tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post8241621045273984341..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Russians. Bagels. Liberty.Assistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-50631658432521613952019-04-11T14:10:47.364-04:002019-04-11T14:10:47.364-04:00I think ethnicity matters. Bagels were originally ...I think ethnicity matters. Bagels were originally an Eastern European thing. The last good bagels I remember came from a bakery staffed by Russian immigrants in Chicago in the '90s. OTOH the place was dirty and I stopped going there. Now you have corporate bagels made by whomever and they usually get something wrong. Typically they use flour with insufficient gluten or omit the dunk in boiling water or some other traditional production step. It doesn't help that bakery staff around here tend to be from Central American or Caribbean countries that don't have strong bread traditions. Ah, well.Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08111391338812214765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-65101353391183847172019-04-09T14:45:30.147-04:002019-04-09T14:45:30.147-04:00As a comparison, New Englanders can absolutely tel...<i>As a comparison, New Englanders can absolutely tell real maple syrup from "pancake syrup," or whatever they call it. If someone tells you they can discern New Hampshire from Vermont from Quebec they are lying, but we can all tell the real from the cheap commercial.</i><br /><br />As a New England native no longer residing there, I would agree. My flyover father made maple extract syrup for our pancakes, so I am quite familiar with the taste difference. The real thing beats maple extract syrup, hands down. Family friends run a maple sugar op, which is now very high-tech. Filters do most of the water reduction that boiling once did. IIRC, it saves about 75% of the fuel once used. When I last visited them, I purchased a quart of maple syrup. After I realized that Homeland Security might have problems with my transporting a quart of maple syrup, I gave it to my brother in Maine.<br /><br />New York bagels versus bagels made outside the boroughs: I am neutral. I once made bagels from scratch. While they were tasty, I concluded they weren't worth the effort.<br /><br />One food advantage that New York- and also Boston- have is the presence of Chinese bakeries. Whenever I am in either Boston or New York, I purchase pork buns,coconut rolls, and such items at Chinese bakeries. <br /><br /><br />I learned some lessons about nationalism and stereotypes in Latin America. If you want an easy way to offend the Dutch, just ask them if they are German. Which reminds me of a problem my mother once had with overzealous Dutch customs officials. "They're more German than the Germans," she concluded. Disclaimer: I have both German and Dutch ancestry.RichardJohnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07490819511630683969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-42119948697948440812019-04-09T01:48:54.795-04:002019-04-09T01:48:54.795-04:00I guess a patriotic Briton might say that Cornwall...I guess a patriotic Briton might say that Cornwallis wasn't actually at the battle of King's Mountain; the battle was commanded by one of his deputies, controlling his flank. But it whipped him all the same, I would say, since he was forced out of North Carolina.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-65068042580915421982019-04-09T01:38:04.324-04:002019-04-09T01:38:04.324-04:00Greene turned the course of the war in the South, ...Greene turned the course of the war in the South, where it mostly had been being lost until he got here. You're right about the Scots-Irish, though: they whipped Cornwallis at King's Mountain before Greene arrived.<br /><br />I've walked the battlefield at Cowpens, where Greene's deputy Morgan set up an ambush that destroyed an excellent unit of British cavalry. He took some hardened forces from up North, who had been bloodied in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and set them up as a third rank behind two ranks of local militia who were no match for the cavalry. The cavalry thought they were routing the American forces as they broke through the first two ranks, and thereby overextended themselves. When they hit the third rank, stretched out and weak, they died under disciplined fire. <br /><br />Greene tried to replicate that strategy, but it didn't work as well for him at Guilford Court House. Maybe it was partly because they'd seen it before; maybe it was because Cornwallis proved willing to fire artillery on his own troops in order to kill Americans.<br /><br />Still, overall, Greene figured out how to control the back-country and force the Brits to the sea. They only owned Savannah and Charleston when they surrendered, and a salient between them. There's a monument to Greene in Savannah, as there ought to be.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-31256546420987699042019-04-08T23:30:38.573-04:002019-04-08T23:30:38.573-04:00On the other hand, it pays to ask what we are tryi...On the other hand, it pays to ask what we are trying to accomplish. To give them freedom? Um. While that is certainly a good thing, are they on the same page? War has a lot of unhappy side effects, and maybe they value not getting shot at more highly than elections.<br /><br />For that matter, I even in our own country it isn't hard to find lots of people who don't value liberty very highly--except perhaps in sexual matters. My "certainly a good thing" would find lots of mainstream objection.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-38329281954152618912019-04-08T22:43:35.241-04:002019-04-08T22:43:35.241-04:00Well, yeah. Which the Turks and Iraqis are never ...Well, yeah. Which the Turks and Iraqis are never going to figure out in favor of leaving the Kurds alone. Exactly.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-63281487249865476872019-04-08T22:38:49.605-04:002019-04-08T22:38:49.605-04:00I'm shaky on my history, but didn't the Br...I'm shaky on my history, but didn't the British fight a costly war with the French and Indians over territory in the new world that the British then demanded the colonials pay for in taxes? Wasn't that one of the major reasons for declaring independence?<br /><br />Maybe they figured that paying for two wars wasn't worth the trouble?Boxtyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04371034064849356356noreply@blogger.com