lummi island wine tasting Oct 3-4 ’25
Hours this weekend: 4-6 pm Friday & Saturday
This week’s wine tasting
Garzon vineyards, Uruguay
Garzon Single Vineyard Albarino ’20 Uruguay $34
Medium-bodied white with dense texture, rich, elegant aromas, and succulent flavors of pineapple, lemon zest, chamomile, sea salt, and stone fruits, with bright, tangy acidity, pleasing creamy texture and deep flavors.
Idilico Monastrell ’22 Washington $19
Known as Mourvèdre in France, Spanish monastrell typically has notes of dark cherry, pepper, and a bit of gaminess, bright acidity, and freshness and low alcohol levels. Fermented on the lees and aged in neutral barrels.
Perrin CdR Rouge Réserve ’20 France $16
Fresh, bright and fleshy GSM Rhone blend shows peppery aromas and flavors of black cherry and raspberry, finishing warm and long. Excellent value!
Economics of the Heart: The Silence of the Generals
https://www.stripes.com/
My first reaction to the Tweetster’s summons of America’s top military leaders from across the planet for a face-to-face meeting with him and so-called SecDef Hegseth was a certain paranoia about security. The way the ongoing Project 2025 coup has been going, with roving gangs of anonymous, masked “ICE agents” rounding up and disappearing thousands of people with no legal process, no records, and no accountability, if you’re not a little paranoid, then you haven’t been paying attention.
So it has been easy to imagine various Maga scenarios comparable to Hitler’s Reichstag fire, where in one act of terrorism his Nazis burned down the building that housed the government, suspended civil liberties, and pursued a “ruthless confrontation” that “removed” enough of the Communists (the opposition party) from government to give Hitler dictatorial control of the entire government and set the stage for the international horror of WWII.
Any sudden gathering in one place of pretty much all of our top military leadership from far-flung positions around the world should raise lots of security alarms. But right now we are already up to our waists resisting a long-planned, targeted assault on our Constitution by a coalition of autistic billionaires and white/racist/sexist/male/neo-Christian/anti-abortion nationalists, as we recently discussed here and here.
It was a relief to see that standard military protocols were intact during what turned out to be more the Tweetster’s audience with the nation’s military leaders, not the other way around. Besides the ongoing wreckage of his moment to moment exposition, he also seemed genuinely puzzled by the absence of his cheering, interactive Maga-Rally groupies. These guys were not his usual puppets, and neither he nor the so-called SecDef was prepared for the formal silence of their audience.
All in all it was reassuring to this graybeard Navy vet to observe the quiet formality of these highly experienced and decorated officers at this bizarre event. One comes away with some tentative confidence that our senior military leadership will continue to prioritize the Constitution and the rule of law over the ongoing coup. Most of these people have served in the military for at least 25 years, studied international politics and institutions, are highly trained and experienced, and are well-briefed on our security around the world.
Their contrast with the mindless nonsense from the Tweetster/Hegseth team is deeply encouraging.
See, for example, this thoughtful analysis by Moira Donegan in The Guardian.
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