A Salt Tasting: How Do They Stack Up?

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Mary Murphy offers an overview of some of the good stuff, a world away from the nasty salt that most people are exposed to. I am familiar with A, a version of C, E, F, and H. For A, E, and H we purchased large sacks in Guérandeto to encrust a fish on a BBQ. The Canadian version of C I tried was way too pricey and though one can’t ever go wrong with truffle, the quality of the salt used was crap. I think that a truffled version of F could be an interesting experiment. Speaking of F (Maldon) it is probably the easiest to acquire and is well-priced. The test: put a few flakes on the yolk of a sunny side up fried egg and all will temporarily be right with the world. I’ll be on the lookout for some of those on her list that I’m unfamiliar with.

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Deltaphonic’s “See Red” Release Party

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This Sunday get your butt down to D.B.A. for some fan firkin tastic music from the superb Deltaphonic. If you appreciate the sweet spot that is the confluence of all that is good about gritty “outlaw” Americana peppered with many a poetic moment, then this band is for you. I’ve listened to “See Red” a good 20 times now and I’m pleased to report that it’s a worthy follow-up to their brilliant debut “Texas, Texas”. And when you are back home with your copy of “See Red” and “Texas, Texas”, crank up the volume, crack open a bottle and light up. The next morning or whenever you re-enter orbit, crank it up again with your coffee to blow away the lingering fog induced from the previous night’s indulgence. Repeat prescription as and when your soul requires.

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The Gad-father chats to Cynthia Farahat

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Well-worth listening to Cynthia what with the significance of today and recent events in Egypt. Now you don’t need to be an observant Christian to appreciate what she’s on about. But of course, if you are a regressive, despite your proclaimed universalist humanism, you will be oblivious to the fact that Islam does not have a Golden Rule — there is no such thing as humanity! You are still a Kafir and by keeping your head firmly up your own arse, that ain’t gonna afford you any protection — unless of course you SUBMIT. Yes, the duplicitous “religion of peace” self-evidently requires absolute submission. Right now you are a complicitous “useful idiot” in The Grand Deception, led by asinine Pied Pipers such as Trudeau and Khalid.

The Cosimo Code

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To commemorate the birth of Cosimo Matassa here is a newly launched website with everything you wanted to know about the legend and much more. Very nicely done indeed. Unsurprisingly, there is a vital UK connection in cracking the cataloging code and reconstituting the library of recordings, i.e. the obsessive need to track down obscure US records as per Northern Soul.

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Hitch

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens, born on this day. See Christopher Buckley’s memoir in The New Yorker and Graydon Carter’s in Vanity Fair. While the virtue-signaling, cowardly and intellectually dishonest academic fetishizes white supremacy, they perversely ignore the infinitely larger and more pressing issue, that of Islamofacism. These regressive academics (many of them Jews) fulfill the role of “useful idiots”, functional to cultural Jihad. Whereas Mein Kampf has 7% of its text devoted to Jew hatred, across the Koran (Meccan and Medinan), the Sira and the Hadith, an average of 9.3% of the text is dedicated to Jew hatred, not to mention a total of 31% devoted to Jihad and the practical implementation thereof. Most of these apologists are oblivious (ignorant) to the fact that in the eyes of Islam they are Kafirs (كفّار) and as such are subject to being mocked (Koran 83:34), beheaded (Koran 47:4), plotted against (Koran 86:15), terrorized (Koran 8:12), disgraced (Koran 37:18) and more besides (Koran 3:28, 23:97, 33:61).

His journalism, in which he championed the victims of tyranny and stupidity and “Islamofascism” (his coinage), takes its rightful place on the shelf along with that of his paradigm, Orwell.

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Walker Percy Wednesday 131

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Question: During the week following Pearl Harbor, the incidence of suicide declined dramatically across the nation. Was this decline a consequence of
(1) A rise in patriotic fervor and a sense of purpose?
(2) A new sense of interest (e.g., something, even war, is better than nothing. Peace in the 1930s was like nothing)?

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Wednesday. The ex-Premier of France, General de Gaulle, has died and the President of the United States attends his funeral. He looks very solemn and dignified sitting in Notre Dame cathedral. Later he confides to an aide that he enjoys state funerals more than anything he does in Washington or even Camp David because he can relax and let his mind go blank and yet be admired for paying his respects and taking so much trouble when all he has to do is look solemn. And also because there is de Gaulle dead as a duck and here I am alive and kicking.

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There are four possible answers: (a) The news is unrelievedly bad. (b) The news is putatively bad, that is, news which by all criteria should be bad but in which you nevertheless take a certain comfort. (c) The news is unrelievedly good. (d) The news is putatively good, that is, news which by all criteria ought to be good but which you find secretly depressing.

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(b) Putatively bad news but secretly good? The incident somehow dispenses you. The single irrational act of a madman changes the entire state of your life in an instant—from that of an anxious worried businessman in danger of losing a big account, to that of an innocent victim, not only not guilty but also unfailed, a patient who finds himself not only in the peculiar role of hospital patient with its peculiar prerogatives, that of being the passive and blameless recipient of the expert services of highly trained people, but of a certain honorific status as well, better than a business bonus: that of being a kind of surrogate victim for all of us. After all, it could happen to any of us in this crazy world, and here it has happened to you, a highly respected and successful member of the community. You took a round which any of us could have taken.
What is more, you’ll probably get the account for your firm—which in your anxiety you might have lost—without lifting a finger. What corporation would turn you down?
Why did President Reagan feel better after he was shot than he has felt since?

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In a word, how much good news about Charlie can you tolerate without compensatory catastrophes, heroic rescues, and such?

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He believes that world peace can be achieved only by uniting the Western tradition of science and technology and the Eastern tradition of self-transcendence, especially Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.

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Space is scary: “Life” and Walker Percy’s angels and beasts

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It hasn’t gone unnoticed, at least to me, the similar thematic device deployed both by Percy (Lost in the Cosmos) and David Bowie — i.e. the alienated individual with existential concerns. For Bowie there was the recurrent space traveller — “Space Oddity” to “The Man Who Sold the World” to “Ziggy”, through to revisiting Major Tom (“Ashes to Ashes”) and then much later “Slip Away” (“Down in space it’s always 1982”). See Andrew Svenning’s review of some new “space” films from a Catholic perspective.

The Catholic novelist’s account of modern man’s Cartesian divide is remarkably applicable to contemporary sci-fi movies.

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