lummi island wine tasting june 27-28 ’25
Hours This Weekend: Friday & Saturday, 4-6 pm
strange moonlight
This week’s wine tasting
celler capcanes
-Robert Hall Sauv Blanc ’22 CA $15
Refreshingly dry and light-bodied with aromas of green apple, citrus, and lemongrass, with bright,crisp, lively acidity.
Mas Donis Capcanes Old Vines Red ‘18 Spain $17
Garnacha/Cariñena; Velvety mouthfeel and texture; wild red and black berry flavors, with cherry, spices and herbs; medium to full-bodied with soft and velvet tannins and nicely refreshing finish.
Alto Moncayo Zisnero Garnacha Spain $16
Ruby red; aromas of cherries and currants; pleasant freshness with notes of laurel and toast, balanced acidity, lingering palate.
Economics of the Heart: Half the World is Authoritarian
cc trump on Mars
An interesting article in Newsweek in January begins with the fact that about half the world’s countries are authoritarian dictatorships of several kinds, from family-run kleptocracies (Azerbaijan), outright police states (Russia), Communist dictatorships (China, North Korea), theocracies (Afghanistan, Iran), or kleptocracies like Syria, Turkey, and Hungary.
Each system is some combination of media manipulation, periodic displays of violence including murder, kangaroo courts, lengthy prison terms for made-up crimes, and some semblance of order for those who keep their heads down and their mouths shut.
One of the first acts of Project 2025 was to eliminate federal oversight of the new Administration by firing the Inspector General of every Federal Agency. Since the 1970’s the dozen or so IG offices primary function has been to identify and eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse” from Federal Agencies.
In its place came Elon Musk’s tragically misnamed “DOGE” with its cadres of 20-year old student hackers to infiltrate and compromise years of classified Federal files across the government and order the illegal firings of tens of thousands of career civil servants. Kinda sounds like the Tweetster’s version of Dubya’s “shock and awe” murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in our 2002 invasion and occupation of that country.
The article goes on to make interesting distinctions among these authoritarian regimes:
“Communist leader Xi Jinping stays at the top of Beijing’s byzantine power structure through a network of fear, personal alliances and more fear, along with fervent nationalism and a sense of national grievance. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un maintains an iron grip through the threat and reality of labor camps and murder along with a fanatical propaganda personality cult. Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko prefers a diet of torture for his foes. Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s Miguel Diaz-Canel, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega offer milder versions of the same, and there are fears that India’s Narendra Modi might go down this path.”
One interesting takeaway of this article is that many humans have a sort of bipolar attitude between “the simultaneous craving for freedom” and “the comfort of authority.” That helps to explain the strange tendency of Maggites to accept without question the Tweetster’s constant lies echoed 24/7 by Fox and its ilk.
On a somewhat related note is this fairly dense historical legal treatise on the slippery differences between “freedom of religion” and freedom from religion” as embodied in our 250-yr-old Constitution. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment guarantees on the one hand that the the State cannot adopt an official religion or impose religion on anyone; and on the other hand the Free Exercise clause guarantees the State must interfere as little as possible with religious practice and belief.
The big takeaway here are Constitutional rights to follow any religion or no religion. The ongoing militancy of Red State Republicans to deny women’s rights to manage their own reproductive capabilities is a prima facie violation of the Establishment clause. The article explores consistent reinforcement of this principle over many decades against an ongoing parade of religious challenges.
Just another Giant Reason to eschew Republican Authoritarianism…!
lummi island wine tasting June 20-21 ’25 Summer Solstice
Hours Weekend Friday & Saturday, 4-6 pm
Stonehenge Summer Solstice courtesy space.com
Friday Bread This Week
For some years now, each Friday we have hosted bread deliveries from Island Bakery to those on the bakery’s mailing list who pre-ordered earlier in the week, and listed those delicious breads here on the blog.
Since the mailing list has now maxed out the bakery’s limited capacity, for the time being the mailing list is closed. 🙁 wahh! ):
This week’s wine tasting
MAN Chenin Blanc ’22 South Africa $14
Free-run juice preserves a crisp, clean, natural character; light, bright flavors of quince, pear, and pineapple, palate of fresh stonefruit and apple, and a round, soothing mouthfeel.
Wolftrap Red ’21 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. (read more)
Chakana Estate Selection Malbec ’20 Argentina $25
Opaque, bright purple in color; pleasing nose of plums and ‘spicy attic dust’ (?) ; full-bodied palate of plums and spice with good length, balanced acidity, soft tannins, and lingering finish.
Economics of the Heart: Equal Rights vs. Tipping the Playing Field
L to R: Peter Rutledge, Leonard Leo, Mark Paoletta, Clarence Thomas, Harlan Crow (Painting by Sharif Tarabay) link
In recent years we have often mused about the seminal significance of the Reagan Administration’s 1987 elimination of the FCC “Fairness Doctrine” in broadcasting. The spurious Republican argument for its repeal (made by, of course, Heritage Foundation) was that it interfered with a broadcaster’s (Fox News, say) Constitutional rights to “make its own editorial decisions concerning controversial issues of public importance.” For a deep dive into why that is pure BS, take a look at this piece from the Syracuse Law Review right after it happened in 1988. The takeaway is that this coup has been cooking for 40 years, it is well underway, and we are now officially in a civil war to get our democracy back.
In retrospect it is clear that this single change, by very effectively opening the floodgates of the right-wing propaganda machine, across all public broadcasting media, very quickly spawned a nationwide army of 24/7, angry white radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. These changes were decidedly not to open the door to “righteous alternative views.” These decades of nonstop “alternative facts,” outright lies, and character-assassinating insults have been explicitly for the purpose of normalizing outright lying in broadcast media and brainwashing the gullible. You know, the same “alternative facts” Satan assures you are gospel!
By repeating the Lie of the Day 24/7, for decades, against an ever-increasing list of “liberal enemies,” from gays to immigrants to Democrats, the Fox propaganda machine would have made Goebbels proud. This single seemingly tiny change in the FTC law opened a nonstop torrent of Fascist propaganda tidily labeled “alternative facts.” Combined with the evolution of social media platforms for fomenting anger, it opened the door wide enough and for long enough–nearly forty years– to have built a base of millions of people whose view of the world is completely based on lies they have heard over and over and over.
Curiously, within the last few days, the Tweetster publicly criticized conservative arch-activist and former head of the Federalist Society Leonard Leo, who was personally responsible for getting six of the current right-wing Justices onto the Supreme Court, including the T’s own nominees Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Leo was the kingpin of the long term plan for an ultra-conservative takeover of the government by a handful of already-wealthy-and-powerful white fundamentalist Christian men. And you can be sure Jan 6 was all part of it.
The Federalist Society included many wealthy conservative activists who collectively hand-picked six of the current Supreme Court justices for Republican Presidents, overturned Roe v. Wade, passed Citizens United (removing all limits on corporate campaign donations), and invented and pushed numerous spurious cases to the Supreme Court on such topics as a business right to refuse service to anyone for any reason, or a woman’s lack of a right to use birth control medication or obtain an abortion regardless of personal circumstances or health implications.
These are the architects of everything we are now living through in Magaland, where no one counts except the very wealthy few. Each day delivers yet another incursion into our Constitutional rights, as we just saw in LA with the illegal mobilization of the California National Guard; across the country with bands of armed young men with neither ID’s nor badges. physically grabbing thousands of “illegal immigrants” from streets, homes, and workplaces and “disappearing” them to deportation or confinement, and separating parents and children for the sheer meanness of it. And in just the last few days they have been filmed forcibly detaining a Democratic a Congresswoman, a Senator, and a Senatorial candidate.
Heritage seems to have evolved from the post-WWII demise of the John Birch Society, and not has almost certainly laid the groundwork for Trumpism, Project 2025, the intellectual lobotomization of Congressional Republicans, and the ongoing dismantling of our Constitutional “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Right now they are winning. But last week’s marches showed we are many, and each over-reach they make (like LA National Guard mobilization) turns more against them.
lummi island wine tasting june 13 ’25
Hours Weekend Friday only, 4-6 pm
(due to the Saturday “No Kings” Demonstration in town which many islander will be attending)
Ulee has such a deal for you…
Friday Bread This Week
Breton – Incorporates the flavors of the french Brittany region. Bread flour and fresh milled buckwheat and rye make for interesting flavor and the salt is set gris -the grey salt from the region that brings more mineral flavors to this bread. – $5/loaf
Spelt Levain – Spelt is an ancient grain that is a wheat. It has a nutty, slightly sweet flavor and has gluten but it isn’t as strong as the gluten in modern wheat. This bread is made with a culture that is used to create a levain before the final dough is mixed with traditional bread flour, spelt flour, fresh milled whole spelt and fresh milled whole rye. It is a great all around bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Traditional Croissants – Made with a levain as well as “old dough” where a portion of the flour, water, salt and yeast is fermented overnight. The final dough is made with more flour, butter, milk and sugar, & laminated with more butter before being cut and shaped into traditional French croissants. Quantities are definitely limited so if you want croissants this week be sure and get your order in early! 2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
This week’s wine tasting
Tre Donne Roero Arneis ’23 Italy $21
Pale golden yellow; soft aromas of orange blossom, honeysuckle, nectarine, and lemon verbena; flavors of pear, peach, quince, and green apple; enduring minerality and balanced acidity.
La Atalaya del Camino ’20 Spain $15
Intense aromas, fruit, and elegance on the nose with a distinct spiciness and a touch of floral notes. Rich and meaty structure, with rich dark fruits and hints of spice. Smooth and pleasant long finish.
St. Martin de la Garrigue Bronzinelle ’19 France $21
Syrah, Carignan, Mourvedre blend; deep color; rich aromas of red fruits, garrigue, hints of oak; satisfying texture and plush mouth of dark fruit and balanced palate with good body and texture.
Economics of the Heart: America the Beautiful
Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith took down Sen Joe McCarthy with a famous speech
This week has been a momentous one in American History, as Project 2025 has taken off the gloves to give us a taste of the next step in their plan to replace 250 years of American democracy with a totalitarian dictatorship. As Paul Krugman has recently pointed out, the calling out of Federal troops to quell nonexistent political riots in LA is a beacon of its willingness to start a shooting war in our streets to take complete authoritarian control of our country.
Parenthetically, this seems as good a time as any to point out the sobering reality that this Maggot cabal has gotten as far as they have despite what one would imagine to be the enormous handicap of being a despicable cabal of mean-spirited morons who all apparently time-share the same deeply diseased brain…probably why they are all so angry so often.
Clearly, a large majority of their supporters take large doses of their daily brainwashing from Fox News, social media, rural religious radio, and their friends. On the other hand, there is no reason to play into their hands. As Krugman points out, these AmericaNazis are following Hitler’s playbook from the 1930’s by making examples of anyone who resists their authority by locking them up and/or ‘beating them up as necessary.”
THIS JUST IN : Btw, just now as I write, Senator Alex Padilla of California, while trying to speak in a public room where “Cabinet Member” Kristi Noem (aka “the puppy murderer”) was addressing a group, was grabbed roughly by a small army of security guards, manhandled to another room, thrown to the floor, held down, bound, and handcuffed. (video)
Together with the sh#t show just staged in LA with the Tweetster’s callout of the California Nat’l Guard and some 200 active duty Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton, we see clearly that the Coup has entered the next phase of militancy. It would therefore be prudent to suppose that going forward any pro-democracy protests will be met with armed force, and that even completely peaceful protests will be made to seem violent by the intrusion of armed Maggite loyalists.
It is crystal clear from the LA gambit that the Maggite game plan is shifting to provocation of public resistance and demonstrations with outrageous stunts like sending in not just police, but fully armed military units and shadow units which will deliberately initiate violence and blame demonstrators for it. This is all right out of Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny, and we should beware falling for it.
In a way we are back in Joe McCarthy’s 1950 Communist witch hunt, for which the antidote was his outspoken putdown by Maine’s Senator Margaret Chase Smith.
We must peacefully, creatively, and collectively resist this ongoing takeover for as long as it takes to save our nation, our economy, and the ordinary daily lives of millions of Americans.
lummi island wine tasting jun 6 ’25
Summer Hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 4-6 pm
Spring Rhodies recall an old poem…
Spring Rhodies recall an old poem…
woody peonies just at the peak of their bloom…
too beautiful to pick…too beautiful not to pick!
Friday Bread This Week
Pan de Cioccolate – A delicious chocolate artisan bread that isn’t an enriched sweet pastry dough with lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Rather this bread is a rich chocolate bread made with a levain, bread flour and fresh milled rye flour, honey for sweetness, vanilla and plenty of dark chocolate. Makes fabulous toast, even better french toast – $5/loaf.
Dried Cherries and Pecans –A nice rustic loaf from a levain that mixed with a sourdough starter the night before final mixing of the final dough from the levain, bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat, and loaded up with dried cherries and toasted pecans . –$5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Chocolate Babka Rolls – A sweet pastry dough full of eggs, butter and sugar, rolled and spread with a chocolate filling, rolled up and cut into individual rolls that are placed in baking forms for baking and then brushed with sugar syrup after baking. I’ve heard some people say they hide these to keep them all to themselves. – 2/$5 – 2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
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.
Monte Tondo Veneto Corvina ’22 Italy $14
Organically farmed; bright nose of fresh cherries and black pepper; fresh, light, and lively palate of cherry, dark chocolate and spice; supple, well-integrated tannins, and a smooth, seductive, slightly spicy finish, definitely our go-to red for summer lunch on the deck!
Seghesio Zinfandel ’21 California $23
Aromas of deep dark fruits lead to a juicy, vibrant palate with notes of black cherry, black raspberry, fig, baking spice and fresh plum, and layered fruit flavors, finishing with supple, textured tannins and a lingering, complex finish.
Economics of the Heart: Jesus, Gnostics, and Politics
credit facebook, origin unknown
My mother’s family were Irish Catholics, and my father’s family were Polish Catholics. My older sister and I attended Catholic schools for the first few grades. Our old stone school was weird, dark, and deeply mythological, with witchy-looking old nuns in dark hallways and constant reminders about the inevitability of sin, death, purgatory, and Hell. The purpose of it all, including threat of the dreaded “Strap,” was to create fear and demand obedience. The takeaway for a 5 yr old was the foregone conclusion that unless you were a Saint (very unlikely!), you would eventually die, and if you were lucky, have to spend a long time agonizing on hot coals in Purgatory for your venial sins before being allowed into some kind of “heaven,”and forever in Hell for any unforgiven mortal sins.
This indoctrination began when I was five and was relentless, bringing frequent nightmares of inescapable torture, because the concept of “sin” seemed to involve pretty much everything humans did, some kind of cosmic Catch-22. I was fortunate enough to have been transferred to public schools beginning in 3rd grade, when in a way real life began. And though I was a practicing Catholic till my early thirties, I could never shake the feeling that the whole structure, the rituals, the costumes, the fascination with sin and guilt and fear were more political than religious, more authoritarian than benign, more dread-inducing than hope-inducing.
Sadly, despite the deep roots of religion in human society, in recent decades religious practices have often been engineered not to save souls, but to establish political control over masses of human beings. This theme has been effectively developed and explored since the inception of Christianity by many spiritual philosophers, beginning shortly after Jesus’ death with the Gnostics.
Though most Gnostic writings were destroyed as part of the Catholic imperative to reinvent the young, enlightened, open-hearted but politically annoying Gnostic mystic Jesus as a virgin-birthed, prophet-predicted Son of God “who rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty, and will come again in Glory to Judge the Living and the Dead.” (from a Catholic prayer).
Gnosticism,[1] taught belief in the attainability of spiritual knowledge or insight into the divine spark of earthly existence– a sort of ‘enlightenment.’ This is very similar to Buddhism and other meditation-centered religious practices, where lengthy “practice” leads to a direct transcendent experience of Reality.
In contrast, many widely practiced and long-established religions are largely socio-political entities defined by a Book of Rules and history, like the Bible or the Koran. These “Religions of the Book” deliberately entangled the dominant religion of a region with the political control of the inhabitants and their institutions. The assertion of Divine Right is a well-worn Authoritarian practice: make the rules you want, make it a crime not to follow them, and punish anyone who crosses the line.
Unique in the world, the US Constitution has been The Book for our nation for 250 years. But since 1987, when Republicans did away with “fair and balanced” public broadcasting, would-be authoritarians of all stripes– blue-collar misogynists, white-collar thieves and sadists, power-hungry egoists, Fox News CINOs (Christians in Name Only), Republican politicians, bankers, CEOs, big $ political donors…you know who they are…all crave to run it all, own it all, and have the unquestioned authority to bump anyone they choose off the planet whenever they want. Like kings.
Real Christians don’t twist their religion into justifications to cause pain to other beings; round up, deport, or imprison innocent people; break up families, fire long-time government employees with no notice, or expose national secrets to our enemies for money or for spite. It is shameful, heartless, cruel, and just plain mean, causing global suffering for their ill-considered actions, the global economy teetering, and hundreds of thousands dying from their idiotic shutdown of USAID.
Since so far competence has not been a hallmark of this administration, we aim to keep fighting till they lose!
2072 Granger Way