lummi island wine tasting sept 17 ’25
Hours this weekend: 4-6 pm Friday & Saturday
…September colors across the street and reefnetting gear in Legoe Bay
This week’s wine tasting
Valminor Albarino Rias Baixas ’22 Spain $23
Straw yellow-green color; rich nose of mandarin orange, lime apricot, and peach; floral notes of orange blossom and white flowers with fresh, lively, and full-bodied palate, good structure, well-integrated acidity, decadent, smooth unctuousness.
Angeline Cab Sauv ’23 California $16
Fruit-forward with aromas of lush cherry, cassis, rich cherry, and plum flavors with hints of vanilla and soft oak that over-deliver for the modest price.
Shatter Grenache Vin de Pays des Côtes Catalanes ’19 France $19
From Old Vines in Roussillon’s black schist soil; nose of dark fruit with a hint of espresso; velvety texture with black currant, spice and cured meat flavors with a touch of coffee; firm structure, supple tannins, excellent acidity and overall balance.
Wine of the Week: Shatter Grenache Côtes Catalanes ’19 France $19
The wine is made from grenache grown in vineyards located near Maury in the Roussillon region of Southwest France by California winemaker Joel Gott. As it turns out, we were lost for a bit in this very area about ten years ago. We were staying in Lagrasse, at the northern edge of the Corbieres wine region, and drove south through the rugged landscape where centuries ago the heretic Cathars had fortified themselves in remote mountain fortresses to practice their particular form of Catholicism. It’s a long, sad, and brutal story.
As we moved into Roussillon, we found ourselves on a narrow dirt road winding through farmland when the road took a sudden dip onto a Very Narrow one-lane “bridge” close to the water over a narrow canal and with no guard rails, and from our vantage point no clear sense of where it went after that. Eventually we got up the nerve to cross it, and within a half mile came to a major highway along the boundary between Corbieres and Roussillon very close to Maury.
The area is known for its nutrient-poor schist soil which forces vines to grow deep to find nutrients, evoking concentrated flavors. The name Shatter and the bottle photo are an homage to the shattered schist soil. All in all, pretty tasty! We found a handful of bottles in the cellar which will probably disappear quickly!
Economics of the Heart: Project 2025 and the Seven Mountains Mandate
Charlie Kirk, as it turns out, had been playing a pivotal role in Project 2025 to replace American democracy with a particularly racist, sexist form of White Christian feudalism for a couple of years. As laid out in detail in the forthcoming (Oct 1) Seven Mountains Mandate (SMM) by Matthew Boedy, an English professor at the University of North Georgia, Kirk had been the key operative in recruiting students around the country.
Boedy makes the case that Kirk modeled his Turning Point USA as a strategy to take over all of the seven key spheres of influence: Education, Government, Religion, Family, Business, Media, and Entertainment–pretty much everything human beings do. The SMM has become especially influential in the New Apostolic Reformation, a loose network of charismatic, Christian nationalist churches with their own self-proclaimed prophets.
All of this ties in perfectly with the 50-yr machinations of the Heritage Foundation, which authored thousands of pages of legislation passed by Republican Presidents since Reagan. Project 2025 is a comprehensive blueprint for ending American democracy and replacing it with a “Christian” state unaffiliated with any known Protestant religion. On the contrary, it has all the earmarks of every authoritarian government: to stay in power indefinitely, have low tolerance for dissent or disagreement, and to accumulate vast personal wealth. Think Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Hirohito’s Japan, Franco’s Spain. In a certain sense, autocracy is the new feudalism, the default setting for any nation where power and wealth are concentrated in very few hands.
Here in America the current coup has been decades in the making by a handful of multi-billionaires who have been playing a very long game to get to this moment. They got their foot in the door with Reagan, who passed most of their proposed legislation, including in particular doing away with the FCC rule requiring all sides of any broadcast, and cemented their position by loading the Supreme Court with business-friendly Catholic Justices who do what they are told.
The 2025 political climate is changing how people relate in lots of ways. This article in the Guardian creeps around the mind games now happening at the high school level as many boys are leaning more to the right, and girls to the left. That makes many girls, who are more liberal than today’s boys, feel uncertain about the current politics of conversation, sensing social pressure to remain passive in the face of offensive remarks. The private tensions caused by the growing authoritarianism are seeping into social fears and behavior at every age.
Another harbinger of the moment is the recent blowback against comedy host Jimmy Kimmel for a brief comment about Charlie Kirk’s onstage murder in Utah. The Producers Guild of America said in a statement on Instagram: “Free speech is fundamental to our democracy…late-night television has long been a space where satire and commentary contribute to our national dialogue. We believe that artistic expression is essential, and that critical voices must not be silenced.” It is, of course, classic Republican Hypocrisy to accuse Dems for occasionally doing what R’s do habitually.
And then, of course there is still the ongoing matter of warrantless arrests and disappearing of foreign citizens who have appropriate documentation to be in the US. This brief video shows a young Turkish woman, attending Tufts University as a doctoral student, being detained by ICE in Boston and immediately flown to detention in Louisiana with no due process. video link (scroll to bottom)
lummi island wine tasting Sept 12-13 ’25
Hours this weekend: 4-6 pm Friday & Saturday
Two old watches I posted on the Blizard Trail charm pole some while back…
now they’re gone!! Is that legal???
This week’s wine tasting
Cloudlift chardonnay ’22 Washington $28
Scents of honeysuckle, sweet lemon curd, and pear drift out of the glass, with mouth watering acidity carrying flavors of crisp green apple and pear with a burst of lemon zest on the finish.
Wolftrap Red ’24 South Africa $14
Consistently appealing aromas and flavors of ripe plum, red currant, violets, Italian herbs and exotic spices; vibrant flavors of dark berries and spicy plum with hints of orange peel that linger on a juicy finish. Terrific value!
Alain de la Treille Chinon Cab Franc ’22 France $21
From Loire valley’s alluvial gravel & yellow limestone terraces cultivated along the Vienne for five generations; offers complex minerality and juicy, spicy flavors that dance from plum to cassis, game, earth, and tobacco, all with a delicacy that speaks of the village’s cool conditions.
Economics of the Heart: Maggits Go Full “Reichstag Fire”
Yesterday’s very public murder of 31-yr old Republican activist Charlie Kirk has focused global attention on the growing violence in American politics. Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at a well-attended event on the campus of Utah Valley University near Salt Lake City. Kirk had been a Republican activist for about two years, and had been quite effective at building Maggit support among college students.
Almost immediately the usual Republican pundits starting accusing Democrats for the escalation of violence and calling for Maga-retaliation. Remember, these are the same guys who cheered the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol, the warrantless arrests and “disappearing” of tens of thousands of asylum-seeking immigrants, the deployment of the National Guard to LA, and the Tweetster’s threat to do the same in Chicago and other “Blue” cities in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
All of this closely mimics the actions of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in February 1933. Just four weeks after Hitler managed to make himself Chancellor of Germany, an arsonist attack on the Reichstag building, which housed the German Parliament, was burned to the ground. Hitler blamed the fire on the Communists (the opposition party to the Nazis), suspended civil liberties, and pursued a “ruthless confrontation” that “removed” enough of the Communists from government to give Hitler complete control of the entire government and set the stage for WWII.
Fast forward to today: Project 2025 is the Maggit Reichstag fire. The Tweetster is the Maggit wannabe Hitler. A bunch of white male “high-functioning” autistic billionaires are putting up the money and giving the orders. And the United States is being ripped apart a nickel at a time by a Cabinet and a Republican-controlled Congress of gutless sycophants.
The Rise of Political Violence in the US.
As we have seen over and over since January, Congressional Republicans have quietly capitulated to the Tweetster’s authority over them and Project 2025’s detailed plan for turning the United States into an Authoritarian dictatorship. They are drastically changing economic rules to make the richest men in the world even richer, the poorest even poorer, the environment more toxic faster, and putting a “Closed” sign on our influence on the international economy. And all of this has been unfolding right before our eyes since 2015, as described in considerable detail in Rachel Kleinfeld’s very detailed 2021 and 2024 studies of the subject. She is a widely published and highly respected researcher with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the two articles listed here provide a detailed analysis of the rise of political violence in wealthy democracies. The abstract of the 2021 paper begins with this:
“Recent alterations to violent groups in the United States and to the composition of the two main political parties have created a latent force for violence that can be 1) triggered by a variety of social events that touch on a number of interrelated identities; or 2) purposefully ignited for partisan political purposes. This essay describes the history of such forces in the U.S., shares the risk factors for election violence globally and how they are trending in the U.S., and concludes with some potential paths to mitigate the problem.”
She identifies two subgroups most prone to far-right political violence. The first consists of white Christian evangelical Republicans, who portray Democrats and cultural elites as Satanic forces arrayed against Christianity and seeking to harm Christian children. “They often hold jobs, are married, and have children. Those who attend church or belong to community groups are more likely to hold violent, conspiratorial beliefs.4 These are not isolated “lone wolves”; they are part of a broad community that echoes their conspiratorial beliefs in a Q-Anon conspiracy.
The second subgroup consists of those who feel threatened by either women or minorities, and are particularly concerned that the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast” that they “may have to use force to save it.” The article describes in detail what is essentially a broad sort of existential paranoia that their “traditional values” are being taken away and a resultant willingness or even compulsion to use any means to stop them including murder.
We have seen over the past eight years how the Maggit false narrative media machine speaks directly to this kind of socio-religious paranoia. It has been deliberate and well-planned, beginning with the elimination of broadcast requirements to present all sides of every story, taking religious control of Congress and the Supreme Court, and turning our country from a democracy to some dystopian Christian nightmare.
lummi island wine tasting Sep 5-6 ’25
Hours this weekend: 4-6 pm Friday & Saturday
mountain ash in summer bloom
This week’s wine tasting
Decoy Sauv Blanc ’23 California $16
Fresh, with aromas of citrus, white nectarine, yellow apple and orange blossom; flavors of tangerine, apple, white peach, grapefruit and white pepper with a crisp finish.
Paul Buisse Cab Franc ’23 France $16
Alluring nose of red cherry, black plum, raspberry and pomegranate; notes of pear and lilac on the palate, crisp, stony finish.
Torbreck Woodcutters Shiraz ’21 Australia $26
Succulent, rich aromas of dark berries and black plum with notes of sandalwood, rosemary and thyme;
soft tannins and structured, voluptuous mouthfeel adds the poise and piquancy expected from this winery.
see more on Torbreck:
Economics of the Heart: Vets Mobilize Against Unlawful Orders
Vets serving the People and the Constitution
Last week we argued that it was illegal for the Tweetster to call up National Guard units or other active duty military personnel in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. It was enacted to prohibit Federal military forces from being misused as domestic police forces to enforce Jim Crow laws in former and proposed “slave states.” Written specifically to maintain local civilian control over the military and protect personal liberties, it reflects the Constitutional commitment to maintain civilian control over the military at all times.
So it was with a great sense of hope and possibility that last night we stumbled upon this broadcast, in which “About Face: Veterans Against the War,” a national group of dedicated v
offers considerable support to both currently active military and vets, including this:
“If you are a National Guardsperson or active duty member of the military looking for a way to report concerning incidents and conditions or for peer/legal support regarding your options in response to moral, ethical, and legal implications of your situation, fill out the encrypted form below.”
And this:
“Veterans won’t stand idly by while Trump slashes our benefits and uses the National Guard and Active Duty military to act out his dictator fantasies at our expense by violently crushing protests and kidnapping our neighbors. From DC, to LA, to the Southern Border and Gaza – vets are coming together to condemn the militarization of our communities that is killing us at home and abroad!”
lummi island wine tasting Aug 29-30 ’25
Hours this weekend: 4-6 pm Friday & Saturday
This week’s wine tasting
Decoy Chardonnay ’23 California $16
Blended from several CA central coast vineyards; aromas of sweet mandarin orange and white peach; juicy and vibrant palate of tropical fruit flavors with a hint of oak from its time in barrel.
Tenuta Sant’Antonio Monti Garbi Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore ’21 Italy $21
Spicy and intense, with hints of crushed ash and smoky black cherries; silky texture and pure, with notes of sour wild berries and salty minerality; long, energetic, spicy finish of blackcurrant & mocha,
Idilico Tempranillo ’21 Washington $19
Aromas of leather, forest floor, and balsamic notes wrapped around a core of red fruit, notes of fresh dried herbs, sweet spice and red currant; medium bodied with juicy mouthfeel, soft tannin, and a lingering finish.
Ripasso Explained
Valpolicella, the dominant red table wine of the Veneto region, is a blend of Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara grapes. The thick-skinned corvina varietal is also central to the apassamiento process by which the elegant table/dessert wine amarone is made, beginning with 100 days of drying (raisining!) the best grapes before pressing them. After pressing, the dried grape skins remain in contact with the juice-that-becomes-amarone through fermentation.
However, because the sugars are so concentrated in the raisined grapes, the skins still contain plenty of sugar and flavor, and can be used several more times. The amarone is left to age in barrels for several years before bottling, and the residual must is used several more times to make ripasso (“passed through again”), a delicious wine somewhere between valpolicella and amarone in its weight, complexity, and nuance. Under the rules of the region, wineries may only make up to twice as much ripasso as they do amarone in a given harvest.
Economics of the Heart: The Looming Question of Lawful Orders
Everyone serving in a branch of the United States military is legally subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice), which defines legal rights and responsibilities of service members under various circumstances. While most of it is quite straightforward, the current political circumstances of our country is creating a growing and possibly existential dilemma.
A central tenet of the UCMJ is that everyone must follow all “lawful orders,” and must NOT follow (or give) “unlawful orders.” The first priority in such a rule is that commanders take that responsibility seriously.
In recent weeks the Tweetster’s so-called “administration,” under the direction of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 war plan, tested a declaration of martial law and moving in National Guard troops first to LA, and now to DC, going so far as to push DC authorities aside completely under transparently illegal circumstances and creating chaos.
There are more violations of the UCMJ in these behaviors than can be counted. So logically that means that: 1) few if any of the people getting those orders are too threatened to refuse them; 2) a lot of people who know the orders are illegal are giving them anyway; and 3) the new Civil War has officially begun and we “have to fight like hell or we won’t have a country any more.”
So we fight!
2072 Granger Way