Sunday open chat: three things that fascinated me this week
justice, fish and dogs, oh boy
three things that crossed my path this week and I have to share them.
1. what even is justice
“what even is justice?” is the topic of this week’s You’re Wrong About podcast. what is justice? how does society define justice? how should society define justice? podcast host Sarah Marshall and her guest Amanda Knox talk about what the American legal system claims to be for, what it’s actually doing, and what might be possible in the future.
seriously, I was glued to my … earbuds? (note: we need a new cliché here.)
2. mojama
this week, we took a friend out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. I ordered a pasta dish that included mojama. I had no idea what mojama was and had no idea what to expect.
lo and behold, mojama is a Spanish cured and salted tuna and holy shit, it’s delicious.
when I got home, I had to find out more:
Deeply salted and richly flavored, mojama (pronounced mo·ha·ma) is a favorite on any tapas menu. But it's not as ubiquitous as jamón, cheese, olives, croquetas, calamares fritos, or garlic prawns and you won't find it everywhere in Spain. It's a favorite in the south of Spain, where they've been making it the same way for centuries, as per Epicurious. This lean tuna undergoes a traditional curing process that leaves it with a complex salty umami flavor that so rivals ibérico ham that it has been nicknamed, "the jamón of the sea."
3. german shepherds
last night, I was watching a silent film from 1925 (yeah, I’m a weirdo) called Clash of the Wolves. it’s about a pack of wolves and yadda yadda who cares. the plot is not important.
but as I’m watching, it dawns on me that these very-well-trained wolves are not wolves at all. in fact they’re german shepherds (I guess audiences in 1925 were easily fooled), and they’re really well-trained. doing stunts. hitting their marks. acting. (in fact the lead wolf was played by none other than Rin Tin Tin.)
so I googled and fell down a german shepherd rabbit hole (wut) and now I know more than I need to about german shepherds. such as, the breed dates from 1898. and Hitler liked them way too much.
so today’s open chat questions is: what fascinated you this week? what cool thing did you learn about? read any good books? watch any good tv? what floats your boat?
your turn. go.
What fascinated me this week was how the rule of law doesn’t apply to republikkkans but does to everyone else. What’s frightening is my undergrad degree was in history and history shows us where this behavior goes. My disgusting rep Stefanik is leading this parade. My 84 year old mother is terrified the bloviating, twice impeached, indicted, insurrectionist will wrangle his way back into office. I don’t think I could endure that ever again. I was sick for five years over this. We would leave. Probably Canada.
What caused me a great deal of irritation this week was listening to talking head commentators bloviating ad nauseam about Alvin Bragg and his case. None of them knew jack shit, yet they speculated and speculated. That was followed by the disgusting, cowardly GQP rushing to TFG's defense to put me in a crabby mood after my being elated about his indictment. Or his indicated -- isn't that how the stable genius spelled it?