three paragraphs, three different ideas
I'm kind of stacking up potential blog posts in my brain, so instead of picking just one this evening here's three, minus some of the usual development.
One
We got some lemongrass from the food pantry, so I needed to find out how to cook with it. Leah is feeling a little bit under the weather so I was happy to learn that it's just what you need to make some sustaining Thai comfort food. Zion and I enjoyed it as well, healthy as we are. My only complaint was that I couldn't taste the lemongrass enough: it smelled so delicious as I was chopping it! I saved one stalk and am trying to get it to root in some water, in hopes of having a personal supply next year.
Two
I don't like to comment too much on mainstream politics here, but I have an observation on this Romney "47 percent" thing that's too long to tweet or whatever. I don't think that it will matter as much as Democrats hope, not despite but because of the fact that, regardless of income tax status, nearly everyone pays taxes of some kind. The Republicans are actually targeting poor people with that rhetoric, because the last thing a disadvantaged social conservative wants to hear is that the government is doing something for anyone other than him. "I may be poor," the Romney campaign hopes such a voter will say, "but at least I'm doing my part, not like those 47 percent people." They don't even have to say that those 47 percent are probably mostly black! It's the classic American political tactic of getting poor whites to vote against their own economic interest by pitting them against an imaginary "underclass", employed by the Democrats from 1877 to 1964 and the Republicans thereafter.
Three
Leah's post about Harvey and kids' church, accurate as it was, missed a crucial piece of context. Harvey is now working his uncertainty about the whole setup into regular conversation with people who aren't us: Grandma, his friend Will, a random mom at the playground. All are nonplussed. The last conversation went something like this:
Random Mom: "How old are you?"
Harvey: "I'm three."
RM: "Wow, you're big for three!"
H: "Yeah, but I'm a little bit scared of kids' church. I went but now I'm a little bit scared."
I was sufficiently far away that I wasn't prompted to offer any clarification.