Pump it up

Not your usual Monkey movie review

I got off my ass and went to see this documentary at ETSU last night (it's part of the SOAPIFF environmental film series):
As the title suggests this film is about coal and the region of the country where it's been mined the longest, the Appalachian mountains. It does it's best to provide both sides of the coal story but after seeing it there's no way one can remain neutral or on the side of the coal companies, well no way if you care about your fellow citizens, this planet, and what's right. It's a fine documentary and it's going to be on television on Planet Green network on Nov. 14th, so mark your calendars.

The main thrust of this film is the practice of mountain top removal mining, the practice of which has become the dominant way to mine coal in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia. For those of you who don't know here's how mountain top removal mining works:

• Bulldozers and earth removal equipment are taken to the top of a mountain ridge and the topsoil is removed. And by removed, I mean it's pushed down the side of the mountain and into local streams and creeks.
  
• Next all the layers of rock are blown away using dynamite so that a thin line of coal is exposed.
  
• The exposed coal is then scraped off the mountain and put in trucks that haul it to either coal yards or to waiting train cars that haul it to coal processing plants.
• After all the coal, and dirt and rock, and anything else that was once there, is removed the coal company then plants a few trees and some grass and says that the land is 'reclaimed,' meaning that it is supposed to be back like it was before.
• Once the coal gets to the processing plant it's washed with a chemical solution and then it's loaded into train cars once again and it's taken to electric power plants where it's burned to generate electricity.
  

The problems with this process are:

• the mountains are irrevocably changed and damaged beyond repair.
• the removal of the dirt, trees, rocks, grasses, and everything else that stands between the coal and the coal company causes water run off and the subsequent run off causes flooding.
• the bad chemicals in the coal, such as mercury, and the blast residue and the dirt and residue created as a result of the blasting runs into a pond that the coal companies make. These ponds are called containment ponds and they are nothing more than pools of toxic sludge.
• when the coal is washed at the processing plant the chemical residue from that wash is pumped into another containment pond, this one though is closer to where many people live.
• the toxic chemicals from the ponds, both the ones near the mountain top removal sites and the ones down in the valley near the processing plants, seep out and leach into the ground water and ultimately into the creeks, rivers, and people's wells. It has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that in towns that have a coal processing plant, cancer rates are much higher than in towns in the same area that do no have coal processing plants.

What mountain top coal removal is doing then is it's destroying not only our mountains so that you can have electricity, it's killing my fellow citizens, it's poisoning our water, and it's destroying the economies where it's practiced.

Before mountain top removal mining became the normal the way coal was mined was a process called deep mining. Deep mining is the type of mining you may be familiar with, it's where miners tunnel deep under ground and mine the coal. Understandably the men who did this type of work were brave and stout men and back in the early part of the last century when they saw how badly the coal companies were screwing them they unionized and their union, the United Mine Workers, fought many bloody battles and they won most of them. What the union did was to create a higher standard of living for it's members and in turn the whole region. The UMW made mining safer and it became, through the years, a powerful and feared union, which meant that the coal companies wanted to break it.

And in the 1980's they did just that. They used a divide and conquer strategy that worked beyond their wildest dreams. When they had the union divided, they fought for and won wage and benefit concessions and the then president of the UMW, Rich Trumka, happily agreed to them because he believed that in doing so he'd save many miners their jobs.

With the union broken and divided, with wage and benefits concessions won, the coal companies, led by Massey Energy, which is headed by uber corporate creep Don Blankenship, introduced mountain top coal removal. Once they adopted this method of removing coal they did not need any deep coal miners any more and they fired or laid off the deep coal miners. They were now free to mine as much as they liked and make more money from doing so. The union was broken and their members were now out of work. So what we ended up with is an environmental disaster that is a ticking time bomb, when those containment ponds break, and they will break, the scale of flooding will be horrific and when cancer rates start to creep every higher due to contaminated ground water, the toll on our medical system is going to be huge. Factor in the cost of the ruined mountains and the screwed up economy and mountain top coal removal has been good for only one group of people, the coal companies. The rest of us are getting screwed as a result of it. And as if that weren't bad enough, the coal companies have all the politicians (local, regional, and national levels) in our region in their back pockets, they are generous donors to politicians of both parties.

So whats a concerned citizen to do? Well, some of the folks in this area are fighting back and they've formed a group called Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, or SAMS for short, and they've achieved quite a few victories in their short life. SAMS has joined with other environmental and social justice organizations and together they're all fighting the good fight.

As for me, I want to get our place on solar as soon as it's economically feasible so that we become less dependent on coal, and I hope that you do the same when you can at your house and business. I'll be posting more about this topic of mountain top coal removal mining and what you and I can do to help stop it and help end our dependence on coal in general in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned.

Your CPA wants to remind you of something

"Sweater vests are not tax deductible under normal circumstances."

No nukes

So it turns out Iran is working on a nuclear bomb after all. And the pundits and the press are claiming it's President Obama's fault even though he's been in office for less than a year, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that nobody brings the crazy like the pundits and the press in this country.

For the eight years the preceded President Obama's ascension to the highest office in our land this country's policy was to not talk to countries we didn't like. And those countries were North Korea, Iran, and our former Reagan/Bush era ally Iraq. How'd that Bush era diplomacy work out for us? Oh yeah, it didn't. As we now know, they lied to us about Iraq so they could start a war to finish the one they didn't get right the first time and to subdue and force the Iraqis to bend to the will of our corporate overlords, North Korea is still a threat and is testing more missiles than it produces food for it's citizens, and Iran is developing a nuclear bomb.

So now everybody is up in arms because Bush once again was too busy deregulating markets, ignoring the needs of disaster victims, and screwing the poor and middle class to do what should have been done on the world stage. The heads of the G20 are sternly warning Iran that they'll face more sanctions unless they start behaving and drop their bomb making. And Israel has jumped in to the fray as well, their blowhard Prime Minister, who never met a Palestinian he didn't want to imprison, says that Iran must be subjected to severe sanctions. Crazy, huh.

First of all I'm all for Iran not having a nuclear bomb. I'm all for India and Pakistan not having any either. Same for Israel, France, Germany, Russia, and the USA. I want no country on the face of this earth to have a nuclear bomb because history has shown us that if we make one, we'll use one. We're fucking up this place fast enough without some jack ass country getting it's nose out of joint and nuking someone else over some bronze age religion disagreement.

Secondly, I'm all for severe sanctions on Iran but only if Israel faces the same sanctions over their treatment of the Palestinian people. What they are doing to the people of Palestine is genocide and those in power in Washington DC know it and they condone it.

Thirdly, any country caught making nukes again after complete disarmament will be forced to pack up and move to North Dakota during the dead of winter. A few months of life in that desolate hell hole will teach them to play nice and not build nukes again.

I know none of these things will ever be done but maybe, just maybe we can come to an agreement on the world stage using diplomacy instead of bluster. Maybe we can just laugh at the ass-hats like John Bolton and John McCain when they call for bombing instead of talking. Maybe we can have a Secretary of State who will step up and do some good for all of us and not just Blackwater, Haliburton, Wal Mart, Microsoft, and Pepsi/Coke for a change. And I say all that knowing that even that may be too much to ask of our corporate beholden leaders.

Meanwhile over in Europe, the witch hunts continue...

It's time to...

The Gerwe's would like to make friends with people who like to attend drive in movies and who square dance.

Cornelia would like to meet rich single men and incapacitate them for fun, profit, and the occasional belly laugh.

Mr. Tyrrele would like to meet a special lady who shares his love of nature and drinking MD 20/20 that has been strained through his dirty underwear.

Grace wants to meet someone she can eat loads of poodle meat and deny evolution with.

Mr. deVeer Ranoch is interested in finding people who can give his Nigerian friends some money so that they can access a much larger fortune that is being tied up by banks in their home country.

Mrs. Henry Staedt would like to meet a football fans who will attend Packers games with her and who will help her pelt damn dirty hippies and socialists with small rocks and shards of glass.

Mrs. Sharp would love to meet someone who will help her remember where she left her bottle of Ranch dressing.

(All these names and addresses came out of the April 1957 edition of the Journal of Lifetime Living, which was a magazine for senior citizens.)

Monkey movie reviews

I had resisted seeing Doubt because I'm not really into any kind of religious films whatsoever, but seeing as how we've been on an Amy Adams movie binge lately I rented this one the other day and we watched it Saturday night. And my bottom line is, it's damn good.

Without delving into the plot too much, because I don't want to give anything away to those who have not seen it, the film is about a miserable nun (Meryl Streep) who's twisted brand of religion is stuck up her ass so far it comes out her mouth, who clashes with a priest Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who wants to modernize his church. Stuck between them is a young black boy (Joseph Foster), his mother (Viola Davis), and a young nun (Amy Adams).

It's a well written, superbly acted gem of a film. All the main actors turn in stellar performances but the one that really stands out and shines so bright that it will blind you is that of Viola Davis. Her screen time is minimal and her lines are few compared to her co-stars but boy fucking howdy is she great.

This is the Streep/Adams film you need to see if you haven't seen it yet. Avoid Julie & Julia and see Doubt.

I highly recommend this film not only because it so good and because of the twists in it, I actually recommend it because it should be a mirror to you church going people. In it you'll see all kinds of people in your church, even if you have never been to a Catholic mass in your life. Meryl Streep's character is every sanctimonious judgmental church going prick who ever clucked their tongue at someone they disagreed with. Her character is universal in church circles, she's the one who acts like she's better than every one else in your church or synagogue and she's the one who wants to be the moral compass of your house of worship even though she embodies none of whatever are the best qualities of your specific religion are. And no matter how cool or hip you think your church is, no matter how progressive your pastor is, there's at least one of Meryl's character in your church right this minute.

John Patrick Shanley, the screen writer and director of Doubt, says in one of the DVD featurettes that he envisioned this story as a very specific story about the nuns who taught him in his youth, but what he's given us is a universal story filled with religious and societal archetypes.


In a much lighter vein, I watched Trekkies 2 this past Friday night. I saw Trekkies many years ago and I loved it, so I was skeptical about a sequel. I wondered if there was enough material there for another feature length film about obsessed fans.

I needn't have worried. There's probably enough material about people who obsess over the various incarnations of Star Trek for fifty more films.

This film is about the foreign Trekkies, and I know they prefer the term 'Trekker,' but as is pointed out in the film Gene Roddenberry, the man who created the Star Trek universe, coined the phrase Trekkies so that's the one I'm going to use. The film shows us Aussie fans, British fans, German and Italian fans, Brazilian fans, and even Serbian fans of Star Trek. Some are into the first incarnation, some are into The Next Generation, some are into Deep Space Nine, and so on and so on. It's a hoot seeing Denise Crosby, aka Tasha Yar, interact with German Klingons, Italian Kirks, and British Frengis. The film also catches us up with a few of the people from the first film and it showcases the various Star Trek bands that have sprung up, both rock and folk.

Having been a fan of the original, The Next Generation, and quite a few of the films, I found this film and the first one as well, highly entertaining and kind of heartwarming. The fans who go the extra mile and dress up as various characters and who face the scorn and derision of those who aren't into Star Trek are kind of heroic I think. They put it all out there on the line for all to see and make fun of and they get called all kinds of names and face all sorts of mockery, and let's face it, you and I both have made jokes about them, but still they do what makes them happy. For them Star Trek is a not only a TV show, it's a way of life and a way to meet and connect with others.

This film is a sweet Valentine to the oddballs and nerds who love and live Star Trek. I recommend this one highly.

Barn of the week

She's all over the place!

Our old pal the romance novel nurse sure gets around.

Saving kids, one book at a time

I bought a bunch of kid's books at a friends of a local library sale today. Some of them are bizarre picture books, some are artsy picture books, and some of them, well, let's just say it was a good thing I bought them before they landed in the wrong little hands. Here's a smattering of some of the more subversive ones:
In case you can't read the title of that book it's Menstruation and it was written by a dude. That's right, a dude. I wonder how many times he rode his menstrual cycle.

Funny, you never see books celebrating the fact that Mommy and Daddy stay together in a marriage for the sake of their ungrateful brats who'll dump them in a shoddy nursing home the first chance they get.

Another example of the sick twisted effort to taint our American minds with the filth that is the metric system. Thank Jeebus that the fluoride in our water and the ink we absorbed through the lining of our anuses from the colored toilet paper President Reagan made us use kept our resolve strong and we were able to reject the attempt to make us adopt that socialistic European measurement system. We dodged a huge bullet on that one, no thanks to people like Jimmy Carter, Tom Brokaw, and Joyce DeWitt.

Sure, the above book looks cute and fun but it's yet another attempt to tempt our children into an alternative sexual lifestyle. Bestiality Avenue is a dead end street, so stay away from the off ramp that leads to it.

And finally, when will the Amazon lesbians in the media stop trying turning our girls into men? Young ladies don't need to fight, they need to learn how to snag jobs and pay bunches of money in Social Security taxes so the Social Security Administration will stay solvent long enough for us old geezers to keep collecting it until we die.

It's a damn good thing I'm looking out for your kids and working to keep them from seeing this propaganda. Otherwise they'd be all full of fancy book learnin' nonsense and they'd start spouting off that evolution stuff and shit.

This week's Deepti rankings

#10. Deepti Chafekar, Virginia Tech grad student

#9. Deepti Agrawal, actress

#8. Archie Panjabi, the original adopted actor of this blog

#7. Deepti Chatti, a Deepti I found on Google Images

#6. Deepti Bhatnagar, actress

#5. Deepti Sathe, University of Massachusetts electrical engineering grad student

#4. Deepti Naval, Indian MILF and actress

#3. Deepti Gujral, Veejay on MTV India

#2. Deepti Gupta

And #1 yet again is:
Toronto, Canada's own super cute bilingual blog babe, swag giver extraordinaire, and super fun Facebook bud,
Deepti L.!

Congrats for topping the Deepti rankings for yet another week Ms. L. and keep up your fine Deepti-ness, our nation needs it now more than ever!

A double dose of beefcake for Flannery

Here's a two spoonfuls of man sugar for you Flannery my dear:

Oh yeah baby, you're welcome.

One for three (A Project Model Chef update post)

Dear Project Runway judges,

I'm sorry but you can't have it both ways. You can't bitch week after week that the designers are not pushing the creative envelope and then kick them off when one actually does push it. Sure, his sci fi dress wasn't the best thing Ra'Mon has ever done but it looked like it belonged in a sci fi movie.
Kicking him off was inexcusable. The brother is more talented than most any of the people still left, and that goes double for Louise and Logan, both of whom should have been booted this week. They both did boring work that was in no way in the same league creatively with Ra'Mon.

And while I'm at it, you judges got the winning design wrong as well. Christopher should have won. That dress he made was chic, stunning, and so fashion forward that people in the future will be pointing to it as an example of good timeless good design. By naming that fat faced greasy haired Nicholas the winner you have increased the amount of smarm he'll inflict on us in the future. He's already insufferable enough, of course he's one of those know it all New Yorkers who denigrates everything that did not come out of that city, so you've put us all on dangerous ground you Project Runway judges. Damn you!

Yours,
Dr. Monkey


Dear Project Runway designers,

What the feck were you thinking letting this woman go?

She is stunning and she'd look great in sack cloth and ashes. You let my girl Fatma go and you kept that boring bean pole Asian chick Celine with the bad hair cut? And you kept Kojii and that horrid Vanessa? Seriously? You all really fecked this one up.

I'm putting you all on notice. And you better not be letting my girls Tanisha and Kalyn, and Katie go.

Consider yourselves warned.

Warily yours,
Dr. Monkey


Dear sweet, sweet wonderful Top Chef,

I loved this weeks show beyond words. It was beautiful, wonderful, and fantastic. It was a joy to behold and a treasure for the eyes and ears. And do you want to know why I loved it so?

It's because it was a Gail Simmons free episode! Oh how I hate that pampered little rich girl and her attitude of entitlement. She strikes me as someone who has never worked a day in her life and yet who expects all those around her to work their asses off to please her. Her voice grates on my last nerve, if I were a contestant on your show and one critical word came out of her fish mouth in my direction I'd leap across that table and sever her vocal cords with a rusty tin can lid. And she's not attractive and yet she parades about as if she is. I don't take anything she says seriously and I can only hope that she's gone for good.

Thanks for bringing the Brit back. Toby Young rules. He's harsh but fair and super best of all, he's no Gail Simmons!
And in closing, thanks for getting rid of Haitian Chowder Man. He was over due to be axed and it was good to see him go. Next time let's concentrate of getting rid of Robin and Laurine.

Gleefully yours,
Dr. Monkey

PS: Please don't bring Gail Simmons back. Pretty please?

For Doc...

...who had quite the fright yesterday. As per your request sir, I bring you a picture of Ursula Andress from the front.

I hate Cheech and while I'm at it, I'm not too fond of Chong either

I used to be a huge pothead. I loved getting high and I loved smoking pot. I loved most everything about stoner culture with the possible exception of having to have had hang out with some really seedy types who I would never in a million years have hung out with if not for my desire to either get high or buy weed. (I'm not referring to anyone who I went to college with when I say that don't think I'm talking about you if I went to college with you.)

I not only smoked pot, technically I dealt it as well. Now, hold on, I wasn't some drug kingpin or anything. I had friends who smoked it but would not go buy it so I'd go buy it for them so that made me a drug dealer. I never thought about it like that but in the eyes of the law I was drug dealer, but during much of the time I smoked pot, from the late 1970's to the mid 1990's, pot smoking was not a big offense on the radar screen of the local law enforcement types in the towns I lived in.

So, if I smoked pot and sold pot, why then do I hate two of the top pot comedians of all time? Well, I don't really hate them, I just can't stand to watch any of their movies anymore because of one hot summer day back in 1991.

I was in the last stage of my pot smoking life, although I didn't not know it then, on that day in 1991 and I had ridden with an acquaintance to a guy's trailer to buy some pot and to get stoned. I was buying it for a married couple who loved to get high but who did not ever want to be seen with the unsavory types who sold weed back in those days. I also did not drive back in those days so I was at the mercy of the guy who drove over to the dealer's trailer.

Anyway, after confirming with the dealer that he had weed and that he would be there when we got there me and the other guy took off. It was about a 20 mile ride over back country roads to get to the trailer where the pot dealer lived with this family, which consisted of him and his wife, and their three kids, one of whom was a teenage boy who knew all about their father's dealings. So we get there and we find out the dealer and his wife had taken off to go buy more weed and his son tells us that they'll be right back. So we all sit down and smoke a joint.

I'm a pretty laid back guy but I like to hang out in places that are mostly clean and don't reek of old farts, frozen pizza, and small animal piss, which that trailer did. Added to that trailer funk was the fact that it was 95 degrees with 115% humidity outside and you can imagine how uncomfortable I was. But I kept my mouth shut because I was going to get a free buzz, skim a joint or two off my friends bag, and add ten bucks to the price of the bag of pot before I finally sold it to them.

Well, a few minutes turned into a half an hour and his son could see I was getting antsy. So he suggested we watch a movie and he popped Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke in their VCR. I had seen it when it first came out in the late '70's and laughed my ass off so I was okay with watching it again, it wasn't like he was going to subject us to Howard the Duck or some Judge Reinhold movie after all, so I settled in to enjoy my buzz and to have a few laughs. The guy was going to be home soon anyway I thought, so fine, let's watch this sucker.

By the time it finished the dealer was not back. So we smoked a joint of some vile weed the kid had stashed away and we laughed about the movie we had just seen. We all agreed it was the pinnacle of cinematic comedy and that no one would ever top it. The dealers kid kept raving about how good it was and then he got the bright idea to watch it again. So he rewound it and he pressed play.

At first I thought the kid was just playing a joke on us but he sat there watching it with rapt attention. You would have thought he had never seen it before the way his beady eyes stayed fixated on that TV screen. I began to get anxious. There was no way in hell I wanted to sit through that movie again. Hell, I didn't want to sit in that smelly trailer one more second but I had come for a bag of weed and by god I wasn't going to leave empty handed. So I sat there clenching my teeth, chain smoking Marlboro Lights, and wishing that a meteor would drop from the sky and fall on their TV and VCR, and if it hit the dealer's kid, well that would have been an act of a god that I would have gladly worshiped.

But a meteor did not fall and we had to sit through Up In Smoke for a second time. I was convinced there for a moment that I had died and gone to hell and was only then realizing it. Things got hazy there for a while, people came and went and the temperature in the trailer kept creeping up. Desperation sweat became the dominant aroma in the living room until I managed to rip a good fart that made everyone gag and giggle like 5 year olds. Someone brought beer and it ran right through me which meant that I had to use their bathroom, which oddly enough, was the cleanest room in that trailer.

Then the movie ended once again and before the kid could play it again I dove for the VCR and got it out of the machine. I told him that I loved that movie so much that I wanted to borrow it and I ran out of the house with it and I stashed it in the car I rode over there in. When I went back inside the kid had put in another Cheech and Chong movie. I prayed to any god who was listening for the power to go out or for the kid's drug dealing dad to drive up.

Finally the guy pulled in outside the trailer and he walked in with a big Ziploc bag full of skunky smelling weed. I told him we were pressed for time and that we had been waiting over four hours for him and that we had to run so could he please put our weed in a small baggie so we could go please. He dawdled for a moment but my twitching and incessant badgering convinced him to do as I asked and he gave us our weed and we left.

After giving the couple their weed, after I skimmed a few joints worth that is, and after they did bong hits with us, me and the driver split. On the way back to my house I grabbed the tape I had taken from the trailer and I asked the driver to stop at the first set of dumpsters we drove by. When we stopped I smashed that tape and then tossed it in the dumpster. And as I did so, I vowed to never watch another Cheech and Chong movie as long as I lived and I'm glad to say I have kept that vow.

I'm also glad to say that I quit smoking weed in 1994.

Hey, look out!

Dude, I told you to look out.

Uncomfortable literary plot summaries

This post was inspired by this post.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues-Female freak of nature uses her native American husband, her homosexual lover, and an elderly oriental man to upset the migration patterns of large birds.

About a Boy-A wealthy, bone idle British man uses adolescent boy to help him procure poontang.

I, Robot-Futuristic smart ass prevents our robot master overlords from taking over.

1984-A pair of horny working class stiffs defy the government and are made to pay the price for doing so.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay-Two Jewish men, an immigrant and a closeted homosexual, clash over a woman and write comic books.

The Bible-An unseen 'deity' forces some people to worship it while casually killing those who don't.

Horton Hears a Who-Tiny world nearly crushed by mentally unstable elephant.

The Razor's Edge-Upper class British twit gets sick of drinking and partying and discovers Buddhism.

The Grapes of Wrath-Trouble making white trash Okies move to California and cause trouble along the way.

Things Fall Apart-Africans raise yams, fornicate, and kill each other.

Breakfast of Champions-Lonely hack writer frees his literary creation only to see him bring havoc to the life of upstanding local businessman.

David Copperfield-A British orphan causes trouble in Victorian England.

The World According to Garp-Wrestling obsessed writer with a one eyed son befriends transsexual and together they destroy a women's support group.

Catch-22-US Army nearly brought to it's knees from within.

The Harry Potter series-Meddling young magician and his pals prevent others from achieving their dreams and realizing their potential.

Lord of the Rings trilogy-Small, smelly, hairy creatures go to great lengths to destroy stolen jewelry.

Feel free to add yours in the comments section!

Gift ideas for the right winger in your life

From a Spencer Gifts catalog, circa 1955:

I'm sorry, but I really must protest

The call went out Monday that there was going to be a pro health care reform demonstration the next day in my fair city. I saw it on my friend Rev. John Shuck's Facebook wall and since Shuck is one of the two ministers of the Christian faith who I have any respect for, the fictional Father Ted is the other, I knew I had to get out on the firing line to do my bit and help with the cause. So Monday evening, after arranging a ride to the demonstration, I went to the craft store and I bought a foam core poster board and a big ass marker, and Tuesday morning I made this sign to brandish at the unsuspecting citizens of east Tennessee:
My friend and partner in protesting, Snad, picked me up Tuesday afternoon and we hit our target area, one of the busiest intersections in town.
The weather was perfect and about 3o some other health care reform supporters showed up and we waved and held up our signs for all the folks to see for about two hours. Besides Snad, Shuck, and myself, there were a bunch of other great folks who stuck their necks out to show the area that there are indeed people who want health care reform and who support everything from Medicare for all to the public option to single payer national health insurance for all. Some of these fine folks got their picture on the website of the local conservative daily paper:
And this gal who works for this organization was there was well:
And these folks were with the local media or the Department of Homeland Security, or maybe both, were there:
Also in attendance was the blogger Southern Female Lawyer, who is not only a lawyer with liberal political leanings, she's also a damn fine cook and singer as well. It turns out Snad knows her and she pointed her out to me. After getting the courage up to go introduce myself to her I began to cross the busy street only to see her and her son walking towards their car. Curse my bad timing! However I did get a chance to shout at her as she sat in traffic, "I'm Dr. Monkey!" I'm pretty sure she flinched and threw a protective arm around her young son, but when she saw how human I looked she waved and said something that I couldn't make out. One day perhaps our paths will cross again and I'll be able to introduce myself properly, and to perhaps beg her to cook something for me.

Now, as far as reaction to our demonstration went, it went surprisingly well despite the fact that God hates protesters. (Fez tip to Tumble Dumble that link.) As I have found during these kinds of protests you get three reactions, those who are positive, those who are negative, and those who would rather chew their own arm off rather than acknowledge you and I'm proud to say that positive reaction beat out negative reaction by a margin of 70 % to 30 %. The number of people who told us we were number one in their hearts and minds by showing us their middle finger during this demonstration was two. The number who scowled at us or gave us the thumbs down was about fifteen. And the number of folks who gave the the thumbs up, honked, waved in support, or shouted nice things to us as they passed was way over one hundred. So not bad at all for a two hour demonstration in this politically conservative area of east Tennessee, which leads me to believe that despite what Fox News would have you believe, rank and file Republican party voters want health care reform.

It felt good to exercise my free speech rights today and to stand with my fellow citizens to show my support for this great cause.

Guess who's back?

It's Ursula's back!

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: Shepard's Pie
I began my first attempt at Shepard's Pie by peeling and chopping up three hefty red skinned potatoes, they were a little bit bigger in size than baseballs. After peeling and chopping then up I put them on to boil.

While they boiled away I put on my 'mince' to cook. And I started that by chopping and dicing up a medium yellow onion, a pablano pepper (I used pablano because I wanted a little bit but not too much heat.), and five cloves of garlic.
I sauteed all that chopped stuff in a pan and then I added a tbl spoon of paprika, a tbl spoon of fresh thyme, a tsp of crushed black pepper, a dash of cumin, and a tbl spoon of ground coriander. As the chopped aromatic veggies cooked I added about one quarter cup of pinot noir wine and then I put in two thirds of a pound of ground lamb. I simmered all that stuff together with six chopped up cherry tomatoes while my potatoes cooked.
When the potatoes finally got done I mashed them up with about a quarter cup of yogurt based butter substitute, Brummel and Brown is the brand I used, a dash of milk, and one third cup of finely chopped up Parmigiano-Reggiano. After I mashed them I got out my electric beater and whipped them so as to make them nice and fluffy. Next I took my mince off the stove and I put it in an 8x8 Pyrex pan and I spread it out evenly. Then I spooned on the mashed potatoes and it looked like this:
As you can see I don't have a piping bag so I had to settle for just spreading and smoothing out the potatoes. Then I put the nearly completed Shepard's Pie in the oven which I had preheated to 350 degrees and I baked it for 20 minutes. And this is what it looked like when it came out:
Those brown spots are from the juices that bubbled up during cooking. The potatoes had formed a nice hard crust on top but you can't tell it from the picture. I let it cool a little bit and I served it up with a salad made out of mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, and shredded carrot:
For my first try at making this dish I have to say it tasted pretty damn good. However, next time I'll use a bit more ground lamb (and you can use whatever ground meat you like and you vegetarians can use mushrooms and TVP if you like) and I'll bake it for 30 minutes at least. All in all I can see why the British love this comfort food dish and I'll be adding it to my repertoire, it'll be a great meal to make during the depths of the winter.