July 9, 2006
I made a batch of homemade pinto beans last night, utilizing my mother’s ranch house recipe: soak pintos overnight (remove pebbles first), throw into a large kettle, along with one ham hock and two bay leaves; boil hard for two hours, take off burner and let it steep for an hour, then bring to a boil once again and turn down heat to a simmer, and let it coagulate all night. Made huevos rancheros this morning to go with the beans, complete with homemade guac salsa, cilantro garnish, grated Tilamook sharp cheddar cheese flour tortillas and dark, rich coffee. Very nice Sunday brunch for me and my honey.

About a month ago, Kathy asked me if I wanted to watch Empire Falls, a tv show she had taped and was watching. I had seen the promos and knew it had great actors in it (Ed Harris and Paul Newman), and when I wavered, she told me it had an Old West photo style opening, so I thought I’d sit down and give it a try. Sure enough it opened with early-1900s-sepia style photos with voice over narration along these lines: “In the beginning Native Americans were the stewards of the land around Empire Falls.” As the narration continued, animated, hand-drawn, red Xs appeared over the indigenous faces. “But these original stewards were displaced as they began to suffer from warfare, rum, Christianity, and other European diseases. . .” Next it showed loggers, straddling floating logs in a river and instead of Xs, now we get hand drawn red circles around the men’s faces (all anglos of course), and the narrator informs us, matter of factly, that these evil invaders raped the land. I gave the show another fifteen minutes to be fair, but I just couldn’t get past that opening. I stood up to leave. I knew Kathy was disappointed, but I told her I wouldn’t be watching the show. She wanted to know why, and when I told her my reasons, she thought I had misheard, so she rewound the tape and we watched it again. “Christianity, and other European diseases. . .” Nope, I heard right, and it sounded worse the second time around.

I’m not even a Christian and I’m offended. And these effete assholes wonder why Christians have banded together to produce their own movies, magazines and to support political causes that agree with them. How could they not?

”A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.”
—Emo Philips