Masala

The term "curry" is a label for many different stews. As I understand it, curries are based on masalas.

A masala is a blended powder of spices. Evidence of masalas goes back about 5,000 years in, I think, Pakistan.  There are many well-known masalas. 

Tikka masala is a North Indian blend of coriander, cumin, green cardamom, black pepper corn, kashmiri chillies, amchur powder, cinnamon and turmeric. 

Curry powder, invented in the United Kingdom, includes fenugreek and cloves.

Garam masala is used throughout India. It includes black cardamom and bay leaves.

And so on. I am trying to learn. 

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Action

The election of a degenerate to lead America and the West has driven some people away from politics.  As Ken Burns sees it, they have curled into fetal positions.

His observation rests on an assumption that your participation in American partisan politics is what matters. 

Political activity is not what defined Lucretius, Billie Holiday or Laotze. 

Charles M. Blow has written that most of the people who have turned off politics recently, disgusted by the election of Trump, will gradually recover and soon return to the everlasting struggle against stupidity.

Maybe

 

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Back-shooting

Soon the national news will be covering the murder trial of a young fellow who sneaked behind an unarmed businessman in New York and shot him in the back. 

Some old people oppose back-shooting on principle.  

My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather held certain principles. You never hit a woman. You never voted for a Fascist. You never shot a man in the back, if you didn't know him.  

 

The Trump Cabinet

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, as many know, is the observation that some Americans are too stupid to notice they are stupid. They vote against their own interests. They've elected Trump twice. 

In Trump's first term, more rational people, including key Republicans, managed things around the Orange Face in ways that partly mitigated his incompetence and cruelty. The consequence was that Trump got elected again. 

The voters had learned nothing from the first term.

Should we try to mitigate the second-term disaster by opposing his cabinet choices? A few people argue that we should stand aside and let nature take its course.  How else will voters learn?

Americans chose a stupid, degenerate fascist to lead western civilization. He's staffing his cabinet with know-nothing, brain-wormed drunkards.  

Given Trump's choices, innocent people will suffer. Of course, that will happen anyway. 

Disaster--maybe a sweeping climate or economic collapse--seems possible. But no one knows what is coming at us.  

"The future is a curve that is constantly changing."--Wittgenstein

The Dutch

The dutch oven, invented in the Netherlands, was first mentioned in print in 1769. It took several forms, but today it is mostly a large metal or ceramic pot with a tight lid. 

The flat lid was an innovation by Paul Revere. A dutch oven with legs (to stand in the coals) is called a camp oven. 

The Dutch name for the oven is "braadan."

Yesterday two friends dropped by. Susan, an excellent cook, served them spaghetti for lunch. They ate several portions each. 

In the process Susan used three Dutch ovens.  Is that too many? 

Making Things Up

Explanations of when human language first developed have not lent themselves to conclusive testing. Estimates range from two million years ago to fairly recently.  Languages left little trace until we invented writing about 5,000 years ago. 

Our complex language separates us from other mammals.  Humans alone can use language to make things up. We invent belief systems and then believe them. 

Consider the following: animal rights, paper money, the 33 Hindu gods, Portland's governance structure, baseball rules, western civilization, human rights. 

These things exist because we used words to make them up. 

Imbeciles

My wife summed up the weakness of the Democratic Party in one sentence: They don't know how to get the support they need from morons.

Consider a fact. Half of the people in the United States are below average in reasoning skills, and Trump got slightly more than 49% of the national vote. 

I'm not claiming that all Trump voters are idiots, but many are as incapable of sustained rational analysis as a starving bear.   

When I was born (1934) stupid Americans were divided between two major parties. The Republicans had small town Babbitts. The Democrats had Alabama. But, later, as Nixon developed his southern strategy, he gathered most of the stupid voters into one formidable party.

In democracies it is not unusual for resentful dumbbells to ally with the super rich and do combat with the educated middle class. Something like that has happened here. 

This much is clear. To succeed in two years, the Democrats need to win back their fair share of imbeciles. 

The First Law of Stupidity

Carlos Cipolla, an Italian economics historian who taught at Berkeley, wrote "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" in 1976. 

What Cipolla meant by "stupid," my wife would call "irrational." Cipolla did not mean someone slow witted (who might be slow but rational). 

The first law of irrationality, applied to elections, is that we always underestimate the number of irrational voters in circulation. Always.

Irrational people, by definition, make decisions harmful to others and often to themselves. That's how we discover they are irrational. 

For example, a man dependent on social security and Obamacare may vote for candidates pledged to end both programs. A woman may support a sniggering rapist for president. 

The actions of irrational people cannot be predicted or understood by rational people, Cipolla argued. 

Cipolla is not the first to point out that stupid/irrational people do more harm than evil people, who are, at least, predictable.