La Collectiva Lasagna!

We heard last week that the tv networks will start to sell shows on demand.  This was inevitable:  iTunes is the great screaming distribution success of recent memory, and has finally made clear to the entertainment industry that downloading is the future.  Steve Jobs had it right years ago when he explained that Apple would not complain about Kazaa – they would compete, and offer something better, and take tons of customers… 

We also noted the passing of Grokster, from file-sharing service to studio sales channel.  We like time shiftinig and “on demand” services – we’d have missed a whole lot of Sopranos episodes without them – but we’re not so pleased with how the provider landscape is emerging. 

We tried Napster back in 1999 and loved the idea.  We built our summer mix tape in 2001 entirely on Kazaa (well, we owned ‘Rooty’ – but we downloaded everything else).  We never really embraced online bootlegging for the pirate aspects.  It wasn’t, for us, about flipping off the record industry.  We bear them no love (not enough space here to say why – but we note, after years of “cheap” CDs priced at $12.99, that they got what they deserved).  We initially just liked the convenience - there just wasn’t any place else to find all those ‘Paid in Full’ remixes, free or not.  With roots in search technology, and limited time, and perhaps some sense of community creation (these were, after all, the forerunners of Friendster and MySpace and the like), we also celebrated the idea of opening our computers to a whole bunch of like-minded folks to build up our music collections.   

So we’re sad to see Grokster become just another sales channel for big media companies.  Sure, Grokster had already begun to fade – BitTorrent and others are much more powerful.   But they’re a symbol – and Wayne Rosso, former Grokster President, is apparently now working on Mashboxx, an industry-sanctioned solution.  [We note that StreamCast Networks, co-defendants with Grokster, has refused to stop fighting the industry – but they’re not really a big player either]

In the wake of a June Supreme Court decision suggesting that the companies themselves could be held liable for copyright infringement, it’s not surprising that “legal downloading” has emerged.  Napster has gone legit.  IMesh filters out unauthorized copies.  Kazaa, long the leader in pirate copying, is under Australian court order to go legal. 

This is a huge victory for the “entertainment industry,” which has faught aggressively but not particularly successfully around the world against counterfeiting (we can still buy cheap pirate dvds all over New York the day a film is released). Counterfeiting networks work like drug dealing networks:  busting the guy selling a pile on the street has little impact, and the big suppliers are well insulated.  So the industry has chased the high visibility companies, like Grokster. 

But is it good for us?  When Sony won the right, in front of the Supreme Court in 1984, to enable home recording - as long as it was for personal use - without risk of being sued, an industry was launched. 

Music is not the final battleground.  Video is.  The movie-going era is fading.  With big flat screens and easy downloads – a whole movie in seconds, petrhaps – movie theaters become less and less enticing.  This is what the industry should be thinking about.  Not with enforcement - which only works until the next genius kid somewhere obscure comes up with a new way of circumventing the rules – but with providing what the customer wants.  Downloads of last night’s "Desperate Housewives" episode will not keep the kids from taking Disney’s movies home the day they come out in the theaters.   

We were humming along to the Sir Mix A Lot classic the other day, as we’re prone to do, when we came across alarming news. 

At an annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, of Dublin, revealed that too much back is hindering injections of medication.  When needles can’t reach through the fatty tissue to the buttock muscle (a good injection site usually, as the tush is light on blodd vessels, nerves and bones), drugs are not ingested, and may cause local infection.   

We lasagnans like almost everything thick and juicy.  But Victoria Chan (perhaps no Flo Jo herself?), presenting for the Irish hospital, explains that bubble butts require extra long needles, which many hospitals do not have.   

With 65% of US adults now overweight, we suspect the market for long needles is growing. 

So Cosmo says you’re fat

Well I ain’t down with that

Cause your waste is small and your curves are kicking

And I’m thinking about sticking

Well, fine for Sir Mix (where is he?). 

But tough on the needle bearer.   

We don’t usually read obituaries, but we noted two in the last week:  Stan Berenstain and Pat Morita. 

What, you may ask, links the two?  Well, both inspired us. 

Stan Berenstain, and his wife Jan, created the Berenstain Bears – who taught us how to handle the challenges of childhood.  We remember being reassured, repeatedly, at the dentist.

Pat Morita created Mr. Miyagi - who taught Ralph Macchio - and all the rest of us - to “Wax On, Wax Off.”  Serenity.  Discipline.  Triumph of the good guy over the bully.   

The Berenstains taught us not to be swayed to the easy path or the in crowd.  So did Mr. Miyagi – and Pat Morita himself, who persevered through a whole lot of silly roles (any of you remember that he was not only Arnold on ‘Happy Days’ but also Fred Sanford’s friend Ah Chew? Yep) before he found the more dignified role of Miyagi.   

Thanks, Stan and Pat, for setting out good messages.

Some time next year, we may legally buy Iberian ham in the US.  The Department of Agriculture finally has given the green light, after banning the import since the 1980s, to a small family firm that now meets slaughterhouse standards. 

Jamon Iberico comes from genetically pure black pigs – “Patas Negras” – only found in the mountains of Spain, primarily in Andalusia and Extremadura.  These pigs live special, pampered lives, grazing only on acorns (acorn-only pigs are labeled ‘bellota’).  Because they wander free, they absorb those acorns in to fat that permeates their muscles (the meat smells nutty as a result).  This fat is unusually high in oleic acid (the fat found in olive oil), giving the meat an unusual texture – and allowing some fans to claim that Iberian Ham is actually good for you.

After slaughter at about a year, pigs’ legs (hind leg hams, sold with bones and hoofs intact, are more prized than the foreleg hams) are encased in salt, then left for up to 20 days, so the salt can draw water out of the meat.  After the salt is removed, the ham is aged for up to 40 days, so the meat can become drier and firmer.  Next, the ham is aired in a curing hall for six months, and then aged in a cellar for up to two years. 

At the Museo de Jamon, in Madrid – an ordinary-looking place, but for the thousands of hams hanging everywhere - the meat is served on plain, warmed plates, at room temperature, alone.  Plain bread, perhaps, accompanies.  Beer follows.  At a conference full of mini-Trumps in Barcelona, where the meat is carved and served on platters at lunch, with dry cava, oily fingers leave oil patches on friends’ shoulders.  Over a country breakfast, a few slices of ham (it’s quite expensive) are served with a fried egg.   

Regardless of presentation, it tastes way better than any other ham you’ll taste   here.  Serrano Ham, which you can buy now, comes from more ordinary white pigs.  We like it too – but it’s not in the same league.

In the meantime, we’ll eat Serrano if we have to.  We will also advocate sneaking in jamon de bellota, and will more closely befriend any of you who hook us up (we’re not advocates, generally, of smuggling, and we know there’s a potential prison sentence for it, but we’re assuming Homeland Security will not go Midnight Express on us over ham). 

The Kansas Board of Education has decided that its students should study doubts about modern Darwinian theory.  Overruling the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association, Kansas will now tell students that some aspects of evolutionary theory are controversial.

Lots of fundamentalists have come to embrace “intelligent design” as the source of the universe.  Some go further, to “creationism,” which holds that the Genesis account in the Bible, of God as the architect of the universe, is literally true (the Supreme Court outlawed the teaching of “creationism” in state schools in an Arkansas case in 1987, after which the “intelligent design” movement emerged .  Without specifically mentioning either theory, Kansas has given them a platform.  Instead of “seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us,” the new Kansas standards mandate “continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.” 

The intelligent design movement finds its strongest support in the Discovery Institute, a Seattle foundation run by Bruce Chapman, Reagan’s Census Bureau director.   Discovery states that modern evolutionary theory is limited, and life too complex to explain. 

Jonathan Wells, Discovery’s witness in Topeka, holds PhDs in theology from Yale and biology from Berkeley – and a membership in Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. On his website, Wells explains:  “Father’s words, my studies and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.”

Intelligent design has not found much support in the scientific mainstream.  Evidence from paleontologists and biologists is pretty definitive in showing that all life evolved over time from original simple life forms.  These ancient simple life forms became more complex over billions of years, evolving into human beings, other animals, and a multitude of other life forms. There are still unknowns, of course – but not much controversy about the basics of evolution. 

There’s also the issue of whether “intelligent design” even qualifies as science.  The National Academy of Sciences, for example, has said that intelligent design “and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life” cannot be defined as science because their claims neither propose new hypothesis nor can be tested by experiment. 

Kansas is not alone in teaching alternatives to evolution.  Ohio, since 2002, has taught that evolution is controversial.  Alabama and Georgia legislators are pushing bills to allow teachers to challenge Darwin in class.  The issue – whether teaching “intelligent design” violates church-state separation requirements – is already in the courts in Pennsylvania and Georgia.  In Kansas, intelligent design advocates have turned the issue around, claiming that teaching Darwinian evolution in effect is already introducing religion in to the classroom, by rejecting the possibility of creationism.  According to one witness, the position is an advocacy of atheism.

President Bush, bowing to his fundamentalist base last year, has said that “both sides” should be taught.  We don’t buy that.  There’s an easy solution:  votes.  Four of the six Kansas Board members who voted for this craziness are up for re-election next year.  We think the monkey-haters should be thrown out of office.   

Let’s not laugh at Kansas.  Let’s support Kansas Citizens for Science (www.kcfs.org) as they campaign against this inside

• Kansas.  Let’s also recognize that there are fundamentalists everywhere planning the same activities.  And let’s be sure to vote. 

Lots of people bash France.  Perhaps it’s more deserved than usual this week - curfews have been imposed as ugly aspects of French character are more visible than usual. 

So there is racism in France?  Sure.  Their French republicanism sounds good:  ignore ethnic differences and support a single French identity, in theory avoiding both social stratification (defeated by the Revolution) and multicultural fragmentation (usually referred to with disparaging comments about the US experience). But this French model has clearly failed.  Immigrants and their children may speak the language and attend the schools, but they are not embraced as part of “berets-and baguettes” France.  The headgear ban struck us as a bit nutty, and the “secularism” justification is clearly disingenuous while the government pours funds in to church schools.  Because they do not feel North African either, many have turned to Islam.But we don’t see it as a distinguishing characteristic.  The riots now in France will inevitably move on across other countries where immigrant populations struggle with the local working class to define roles in once-homogeneous societies.

So we think sadly of this, but we put a hold on our normal practice of making fun of French culture (and aping ze accent).  We want to make a serious point here. 

Sure, the French are obsessed with keeping French culture French.  We certainly prefer the Japanese approach to adding English words.  We attribute it to bruised pride:  it would hurt to be part of the generation that watched the fall from outsized contributor to the world’s intellect for centuries to minor contributor.  Imagine working in fashion, the last bastion of French dominance – where design is now dominated by Brits and an Austrian and Italians and even Americans – to the point of being less French than baseball is American.  Très embarrassant!

But French arrogance has lately reared its head in a more serious way:  as a threat to World Trade Organization (WTO) efforts toward a new bill for 2006, which would fight poverty around the world (the talks conclude in Hong Kong in mid-December).  A threatened French veto protects French farmers – at too high a price to the rest of the world. 

Many wealthy countries subsidize their farmers.  In effect, this allows their farmers to compete at an advantage against farmers in developing countries, which are unable to subsidize.  Subsidies for American corn farmers, for example, mean that US soda drinkers drink corn syrup instead of sugar. 

Why?  Votes, primarily.  The economic rationales almost never add up – but tariff beneficiaries tend to direct some of the government largesse right back to those who provided it.   

Europe has tolerated French agricultural protectionism as one of the prices of Union, but subsidies under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) now eat up nearly half the EU budget, with France receiving almost a quarter of the proceeds.  Led by Tony Blair, the rest of Europe has begun to speak up, as this subsidy policy not only forces Europeans to pay higher prices for food; it also precludes poor farmers around the world from selling effectively in to the market. 

The US is no innocent on subsidies:  preaching free trade while subsidizing our own farmers is a hypocrisy that transcends party lines.  Cotton farmers in West Africa, for example, would sell much more in to the US if subsidies on California cotton were lifted. 

But French hypocrisy is more extreme. Last September, Chirac stood with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva to advocate a coalition of countries committed to fighting poverty.  Today, Chirac threatens to oppose any meaningful cuts in EU subsidies to farmers – though Brazil would stand among the main beneficiaries.

Most of Europe has advocated substantial tariff level cuts in Hong Kong.  But if Jacques Chirac, a former agriculture minister, clings to his farm policy and vetos, tariffs will stand.  French farmers will continue to receive subsidies.  Not chuckle-worthy. 

The riots are connected.  Relentless support for a fading agrarian way of life - welfare for folks who decide to keep jobs that don’t make economic sense - also penalizes the urban poor within France, who must pay more for food. 

Lasagnans view Paris first and foremost as a food city (ok, we think this about quite a few of our favorite cities - but that’s not relevant here).  We thrill to memories of meals in little country inns.  We look forward to more - with the hopes that the taint of unfair tariff policies will be lifted, and the glories of a global farm economy will enhance our table. 

Sure, Parisians can be arrogant - but we’re rather fond of Paris for a whole lot of reasons, so we generally don’t join in the bashing, and we return often.  Even here in NY, we enjoy our bistros and our burgundies, chuckle over their stubborn eccentricities, and generally focus our griping on the misdeeds of our own governing forces.   

We remember rye.  A grandfather drank it.   It was a tough guy drink.  A shamus drink.  A fifth in the desk drawer.  We think of rye when we think of Mickey Spillane (which we do surprisingly often).   

But we hadn’t actually seen rye for a while.  Sure, we’ve ordered Manhattans from time to time, but we’ve accepted the fact that most bars make them with bourbon or Canadian whiskey (Angels Share, of course, is purist about this; they always pour rye).  So we were a bit surprised to find that the Ward 8 we were drinking the other night at the sort-of-fancy Pegu Club is a rye drink.  We liked it (we’ve already tired of Pegu, but we thank them for the re-intro). 

So we did some investigating in to rye.  And, of course, sampling.  Conclusion:  we’re rye drinkers. 

It turns out that rye is the patriot’s drink.  George Washington himself was the biggest rye distiller in the country at the turn of the nineteenth century, brewing rye at Mount Vernon (rather than rum, with its taint of colonialism).  Ergo, the patriot’s drink. 

Immigrants from Scotland and Germany brewed it originally in Pennsylvania and Maryland, blending local rye grains with corn to produce a drink more herbal and less sweet than the pure-corn bourbon brewed in Kentucky.  But Kentucky was an easier place for brewing (less law, no tax collection), so bourbon flourished.  Prohibition largely finished rye off, as Canadian whiskey brewers consolidated their hold on the market.   

Today, but for a few small brewers in Alberta, where rye actually grows, Canadian whiskey brewers leave rye out.   But some US brewers are making rye again.  Jim Beam has rejuvenated Old Overholt, a Pennsylvania brand from the early 19th Century.   Van Winkle has put out a nice sipping rye.  Anchor Brewing (a nice beer house) has upped the ante with Old Potrero Single Malt Rye, an 18th century style rye.  It’s young – they only age it for a year – and powerful (124 proof).  It’s also expensive.  But we think it’s worth a sip or two… perhaps with the thought of George Washington in mind. 

Here’s the recipe, from the essential Savoy Cocktail Book (Harry Craddock, 1930), for the Ward 8: 

• 1 tablespoon orange juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons rye
• 1 teaspoon grenadine

Pour the orange juice, lemon juice, rye and grenadine into a shaker filled with ice. Shake, pour into a cocktail glass, and sip happily.

Why are Lasagnans so down on Starbucks? 

One of our very favorite people - a woman of taste and style - points out that her half-caff something or other can’t be had anywhere else in midtown. 

We feel compelled, briefly, to respond.

No, not to dwell on the question of why she’s drinking what she’s drinking (Lasagans, of course, believe that coffee and sweet don’t match).  To answer why we wish she’d buy coffee elsewhere.   

We note that we’re only partially down on Starbucks.  We’re serious coffee drinkers, after all, so of course we’re pleased that there’s much more coffee available in places where it was once not.  Airports, for example.  Suburbs (we do visit friends and family occasionally).  England.   

We’re also entrepreneurs, and great admirers of Howard Schultz for having a vision.   

We see the NYU kids who use Starbucks as their late night study hall and safe bathroom (if not clean exactly - this is the peril of volume).  And we do use t-mobile hotspots. 

But we find the pervasive presence of Starbucks troubling. 

We can’t make an economic argument against them.  WalMart-bashing arguments don’t really apply.  They don’t pay particularly lowball wages or skimp on benefits.  They don’t have real pricing power (maybe ours is a particularly New York view of the world, but Starbucks prices don’t actually top the market here; besides, even in lower-priced cities, lots of customers voluntarily line up to pay for Starbucks). 

No, our argument is aesthetic (and maybe sentimental). 

Starbucks is now the world’s corporate, homogenous coffee experience.  The generic greenish room, with the same fluffy pleather chairs and cardboard bean racks and the cutesy mugs and the same three types of muffin – they’re the Dockers of coffee.  Pleated.  Iron-free.  Beige.   

And this Dockers of coffee houses now looms all over just about every city in the world.  This bothers us.  Starbucks has not simply choked the life out of the happy little coffee houses we loved here at home.  [Momentarily, we mourn Java n Jazz, late of Union Square, killed by 3 green monsters within blocks; the Coffee Connection, acquired and then genericized; etc).  They have spread their uniformity everywhere, bypassing Coke and McDonalds and Nike and Michael Jackson as the symbol of America… 

So how did this happen?  How did Starbucks take over the world?  Well, Starbucks flourished in part through an unusual property strategy.  They “flood the zone,” opening several stores near one another, sacrificing profits short term to force out competition (example:  poor Java N Jazz faced 4 within 3 blocks around Union Square). Is this anti-competitive?  Well, sure.  But that’s the nature of retail. 

Should it bother us anyway?  Well, it’s a root cause of the aesthetic problem.  Unlike most fast food businesses, which franchise, Starbucks owns its stores.  The property strategy makes this essential:  no franchisee would agree to locate just blocks from another store, and sacrifice profits for .  So, with just one big corporate owner defining image, and a goal of profit maximization, homogeneity is almost certain. Uniforms.  Bulk buying.  Nothing that threatens anyone anywhere. 

This is the heart of what bothers us.  Because we remember coffee houses as places for a day off, for a coffee and maybe a snack – but also for a social experience.  Cool music.  Maybe even live music.  At Starbucks, you get the chance to buy 10-years-later acoustic retreads of Alanis Morrisette.  Cool, man.   

We’re not going to suggest pranks or disruptions (for some good ones, see http://www.spacehijackers.org/starbucks/). But we do suggest walking an extra block or two (excellent resource specifically for this:  www.delocator.net).  We buy our New York coffee from Oren’s or from Joe (Waverly just west of 6^th Ave).  We love Cafe Sabarsky.   We root for Peet’s (it’s certainly our spot in Santa Monica, next to old Gehry)…