Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are both back on MSNBC to look at the mess we're in, on the day that Chrysler sales were seen to have dropped 53 percent and Nobel winner Paul Krugman warned about the potential end of life as we know it.

I may just do that, because tonight at 9:00 on The Travel Channel, the new season of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations begins. He's going to Mexico again. It seems like he's visited Mexico a lot already, but maybe the water doesn't bother him.

Looking at tonight's late night lineups, there's a new Daily Show with NBC's David Gregory, and a new Colbert Report with CNN's John King.

Maybe I'll watch those, maybe I won't. There's also David Letterman with Kate Hudson and Glasgow rock band Glasvegas.

All of this is just buildup to the big rebroadcast of today's Oprah at 11:05 p.m. on ABC7 Chicago. Today was Oprah's much-anticipated "Falling Off The Wagon" show, and I can't believe I missed it at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

This is what happens when I start writing about pressure cookers and Indian food.

If you ask, many people will tell you that you cannot find an Indian meal in Racine. The one Indian restaurant we did have — Sher-a-Punjab — closed a while ago, and it was not spectacular to begin with.

This is too bad. Amy gets something like drunk on Indian food, and I like it very much too. We have made many trips to the Udupi Palace in Schaumburg, and also their all-vegetarian location in Chicago on Devon. We have tried a number of Indian restaurants in Milwaukee, but not Maharaja yet. My sister raves about that place.

In the meantime, though, we had an outstanding Indian meal last night in our own neighborhood.

You see, when it became clear that my job and America's economy were both going to tank at the very same time, there were two things I wanted to obtain in preparation for the civilization's collapse.

One was a pair of glasses. I had been wearing only contact lenses since about age 21, and between the replenishing of the lenses themselves, plus their solutions and the sanitary nuisance, I figured it might be a difficult practice to maintain as times got hard.

The other was a pressure cooker. A pressure cooker conserves energy, and magically transforms humble elements like beans, bones, and inexpensive meats into delicious and satisfying suppers in a third of the time that would otherwise be required.

The world's greatest cuisines have been brought forth because cooks were forced to become creative with limited provisions. If our grocery budget was going to be slashed, then at least we would have a quality, transformative tool with which to make the best of our more modest rations.

Good eats

As with so many other things, I first witnessed the wonder of pressure cooking on Alton Brown's Food Network show Good Eats. The second episode in Season 4 (show number 44, "Pressure"), explored concepts like "soup" (from the German sup), "broth" and "stock" — and also how cooking under pressure miraculously coaxes every bit of tasty and nutritious goodness out of ordinary, everyday ingredients.

The more I studied pressure cookers, the more I wanted one.

For example, I love Cuban black beans and rice and Louisiana red beans and rice. Both are better if you use dry beans, soaked overnight, instead of canned beans. The problem is, though, that even pre-soaked beans can still require two hours or even longer to simmer. By using a pressure cooker instead, the cooking time can be cut to 25 or 30 minutes.

Pressure cookers also cut cooking time for all sorts of stews and braised dishes. Goulash can be cooked in under 16 minutes, pozole in 12 or 13.

This possibilities go on and on. Brightly colored, vitamin-rich vegetables. Whole chickens. Southern-style split pea soup with ham that cooks for just 10 minutes.

What finally made me pull the trigger was Indian food. I read that pressure cookers are considered standard equipment by India's cooks — absolutely essential for their curries and dals. That meant we had to have one. I favor a good curry.

Well, two actually. In my research, the brand of pressure cooker which impressed me as the most highly regarded was Kuhn Rikon (pronounced KOON REE-con), from Switzerland. Their most popular model for my purposes seemed to be the two-pot Duromatic Duo Set pictured above. It comes with a 5-liter pot and a 2-liter pan with a steaming trivet. There are two lids — one glass lid, one pressure cooking lid — which fit either pan, so only one pan can cook under pressure at a time.

Five liters equals 5.28 quarts, which is about as small as you would want to go for your main cooker. It's plenty for the two of us, but family chefs would probably prefer the 7-Liter Pressure Cooker — or even the 12-Quart Professional Stockpot Pressure Cooker if that family is really large.

Swiss ingenuity

It makes sense that the Swiss would use pressure cookers. The last time I drove through their country, I noticed it was very bumpy. Plus, I remember from camping in the Rocky Mountains that cooking at altitude takes longer, consuming additional fuel, which becomes more scarce the higher you go.

In the preface to the little cookbook that comes with the pressure cooker, Kuhn Rikon president Rudolf Keller writes that the average Swiss household has three pressure cookers: "When I was growing up, if I didn't see a KUHN RIKON Duromatic pressure cooker on the stove, I seriously wondered if we'd be having dinner."

Safety first

When our new Duo first arrived, I did more reading than cooking. There are a few things to know about these pots before you use one.

Previous generations of pressure cookers were feared by the whole family. They reportedly made menacing hissing noises and would blow up from time to time.The models of the newest generation, like my Kuhn Rikon, feature redundant safety releases and are virtually silent during cooking.

Regardless, you must never fill a pressure cooker more than two-thirds full of food, because the remaining space is necessary in order for steamy pressure to build up. A pot that's too full defeats the whole purpose.

Pressure-cooking procedures

There are two levels of cooking pressure, indicated on our Kuhn Rikon by two distinct red lines which emerge as the valve stem pushes gradually upward from the top of the lid. Some foods are cooked at the lower pressure level (0.4 bar / 5.8 psi), others at the higher level (0.8 bar / 11.6 psi). There are two rates for releasing pressure — "natural," which means taking the cooker off the heat and waiting five minutes or so for the valve stem to drop all the way back down, and "rapid," which means either using a wooden spoon to hold the valve stem down and letting the steam rush out, or running some cool tap water over the edge of the lid at the sink. The method you use depends on the food you're cooking. Natural release should, for instance, be used with beans, or else they'll lose their skins.

Pressure Perfect: A comprehensive guide

The Kuhn Rikon manual explains these things clearly, along with the care to be taken in cleaning these beautiful, hefty pots (soapy water — no abrasives, please!). However, I also found it very helpful to read Pressure Perfect: Two Hour Taste in Twenty Minutes Using Your Pressure Cooker. The book's author, James Beard Award-winner Lorna Sass, is "America's leading authority on vegan and pressure cooking." In this book, she "distills her two decades of experience into one comprehensive volume." It's a solid introduction to pressure cooking — and it includes over 200 delicious and healthy recipes.

Lorna Sass is also a blogger.

Indian cooking with Madhur Jaffrey

For guidance in cooking Indian food specifically, I turned to Madhur Jaffrey. An Indian actress who famously introduced movie-makers Ismail Merchant and James Ivory (A Room With a View, Howards End, and Remains of the Day) to each other, Madhur Jaffrey is also a James Beard Awards Cookbook Hall of Fame winner. I heard Jaffrey recently on NPR talking about comfort foods during tough times (dal and rice, a favorite also cooked by Barack Obama), and there was a great 2006 segment in her kitchen featuring her childhood mango memories and an everyday cauliflower recipe.

Of the many Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks available at Amazon.com, I chose Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking. The recipes in it are indeed quick and easy, a number of them do include instructions for pressure-cooking, and there are example menus showing how to combine the recipes for a simple meal or a fairly elegant dinner.

(By the way, if you're looking for Indian cooking ingredients and other Indian food items in Racine, Wisconsin, check out East Indian Emporium at 2401 Lathrop Ave. There was a Journal Times story about it last year.)

That Smothered Lamb recipe

Before buying Jaffrey's cookbook, we tested a recipe for Smothered Lamb (or Pork or Beef) that we came across using the "Look Inside!" feature at Amazon.com. (You'll find the recipe on Page 19 by searching for "painless.") It's known as Labdhara Gosht, and it's painless because virtually all of the ingredients — the lamb, onion, ginger, tomato, cilantro, hot green chiles, turmeric, cumin, yogurt, tomato paste, and salt — go into one bowl, like so:

You mix these all together and let them mingle while you sauté some garlic in the pressure cooker, then stir in the whole bowl of food, grind a good amount of black pepper, and secure the lid. The Kuhn Rikon lid has a light blue rubber gasket inside its rim, and this serves as both a seal and one of the safety features, since the soft rubber is designed to give way and release steam if the pressure becomes too intense.

The lid goes on at about a five o'clock position, and then is turned to six o'clock, to seal it tight. In a few minutes, pressure begins to build. The valve stem closes with a soft pop and begins to slowly rise.

The first red line climbs into view, followed by the second. Then you turn the heat down to the same sort of simmer you would use for rice, set a timer for 15 minutes, and wait while the magic happens.

It is important to stay close by and make small heat adjustments — up if the valve stem drops a little, or down if a slight hissing is heard.

When the time is up, this recipe calls for a quick release of the pressure. We use a wooden spoon to hold the valve down and let the steam rush out — then remove the lid, filling the kitchen with the exotic aroma of Indian spices and juicy, tender lamb.

Even though it was technically a Sunday, we prepared the cookbook's "Saturday Dinner" menu of Smothered Lamb, Rice with Peas and Dill (ours also had carrots), and Yogurt with Tomato and Cucumber — a simple and homey meal that's also spicy and out of the ordinary.

We have only begun to explore pressure cooking, but already Amy is making homemade stock from every chicken and turkey carcass we have. We have enjoyed all sorts of dishes, ranging from improvised chili with beans to West African Chicken Stew with Spicy Sweet Potato-Peanut Sauce, and we have barely scratched the surface.

I only wish that I could peek inside to see what is actually happening to the food during that mysterious 10 or 20 or 30 minutes, because it really is like a magic trick.

Lydia DePillis writes:

The NYT also hones in on the human cost of bombing in Gaza, complete with overwhelmed hospitals and torpedoed ambulances.

I hear this one with increasing frequency. Sorry, Ms. DePillis, but "hone in on" is an eggcorn.

"Homing" is the ability to zero in on a target — like home — the way homing pigeons do. The analogy also describes certain guided missiles and other weapons, and also electronic devices which employ locating signals.

You "hone" or you "home in," but you do not "hone in." Caprice?

The Great Recession and its effect on our household budget have started producing some bizarre yearnings in me — especially when combined with the influence of our TV set.

This began with a video that arrived here from Netflix. I don't know how it got added to our queue. We generally run about a year behind our additions, so by the time a DVD shows up here, we have no idea who recommended it or why.

This one was a 2004 documentary called Into Great Silence, a 162-minute chronicle of daily life at the Grande Chartreuse monastery located north of Grenoble in the the Chartreuse Mountains of southeastern France.

Furthermore, when the monks are not occupied by vigorous activities like hand-planing wooden items or hand-sewing their habits or reading crumbling books, they are often in solitary prayer. Sometimes there is so little sound or light or motion in the movie that you wonder whether the DVD player is broken or the monk has gone to heaven. But then a distant bell calls him to group prayer or a meal, and the old brother creaks to a semi-upright stance and shuffles off.

Anyway, it was a great movie, and if Steve Dahl were my Netflix friend, I would definitely recommend it to him. I don't want to say too much here that would spoil it for those who have not seen it yet. Just permit me two enticing words: Monk snowboarding.

Given our new financial picture, there were aspects of the film that were relatable and even appealing.

I could so do that, I thought to myself. We have snow. We have some gardening buried beneath the snow. I could go out there in my long, brown habit and improper footwear and poke at things with rusted poles. I could eat bland boiled tubers from a tin plate and wash them down with cloudy water or weak tea. I could squint in the twilight and try to thread a dull needle with coarse thread. It would be relaxing not to talk for days at a stretch, and God knows I love me some extended Bible reading.

The ghosts of these notions were still in my head when I saw a Snuggie™ commercial for the first time.

I had noticed some Internet ridicule of a "blanket with sleeves," but I had no idea what is was about. Now, suddenly, here on my TV, the manifest concept of a big and roomy synthetic fleece gown was unfolding and inviting me in.

Plus, aside from being smart-looking and comfortable, the Snuggie would probably allow me to turn our thermostat down to about 40° F. or so. Why, the heating bill reduction would be so substantial that I might not need an income at all. I could devote myself to textual criticism from dawn to dusk, then grab a humble hunk of bread and a cup of tea before snoring great clouds of vapor into my room's chilly air.

The flaw in this vision, however, was that the Snuggie only comes in three colors. How could I possibly pursue severe self-denial dressed in burgundy, royal blue, or sage? No — if I'm going to painstakingly repair my own shoes, then I'm going to do it in Capuchin brown or nothing.

Miraculously, when I Twittered this into the void, an answer came back to me from Matt Dahl, who suggested the Slanket®. I had never heard of the Slanket, but it seems very similar to the Snuggie and comes in much wider variety of colors — including chocolate, which is close enough for Gregorian chant. Okay, so it's twice the price, but the bigger outlay is going to force me to be that much more frugal once it arrives.

They even show a guy wearing it on a leather sofa. I actually bought our leather sofa thinking that it would somehow beguile young area women into removing their clothing and posing on it. As it turns out, that hasn't ever actually happened, but now I will be able to use the sofa instead as my monastic reclining spot, a place to kick back and just savor the last hour of daylight after cracking the hard nut of an argument by Augustine or an allegory from Dōgen Zenji.

Perhaps a few sunflower seeds would not be too extravagant.

This morning, while practicing my abstemiousness on a very modest plate of Christmas cookies (go ahead, look it up), I was visited by the ultimate epiphany.

I was watching the Rose Parade on The Travel Channel (I know; I wanted to have the cable disconnected today, but it's a holiday), and during a break there was a commercial for an amazing contraption whose cabinetry is hand-crafted by moral, trustworthy Amish workers — and then, into this, is stuck an electric fake fireplace from China.

I realize, poor reader, that you must think austerity has driven me to hallucination, but I swear this is all true.

The appliance is known as a Heat Surge™, and while this clip is not the very same commercial I saw, it may be even better:

Hear that majestic score? See that stunning country oak finish? Feel how level the top of that Amish custom-built mantle is? Read that engraved inscription of authenticity?

Want a tissue?

If I can concentrate on ancient texts when I'm freezing my keister off underneath a lousy Slanket™, just think how much more focus and dedication I could muster next to a warm and toasty simulated fire.

And, as the commercial I saw pointed out, "Everybody loves saving money on heating bills." We could plug a couple of these 1,500-watt Heat Surges into the wall and start saving right away. Except for the electricity use, that's almost like being off the grid. I wonder whether we could put our 80,000 BTU furnace on eBay and just use a couple of these 5,110 BTU wonders instead.

I say "a couple" instead of "sixteen" because, as the commercial states, the Amish are "imposing a strict limit" of two free units per customer.

I say "free" because, see, you're only paying $298-$348 for the handmade Amish fireplace mantle. The Heat Surge Miracle Heater itself is being given away free.

That's why there has to be a strict limit.

Strict ... limit ... Amish ... saving — all of this could not come at a better time.

Our economy has cratered. I'm trying to downsize my lifestyle into a smaller footprint — or sandalprint, if you will. Many people are looking to the Amish as the new American model of self-sustaining sufficiency.

And so what do the Amish do? They step up to the plate with hand-crafted quality — and they throw in the Yiwu Andong Electrical Appliances Co. heater for no additional charge!

Thank God they also take credit cards.

I love it because MacLean sings the words to Robert Burns' original Scottish poem so clearly and plainly. His guitar is simple, almost like a music box. Along with the easy tempo, this really brings out the wistfulness and sentimentality of the verses.

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
  And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
  And days o' lang syne?

We twa hae rin about the braes,
  And pu'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit
  Sin' auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl't i' the burn,
  Frae mornin' sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
  Sin' auld lang syne.

And here 's a hand, my trusty fiere,
  And gie's a hand o' thine;
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught
  For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
  And surely I'll be mine;
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my dear,
  For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne.

In case you're not too clear about the Scottish (I sure am not), the World Burns Club has helpfully posted their standard English translation of the poem. They render it as "Old Long Past." I have also heard "Old Long Since," but I prefer to think of it as "Once Upon a Time," as the Wikipedia article credits Matthew Fitt with saying.

Wikipedia also notes that Burns himself claimed to have taken the words down from an old man, but there's a suggestion that he may have been winking as he said this.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the track. I bought and downloaded my own copy from iTunes. The player above also includes an Amazon.com option, but I did not find it there this afternoon.

May you and those you love enjoy a happy, peaceful, and prosperous New Year.

(Above: "I eat in front of video podcasts, not TV," by rofthorax)

For a while now, I have been considering dropping our cable TV service from Time Warner Cable. That possibility came much closer this morning upon reading the AP story, "'Colbert,' 'SpongeBob' may go dark on Time Warner."

According to this report, Viacom and Time Warner Cable have not come to any agreement regarding Time Warner's carriage of Viacom's channels, such as MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, CMT: Pure Country, Spike, TV Land, and others:

The impasse would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" will be cut off on the nation's second-largest cable operator. Time Warner Cable primarily serves people in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.

They forgot to mention parts of Wisconsin — specifically, my part: Southeastern Wisconsin, including Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha.

Our cable provider is Time Warner Wisconsin, and we might lose all of our Viacom channels tonight, as the New Year is rung in .

Viacom reportedly wants to raise fees quite substantially. Time Warner has taken the position that it is trying to hold the line for me, the consumer. Viacom counters that the increase would cost me less than a penny a day.

I don't know which side to sympathize with, and frankly, I don't have any more sympathy to spare. We may just pull the plug altogether and let them split our nothing.

We're currently paying somewhere between $50 and $60 per month to have a very basic tier of channels delivered to our TV set — less than 100, all told. Out of these, the cable channels we could live without, especially in these very difficult economic times, would include pretty much all of them.

I used to put CNN on frequently during the day, until it got too silly to stomach. (On a related note, CNN's Rick Sanchez posted a comment last night regarding my criticism of his Twitter-the-news-to-yourself afternoon show.)

Now I sometimes watch MSNBC instead, but even that has been getting annoying.

I do enjoy Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show, but those shows are available via podcast, and even the podcasts were discontinued, I can't justify $50-$60 per month for Keith and Rachel alone.

What else is there? Well, I have enjoyed Good Eats for many years, but it has actually become easier to find the new episodes on YouTube than on the actual Food Network. There's also Top Chef, and although I would miss Padma Lakshmi something fierce, I would not die. Oh, and "fierce" reminds me that Amy likes to watch Project Runway, so I suppose we would both miss Heidi Klum.

As much as I laugh at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, I miss more episodes than I watch — both due to the late hour, and because those shows both shift back and forth between weeks of reruns so often that it's exhausting to try and follow them.

There are a couple of others, but my point is that we're already paying a pretty steep price considering the amount of quality programming we get in return, and that price has been jacked up every January since I first started paying it.

Enough, already.

Now, with crystal-clear DTV on America's airwaves, maybe it's time for us to let go of cable television completely, get a couple of DTV coupons and some sort of basic antenna, and make the switch over to free TV as God intended.

Yes, I'm looking at you, David Letterman.

Just please stop the stupid Mike Singletary bits.

Since radio is dead, I've been listening to even more public radio than I already did anyway. Just now on NPR's All Things Considered, I heard a little thing that was unlike anything I have ever heard before.

It was this piece they are calling "The Loaves And The Fishes (And The Ducks)" and apparently they won't have the audio up for you to hear until 7 p.m. ET or so, but be sure to listen to it when you can, because it's kind of amazing.

The subject matter is an obscure tourist attraction in Linesville, Pennsylvania — "Where the Ducks Walk on the Fish" (also watch this video or the NPR video).

I just love this sort of stuff, the kind of thing they feature at RoadsideAmerica.com.

So now, to this peculiar American pastime, add some environmental concern and local political controversy. Mix this odd but treasured local highlight with some conflict, some passionate turmoil.

Have I sold you yet? Just listen to it.

The coolest thing is the way Collison and Meister assemble the story from quick little snippets of sound here and there — tourists feeding the ducks, locals reading news accounts of the dispute, officials commenting on official decisions, and citizens flying off the handle at public meetings. This audio collage is woven in and out of the song, and ends up creating a really rich and layered picture.

On the radio, I mean. A dead medium.

Why is there a sudden surge of interest in Darren Stephens today? After all, both Dick York and Dick Sargent passed away back in the '90s, so it's unlikely that the Bewitched stars are making big news.

It's not either Darrin Stephens, as it turns out.

A Blue Man Group actor and the assistant principal of Maine East High School were arrested at a park along the lakefront on the North Side and charged with public indecency Monday night, police said.

TMZ.com has since picked up the story, titling it "Cops: Blue Man Tried to Do Man in Public."

Update:

That Sun-Times story has now been revised to add a correction:

Contrary to a previous report, Stephens "is not and never was" a member of the Blue Man Group, according to Chicago Blue Man Group spokesman Nick Harkin.

TMZ.com has posted a correction as well:

We called the police again, and they say they have not conducted a background check on Stephens, and that "people lie on arrest reports all the time."

Okay? Move along. Nothing to see here.

And stop looking at the end of that "Gum balls & Marshmallows" clip.

Update, 1/1/2009:

Please also note the comment from Darren Stephens below asserting that there is more than one Chicago actor named Darren Stephens.

Geez — this little episode has become just as tangled as a typical installment of Bewitched!

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, our fair state has hired a Connecticut Web design firm to design the website for our Wisconsin Campaign Finance Information System.

We are reportedly paying them the proverbial "one million dollars."

For me, a Wisconsin-based Web designer, that would work out to more than eight man-years, so it's very encouraging to know there is Web design work out there.

"I'm looking at that thinking, what the heck?" Plale said Monday. "I don't think a lot of Minnesota legislators care about our Government Accountability Board, but who knows?

The Journal Sentinel includes an explanation from Joe Singh, executive vice president of PCC Technology Group, the company designing the site. It seems the Minneapolis photo is merely a placeholder which is being used until the "local, CT based technology firm" can locate a copyright-free image of the Madison skyline.

This story has now made national news.

I was listening to NPR's Morning Edition this morning on WUWM, and Renee Montagne asked the same question that had occurred to me:

Couldn't you just use a camera?

My brain hurts. I had cable news on my television most of today, and too much of it consisted of yammering about the closest thing they could find to a hot-button story: Chip Saltsman's Christmas mix CD featuring "Barack the Magic Negro."

Never mind that the story broke three days ago, or that there are dozens and dozens of more important items on the menu of our world's horrific buffet. No — clearly, the words "Barack the Magic Negro" are going to produce a visceral reaction in the TV-viewin' audience, and so MSNBC's Tamron Hall and CNN's Rick Sanchez dutifully forward-promoted and repeated the phrase "Barack the Magic Negro" over and over — appropriately shocking and offending themselves each time. "Magic negro?"

I have nothing to add to their in-depth outrage — except to wonder whether a cable news anchor hosting a discussion on the subject should at least be aware that "magical negro," offensive as it may sound, is nevertheless a critical term, popularized by filmmaker Spike Lee, which describes a certain type of stock character employed in novels and films.

Shouldn't the news anchor know this — and possibly have read the Los Angeles Times op-ed by David Ehrenstein entitled "Obama the 'Magic Negro'"?

Well, at least Rush Limbaugh got all sorts of credit and notoriety today, without having to write or perform a thing.

Meanwhile, I have been catching up on a few items myself — one of which is a piece from last Friday, "Dave Barry Year in Review: Bailing out of 2008." It's pretty funny, once it gets rolling. Barry's summary of the fall financial bailouts had me laughing out loud — and he, too, endows Barack Obama with a magical power:

A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas were because they were so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.

The story that has really made me pause to think, however, is yesterday's Politico article by Carol E. Lee: "Obama bristles as the bubble closes in."

Lee reports on how the relentless scrutiny of the media and the Secret Service has tightened around the president-elect, and observes that he may already be subtly lashing out in frustration over his vanquished privacy. The whole account is an interesting glimpse of both the man and the office, but there is one anecdote that intrigued me:

After ordering a tuna melt on 12-grain bread, Obama approached reporters and placed his hand on the shoulder of pool reporter Philip Rucker of The Washington Post, who was scribbling away in his notebook.

"You don't really need to write all that down," Obama said.

Was Obama being aggressive — or was he making a deeper observation?

The hand on the reporter's shoulder could suggest that Obama was not trying to convey "Cut that out!" but that he was actually saying, "You don't really need to write all that down."

As in: "You don't really need to record the tuna or the twelve grains of the sandwich, because they are ridiculously trivial details. One day, you are going to die — but right now you are a reporter covering the next President of the United States of America at a time when the entire planet is caught between extreme adversity and a faint glimmer of hope, and you are wasting this unique vantage point and all of your experience and education on describing the ingredients of some silly sandwich. Perhaps you ought to stand back a little, reassess the situation, and try to think of a way to employ the skills you possess to deliver something useful or enlightening to the world."

Maybe Obama was trying to hint a subtle lesson to Rucker, and to the rest of the press as well. Possibly his little declaration was a sort of Zen kōan on how the members of the press — just like the bankers and the government officials — have led us into serious catastrophe by completely failing to do their jobs, satisfied instead to distract us with incendiary phrases and spinning doodads and celebrity ephemera.

Or, maybe Obama was just being a jag.

As the last moments of 2008 evaporate like a mongrel's marking on the fire hydrant of hope, I have decided to do a little extra-credit research into New Year's traditions — including any which might attract better luck next year. Let's just say that a friend of mine might be willing to eat a few unaccustomed snacks or crack his knuckles in a specific order if it would improve his direct deposit outlook for 2009.

I turn first to one of my favorite books for this sort of background information, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things by Charles Panati, who dates this "oldest and most universal" holiday (literally "holy day") back to Babylonia, circa 2000 BC.

Food, wine, and hard liquor were copiously consumed — for the enjoyment they provided, but more important, as a gesture of appreciation to Marduk for the previous year's harvest.

On the sixth day of this Babylonian party, a mummer's play and parade were staged as "a tribute to the goddess of fertility." I'm guessing this was Ishtar, who nevertheless failed to bestow plenty upon the 1987 movie bearing her name — or perhaps it was Ashnan, the Special K lady of her day with the sexy ears of corn sprouting from her shoulders.

We still, of course, have a famous New Year's Day Mummers Parade in Philadelphia (the 1909 event is pictured above), and the parade's official song, "O Dem Golden Slippers," has also been used in the past as a commercial jingle for the breakfast cereal Golden Grahams.

The Catholic Church, meanwhile, has always frowned on goddesses as well as seasonal revelry, and so, as they are wont to do, they attempted to supplant New Year's Day with their own January 1 celebration: The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ.

For some reason, this never caught on the way Christmas did, and so, since 1969, the first day of January has instead been called The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This tradition started in Portugal where, I have read, there is a breakfast of scrambled eggs.

Another New Year's Day ritual which has never made perfect sense to me is the Vienna New Year's Concert. According to Wikipedia, a billion people in 44 countries watch it on TV:

The concert always ends with three encores after the main programme. The first encore is a fast polka. The second encore is Johann Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz, whose introduction is interrupted by applause of recognition from the audience. The musicians then collectively wish the audience a happy new year, play The Blue Danube and close with Johann Strauss, Sr.'s Radetzky March. During this last festive piece, the audience participates with the traditional clap-along, and the conductor turns to the audience in time to conduct them instead of the orchestra.

I mean, this all sounds like a rip-roaring good time and everything, but what exactly do the Strauss fellas and their waltzes have to do with the New Year — and what sort of Viennese breakfast did they prefer? The classic one, I'm guessing.

Perhaps all of my questions would be answered if I would ever watch the broadcast on PBS. I understand Julie Andrews is hosting this year, after 24 years of Walter Cronkite. You have to bet that she'll shake things up.

Here at Café Czerniec, we will most likely be enjoying the Hoppin' John recipe that has become our New Year's tradition. It's the American South's expression of a widespread custom of pairing pig with legumes. Apparently, in addition to being a rich and fatty meat, pigs symbolize good luck (especially in combination with amanita mushrooms), while beans like black-eyed peas and lentils supposedly symbolize coins, and also plump up as a result of cooking. It seems counterintuitive, then, that pork-and-beans eaters are not generally thought of as being billionaires.

When putting your money where your mouth is, a more valuable token might be the leafy greens like collard greens in the Southern U.S., or the stewed kale of Denmark. I am reminded of those times I have failed to empty the cash from my pockets before laundering my jeans.

My mom in Kenosha will no doubt have pickled herring on hand for the stroke of midnight — although whether she will be awake to eat it is a fair question. According to a December 2007 article by Tim Hennagir, herring was elevated to its charmed status in the American Midwest because of its scarcity:

Families in many Northern European countries, especially Germany, Scandinavia and Poland, found herring was an abundant and affordable food with high nutritional value.

When later generations began immigrating to the United States, many settled in the Midwest where herring was less available. Herring then became more of a treat served only for special occasions.

The food brought back nostalgic memories of the past, and with time, these cultures began to believe that eating herring on Christmas Eve or at the stroke of midnight on New Year's would bring good luck in the year to come.

Hennagir also singles out the herring brand I know best, Milwaukee's Ma Baensch. Her first name was Lena, or so the legend goes. Many of our region's pickled delicacies come from Milwaukee all year long — like the Grade A turkey gizzards, for instance.

In Spain, people may eat turkey for their New Year's Eve dinner, but their big thing is the grapes. As you have probably heard, they eat 12 grapes at midnight — one on each chime of the clock. What's less well-known is that while they are eating the grapes, they are also wearing red underwear. I suppose this would also work for beets.

The Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California is our bloated American New Year's Day spectacle. The key thing to know about the parade is that somehow — some way — all of the surface materials showing on all of the huge, costly, elaborate, and ridiculous floats have some connection to vegetable matter. When you think about it, though, peculiar and random rules are always at the heart of every beloved human ritual.

Actress Cloris Leachman is the grand marshal this year, and the parade is televised on an awful lot of channels. Al Roker and Nancy O'Dell will host for NBC, and it's also on ABC, the CW, Univision, HGTV, and The Travel Channel. I wish I could watch it all, just to see who reads the most obscure vegetation-connection bullet point from their voluminous vegetation-connection notes.

The best tie-in tradition to the Rose Parade that I have ever heard came from Garry Meier, for whose family the Rose Parade triggered an irrestistable civic duty to take down their Christmas tree and the rest of their Christmas decorations. I would love to see this custom formalized in Racine, Wisconsin's statutes, with a graduated series of penalties for violators — doubling, perhaps, each day.

Lots of localities around the world feature some sort of "Polar Bear Club" which takes a "Polar Bear Plunge" into icy waters. The big New Year's Day event here is the Racine Splash and Dash (Cash or Can) into frigid Lake Michigan at North Beach (Google Map here). The outing raises money and food for a variety of charitable causes in our area:

More than $20,000 was raised each of the last 3 years. The Splash and Dash believes in helping the Racine community with the basic necessities of food and shelter. That is why the money raised goes to the Racine County Food Bank and HALO (Homeless Assistance Leadership Organization). Last year the Splash and Dash included the Kiwanis Foundation as a benefactor of the jump and seven $1,000 scholarships were given to Racine youths.

The Splash and Dash Web site says bathers are going to start gathering at Coasters bar at 7:00 a.m. on New Year's Day, then head over to North Beach for the quick dip at noon. So far, the weather forecast for the location looks reasonable. There's a must-see video online showing the abnormally cold 2008 event. We have never been, but our neighbors across the street usually take their kids, and come home still dripping.

What about you? Do you have quirky New Year's customs, or special foods or underwear that you employ to attract good luck for the coming 12 months?

Please use the handy comment form below to share your secrets, for auld lang syne.

Rick Sanchez has that special something.

It's more complicated than simply being someone people love to hate. There is a certain rare balance of unimaginable awfulness and underlying vulnerability that makes some of the world's biggest egos simply irresistible.

Think for a moment about all the people currently flocking to Frost/Nixon, the Ron Howard film about a 31-year-old admission from a failed president. Another example of a repelling-compelling personality would be Jerry Lewis, who has built an entire career exploiting this quality.

Of course no single moment crystallizes this convergence of lameness and humanity like the classic clip of Rick Sanchez being Tasered.

Yesterday, though, someone nevertheless identified him as the personification of our very culture's corrosion.

Last night at 6:26 Eastern, Rick Sanchez tweeted a link to a blog post consisting of a large excerpt from yesterday's column by former White House communications strategist Lawrence J. Haas, who served as press secretary for Vice President Al Gore.

Entitled "The Pathetic Rick Sanchezation of America," the piece rips Sanchez as "a font of low-brow banality, with observations more appropriate for a barstool than an anchor chair."

But this is more than just media criticism. Haas uses Rick Sanchez to indict our national idiocracy:

Sanchez personifies far more than media's descent, however. He epitomizes a cultural infantilizing that corrodes our capacity for deliberation. At just the time we need to get serious - with our economy in turmoil and our enemies taking our measure - we seem less equipped to do so.

At least regarding TV news specifically, I have heard a number of people remark that it seems to be aimed mostly at four to six-year-olds these days. A former colleague of mine, Greg Berg, blogged about local TV coverage of our weather:

During the last snowfall, Channel 12 had "team coverage" in full swing, meaning that for any given newscast there might be four reporters stationed in four different locales, and each one reporting exactly the same thing- it's been snowing! Lyra O'Brien is especially maddening in this regard. The last time she was "out in the field," she stood next to a parked car and gave us a careful description of how its windshield had been pretty much clear an hour ago, but now there is about a half inch of powdery snow covering it.

Back in the late 1960s, Al Primo incorporated "happy talk" as a key element of his Eyewitness News format, with great success. Now, forty years later, the industry has devolved into baby talk.

Okay, so that might the way a local Milwaukee station covers snow falling in Wisconsin in December, but how does an international cable news network allocate its resources on the night America elects its first black president?

Why, of course it first spends an estimated $300,000 or $400,000 to produce a phony hologram, then employs anchor Wolf Blitzer to sell this trick to us, in the simplest possible terms:

Meanwhile, CNN recently cut 16-year veteran Miles O'Brien and the six producers in his science, environment and technology unit. They also said goodbye to Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre, and correspondent Kathleen Koch.

Oh, and Justice Department/Supreme Court correspondent Kelli Arena is also out.

Rick Sanchez is still there, though — and last night, attacked by Lawrence J. Haas, he tweeted his defense:

ricksanchezcnn: amazing, i twitter, talk to people instead of reading something written by somebody else to them, use no teleprom pter. they hate it?

ricksanchezcnn: some people are just stuck in the past. they don't want to accept things are and n eed to change.

In an age when more staid news organizations compose and publish their reasoning in quaint blogs, Rick Sanchez has a Twitter account.

Yes, the times they are a changin'. Many of those somebody-elses who used to write things for news readers to read have been let go, just like workers in virtually every other segment of our economy.

Back on October 26, 2003, an essay by Leah Eskin appeared in the Chicago Tribune's Sunday magazine. In it, she noted that the much-touted "service economy" has, in reality, turned out to be a self-service economy in which — as in the U-Haul model — you now get to do everything yourself:

U be the banker! Get your money out yourself or pay extra. U type and file. Because your administrative assistant has been exchanged for a handheld widget with a stick. U book your own flight. Or the airline will disconnect you. And should U manage to write yourself an e-ticket, U check yourself in.

Other writers have observed the same thing. Ellen Goodman wrote about our new, do-it-all-yourself world this past July:

I am tempted to say that customer service has gone the way of the house call, but that reminds me that even medicine has been outsourced to patients who buy do-it-yourself kits to test and track everything from HIV to blood pressure. In an era when every operation short of brain surgery is done on an outpatient basis, nursing care has already been outsourced to family members whose entire medical training consists of TiVo-ing "Grey's Anatomy."

As with everything else, so also with news reporting.

Some stations are shifting the load of a whole news crew onto one person's shoulders, and trying to pass off these "new" one-man bands as an innovation — "multimedia journalists."

Ultimately, though, the biggest savings is realized by cutting reporters out of the picture altogether. CNN now promotes its iReport system as "Unedited. Unfiltered. News." — as if those are desirable qualities.

Increasingly, news reporting consists of soliciting rudimentary exclamations from the audience, and then repeating them back to the audience — exactly the same game that adults play with little babies lacking vocabulary.

Do you think the $700 billion bailout will save the economy? Do you? If you do, then text "yes." And then later, we'll tell you if you do. Koochikoo!

My man Rick Sanchez is on the cutting edge of this new innovation in news gathering:

ricksanchezcnn: yeap, the ratings and response is huge, and it is the future of news, has to be. but so ma ny haters. huh?

ricksanchezcnn: if i sat there reading prompter with scripts written 5 hours before show, they'd be delighted. how stupid? of im spout'n now. sorry

This is where that special magic comes in. This is where the cheap trickster, sensing he's been sniffed out, curls himself up into the position of a helpless victim. It's downright adorable.

Richard Nixon, you know, had his haters too, as he told Henry Kissinger:

Never forget. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.

It would be impossible to hate Rick Sanchez if he really was, like the fictional Ted Baxter before him, just plain stunningly clueless and inept.

On occasion, however, Sanchez has revealed himself to be a reasonably intelligent person. On October 30, he briefly cornered Michael Goldfarb, the deputy communications director for the McCain/Palin campaign:

Last year, Sanchez confronted fellow CNN blusterer Lou Dobbs on the air for a little exhibition boxing on the topic of immigration.

So I have to imagine that Rick Sanchez knows what he's doing. Perhaps he sees the dismantling of journalism — and dismantling of the overall concept of employment — as inevitable. Perhaps he's just trying to ride the bronco as long as he can before he, too, gets thrown off, in favor of some automated system that echoes tweets back to their senders without the middleman.

Nixon, however, is not the leader he identifies with:

ricksanchezcnn: yeah, look at obama. say what u what about him. he adapted a new way of communicating and kicked but.he g ets haters too tho

Yes, Barack Obama utilized new technologies and social networking — including Twitter — to build a campaign that was co-driven by his supporters themselves.

The difference, though, is that Obama did not abandon his job as a candidate and have his supporters choose his positions, write his speeches, pick out his ties and select his campaign songs.

While actively seeking input and ideas, Obama has been anything but a passive reflection of America's dumbfounded outrage. Rather than amplifying and feeding back the noise, Obama has sought to become its antidote. He has just spent several weeks appointing a cabinet of grown-ups, and it seems he expects them all to make decisions, take actions, and actually do their jobs.

In April of 1974, Robert M. Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values was published. In it, Pirsig examined the metaphysics of Quality and asked "What is best?" Among other things, he used the analogy of keeping a motorcycle in proper working order so that one could, for instance, rely on it during a road trip.

Beginning in about 1993, as part of his Renewing American Civilization course, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich promoted a different definition of quality. His came from W. Edwards Deming, and in my own mind, I have crudely reduced it to "What sells?

A slightly fuller synopsis can be found elsewhere on the Web:

Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught that by adopting appropriate principles of management, organizations can increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs (by reducing waste, rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing customer loyalty). The key is to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not as bits and pieces.

Back then, as I listened to both Gingrich and Deming, it struck me that McDonalds might serve as a perfect example of the principles they were putting forth. Since then, Mark Knopfler has wriiten his own ode to the Ray Kroc method in his 2004 song "Boom, Like That":

These boys have got the touch
It's clean as a whistle and it don't cost much
Wham bam don't wait long, shake, fries, patty, you're gone

But how would Robert Pirsig's test of quality — "What is best?" — rate the McDonald's definition of a meal? Is driving your car up to a window and having someone hand you a bag containing paper-wrapped piles of cheap starches and protein, loaded with fat and salt, really "Quality" just because of the billions and billions sold?

One of Gingrich's assertions back then was that there was no longer any need for public broadcasting, because cable TV had given us The History Channel and A&E.

Are these two definitions of Quality in total opposition? Can what's best also sell?

A 2007 study by the Missouri School of Journalism found that newspapers can actually make money by investing in a quality product:

The most important finding is that newspapers are under-spending in the newsroom and over-spending in circulation and advertising," [Esther] Thorson said. "If you invest more in the newsroom, do you make more money? The answer is yes. If you lower the amount of money spent in the newsroom, then pretty soon the news product becomes so bad that you begin to lose money.

I can only hope that at some point we will, like the interest rates before us, reach some sort of absolute bottom. I have to hope that our race to cut and gut all costs involved in producing everything will run out of gas — that someone, somewhere, will realize that irrational profitability is indeed irrational, and that it's better to make some realistic money selling a decent product than to simply cash in the scrap copper from the wiring of your former hologram machine to dress up yet another quarter's bottom line.

If that day does indeed come, it would be interesting to hear from Rick Sanchez again — and possibly talk to him about cheeseburgers, maybe get some sort of apology.

When I woke up this morning to a few new inches of snow, the temperature outside was -4°F, combined with a 23 m.p.h. breeze for a wind chill index of 28 below zero. The news anchor on WBBM 780 informed me that winter had just officially begun one minute ago.

When we were shoveling 13 inches of snow two days ago, our mail carrier remarked,"Can you believe it? It's not even winter yet."

As I write this now, the calendar on the wall next to me designates December 21 as "First Day of Winter."

Nonsense. We're three weeks into winter, as any meteorologist could tell you.

Most of us non-astronomers, however, spend our time down here on earth where the wind blows and the snow falls. Here at ground level, it has been winter for a while. (Hush, Australia and Argentina.)

Meteorological speaking, spring encompasses March, April and May. Summer is June, July and August. Autumn is September, October and November — and winter (drumroll, please) extends through all of December, January, and February.

Isn't that much more sensible and in keeping with the natural rhythm of things?

In the United States, for example, Memorial Day is generally considered the kickoff of actual summer. Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday in May, which can come as late as May 31. What comes immediately after that? June. Or, by meteorological reckoning, summer.

When does summer end? Here in the U.S.A., on Labor Day — the first Monday in September, which can come as early as September 1, the first day of autumn by meteorological reckoning.

Yes, in the spirit of American exaggeration, we do tack 6 or 7 days on to the beginning or the end of summer and chalk it up to the quirks of the seven-day week. But we know very well when summer begins and ends. You can literally feel it in the air.

Likewise, we know when winter begins. Parking bans go into effect here in cities all over the snowy Midwest on December 1.

And where have they stuck our tax deadline? On April 15, right smack in the middle of the middle month of spring, the most hopeful and optimistic time of year. Anything to cushion the blow.

As far as I can determine, even through newscasters often talk about the exact time that, say, "winter officially begins," there is nothing official about it. Searching the United States Code, I have not found any law setting forth the beginning and end of the four seasons. The United States Naval Observatory is the keeper of our nation's official time, but if you look under their FAQ under "Earth Seasons," you just get a table of perihelions, aphelions, equinoxes and solstices. Pure NASA gobbledegook of no use to anyone wishing to park a car, wear white pants, or complain about the wind chill factor.

So the good news seems to be that no legislative campaign will be necessary. There's no need to spend $700 billion on a state-by-state drive to amend the U.S. Constitution, twisting arms in peculiar portions of Indiana.

No, sensible and reasonable reader, the power to declare when winter begins rests with you.

If you agree that it makes more sense to have winter begin on December 1 every year — rather than at 12:04 Universal Time on December 21, 2009 and at 5:30 on December 22, 2011 — then simply make up your mind that it is so, and correct anyone else who still clings to error. Fire off email to the officious news readers who have it wrong. Tell your father-in-law that he is mistaken. Raise your children to understand the true start dates of the seasons.

Just a short generation or two from now, we will no longer live in a world where people slavishly adhere to an "official" beginning of a winter which is bewilderingly already underway.

This will give us all that much more time to address the correct pronunciation of the adjective "short-lived."]]> http://www.czerniec.com/2008/12/21/first-day-of-winter.html http://www.czerniec.com/2008/12/21/first-day-of-winter.html Seasons Time Weather astronomy cold December meteorology seasons snow solstice weather winter Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:25:34 -0600

A few of the keywords, topics, search terms, and items that have recently been attracting attention around the Internet:

• ethan bortnick (Google Trends) — According to his website, "Ethan Bortnick is a 6 Year Old Pianist and currently knows over 200 songs by memory, including pieces from Beethoven, Bach and Mozart." Coincidentally enough, I just heard him interviewed by Scott Simon this morning on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. As mentioned in the promo clip above, you can buy Ethan's DVD at Amazon.com, as well as Ethan's audio CD. You can also download MP3s of his music there.
• picower foundation (Google Trends) — According to a New York Times story yesterday, the Picower Foundation, one of the nation's leading philanthropies, announced on Friday that it was shutting down. The Times goes on to explain that the foundation's assets were managed by Bernard Madoff.
• rca dome implosion (Google Trends) — As the AP reports, the RCA Dome, former home of the Indianapolis Colts, was imploded this morning just after 9:30 a.m. As of this writing, there are a few YouTube clips of the event, including a couple of home videos of WTHR's coverage.
• Shorty Award (Twitter) — According to their website, "The Shorty Awards honor the world's top Twitterers. You can nominate as many people for as many categories as you'd like until midnight December 31st."

This was the view outside my window at about 9:20 this morning. I think I'm going to send it to Charles Osgood and ask him to use it as the last minute of this week's CBS Sunday Morning.

The snow has since stopped, so now we're going out to shovel.

Here are our first few steps out the back door:

Like Amy's Royal Mail coat? Sure, all the trendy Dutch were wearing them last year, but Amy got hers the year before that at American Science & Surplus.

Here's the snow in front of our house:

This is our neighbor Kim with her curvy new ride:

And here we are (courtesy of our neighbor Jamie), finished for now, after about two hours of shoveling:

I measured 10, 12, and 13 inches since last night in three different spots on our front walk. Our forecast calls for more snow tomorrow, Sunday, and Tuesday.

Plus, there's also a Wind Chill Advisory which anticipates wind chill values of 20 to 34 degrees below zero from Saturday night through Monday morning.