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!
lummi island wine tasting may 30-31 ’25
Summer Hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 4-6 pm
Simon’s farm subscriptions starting soon…!
Friday Bread This Week
Pain Meunier –also known as miller’s bread and was developed to honor the miller who mills the wheat. Made with pre-fermented dough it contains all portions of the wheat berry: flour, fresh milled whole wheat, cracked wheat and wheat germ. Always a favorite and a great all around bread. It makes the best toast! – $5/loaf
Sonnenblumenbrot – aka Sunflower Seed Bread; made with a pre-ferment that ferments a portion of the flour, water, salt and yeast overnight before mixing the final dough. with freshly milled rye, then loaded up with toasted sunflower seeds and some barley malt syrup for sweetness.. a typical German seed bread- $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Gibassiers – A traditional french pastry recipe from southern France. Made with a delicious sweet dough full of milk, butter, eggs and olive oil, with orange flower water, candied orange peel and anise seed. After baking they are brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with more sugar. – 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
Hecht & Bannier Organic Piquepoul-Chardonnay ’23 France $14
These guys are restaurant guys who are making wines from many different French regions that they use in their restaurants. It’s an interesting story.
Cala Civetta Sangiovese di Toscana ’21 Italy $13
Earthy nose of red plum accompanies a vibrant yet mildly tannic palate of tart cherry with a hint of smoke and ocean brine – a true expression of Scansano, nestled halfway between the Tyrrhenian Sea and Mt. Amiata.
Decoy Red ’21 California $18
60% Cab, 40% Merlot, Zinfandel, Syrah, and Cab; aromas of blackberry, plum, spice and savory herbs; fresh, rich, and savory on the palate with rich, silky tannins and a long, lush finish.
Economics of the Heart: The Dilemma of Unlawful Orders
US ICE agent snatches Haitian immigrant seeking asylum (courtesy bbc.com)
Pretty much everyone who works for the Federal government must take an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This applies alike to all who serve in the armed forces or in civil positions at all levels. All of these oath-takers must obey all lawful orders and disobey all illegal orders.
The Manual for Court-Martial puts it this way: “Though an order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate, this inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.”
Obviously this puts every service member in a serious dilemma if given a questionable order: how can one know if an order that seems unlawful is unlawful? Since you can be court-martialed and punished severely for disobeying a lawful order, you can also potentially face court-martial for obeying a clearly unlawful order or for issuing such an order. Sounds like Catch-22, huh…?
As Project 2025 continues to wreak havoc with the functioning of the Federal government, including replacement of top military commanders with deeply unqualified Tweetster loyalists, the spectre of an illegal declaration of martial law and its use against civilians and political opponents seems increasingly likely. We are now five months into the Maga Coup, and have seen scores of legal decisions against its increasing brutality and boastful disregard for Constitutional Law along with substantial Supreme Court deference to whatever the Tweetster wants.
We all recall Project 2025’s affably-addressed comment nearly a year ago that as long as no one resisted their plan, no one would be hurt. It was obviously a threat to “stand back, shut up, and stay out of our way or we will hurt you.” This message has been continually reinforced by seizure, confinement, and deportation of innocent immigrants by masked ICE agents, looking and acting for all the world like Hitler’s Gestapo.
We have seen scores of judicial decisions decided against this rogue Administration which has deliberately ignored, delayed, and continued to violate our laws. Meanwhile, the increasingly incoherent Tweetster fills the airwaves with mindless blathering while his Cabinet of mean-spirited, grossly unqualified appointees have been trashing our recently envied economy and our global leadership. As one old friend puts it, “things are getting Worse faster than I’m getting Older!”
So, back to Military Law: in the not too distant future Maga will expand their authoritarian reach into our communities, our schools, our workplaces. Our service members could be assigned to maintain martial law in various communities. Service members may find themselves being given illegal orders they know are wrong. They need to be ready for that. Are they willing to kill or injure innocent people because the Maga Cabinet orders it?
While there is little clarity about whether, when, or how the States or the Feds can declare martial law, it has happened several times in our history in response to particular unusual circumstances, and then only temporarily. For example, General Andrew Jackson declared it after the Battle of New Orleans in 1814; it was implemented in Rhode Island in 1842 in response to the political unrest of the “Dorr War;” and at numerous places during the Civil War. It has generally been precipitated by unusual and threatening local or regional events, and limited in scope, location, and purpose.
At the federal level, the Brennan Center has argued that “Congress has legislated so extensively with respect to the domestic use of the military — through, for example, the Posse Comitatus Act, the Insurrection Act, the Stafford Act, the Non Detention Act, and various other provisions within Title 10 of the U.S. Code — that it has created such a dense and comprehensive network of rules that anything the president does in this area that is not affirmatively authorized by statute is almost necessarily against Congress’s will.
The Brennan Center paper quoted above delves quite deeply into these questions and provides interesting reading. Generally the takeaway is that martial law has been useful in a few states for short times in response to specific unusual situations.
Purposeful publicity from Project 2025 began over a year ago with the deliberate threat that their Maga takeover is inevitable, and we should just sit back and let them destroy our country and our way of life…or as Timothy Snyder would put it, “obey in advance.” Instead, crowds of people across the country have been resisting with increasing dedication. Our Constitutional Commitment leaves no room for compromise: we must fight till we win.
lummi island wine tasting may 23-24 ’25
Summer Hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 4-6 pm
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…
Brioche Tarts au Sucre – otherwise known as brioche sugar tarts. A rich brioche dough full of eggs and butter is rolled into a round tart and topped with more eggs, cream, butter and sugar. As always, quantities are limited, be sure to 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
Domaine de l’Amauve La Daurèle, Côtes du Rhône Villages Séguret ’23 France $21
Grenache blanc, clairette, viognier, & ugni blanc; expressive nose of white fruits, mirabelle plum, and acacia honey; soft on the palate with lively citrus flavors…yummy and very Food Versatile!
Phantom Red Blend ’20 WA $17
Petite Sirah- Zinfandel blend delivers palate of dark blackberry and boysenberry with pepper notes and on a balanced structure with tantalizing layers of baking spices sandt velvety tannins…a consistent local favorite!
Pascual Toso Reserve Malbec ’21 Argentina $21
Dry, full-bodied and generous; richly layered with aromas and flavors of ripe blackberry, sous bois, and toasty oak, with firm, fine-grained tannins that go well with savory meats and sauces. Pair with savoury herbs, rich or spicy roasts or spicy dishes. A long-time local favorite!
Seguret view
Economics of the Heart: Things are not as they seem…nor are they otherwise…
In a recent article, opinion writer David Frum began a recent broadcast with a nuanced response to a question from a young family friend, who wondered why, “if working-class wages have been in decline for 40 years, especially for men, why would anyone sympathize with the idea of free trade? Why wouldn’t they back Trump’s tariffs, given the pressure they’re under?” Frum’s rambling response providedes some interesting food for thought.
At root in the wording of the question is accepting the presumption that the real buying power of the average American worker’s wages actually has been declining since WWII, and Frum’s meandering response makes the case that from many rational perspectives the average American worker’s real buying power has increased substantially over the lifetimes of us baby boomers in general, and since 1985 in particular.
Over these 80 years the role of government in the economy has become a complex web of taxes, subsidies, and transfer payments in an ever-changing global landscape of trade, technology, innovation, and resource management. The gist of Frum’s argument is that from a lot of perspectives the average family today has better working conditions, living conditions, nutrition, education, safety, medical services and more because of technological advances in science, engineering, and productivity.
Broadly speaking, Frum suggests there is NOT a cogent case to be made that the working classes today are in worse economic shape than in the 50’s or 80’s. Rather, it is the constant and deliberate repetitive insistence of Anger Media all day every day that paints a bleak fictional reality that broad swaths of the population accept as true. Even though their economic circumstances are fine, they are taught to worry that armed immigrants are swarming across our borders to take their stuff and do them harm. Just like the Newspeak of 1984, right-wing media has for many years been a constant barrage of fear-mongering rants.
So why has there been this widespread media noise proclaiming that the nation has become unaffordable, or taken over by vicious illegal immigrants, or “woke” liberals, or gays, or transgenders, or the many other targeted “enemies” of the self-proclaimed morality police? Is it as Bill Clinton used to say with a shrug, “just politics”…? Or is it just exactly what it looks like: nonstop, deliberately generated, purposeful propaganda to convince people that everyone is lying and no one can be trusted.
The consistent day to day business of Republican politics since about 1990 has been to sow chaos and discontent across the nation, continually expanding the “enemies” list to ever more people and institutions and viciously vilifying them on national television and social media, day after day after day. This has been going on since 1987 — nearly 40 years– when the Reagan FCC eliminated the long-enshrined requirement that all public news broadcasts must tell the consensus truth if there is one or all conflicting views if there is not.
Within months of that one regulatory change, right-wing, rural, religious radio and TV began non-stop Republican/Christian, deliberately slanderous, anger-mongering lies directed at discrediting named individuals, political parties, immigrants, and critics, and painting them as vicious enemies intent on murdering you and your family and taking all your stuff. But actually of course, the Project 2025 managers are the ones who want complete control of everyone’s life. They don’t care about your stuff; they care about the control.
There is a deep sadism at work here. Many of the Tweetster’s vastly under-qualified Cabinet members act like adolescent bullies for whom scaring or hurting animals or other people is a turn-on. In that they share the Tweetster’s pleasure in inflicting pain on others and in being feared than on being liked or respected.
Mr. Frum closes with this: “In every way you can measure, America is a better place today than it was 40 years ago. And if it isn’t as much better as we would like, well, the future is open. We can do more to make it better, faster for more people. But it is better. It was better. You have to believe in your country, and you have to not give an inch to those who defame the country in order to maximize their own power and their own cruelty.”
lummi island wine tasting may 16-17 ’25
Summer Hours!!
Fridays and Saturdays, 4-6 pm
Friday Bread This Week
Black Pepper Walnut- made with a nice mix of flours, bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat and rye. A fair amount of black pepper and toasted walnuts give this bread great flavor with just a bit of peppery bite to it. Works well with all sorts of meats and cheese- $5/loaf
Four Seed Buttermilk – Includes cracked wheat and bran in the bread flour instead of milled whole wheat berries, plus buttermilk and oil for a tender bread and a little tang, honey, sunflower, pumpkin,, sesame seeds and toasted millet – $5/loaf
…and pastry this week…
Pain aux Raisin – Made with the same laminated dough as croissants. The dough is rolled out, spread with pastry cream and sprinkled with a mix of golden raisins and dried cranberries that have been soaked in sugar syrup. Rolled up and sliced before baking. These are my favorites! As always, quantities are limited, be sure to get your order in early! -$5/loaf
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
Schmitt Pinot Blanc ’17 Alsace $19
Creamy-smooth nose of subdued pear notes adds an earthy element on the palate and adds an earthy element toward a dry, smooth finish.
Sanguineti Morellino de Scansano Sangiovese ’21 Italy $14
Soil of river stones, quartz, sea shells; flavors of sun-ripened, slightly smoky fruit, fresh cracked pepper, sage, and ocean brine; taut structure and a long, slightly smoky finish.
Château de Crousilles Madiran ’20 France $32
A big, bold, old vine blend of tannat, cab franc, and cab sauv, with a dense, inky core and slightly lighter rim; youthful nose of dark plum, kirsch, bay leaf, tobacco and mild oak, and a dense, restrained tannic structure of darker fruit with herbaceous and peppery flavors.
Economics of the Heart: Seeds of Resistance
www.usnews.com (Bill Bramhall/Tribune Content Agency)
Tides may not be turning exactly, but there is a lot of rough water bouncing around as the public starts wising up to the catastrophic intentions of Project 2025. The Tweetster is now visiting his buddies and benefactors in the Middle East, completely disarmed by their opening their vast checkbooks to his every need and mesmerized by his own growing $billions. As if they actually like him. As if he were using them. These guys are astronomically wealthy masters of flattery and brutality, the same guys who cut Jamal Kashoggi into little pieces for annoying them a little.
We are all up to our necks in the deliberate chaos being continually churned up by the puppet-masters at Heritage and their Congressional flock of willing Sheep. There is no scenario in which their efforts can lead to a better world for anyone, including themselves.
Whether we like it or not, the whole world is being swept up in this chaos, making every person and every nation reassess their values, goals, and alliances in search of stability and safety. We have been seeing increasing resistance to the deterioration of citizen rights, broad illegal presumption of power by the Executive branch, the deployment of masked secret police across the country under the guise of “immigration enforcement,” and a deliberate ongoing flow of misinformation from the White House. Every day more people are waking up to it and a resistance movement is building across the country. A growing majority of citizens is now aware of this ongoing assault on the Constitution to which we have all pledged allegiance many times over many years.
“The Trump administration is not just dismantling healthcare; it’s dismantling the very idea of government responsibility, and the majority of House Republicans appear to be paving the way, this time without Trump having to own it or take responsibility for it. It’s a ruse that’s been baked behind the scenes. Savvy politics on his behalf, but really dumb politics on their behalf. Dumb enough that (even) Senator Josh Hawley is calling them out.” Olivia Troy: link
“For not one of his signature initiatives during his first 100 days in office does Trump have the authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States that he claims,” Judge Luttig writes. “Not for tariffs, not for unlawful deportations, not for attacks on colleges and law firms, not for his attacks on birthright citizenship, not for handing power to billionaire Elon Musk and the ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ not for trying to end due process, not for his attempts to starve government agencies by impounding their funding, not for his vow to regulate federal elections, not for his attacks on the media.” Heather Cox Richardson: link
“It is time for Republican congressional leaders to look in the mirror. Five years ago, Republican Senator (and now majority leader) Thune claimed that “Republicans believe in the Constitution, and that’s what dictates what happens.” Similarly, speaker Johnson’s website proudly proclaims: “Each branch of government must adhere to the Constitution, and… Congress must faithfully perform its Constitutional responsibility.” – Austin Sarat article in the Guardian
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