(Picture courtesy of mhaithaca at flickr.com.)

In continuing tribute to the Diner tradition of Southern Dragon, today we look at media and news outside the U.S.

A scene of horror was created in Southeast London’s Woolwich neighborhood just outside an army barracks when two men hacked a soldier to death then actively publicized their own crime.   They announced to passersby that they were returning a murder there for the deaths of their fellows abroad at British hands.

One was pictured holding a knife and speaking to a woman at the scene….According to the paper, Cub Scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett asked him: “Would you like to give me what you have in your hands?”

“He was covered with blood,” she said. “I thought I had better talk to him before he starts attacking somebody else.”

She says the suspect told her the dead man was a British soldier, adding: “I killed him because he kills Muslims over there and I am fed up that people kill Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Comparisons were being made to the recent atrocity at Boston’s Marathon.

In Egypt’s Sinai region hostages have been taken and the Morsi government is struggling to recapture them from tribes that are in revolt against officials who have failed to give even basic services in that area.

More importantly, there are no indications that authorities even know the whereabouts of the hostages. The presidency says it is not talking to the hostage takers, but there are mediation efforts under way, and it does not seem that these men could be released without some sort of dialogue.

Tribal leaders have been key in talks with assailants in previous hostage situations involving tourists or members of the security forces. There have been claims over the past year that President Morsi had also been resorting to so-called Jihadists to mediate with armed groups in Sinai, which, if true, can be quite risky.

The government is, once again, between a rock and a hard place, but it is arguably a position they could have avoided if a genuine, transparent and wide-reaching dialogue and programme was set to develop the Sinai.

The economic slump in the European Union has ameliorated among signs that the worst part of the decline is over.

“There are signs the rate of decline is easing, which does suggest we may be moving into a period of stabilisation, but it’s taking a lot longer than most people anticipated,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.

“It’s looking more like the end of the year (until) we’re going to see the numbers start to show signs of stabilising.”

The new orders services index fell to 45.3 from 46.2, meaning a big upturn in the PMI next month looks unlikely.

Williamson said there were signs that the rate of decline eased this month in the “peripheral” euro zone countries outside Germany and France.

“But against that we’ve seen a worrying steep deterioration in service sector expectations for the year ahead.”

The easing of deficit levels in the U.S. has eased pressure here as well, erasing a major factor cited by opponents of public services to erase such basic support systems as social security and medicare.

Never.Give.Up.

Barbequed ribs

(Picture courtesy of Calgary Reviews at flickr.com.)

Maybe you guessed, this is in time for Memorial Day, and if you haven’t had ribs, this may be a good time.   For barbequing, there are lots of special recipes, but I like the excellent sauces that come already made, and have no problems in using what the store offers.

What works best for backyard barbeque is the baby back ribs in the pork section from your grocer’s meat department.   Get enough so everyone will have four to six ribs, more for big eaters.   Have several kinds of sauce on the table, but use a mild on for preparation.

….precook your ribs to speed up the process or to increase the tenderness of the ribs. Ribs cooked on a barbecue smoker at a low temperature for several hours will be very tender. Ribs cooked on a grill, especially a gas grill, will not be as tender even cooked indirectly. To make your ribs tenderer you can precook by either boiling the ribs for about 30 minutes or by placing them in a slow cooker. This will get the ribs going and not dried out. Once you are ready to grill then you can season the ribs and cook them indirectly until done. The disadvantage of this is that the ribs will not absorb the flavor of the smoke very well and you can literally boil out the flavor of the meat. Remember, if you boil, slow cook, or oven roast ribs it must be at a low temperature, around 200 to 225 degrees F.

Now when it comes to seasoning ribs you want to be very conservative. Good ribs have a great flavor all to themselves. It is also important to avoid adding barbecue sauce to ribs early in the process. Most barbecue sauces, whether store bought or homemade, contain some kind of sugar (tomatoes contain sugar). This can cause your barbecue ribs to burn, even cooked indirectly. I suggest using a good rub before you grill and maybe a barbecue sauce after the grilling is done. However if you want to use a sauce, try using a mop. A mop is a thin barbecue sauce (mainly vinegar or water) that you brush on during grilling to help maintain moisture and to add flavor. Sometimes you will hear it referred to as a baste.

So remember, keep the temperature low. A good grilling temperature for barbecue ribs is about 225 degrees F. Also keep a close eye on your ribs. Once the surface of the meat starts to burn there’s no going back. Another good tip is to fill a spray bottle with a thin barbecue sauce. By thin I mean practically water. I use a mixture of paprika, water and a few other seasonings. By spraying the ribs with this mixture during grilling you will add moisture, reduce burning and add flavor to your barbecue ribs.

For my taste, spicy is best, but have something mild like honey mustard barbeque for the more squeamish eater.

To go with this, for some reason in Texas the restaurants serve plain white bread.   Also sliced onions, pickled green tomatoes, and big dill pickles.   All good.

For accompaniment, some kind of baked beans are usually around.    To fill out the menu, I always want some potato salad as well.

We Were Always Here

If you are fortunate enough to visit the National Mall in D.C. during the spring, hopefully you will get to the American Native museum of the Smithsonian there.   As you come to the museum, there are several displays outside that are worth a look.   The  figures above are among them, representing themes often chosen by native artists.

We Were Always Here the figures are named, representing Bear and Raven.   The artist, Rick Bartow, has written about his creation.

The Bear and Raven, Healer and Rascal sit atop the sculpture poles; one, slow and methodical, fiercely protective of her children, the other a playful, foible-filled teacher of great power. Both Bear and Raven are focused on water and salmon for serious reasons. The salmon are an indicator species reflecting the health of the environment In particular water, the source of all life.

On each pole are repeated lower horizontal patterns that symbolize successive waves, generations following generations, an accumulation of wisdom and knowledge. The tree used for the sculpture is an old growth Western Red Cedar from Washington state. It is approximately 500 years old. The elders say that the power of the sun is stored within the tree. Essentially the tree embodies the fundamental elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, our sacred and precious natural resources.

To do a huge carving is like creating 22 feet of music. It is creating a rhythm that can be sustained over a long period time. It is music created by chisels, hammers, knives and pencil marks. It moves like a tide, slowly and surely along, turbulent around knots and troublesome grain and then surging along oil-smooth over good clear grain, upwards to completion. The Creator gave me this job of being an artist. Now I create out of necessity. Spirit waits for me in the “doing”–the process of working. Whatever comes of the “doing” is what I share. Spirits are pleased. Ancestors rejoice!

Visiting these sculptures in their setting outside the museum reminds us that much of the heritage of native Americans is that of nature, appropriate in the wind, sun, air and breath of the outside world.

(Picture courtesy of mhaithaca at flickr.com.)

In continuing tribute to Southern Dragon’s practice of keeping us informed of what is going on in a wider world, today we take a look at media from outside the usual sources in the U.S.

The small Central American country of Belize has lost an irrecoverable treasure as local construction crews raided a Mayan temple dating from 300 B.C. or earlier for rock to make gravel.

All of Belize’s ancient Maya sites are protected by law. The Institute of Archaeology plans to investigate the destruction and take those responsible to court, Morris said.

“This Maya site is well known to the local community, who have worked on various projects at the site,” he said. “The Institute of Archaeology is going to use this opportunity to really embark on a national awareness campaign for the preservation and protection of the country.”

Though the site of Nohmul had not yet been developed for tourism, it had been excavated off and on since the early 1900s after first being recorded as a site in 1897.

Bangladesh mourned, and retailers using their laborers for products signed an agreement to improve working conditions, as yet another factory collapsed, killing workers, in Cambodia.   Some retailers, including WalMart and The Gap, failed to sign on to the agreement.

The accord on fire and building safety in Bangladesh, which has been signed by H&M, Primark, C&A, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Zara andTesco, aims to compel retailers to pay for rigorous and independent public inspections and blacklist any factories unwilling to comply.

Last night a handful of other retailers did sign up before the deadline, including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, New Look and N Brown, a mail order and online retailer whose brands include High & Mighty, Marisota and figleaves.com.

The decision by the handful of retailers not to sign up was criticised by campaigners, who said it undermined any ethical initiatives the companies may have.

Sam Maher from Labour Behind the Label said: “I think they are running out of excuses. No company can say they have the interests of their workers at heart if they can’t sign up.

The continuing depradation of natural resources that loss of rainforest represents is threatening the ability to produce hydroelectric power.   Studies recently show that contrary to previous speculations, rainforest presence contributes to water flow into streams and rivers,

Deforestation in the Amazon region could significantly reduce the amount of electricity produced from hydropower, says a new study.

Scientists say the rainforest is critical in generating the streams and rivers that ultimately turn turbines.

The drought in Brazil continued, making its effect felt in diminishing sources for energy as well as a threat to agricultural output needed.   The new studies that show rainforest protection is needed for energy output constitutes a surprising benefit from the attention that drought has brought to combating water loss.

Never.Give.Up.

Mom gets breakfast in bed

(Picture courtesy of edenpictures at flickr.com.)

Let’s face it, what Mom does not need is a mess.   Let’s talk about breakfasts that you and the kids can do without making one.

Coffee is essential.   Typically, a scoop of coffee per two cups of coffee works, but if you don’t know how to make it, take Mom a cup of hot water and one or two packets of instant, or the jar of instant with a spoon.   She knows what she likes.   If you don’t have Half and Half, or she doesn’t take cream, milk is fine, and yoghurt works in a pinch.  Or throw some ice cream at her and tell her this is a special morning, Go For IT.

It’s hard to mess up toast, betcha you know which bread she likes, spread on some margarine or butter, pull out the jam that she uses.   It’s the one that’s already opened and might even be the one you don’t use, the one in the back of the refrigerator.

You want to make eggs without making a mess, boil or poach them, in boiling water.  A four and a half minute eggs, dunk in cold water, take up on a tray in a cup, with a spoon to break them open.

You can skip the bacon or sausage, no way to cook them without splattering, and she would like that best.   If you thought ahead, or run out first to the store, there are pre-cooked kinds and pop them in the microwave to heat.

Juice is good, but not fresh squeezed which would mean she has to wash up the juicer after you.   If you have some in a jar/can/container, pour it half full, so you don’t spill on the way up.

Picking her favorite rose off the bush, to surprise her, just isn’t a good plan.  Maybe the neighbors have something pretty next to the fence, and you can sneak them in a vase.   Half full of water, not to spill.

Now wait until she’s gone to the bathroom, then take up the tray.

Tell Mom to thank me.

Mother's Day lemon meringue pie fresh from the oven

Graft by Roxy Paine

Graft as it appears in distance, Smithsonian building beyond the Sculpture Garden

A pleasure that visits to D.C. offer is the sculpture on the national mall.  In the sculpture gardens there, an opportunity offers on good days in spring to Have It All, natural beauty and awesome art.

The National Gallery of Art displays the above sculpture all year around, but during the spring it’s enjoyable as a complete, luxurious basking in all that wonder.  The sculpture can be viewed at the NGA site, as well.

Graft presents two fictive but distinct species of trees—one gnarled, twisting, and irregular, the other smooth, elegant, and rhythmic—joined to the same trunk. Among its rich associations, this sculpture evokes the persistent human desire to alter and recombine elements of nature, as well as the ever-present tension between order and chaos.

Paine’s first Dendroid, Impostor (1999), a 27-foot-tall sculpture, stands in a forest clearing at the Wanås Foundation in Knislinge, Sweden. Paine has since made 16 Dendroids, each unique and organized according to its own system. The works are installed in sylvan settings, urban environments, and landscaped urban parks. Trees have long been regarded a metaphor for human existence, and their forms evoke for Paine a range of natural and man-made systems from neurons to river networks, from taxonomic diagrams to genealogical charts.

The shining form can be seen from far and close up, and never fails to make me glad.

(Picture courtesy of mhaithaca at flickr.com.)

Thursday we go to media and news outside the U.S. as Southern Dragon did in his Diner posts not long ago.

The Arctic is a source of food and territory for many species integral to our earth.   The waters there are becoming increasingly acidic, changing the survival conditions.    By overusing petroleum products, we increase CO2 in our planet’s atmosphere.   That in turn produces many results, one being that acidification.

Absorption is particularly fast in cold water so the Arctic is especially susceptible, and the recent decreases in summer sea ice have exposed more sea surface to atmospheric CO2.

The Arctic’s vulnerability is exacerbated by increasing flows of freshwater from rivers and melting land ice, as freshwater is less effective at chemically neutralising the acidifying effects of CO2.

The researchers say the Nordic Seas are acidifying over a wide range of depths – most quickly in surface waters and more slowly in deep waters.

In ongoing efforts to prosecute crimes against civilians, Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal has declared another former official guilty in recent atrocities committed during the war for independence from Pakistan.

Judges at a war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh have found a fourth senior Jamat-e-Islami leader guilty of charges relating to the country’s 1971 war of independence.

They have upheld five out of seven charges, including crimes against humanity.

One of the charges included being a commander during a massacre of 120 people. A sentence has not yet been handed down.

Targeting infrastructure improvements, Indian leadership is balancing a deficit against future growth, speculating about the possibilities of incurring debt at record low interest levels.

The US is having a third round of quantitative easing, and the Fed is deliberately targeting long-maturity bonds to keep long-term rates low. This greatly increases the case for long-term borrowing by India too, to take advantage of cheap rates. The eurozone has always had low rates, and these have just got lower with ECB action. Japan has gone on a new quantitative easing spree under Premier Shinzo Abe.

(snip)

In the US and Europe too, inflation has remained astonishingly low for years despite huge amounts of monetary expansion, but one day, this mountain of expansion will stoke high inflation.

At that point of time, borrowers will be rewarded with a huge erosion of the real value of their debt. So, borrowers today can look forward to the double advantage of low current rates of interest, plus an erosion of debt value by coming inflation. It is an opportunity not to be missed.

While the Western economies are strangled by powerful financial interests inveighing against any investment that benefits the public, in nations dominated by the people themselves there are great possibilities opening to general prosperity and well-being.

Never.Give.Up.