Life On The Gulf Coast

Every area of the country has its downside.  California has earthquakes and mudslides and forest fires.  The midwest has tornadoes.  And New Jersey has...well...just being New Jersey is bad enough!  

Down here on the gulf coast we get hurricanes.  (We don't even worry about tropical storms.)  During hurricane season (June through October), we anxiously watch the tropics for these inexplicable low-pressure waves that are spawned in Africa and then come barrelling westbound across the Atlantic. 

A wave will morph into a "depression," then grow into a tropical storm and ultimately a hurricane.  Once a storm enters the eastern Caribbean, weatherguessers will then start to predict where it's going to go.  Might it turn and go up the Atlantic coast?  Or will it come straight across into the Gulf of Mexico?  Here in Pensacola, Florida, it is those latter ones that capture our attention.

The various weather services - and there are many - produce predictions of a storm's track.  They are collected into what are called the "spaghetti models" because if you superimpose them onto a map it looks kind of like a bowl of spaghetti.  People more knowledgeable than me then choose the path-model they think is the most likely candidate.  

Spaghetti Models from KHOU Houston

Right now we're looking at Hurricane Delta, which at the moment is a "strong Cat-2" storm down by the Yucatan Peninsula.  Forecasters say that it will intensify into a Cat-3 or Cat-4!  Its current track takes it into the Gulf of Mexico.  Then it's anyone's guess as to exactly where it will make landfall, except that it will be along the gulf coast somewhere, probably around New Orleans...and that could be 100 miles east or west of there.  As the crow flies, Pensacola is about 150 miles east of New Orleans.

There are many variables when it comes to hurricanes.  Overall strength, actual track and speed of the storm across the ground are the most obvious.  But upper-level steering currents and the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico also play a part.  And right now, the Gulf is pretty warm.

So yeah, we're a little concerned.  If there is anything hopeful at all with the approach of a Cat-3 hurricane, it is that the last hurricane took down the weaker trees and branches.  So maybe this next one won't cause so many trees to fall on so many powerlines.  That might be the only good news, but we'll take it!

The Easiest, Most Delicious Casserole Recipe

Do you like tacos?  WHO DOESN'T LIKE TACOS!  Why, that would be un-American!  

This is not a cooking blog.  But being a single guy who loves to eat, I occasionally come across a recipe for something that tastes really good and that even I, with my limited abilities in the kitchen, can cook.  There are a few "standard" dishes that I make when I have company over.  And I found a new one!

I came across this recipe online for a...kind of..."southwest salad" type of thing.  I don't know what you call it.  And of course now I can't find the video to share the link.  It is incredibly simple and easy to make.  And it is the most delicious thing I've ever eaten.  Yes, in my life.  It's so simple that even a basement-dwelling 20-something who can't even make toast can cook up this dish on a hot-plate and make it come out incredible.  Trust me.  

YOU'LL NEED:
1 pound of ground turkey
1 can of black beans (rinsed)
1 can of corn
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 big bag of shredded cheese (your choice)
1 big bag of tortilla chips (I prefer flour to corn)

OPTIONAL:
1.  Two avocados, cut up and put in a bowl with some lime juice
2.  Sour cream
3.  Salsa (mild or hot, your choice)

DIRECTIONS:
1.  Cook the ground turkey.  Drain, return to pan, add the taco seasoning and 2/3 cup of water. Mix it all together.
2.  Mix in the corn and black beans.
3.  Add a generous handful of shredded cheese.  (I use a "Mexican blend."  You, use what you got.)
4.  Cover and stick in a 350 degree oven for ten to fifteen minutes to let the cheese melt.
5.  Done!  Bring the whole thing to the table.  Be careful, it's hot!  Use a trivet and pot-holders.

NOTES:

You'd rather use ground beef or ground pork?  Knock yourself out.  In fact it would probably taste better with ground beef.  I just like to limit the amount of red meat I take in, and ground turkey works fine.   

If you don't have a fry pan with a cover that you can stick in the oven, no problem.  Once you get everything all mixed up, just transfer it to a casserole dish, cover with tin foil and pop it in the oven.  (But seriously, go buy a good quality fry pan - a big, oven-safe one with vertical sides and a cover.)

I serve this over broken up tortilla chips (nachos style).  Or you could serve the chips on the side.

After I scoop out a huge mound onto my plate, I'll top it with salsa, sour cream, avocado, if I have that stuff.  (And of course, MORE CHEESE!)  But the dish by itself is awesome.

I like the fact that there's no rice or potatoes in this dish, although you could certainly serve this over rice.  And of course, while you're cooking, you could add cilantro, or chili peppers, or onions, or cut up tomatoes...I mean, the list of things you could add to this dish is endless.  But me, I keep it simple.  The turkey (with taco seasoning), corn and black beans (and cheese!) all by themselves served over tortilla chips is marvelous.

This size of this basic recipe works if you live alone or there are only two of you in the household.  There won't be much left over.  I usually double the recipe.  It will get eaten.

No, this is not high-class, gourmet food.  You won't see Giada De Laurentiis making this dish on her Food Network TV show.  It's about as basic as can be.  But trust me on this... if you're in the mood for some easy, delicious comfort food, it doesn't get much better than this.

Willful Amnesia

I'd like to expand a bit on my post about Slavery just below this one...  

A friend of mine and I were talking about Slavery, especially as it applies to the U.S. here in 2020.  He sent me a link to an interesting article on a website called "The World," which is a part of PRI (Public Radio International). You can read the article HERE. 

The article is about Africa's role in the slave trade, and how it's only recently that Blacks have begun to come to terms with it.  It focuses on the story of one woman, Mona Boyd.  Ms. Boyd and her husband were both successful business people in Boston, Massachusetts before deciding that they did not want to raise their son in the U.S.  So they moved to Ghana. 

Blacks don't like to talk about the role that their own ancestors played in the slave trade.  But for every buyer, there had to be a seller.  And who was selling their own countrymen to the European buyers?  Right, African kings and tribal leaders.  Here's an interesting section of the article:  

“There is a willful amnesia about the roles that we played in the slave trade,” said Nat Amarteifio, a local historian who’s also a former mayor of Accra, Ghana's capital.

Let's be honest, the U.S. didn't invent modern Slavery.  It had been going on for centuries, certainly well before the 1400's when the Portugese arrived in Africa with guns to trade for people.  This was, we might note, also well before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  Now, eventually the British colonies in "the New World" (later, the United States) would become a major participant in the slave trade, for sure.  So it's not like we're completely blame-free.  And we ultimately did abolish Slavery - at great cost. 

The point of all of this is that we need to keep things in perspective.  Attributing the blame for Slavery to the U.S. might make you feel good, but...  Remember who it was who willingly sold their countrymen into Slavery in exchange for guns and things that would help them in their never-ending wars against other tribal leaders.  It's time that somebody stood up and said, "Whoa...wait a minute...there are two sides to every story."

https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-20/willful-amnesia-how-africans-forgot-and-remembered-their-role-slave-trade?fbclid=IwAR1lieSw-87upXxJiI_9kdqxm1-UuFmzPHBarNW3o_3qu49RVrwNZbUGXxo

Black Privilege

There are these things called unintended consequences.  It's when you do something, and it has the desired effect.  But then there are..."other" things that happen as well that you did not predict.  Sometimes the unintended consequences are good...sometimes not.

Let's take Slavery.  Bad, right?  No question.  A horrible stage in American history...something for which we should be deeply ashamed but at the same time glad that we rectified a terrible mistake.

But...with Slavery, like with most things, it's not that simple.

First, let us acknowledge that America did not invent Slavery.  It had been going on for centuries and for the purpose of our discussion here, its origin is not important.  But let's also admit that for the concept of Slavery to work, there had to be complicity among the African leaders of the nations which supplied the slaves.  I mean, white Americans didn't simply sail over to Africa, round up a bunch of Black people..."Hey, you wanna go for a little boat ride?  Come on, it'll be fun!"...and ship them off to the States by the millions.  No, it wasn't called the "slave trade" for nothing; slaves were purchased from their original, uhhh, owners.  

So there had to be a certain amount of cooperation by those in charge at the time...meaning: other Black people.  Let's say it out loud: Black people sold each other into Slavery.

Okay, never mind the sordid history.  We all know that Slavery was a grievous mistake.  It was corrected.  And like it or not, the United States has ultimately become one of the richest nations in the world...a democratic republic in which anybody can pursue their dreams and "make something" of themselves....the place where everyone wants to be.  In fact, to be born in America is a huge advantage over being born anywhere else.  You don't see hordes of people risking life and limb, marching down to and jumping over the fence to get into, say, Honduras.

Modern-day Blacks are still angry about Slavery.  But we must ask: Where would they be without it?  Would they be living in Africa somewhere?  Would they even have been born to begin with, and would they have survived?  And if so, why would they even come to America?  (That one's easy: To pursue the American Dream, the equivalent of which did not...and still does not...exist in most of their home countries.)  

The unintended consequence of Slavery is that modern Blacks have a life that is infinitely better than they would have if Slavery had not existed. 

I'd say...and this may sound like perverted logic...but I'd say that Black people here in the U.S. ought to be damn glad for Slavery!  It was that horrid, despicable institution that paved the way for them to be born here in the greatest country on the planet.  One might even go so far as to say that today's Black people have, well, "Black Privilege."  

But don't tell them that!  They're too busy being angry, and telling us what an awful country the U.S. is, and demanding reparations.  Hmm, come to think of it, maybe they really should be demanding those reparations from the descendants of the African kings and tribal leaders that sold their ancestors into Slavery in the first place.

CORONAVIRUS: Jumping The Gun?

With regard to my post just below this one - in the interest of fairness I may want to rethink things.

I posted something similar on my Facebook page about the decreasing number of new cases and deaths here in Florida.  But ultimately took that post down.  I may have spake too soon.  A friend reminded me that the coronavirus testing centers in South Florida were closed for a couple of days to an approaching tropical storm.  So...fewer tests means fewer results, right?  And fewer results means fewer positive on the chart, right?  Right.

Now, given that it usually takes up to a week or more for the average person to receive their test results, I'm not at all confident in the currency of the published data.  In other words, if Florida reports today that there are, say, X-amount of new cases, how recently were those tests administered? 

As the storm trucks off to the north, and the testing resumes in South Florida, it will be interesting to see what happens to the numbers.  I will keep you posted.

CORONAVIRUS: Gambling In Florida

I think it was silly to assume that the coronavirus could ever have been stopped.  Yet many Americans did just that.  "If we'd only just stay home."  "If we'd only just wear our damn masks."  "If we'd only blah blah blah."  But viruses go where viruses go.  You can't stop them.

Anyway, "Flatten The Curve" was never about stopping the virus.  It was the philosophy dreamed up so our national health care system would not become overwhelmed with COVID19 patients taking up all of the ICU beds and ventilators.  It was we dumb Americans who made the leap from "Flatten The Curve" to "We Can Stop This Virus From Spreading!" We cannot; all we can do is slow it down a bit.

Here in Florida, our Governor DeSantis must be the biggest gambler in history.  He's hoping that our New Cases/Deaths curves will soon mimic those of New York State, Sweden and Italy (which are virtually flat).  For those places, the coronavirus is simply not an issue anymore.  Apparently, enough people have gotten it and gotten over it.

Governor DeSantis has got to be sweating bullets right now.  The number of new cases and deaths in our state has been steadily increasing, and he's taking a lot of heat.  By not implementing another statewide lockdown, and by not issuing a mandatory mask order, DeSantis has bet the rent, the power bill, the car payment, and probably his cigarette money on this pandemic ending soon for us.  Every morning, he must wake up to check the latest numbers, and while waiting for the site to update he's praying, "Come on, herd immunity...come on, herd immunity!"   

Well, maybe we're there...or we're about to be.  Check out the latest graphs below.  Florida seems to have hit a plateau, with new cases and deaths on an apparent downward slide.  We have to keep our fingers crossed that these trends continue.  Governor DeSantis surely has a lot riding on it happening sooner rather than later. If we're through the worst of it, he'll look like a hero. But if the trends reverse and start going back up, he will soon be known as the former governor of Florida.

Well, That's Bullshit!

Some of my Facebook friends seem perplexed that the American public just won't take the word of the government or government experts on some things.  Specifically, they bring up this hydroxychloroquine issue.  The government says the drug has no value in treating the coronavirus.  Some doctors and recovered COVID19 victims disagree.  My FB friends just can't seem to understand why people won't discard conflicting information and simply believe the government!

Well, I'll tell you why: It's because we've come to distrust the government.  We don't believe what they tell us, and don't believe that "the government" has our best interests at heart.

Take the esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci.  As recently as a couple of months ago, Fauci publicly stated that Americans didn't need to be wearing masks.  Now he says that we all should be wearing masks.  Why the switch?  Well it turns out that his previous stance was because he wanted to preserve PPE (personal protection equipment) for health care workers, the people who needed it the most.  Ohhhhh, I see.  He lied.  But we are asked to understand and excuse that lie, because it was, you know, justified.  A "good" lie.

And the American people go, "Well, that's bullshit!"

We are told during this pandemic that we cannot go to church...cannot have funerals.  And yet people ranging from George Floyd to Congressman John Lewis get to have...not just one funeral, but MULTIPLE services in different states!  It's a double-standard that doesn't make much sense no matter how you look at it or try to justify it.

And the American people go, "Well, that's bullshit!"

I could go on.  Remember the THREE YEARS that the government spent trying to prove that President Trump was a Russian spy, and that his campaign actively solicited and accepted help from the Russian government to win the 2016 election?  And remember that even the Mueller Investigation couldn't come up with anything substantial to prove those claims?

And the American people go, "Well, that's bullshit!"

So, my naive Facebook friends, do not wonder why the American people have become so skeptical and cynical about what we're being told.  We see the duplicity.  We see the inconsistencies.  We see the double-standards.  We know bullshit when we see and hear it. 

And we see and hear it a lot.