldn't happen to more deserving people, but, on the other, I'm dismayed that it's the Foley scandal which is really threatening to turn the House and maybe the Senate to Democrats in the midterm elections in a month. Okay, sure, Foley's behavior and the Republican leadership's covering it up is reprehensible, and I agree that it perfectly highlights how the "party of values" really only cares about power and money and not actually principles and governing. However, what about the real disasters of the Bush admin: invasion of Iraq, loss of New Orleans, Abrahamof / DeLay money laundering, gutting environmental and labor law, regressive tax policy and enforcement, Medicare "reform", inaction on global warming, creating and then doing everything it can to lose the "Global War on Terror"... really the list could go on for pages (no pun intended) -- basically caring about nothing except funneling money to people who are already very wealthy and who will recycle some of that money into the Republican Party coffers. Really, while I'm glad that the Foley scandal dramatizes these character qualities for the public at large, is this really what it takes???

The biggest mystery to me, still, is what took people so long. Why wasn't it evident from day one (or before, as it was to Paul Krugman) that telling the truth is the exception for the Bush admin? Or, if the political class and journalists knew, why didn't they care about the obvious ideological blindness and incompetency of this crew?

My thoughts often return to a former co-worker with whom I carpooled for a while. I tried to tell him before the invasion of Iraq that there were no "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (in quotes because this rubric includes chem and bio weapons as well as nuclear, for no reason that I can understand) in Iraq (thanks, Scott Ritter), that there was no Iraq / Al Qaeda connection (thanks, Czech head of intel and other sources), that the Aluminum tubes were for missiles and not centrifuges (thanks, Oak Ridge National Lab), etc. I tried to tell him I. F. Stone's (not that I know much about him) saying that "All you really have to understand is two words: 'Governments lie.'." I was so obnoxious that he left the carpool, but to no avail. He'd keep saying things like "I think they believe they're doing what's best for the country." And this is someone who self-identified as liberal, who read the Washington Post and the Economist (maybe, you say, that's the problem). I keep wondering what he thinks now, four years later, when all this and more is now conventional wisdom (except for approximately a third of the country!). Does he wish he'd paid more attention to the news, or does he dismiss as coincidence the things I told him then? Does he even remember what I, admittedly rather incoherently, tried to tell him at the time, or does he still go around with his head in the sand, doing nothing and hoping for the best?

Anyway, I hope the Democrats can do something useful when they're back in power, but, judging how they've handled things the last six years, I'm not that optimistic about them, either. I guess I have to take the uncertain success of Democrats over the certain failures of Republicans. I am heartened, though, by things like this.

newest addition

L delivered our son J (name inspired by the street on which we live) on Sept 24th, early morning. They arrived home the following Wednesday night, a week ago. He's regained his birth weight plus a little more, and is a real delight. He's about the most adorable thing we've ever seen. I figure we'd better enjoy the time now while he's cute and innocent and it's pretty easy to satisfy his needs. In some sense of propriety or something, we were hoping he'd arrive after our first wedding anniversary, which was a couple days ago, but we've no complaints.