Irwin
Courterly
February/March 1998
Volume III Issue 2
In this issue:
- Orange Sherbet and The Prisoner
- Recipe: Poppy Seed Cake
- Fear of Becoming My Mother
- Do-it-Yourself Social Responsibility
- Music: Ode to the Balkans
- Open Letter to American Cereal Manufacturers
- Rural Farming
- Letters to the Editor
Editors
Jennie Abbott
Robin Brooks
Contributing Editors
Robert Hawkins
Leta Herman
Tamara Llosa-Sandor
Submissions
The Irwin Courterly publishes original articles and illustrations. We edit them to meet our needs. You retain copyright but grant every Irwin Courterly publication royalty-free permission to reproduce the article or illustration in print or any other medium. Please send submissions at least one month in advance so that the editors can read, edit and format the submission.
Orange Sherbet and The Prisoner
by Tamara Llosa-SandorIt was one of those normal arguments--my mom yelling at me for not putting away the dishes which segued into a whole account of my reluctance to help around the house and ended with an "you better have that room clean" ultimatum. I, relieved she had finished her tangent, went to my room.
About an hour into the cleaning I came across an old unlabeled video tape. Interested to see what was on it and ready to find any excuse to take a break, I put the video into the VCR. Suddenly, there he was--No.6, running down the beach, pursued by the enormous white balloon named Rover. I was watching a UK cult classic from the '60's called The Prisoner.
More than anything else, it was the white balloon that drew my attention. The sight of it took me back to the early '80s. I was in the car watching the moon follow me and my mom as we drove to our apartment in Berkeley. We walked down the hall to our door and as my mom searched for her keys I studied our apartment number-8. I was born on the eighth day of October. The month that the big orange moon showed itself. As orange as the sherbet ice cream that was waiting for me in the freezer.
Once inside, the TV went on and my mom asked me to put a new tape into the VCR. The Prisoner was about to start. I ate my scoop of ice cream, comparing its round smoothness to the white balloon. Rover was like Grover with the purring sounds my throat made when I said the names. They had a soothing round ring to them, the same way the words, "orange sherbet" (which I pronounce as sure-bert) and "October eighth nineteen-eighty" did.
I was sitting on the floor of my still uncleaned room when my mom walked in and saw what I was watching. She told me that when I was little, I used to be fascinated with Rover. I looked at her and asked if we had any orange sherbet.
As I ate my ice cream, I wondered about all the non-linear associations people make. Connecting experiences to colors to numbers to pictures. Everything we see and do reminds us, in some way, of something else. We are never free from the intertwinings. Riding on the bus can take your mind back to your baby blanket or to the 1987 World Series. The links can only be made by the person who is remembering.
A week later I was buying a The Prisoner T-shirt when the cashier stopped in the middle of ringing it up. I asked him what was the matter. He started a little and said, "Oh, sorry, the shirt just reminded me of something." I could only smile and say, "Me too."
Recipe: Poppy Seed Cake
It is not uncommon for members of the IC community to be troubled by persisting fantasies of things that are not immediately available. Tonight on Irwin Court, however, that oft fantasized about event, cake, is in the oven and will be ready to eat at exactly the right time. The moment that Jennie gets home from rehearsal, the cake will be done. However, because the cake is still in the oven, the IC cannot make any guarantees about its tastiness. Indeed, if it is anything like the last several cooking disasters at the HeadCourters (the Tom Kha Gai was above all absolutely horrible), it will not be too good. On the optimistic side of things, the batter seemed delicious. Consequently, our editors have decided to allow the printing of this recipe, which calls for:
- 1 C. butter
- 1 1/2 C. sugar
- 1 can poppy seed filling
- 4 eggs, separated
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 C. sour cream
- 2 1/2 C. flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda (ack! This reporter fears that the IC kitchens used baking power on accident. This will be an interesting experiment, after all)
- 1 tsp. salt
- Confectioner's sugar
Beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add poppy seed filling and beat until blended. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Add vanilla and sour cream and beat until just blended. Gradually add flour, baking soda, and salt. Beat egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold beaten egg whites into batter. Spread batter evenly in a greased and floured bundt pan (the IC is using a 9x13" baking dish...). Bake 60-75 minutes in 350 degree oven. When done, cool pan on wire rack 10 minutes, then remove cake from pan and cool completely on rack. Dust with confectioner's sugar just before serving.
Fear of Becoming My Mother
by Leta Herman, Special to the Irwin CourterlyFear brings understanding, at least where it concerns my fear of becoming like my mother. Every child fears that one day he or she will appropriate a parent's worst traits or mannerisms. But it's the day the child finally grows up that the full force of this destiny hits home.
I've always operated in life as the youngest-the youngest of my friends, the youngest employee, even the youngest manager supervising people twice my age. Afraid of acting my age, I always tried to be older than I was, more mature that is.
So maybe, though I'm on the cusp of Generation X, having been born in 1967, that is the reason I haven't lived a Generation X life. But I never noticed this while I was trying my hardest to be a part of the Baby Bust generation.
Then I turned thirty and suddenly things changed. It's called RESPECT. A little gray hair, a lot of work experience, and even a significant amount of life experience (not to mention becoming a mother). At thirty I no longer had to prove I was qualified or experienced enough to do my job or mature enough to hang out with my friends (who were now pushing 40 and even 50).
But it wasn't my interactions with them that was so shocking. I'd always expected that some day I would be old enough to have their respect. What I didn't account for was that someday I would be older than other people. When I turned thirty, I was no longer looking ahead of me in time. Now, if I turned and looked behind me, there were all these kids who were younger than me who weren't really kids but twenty-somethings. These twenty-somethings were entering the workforce in droves with fresh ideas and a hearty stamina. And they (including one editor of this fine publication) looked to me for guidance as if I was an old matriarch.
But it wasn't until I started getting to know these "kids" that I began to realize how uncool I am. These folks really belong to a different generation-they did everything I only dreamed about. Tattoos, body piercing, black leather and gigantic shoes (or shoes that held some secret mystique that was never revealed to me-see the Irwin Courterly Shoes OpEd in the January 1998 issue) were just some of the outward indications of their coolness and my uncoolness in comparison. But the comparison was much deeper and more worrisome than that.
What a difference five years makes! The differences between me and this generation couldn't have hit home harder than when a friend's younger sister came to visit. Whenever I sat down to talk to her and her boyfriend, who looked like he'd had a run-in with an out-of-control hole-punch, I felt so anxious and uncomfortable. I tried to evaluate what I was feeling. When I talked to them, it was like I had to prove myself, prove that I was still hip, still cool, still with the times. I tried to tell them about things I've done, places I've been that seemed so cutting edge for me and so banal to them.
Now I realize why I was so uncomfortable with these kids. I was just trying too hard to be someone I'm not anymore and can never be again. Ever since I was old enough to feel embarrassment, I've been embarrassed by my mother. I never wanted my friends to meet her because she would always embarrass me (my mother is a storyteller who used to torment me by performing at my school). And simply going out in public with her was a painful, terrifying experience. But I'd never tried to understand what made my mother act this way.
It's crystal clear to me now. She was just trying to fit in. A grown, middle-aged woman who just wanted to be 7 or 10 or 13 or 17 or whatever age I was at the time. She just wanted to be accepted into my group, into my life as an equal. And that's what I was trying to do with these "kids." Instead I was only making a fool of myself and annoying them.
Now, standing in my mother's shoes, I feel how hard it is to stop myself, to hold back, to control this inherent urge to turn back the clock on myself while the world continues to rotate forward. I don't think it has anything to do with aging, it's simply a need to identify with people and my complete denial that a new generation could be any different than me.
Do-it-Yourself Social Responsibility
by J. UmparrowndWhile observing an aerobics class several weeks ago, the instructor lost count and one of the men started counting in that "Hunh" kind of military way. Just like boot camp in the movies, the other people in the class were all there sweating, straining, getting tired but not giving up; but it was voluntary. These exercisers weren't drafted and didn't enlist because of the great pension plan after retirement or just to work up to some powerful position where they could give orders and make people jump.
Considering the articles in the media about the state lotteries as self-imposed taxes, the exercise regimen of aerobics class is a self-imposed military. The lottery is most popular among people who are desperate for that break and willing to chance a fortune of one in a million, even when the dollar for the ticket comes out of the food money. And who are all those perspiring acrobats bouncing around the shiny floor in special sneakers? Often they are people already in shape, not the ones who die of heart attacks from straining to push a lawnmower. Both the lottery and aerobics class are extremely regressive policies US citizens choose of their own volition.
Instead of investing in the million-dollar pot of gold at the end of the lottery rainbow, hopefuls could invest in top-notch gyms and profit on the dividends of their own and others' health. The energy and the money are out there. With good organization they could be funneled into a fit and funded grass-roots militia of step-aerobics infantry and lucky numbers investors backing up the new wave of defense spending: more health clubs. Together the gyms and lottories could take over the world.
Music: Ode to the Balkans
by Oliver Coe-SovohAs the Spice Girls lose popularity and are booed off the stage by an Italian audience, and Madonna's new album requires heavy promotion in order to get off the ground, the IC music department thought that the Industry needed a breath of fresh air. Moreover, now that events in the Balkans are heating back up after 2 or 3 years of relative calm, our readers have asked us to come up with some mnemonic to help them remember the important facts about Yugoslavia and it's neighboring states. We turned to the ever popular Beach Boys, and their new lyrical advisor, Xip, to solve both problems:
Ode to the Balkans
(to be sung to the tune of "Cocomo")
Drenica, Srbica,
Serbian soldier beats a crowd
in Belgrade, Tirana, come on pretty mama.
Prishtina, Montenegro, Baby why don't we go
Off the Dalmatian Coast
There's a place called Kosovo
That's where we wanna go
To get away from it all
Way down in Kosovo.
(Saddam Hussein, maybe he's to blame)Gligorov, of FYROM, thinks things are like a time bomb
So do Stoyanov, Demirel, but Italy does not care.
Rugova, elections, Milosevic's factions
Wanna stop em' oh
Way down in Kosovo
We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow
That's where we wanna go
Down in Kosovo.
Open Letter to American Cereal Manufacturers
To Whom It May Concern:
Citizens of the United States and other countries are anxiously preparing for the new millennium, when a computer bug is likely to run off with their finances, the social security administration will lose their files and neglect to ever pay them retirement insurance, and, perhaps, the End will be near. At this point, it falls upon the shoulders of the breakfast food establishment to guarantee the happiness and well-being of this worried population. We cannot turn to the dairy farmers, who have threatened to take us to court for defamation of food. Besides, their confusing new labeling has thrown the whole country into a tizzy wondering whether their favorite milk is now called "lowfat," "lower fat," or "non-fat." What's wrong with percent signs, anyway? Surveys more than prove that 90% of the milk-drinking population felt more comfortable calling their "lower fat" milk 1%.
Speaking of numbers, the members of the growing O-Shaped Grains Interest Group wish to draw your attention to the exciting marketing opportunity that will coincide with the fin-de-siecle. Namely, manufacturers of O-Shaped cereal products would do well to consider creating a mold in the shape of the number 2. By our calculations, you have one year for research and development of this technology. "Year 2000" breakfast cereals should sell well as the new millennium approaches, and may in fact reach their pinnacle of popularity in the last months of 1999, as people anticipate the close of the nineteen hundreds and look forward to the beginning of the two-thousands. The best selling cereals will have approximately three times as many O's as 2's, and will be brown in color, without added sweeteners, yet tasty enough to appeal to children as well as health-conscious adults. Because of the space-age theme inherent in the turn of the century, it is possible that a cereal like Cracklin' Oat Bran, whose O's are slightly square, will be the best candidate for this type of innovation, because it will resemble a screen font when infused with 25% 2's. This will appeal to Generation X as well as to older employees of the computer industry.
Following the year 2000-compliant cereal shapes, we also suggest that General Mills consider sponsorship of the decade '00-'09 as the "Cheery O's." While students who graduated in 1907 are know as the class of "aught seven," this time we recommend using the more modern-sounding "O" (or perhaps "zero") and endeavor to make them happy years with the help of renewed optimism at the fresh start of a new millennium and increased awareness of the progress that has been made in the past hundred years (we encourage the Cheery O's Decade media to down-play the world wars, scientific experiments with negative results, and damage to the environment).
We hope that you will look into the possibilities of pursuing these exciting ideas, which we generated at our annual O-Shaped Grains caucus on Sunday night March 8th. If, however, you decide to throw away this opportunity, please notify us immediately so that we may invest in a sector with greater potential for growth.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizens for Cereal
Rural Farming
by Robert HawkinsGreetings from Back East where we've been reading Harvest of Rage (Westview Press, 1997). If author Joel Dyer is right, America is entering a period of rural guerrilla warfare that will make the worst urban riots look like an afternoon tea party. A drive in the country USA could become as dangerous as a bus ride in rural Guatemala. As the book's subtitle states, Oklahoma City is only the beginning.
We don't hear much of substance about life in rural America these days. What we get mostly are idyllic images of small town life in the heartland, displayed primarily to make sure we buy enough corn flakes. There's an occasional nod to country music, because, well golly, a lot of people like it. But the cities and suburbia are seen as the real source of news. Sex and celebs, money and Wall Street, urban drugs and urban crime, that's where the action is. In the major media rural news is almost non-existent.
Well yes, Texas ranchers have been in the news recently because of their showdown with Oprah Winfrey. (Food disparagement, did you read it here first? See IC October 1997.) But that's really a story about the celebrity Oprah, not the ranchers or Texas. And occasionally we'll hear about wackos in Waco or Anthrax toting white supremacists, but they are portrayed as a small bunch of bumbling cooks and crazies.
The bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building has been the one great heartland news story of this decade. First it was a profile of horror with plenty of good photo ops. Then the bemoaning of senseless domestic terrorism (with little analysis of its roots) about which something tough (and fully funded) must be done. Finally, as the trials of McVeigh and Nichols proceeded, we've been treated to extensive coverage of the city/suburban dwelling bomb victims.
Harvest of Rage's message is that there are many, many more victims across rural America that we in the cities know nothing about. People whose livelihood and reason for being have been destroyed by an agricultural "structural adjustment," a globalized economy, and a deaf ear from urban America. For them the American reality is a nightmare and a twisted version of the American Dream is driving them to action. They are pissed and they are armed and they have nothing more to loose.
"The Farm Crises" was big news in the 1980's. Its roots are in the 70's when the Federal government told farmers they must expand to survive. "Get big or get out," advised Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. The farmers listened and mortgaged themselves to the hilt to buy more land. The banks encouraged them, lending money easily, even urging farmers to take more money than they asked for. With all that money sloshing around land prices soared. But even with their jumbo loans farmers could make money because the world market, subsidized by the U.S. government, bought everything they could produce, and real interest rates (adjusted for inflation) were low.
Then, beginning in 1979, the Federal government pulled the rug out from under the farmers who had been following the government's own advice. First, to stem inflation, the Federal Reserve decided to throw the economy into recession by raising interest rates. Next Ronald Reagan's supply side economic policies freed the banks to push interest rates even higher. The monthly payments on the farmer's variable rate mortgages sky-rocketed. With money suddenly very tight land prices dropped quickly leaving the farmer's loans undercollateralized.
The banks began foreclosing. Even farmers who had never missed a payment had their loans called in. Year after year the foreclosures continued. The banks, awash in farmland, virtually gave it away to the corporate agribusiness conglomerates.
As if things weren't bad enough, in 1985 the Reagan administration struck again. The Farm Bill reduced farm subsidies to make agriculture more "market driven." The prices for crops such as corn dropped nearly 50% overnight. The agribusiness conglomerates got another windfall as the money they paid farmers dropped and the prices they charged consumers remained the same. The drop in prices clobbered the farmers who had been able to hold on even in the face of the double-digit interest rates. In 1986-1987 nearly one million people were forced from their land. By the end of the decade 600,000 family farms had failed.
In the 90's the "farm crisis" is no longer news, but the story hasn't changed. The rate of farm failures is the same as it was in the 80's. The numbers are smaller now simply because there are fewer farms left to fail.
The economic toll on America's rural population has been tremendous. The small towns whose economies rely on the surrounding family farms are dying. Almost one half of the rural workforce is either unemployed or underemployed. Most rural non-farm jobs are at the bottom end of the wage scale. Between 20 and 25 percent of the US population lives in rural areas, but 38 percent of all people now living in poverty live there. Twenty-seven percent of the children in rural America are growing up in poverty even though the parents of most of them work.
The psychological toll on the rural population has been heavy and largely ignored. Suicide, domestic abuse, and stress-related disease have risen sharply. In the 80's rural mental-health care workers and counselors worked diligently to help those suffering from the "structural adjustment," and their efforts were paying off. They had, for example, achieved almost 100 percent success in stopping suicides that came to their attention through suicide hot lines. Then at the end of the decade a fit of "fiscal responsibility" dried up funding for rural health care. Rural hospitals and clinics shut down. Rural physicians and health-care workers moved to the cities where they could make money. The regional hospitals that remained were swallowed up by corporate managed care systems that, like their agribusiness comrades, rank profit and return on investment higher than people and service to their clients.
A large portion of rural population feels betrayed and abandoned by America in general and the Federal government in particular. In many ways they are right. To most of the urban and suburban population they are out of sight and out of mind. To the politicians they are an insignificant voting block. But not everyone has turned a deaf ear.
The KKK, John Birch Society and Posse Comitatus had been predicting that the sky would fall for decades. They had created conspiracy theories that explained why it would happen and who would be behind it . . . . But not many listened to their wild tales . . . the outrageous warnings seemed fictionalized in light of observable reality . . . . But then came the 1980s, and the sky did fall. The scenario that unfolded for the tortured farm families seemed to fit perfectly with the antigovernment movement's predictions. . . . Some of the rural refugees joined the ranks of the established movement, while others created their own antigovernment offshoots with names like We the People, Freemen, Christian Patriots, Family Farm Preservation, and North American Freedom Council."
Dyer explains the basic themes common to all the right-wing radical groups: Christian fundamentalism, the "original intent" of the Constitution, the monetary system, gun control, international trade, and monopolies. While information about the groups, their theories, and their justifications for action is readily available, especially on the Internet (many have their own web sites*), Dyer's contribution is to identify the grain of truth in each theme that gives otherwise outlandish theories the ring truth for many who are suffering in rural America. It may be hard for most of us town folk to see the Federal Reserve as part of an Illuminist or Jewish conspiracy to gain world domination, but the Fed is an autonomous body of unelected bankers who act in secret and exercise vast power over the economy. On October 8, 1979 the Fed announced its plan to "contract" the US economy, deeming much of rural America expendable in the pursuit of larger economic goals. No wonder it's seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Dyer has spent many years traveling the heartland, reporting on the farm crises and witnessing first hand the radicalization of middle Americans. He's spent time with foreclosed farmers; he's watched antigovernment recruiting, attended antigovernment meetings and spent time inside militia encampments. He's convinced that the anger in rural America will boil over into open rebellion within the next three years if nothing is done to address it. Others disagree, saying that Dyer has gotten too close to his subject and takes the word of a few radicals too seriously. They argue that factions are too splintered, that the radical bark is much worse than its bite. When push comes to shove they believe the radicals will back down as most did in the recent Freeman siege.
Whether or not you agree with Dyer's predictions, his book is a valuable record of the growth and strength of the antigovernment sentiment in rural America. It provides the context you'll never get from mainstream media when something like the Oklahoma bombing or two guys in Nevada with anthrax occurs.
* For an unsympathetic view of antigovernment groups see www.publiceye.org. For the birds-eye, lowdown, straight-from-the-horse's mouth try: www.republic-of-texas.com, www.jbs.com, www.webexpert.net/posse/default.html, www.frii.com/~gosplow. The last contains a mighty handy "Christian Guide to Small Arms." I kinda like the assault rifle reviews.
Letters to the Editor
On Foot
Your OpEd on shoes [January 1998] fascinated me. I noticed last week that I rarely look in the mirror anymore (I was disturbed last Thursday when I suddenly discovered how long my hair had grown), and I'm happy if my clothes are warm and matching, but it takes me forever to select shoes.
For my conservative office, my choices are somewhat limited (I usually wear the black flats I've owned since I was ten years old-Naturalizer could easily challenge Doc Martens for durability). But when not headed to work, I have to choose from boots ($4 yard-sale cowboy boots that all my friends envy? Black biker boots custom made for my 10.5 narrow feet? Or the red, yellow, and blue pair that entertained the entire Smith sociology department for two full years?), sneakers (you forget how comfortable they can be until you wear them for a day), or even which slippers to wear while making breakfast (durable and soft sheepskin? Or the ocelot-print fake fur pair that causes me to prowl around the house like a large cat?). Not to mention shoes for going out in the evenings. Sometimes I regret that I can only wear one pair for each occasion. Some women go into the bathroom and transform themselves through makeup while they're out; I'd like to change shoes. Too bad it's easier to slip a tube of lipstick in your pocket than a pair of silver high heels. Maybe my footwear variability makes me a chameleon; maybe it makes me adaptable, or perhaps moody. Or maybe, as you conclude, it's fun but meaningless without looking at the bigger picture-the rest of the outfit.
Also, I really liked your description of your platform-shoe experiment. I wore a friend's pair once, and it didn't take me but ten seconds to find a way to trip and go flying across the room! Perhaps it's my walk or my big feet, but some shoes just like to humble me.
Charlottesville, VA
Pats on our Backs
It has taken me all these weeks (months?) to be able to sit down at my own computer and go online to see about this Irwin Courterly. I really like it. I also like the idea of it. And I like the fact that you and Robin did it. What a good idea.
I congratulate you on your work herein. It's a pleasure to see somebody do something like this-especially within the context of a relationship. Trading ideas is all we have to further the evolution process. The whole point (to me) of Cornell West's book Race Matters is that coalitions need to happen, and a newsletter such as yours is definitely a step towards this.
Berkeley, CA