Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Rec: Santa Fe Wraps

12 oz. ground beef (or turkey)
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) Diced Tomatoes
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 can (15 1/4 oz.) Whole Kernel Corn, drained
1 pkg. (3 oz.) cream cheese, cut up
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
6 (8 inch) flour tortillas


Brown meat in large skillet; drain. Stir in undrained
tomatoes, chili powder and cumin. Bring to boil; reduce
heat. Simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes. Stir in corn,
cheese and jalapeno; stir until cheese melts. Spoon
mixture onto tortillas and roll up or fold. Serve with
shredded lettuce, shredded Cheddar cheese and salsa,
if desired.





Serves 4 to 6
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Deano Sez: Pioneer One

I can't think of a better excuse to install a Torrent client....

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Thought For Today

"Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude." - Dr Martin Luther King

The Hard Truth From Orlando

Re: Seattle Police Officer Ian P. Walsh who punched the
17-year-old girl so squarely in the face when she physically
interfered with the restraint of another girl being detained
for jaywalking: GOOD SHOT! I bet that young woman has
gotten away with that nasty behavior all of her life. Maybe
she’s finally learned she’s not immune to what she’s been
used to dishing out. But probably not, with the majority of
the urban African American community doing what it
always does – supporting self-defeating, anti-social
behavior instead of chastising it. She’s bound to think
she’s some kind of victim, instead of a perpetrator of a
criminal act.

The National Urban League, formerly the National League
on Urban Conditions among Negroes (according to Wikipedia)
and allegedly a non-partisan civil rights organization that
advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial
discrimination in the United States, has of course denounced
the punch in the face of the girl as an “over-reaction” on the
part of the officer. They’re all for educating the white
community to recognize institutional discrimination and to
hold those in authority accountable for their behavior and
policies towards the members of the non-white community.
For them, it’s always about how their portion of the community
is being treated and never about how their behavior is creating
the very reaction they decry.

I’m always kind of amazed that organizations like this don’t
work on educating the people they purport to represent how
to behave in public places and when confronted by persons in
authority. If this organization wants to claim that a Caucasian
girl wouldn’t have been arrested for jaywalking, wouldn’t have
been punched in the face, they’re probably right. Most
Caucasian girls don’t immediately get loud, vicious, and
violent and show both lousy upbringing and poor social skills
when confronted by an officer. It’s not routinely part of
“white” American culture to get violently confrontational
with law enforcement and while “non-white” American
communities have a different history with law enforcement
in this country, modern law enforcement also reacts
differently based on ongoing experiences in those
communities.

What would be the difference in a situation like this, a trivial
little jay-walking offense? A white-bread, middle class girl
would probably ask what she did wrong if stopped – and in
a normal speaking tone, sans profanities. She would show
her ID if requested. She would most likely apologize for her
transgression, even if she didn’t know she was doing wrong.
The police officer would then probably write her a citation or
let her off with a warning. Would he do it just because the girl
is white? No. He does it because she behaved in a civilized,
compliant fashion – and not like some shrieking, ignorant
harpy who’s presenting a very real, continuing physical
threat to the officer and the community by her behavior.

The officer was there enforcing the law because obviously
there had been a complaint about persons jaywalking –
which if you live in an urban area in certain neighborhoods,
the pedestrians like to stroll in groups through the streets,
playing chicken with motorized traffic. And if you confront
them about blocking traffic, they take it as an excuse to go
bug-nuts on you – like it’s your fault they’re blocking traffic,
endangering themselves and others. And that’s what these
girls did because that’s what’s expected in their community.

So the officer confronts the girls about jaywalking, and they
do what too many African Americans have been trained to
do and that is go immediately stupid, loud and violent. And
what could have been a simple warning or citation (which
would probably be dismissed in court it’s so trivial) becomes
a felony arrest for resisting with violence, battery on a law
enforcement officer, interfering with an officer in the
performance of his duty. And I’m sure if the girls had
gotten a little crazier and escalated their resistance to an
outright attack on the officer instead of a strong shove that
resulted in a retaliatory punch, one or both of them might
have been shot or Tased – and not for jaywalking, but for
endangering a law enforcement officer in the performance
of his duty.

The Urban League should get its collective heads together
and quit protecting community scofflaws because they
happen to be the same color and get serious about a
campaign to get their communities into civil, legal and
behavioral compliance with the rest of polite society.
They need to quit promoting a culture of resistance to
persons in authority simply because they ARE in positions
of authority, because until they do, the Urban League is
part of the problem, NOT a tool for the solution.


Florida Cracker

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Rec: Crawfish Pie

1 medium onion, diced
1 lb coarsely chopped crawfish tails
1/4 cup minced green onion
1/4 cup minced parsley
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
2 diced celery stalks
1/2 teaspoon red pepper
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 cup milk
1 10 inch double crust pie plate


Saute onions, garlic, bell pepper and celery in butter until
limp. Add tomato sauce, crawfish and parsley. Cook slowly for
10 minutes. Turn off heat. Add bread crumbs, salt, pepper, egg
and milk mixing well. Pour into crust and bake 35 to 40 minutes
in a preheated 350 degree oven.

Serves 6
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave or enjoyed cold

Friday, June 11, 2010

The Thought For Today

"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off." - Colin Powell

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Thought For Today

"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." - Edmund Burke

The Hard Truth From Orlando

The family of Mexican youngster Sergio Adrian Hernandez
Huereka, 15 years old, are mourning the loss of their son, who
apparently put himself in harm’s way when he and some
buddies decided to hang out near the border between Mexico
and the U.S. and throw stones at U.S. Border Patrol officers
apprehending persons crossing over the border illegally into
the U.S. A U.S. Border officer shot back when the
rock-throwing didn’t stop and Sergio died. That’s the
simple situation as reported. An unsupervised kid was
where he wasn’t supposed to be, doing what he shouldn’t
have been doing, and he died for it. It was an entirely
preventable tragedy.

But the political and legal fall-out and cross-agency finger
pointing from this incident of teenage stupidity might go
on for months, if not years. President Calderon publicly
deplores the increasing violence being exercised against
Mexican citizens who illegally cross into the United States,
but he and his government do little or nothing to stop his
citizens from routinely breaking U.S. law and the conditions
of treaty between his country and the U.S.

There’s not going to be a quick-fix for this in the big
picture. Border Agents are the first line of defense against
the drug lords of Central America and the tidal wave of
illegal immigrants who are flooding the U.S. social support
systems and draining tax dollars from a system to which
they were never entitled. And lest we think we’re alone in
fighting a battle against hordes of immigrants for which we
were not prepared, one needs only to look at the news out
of Europe ’s impending elections. There are two big issues:
economy and the underpinning immigrant flood into the
industrialized nations with the inherent problems of
under-employment, cultural clashes, poor education,
poverty, crime and the drain on social services. Gosh,
that sounds familiar.

But the root of the problem is decades of non-enforcement
of immigration laws by the federal government. This has
given rise to the porous Mexican/American and Canadian/
American borders, the casual disregard for local law
enforcement and the hitherto nearly nonexistent
consequences of violating those laws. But what we have
now is the backlash of local communities’ law enforcement
against federal non-response in the form of Arizona’s law
(with other states following suit) and local municipalities
paying to have their officers cross-certified to enforce
immigration laws and not have to wait on ICE or Border
Patrol when an illegal immigrant is apprehended in their
community. The so-called Tea Party movement is
galvanizing to support Arizona ’s call to immigration
enforcement and federal response is to increase security
and personnel along the borders.

Well, in the words of the old song, it’s tightening up time.
We can anticipate confrontations and violence increasing as
we tighten up border security. And resistance is inevitable
in the face of near non-existent enforcement for so many
years, where complacency and disregard were the norm for
generations. No one likes it when they have to change what
they’ve taken for granted. Things aren’t going to get better
for a long while; they will get worse.

But for those of us at Ground Zero, who live with the dirt and
grit on the ground reality, we can keep ourselves and our
families safer by practicing some very basic concepts, like
not going where bad things are happening, knowing where
your children are and what they’re doing. Sergio – well,
he’s paid the price for being more testosterone than brains,
like the rock-throwing adolescents in Palestine who become
casualties of Israeli bullets, like the rock-throwing rioters in
Thailand , the street-roaming kids in inner-city U.S. of A
– and on and on and on.

Mothers, if you cherish your sons, keep them home. Lead
and live the example for your children. Kick their butts if
you catch them putting themselves in opposition to law
enforcement, hanging out with idiots, and make it clear
you are NOT on their side when they deliberately put
themselves in confrontational situations. Be a parent now
and you’ll live to see yourself a grandparent, and let the
politics sort itself out.


Florida Cracker

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

The Thought For Today

"In Germany, they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists but I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time nobody was left to speak up." - Reverend Martin Niemoeller, Dachau, 1944

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Rec: Quick And Easy Stuffed Peppers

2 large red bell peppers, halved and seeded
1 (8 oz) can stewed tomatoes, with liquid
1/3 cup quick-cooking brown rice
2 tablespoons hot water
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed and drained
1/2 (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese



Arrange pepper halves in a 9 inch square glass baking dish.
Cover dish with plastic wrap. Poke a few holes in the plastic
wrap for vents, and heat 4 minutes in the microwave, or
until tender. In a medium bowl, mix tomatoes and their
liquid, rice, and water. Cover with plastic, and cook in the
microwave for 4 minutes, or until rice is cooked. Stir green
onions, corn, kidney beans, and red pepper flakes into the
tomato mixture. Heat in the microwave for 3 minutes, or
until heated through. Spoon hot tomato mixture evenly
into pepper halves, and cover with plastic wrap. Poke a
few holes in the plastic to vent steam, and heat in the
microwave 4 minutes. Remove plastic, sprinkle with
Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese, and allow to
stand 1 to 2 minutes before serving.



Serves 2 to 4

Rec: Hasty Lasagna

1 can/bottle (15 1/2 oz.) spaghetti sauce with meat
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1 package lasagna noodles (6 oz.) cooked and drained
1 cup cream style cottage cheese
1 package (6 oz.) sliced Mozzarella cheese


Combine sauce and oregano in bowl. In a greased (Pam'd)
baking dish alternate layers of noodles, cottage cheese,
Mozzarella and sauce, using sauce as top layer. Microwave
12 to 15 minutes on MEDIUM-HIGH until center is heated.

Serves 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave

Rec: Basic Microwave Risotto

3 tablespoons butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup uncooked Arborio rice
3/4 cup white wine (or white grape juice)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese



In a 3 quart casserole dish combine butter, garlic and
onion. Place dish in microwave and cook on HIGH for
3 minutes. Place vegetable broth in a microwave safe
dish. Heat in microwave until the broth is hot but not
boiling (approximately 2 minutes). Stir the rice and
broth into the casserole dish with the onion, butter
and garlic mixture. Cover the dish tightly and cook
on HIGH for 6 minutes. Stir wine into the rice. Cook
on HIGH for 10 minutes more. Most of the liquid should
boil off. Stir the cheese into the rice and serve.



Serves 3 to 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be carefully reheated in microwave