Blogger Appreciation - Midtown Miscreant

The best writing going on in Kansas City right now is being published at Midtown Miscreant's blog, and it's there for free.

Specifically, go read this post. Then, read this post. If you're a fan of brilliant writing, you'll find yourself impatiently waiting for the third part of this 3-part series.

You may not believe this, but years and years ago, this kind of thing might show up in the KC Star, written by a columnist. Check out the archives of the Kansas City Star columnists, and see if you can find anything approaching Midtown Miscreant's level of skill in bringing a fresh angle to a compelling story. Heck, go ahead and check the New York Times or any other newspaper. If you find it, please let me know.

Midtown Miscreant is not writing this for money (though I wish he would put a paypal link up). He's not going to win a Pulitzer, and I doubt anybody asks him to come speak to their Rotary Club. On the other hand, he's not trying to please a mercurial editor, and he's not worried about getting fired.

Midtown Miscreant is gutsy, honest, compelling and talented. Those of us who read him are lucky that he gives us his stories.

Where is the Best Mole in Kansas City?

I've never made a great, or even a very good, mole. In fact, I'm not sure I've even really tasted a great mole. I feel like a whole world of culinary awesomeness awaits.

Mole is a broad word that includes thick Mexican sauce. Guacamole is a form of mole, though that's not what I'm talking about when I express my desire to taste a great mole. I want rich, peppery, complex sauce that steals the show from the sweetest pork, the juiciest chicken, the freshest fish, or whatever is served with it.

I know that I'm still not being specific enough. There are moles that range from green to nearly black, and flavors that range from fire to peanutty. I've read Rick Bayless' cookbooks and even spent a day trying to make an ambitious green mole from one of them, but it was merely okay.

Where in Kansas City can I find good versions of this labor-intensive sauce? Are the jarred varieties any good? Any advice for an open-minded, eager-to-learn gringo?

99 Bottles of Beer on the Blog - Odell's Bourbon Barrel Stout

Imagine my delight when a recent morning at work was interrupted by a phone call from one of my favorite people asking me whether I wanted her to pick up any special beers from Odell's Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. She was standing in the brewery gift shop, and mentioned a limited edition Bourbon Barrel Stout. Sold!

Tonight, I uncorked the 750 milliliter bottle, after letting it warm up to around 45-50 degrees. A good rich beer should not be served tongue-numbingly cold; the warmth allows the complexities of the beer shine.

The aroma is all coffee and chocolate, and the color is dark brown just this side of black. No hop aroma can cut its way through the rich, malty smell. A note of vanilla gives just a hint of the complexity to be found just underneath the dark tan head. At 10.5% alcohol, it's not surprising that the head does not last long, though a film remains, and a lace of foam decorates the side of the glass as the beer disappears.

The mouthfeel is perfect. A beer this tasty is sometimes syrupy, but this one is enjoyably, perhaps dangerously, drinkable.

Appearance, aroma and mouthfeel are good, but the flavor is what makes this beer memorable. I'm not a huge fan of bourbon, because I don't enjoy the burn of high-alcohol liquors. This beer delivers the wonderful flavors of bourbon without the burn. Aged for 4 months in barrels from Buffalo Trace Distillery, this imperial stout yields agreeably to the vanilla, caramel and slight smokiness of bourbon in a cooling mouthful of chocolate and coffee maltiness. You get the pleasure of bourbon without the pain.

Don't let the word "stout" bring expectations of lots of dry roasted barley. Without the bourbon, this would be a big, creamy milk stout, leaning toward an imperial porter. I wonder whether I would find it too sweet without the added spiciness of the bourbon, but it is delightful as served.

This beer was around $16 for a bottle the same size as a bottle of wine. Frankly, it's worth every nickle. It has much more going on flavor-wise than even a very good bottle of wine, and the creativity and skill demonstrated by the brewers outshine the work put in by 99% of winemakers.

I don't know what I would pair this beer with. It's a little sweet to go with a steak, but it might be the perfect accompaniment to a dark chocolate mousse and a cigar. It certainly goes well with the handful of pretzels I'm tasting it with.

This is definitely one of the best beers I have ever had. The fact that a friend took time out of her journey to visit her friend to pick it up for me certainly makes me appreciate it more, but, if I see this on the shelves of any local stores, I'll be picking up a few bottles to cellar for special occasions.

Baggu - A Little Thing Well Done

Grocery bags are a waste. The paper ones are bulky, and the plastic ones are annoying bits of foreign oil. Grocery stores are encouraging us to reuse bags (many offer a nickle per bag), but I can never remember to put them in my car or bring them in. Environmental fail.

One day, I ran into one of my favorite divorce lawyers at the grocery store (they tend to be wonderful people if you're not an opposing client), and she was using a nylon bag to tote her groceries. It simply looked well-made - handles that were long enough to loop over her shoulder but not so long as to drag on the floor if she held them in her hand, and well-constructed enough to carry out a small cart-load of groceries. "It's a baggu," she explained, and showed me how it fit into a tidy five inch square pouch so it was easy to keep in the car or in her purse. She directed me to the website (baggubag.com), though you can also buy them through MoMA.

I bought some. I love them. I recommend them without reservation.

It turns out they're something of an international hit, judging by the press page on the Baggu website, with mentions in everything from People magazine to Sunset. Who knew?

I can't afford to drive the best car on the road. A top-of-the-line suit would blow my clothing budget for a decade. I can't even look at the "reserve" section on a good restaurant's wine list.

But if you run into me at Brookside Market, I'll be at the leading edge of tote bag fashion. And it costs less than $10 to get there.

Stereotyped!

I got on the elevator yesterday, and was joined by an African-American man roughly my own age. He looked my middle-aged, middle-class white self over, gave an understanding smile, and said, "Too bad about the Springsteen show getting canceled, huh?".

Pasta Carbonara in Minutes - and the Fiction of Recipes

For most dishes, recipes are an inspiration, not a road map. There's no point in stressing over exact measurements for most recipes - differences in technique and ingredients are going to make your dish an individual creation anyhow. Relax, be yourself, and make it the way you like it.

Pasta carbonara is a great example of this approach. In essence, it's bacon and eggs with pasta - breakfast bolstered for dinner. Calvin Trillin argues that it ought to replace turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, though I don't go quite that far. Turkey deserves its place as a once-a-year struggle, while pasta carbonara ought to be in the regular rotation of weeknight dinners.

Here's how I made it last night. I am completely capable of writing this in the traditional format of recipes, with a list of ingredients followed by cooking instructions, but I'd prefer to break out of that mold. This is not a scientific formula to be slavishly recreated. I started a pound of pasta boiling, and fried up a third of a pound of pancetta, adding a a few cloves of minced garlic when it was almost crisp. When the garlic was softened and the pasta cooked to my liking, I tossed the drained pasta in with the pancetta along with a little bit of the pasta water, removed it from the heat, tossed in 4 eggs I had whipped with salt and pepper, stirred that vigorously together, and then stirred in about a cup of parmesan and some parsley.

That's all, folks. In the time it would have taken to heat up two microwave dinners, I made enough pasta carbonara to make dinner and a couple hearty lunches.

At almost every point in that brief recipe, though, there was room to add your own preferences. I used pancetta this time, but bacon works great, and so does prosciutto. Go with your preference. I used a pretty heavy hand with the garlic - use as much or as little as you like, and add it early if you want its flavor to mellow and meld, or add it late if you want it to be sharp. Use as much or as little pasta water as you like to get the consistency you prefer, or toss in a little white wine to give it a touch of acid. Use as many eggs as you see fit, and substitute different cheeses for the parmesan - or simply use a different grade of parmesan. (I was lazy last night, and used the parmesan that had been grated at the store - I could have easily upgraded by buying a chunk of real parmesan and firing up the food processor.) If you want, you can add capers or olives, and you can toss in herbs.

Even if I had set out to accurately recreate someone else's recipe, it's doubtful that I could recreate exactly what the recipe writer makes. How crisp is crisp pancetta? What brand of pancetta are we each using? They're not all the same. Even the pasta and eggs have subtle differences and vary in freshness - not to even mention the possibility of home-made pasta. The cheese is a wild card - even IF we both chose parmesan, it's unlikely that they're going to taste very much the same.

Most recipes are springboards to get you started creating. Don't fear the recipe police. Go with your preferences.

Sunday Poetry: The Voice, by Thomas Hardy

The Voice

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever consigned to existlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward
And the woman calling.

by Thomas Hardy
_________________________________________________

This morning, I visited a church north of the river, and sat in front of a couple, perhaps in their 70s. During the homily, I heard the woman whisper urgently, "Joe, say something to me." Her whisper grew more urgent and panicked, and I turned to see her trying to get her husband's attention, while he sat there staring ahead vacantly. I was right in front of him - my eyes met his, but there was no reaction. "He's not here with me," she said in a voice choked with fear and disbelief as friends gathered around her and took Joe from the pew.

I assume it was a stroke, and I hope and pray that Joe, whoever he is, regains his complete faculties. Medicine has improved vastly since a stroke stole most of my father from me in 1982. But what I heard and saw was two lives torn suddenly apart in a quiet moment at church.

Thomas Hardy's poem stems from regret about the sudden loss of his wife. From what I've read, theirs was a marriage that had lost its luster for decades. When his wife died, he was filled with regret that he had not loved more deeply.

This poem employs an unusual dactyl rhythm - DAH duh duh - in the first stanzas. It enhances the "enthralled" state of the speaker as he daydreams his dead lover's voice. At the end, though, choppy trochees and tongue-twisting assonance and alliteration reflect the difficult realization that the speaker is alone, and his lover is gone.

Hardy yearned for the opportunity to relive his life and devote more attention to his love. I hope that Joe and his wife have the opportunity to share future golden moments, and, if not, I hope that they don't regret failing to love fully during the time they had. It's a lesson we see time and time again, in life and in literature.

Brew Day Tomorrow - Belgian Dubbel

I love Belgian Abbey Style ales, and dubbels are my favorite. Rich with raisiny, fruity esters, this is a warming, complex autumn beer (though I love a good one any time of the year). If you've had Chimay Red, Corsendonk Abbey Brown Ale, Grimbergen Double (on tap at Harry's Country Club, I believe), Ommegang, or even New Belgian Abbey Ale, you've had a good example.

Tomorrow, I'll try to make 10 gallons of my own. I've been amassing two large starters (~1600 milliliters) of special Belgian Abbey Ale yeast (Wyeast 1214) over the past week. I have made up my own recipe - 13 pounds of Belgian pale malt, 5 pounds of Belgian Pilsner malt, 1 pound of Special B, 2 pound of Belgian Aromatic, 2 pounds of Mexican pilloncilla sugar, and a pound and a half of cane sugar. I'm using 1 ounce of New Zealand Hallertauer leaf hops to add just a touch of bitterness.

If anyone wants to see how all that makes a beer, email or call. I'll probably start mid-morning, and be at it till mid-afternoon.

Outrage Addicts and Zero Tolerance

"Outrage Addicts" are a peculiar set of amateur commenters, quick to express their shock and dismay about the latest offense against "common sense", and eager to decry the bureaucrats or activists who wander into their crossfire. They thrive on disgruntlement and tend to view themselves as homespun geniuses of horse sense - if only the world would check in with them before acting, it would be a better, if less outrageous, place.

(As an aside, this group tends to be the absolute worst at fact-checking, though the very outrages they speak against tend to be those that cry out for suspicion. Thus, they send out their OMG via emails and blog posts on "controversies" that are almost always fictional or exaggerated. Thus, a suit about a religious symbol on public land mysteriously becomes an attempt to remove the crosses from Arlington Cemetery, and a product liability lawsuit filed becomes a multi-million dollar award for a misspelled word in a warning label. Snopes is their buzz-kill.)

All of which is a lengthy introduction to the latest "outrage" circulating through the community of Outrage Addicts, and their long-suffering email companions. A 6 year-old Cub Scout in Delaware brought a camp eating utensil to school, and was suspended under a post-Columbine zero-tolerance policy against bringing weapons to school. Under the policy, he could conceivably be sent to the District's reform school for 45 days, and so that is the exaggerated threat being reported by the Outrage Addicts.

In this instance, the Outrage Addicts have the facts mostly right, partially because they are relying on a report by the New York Times. (More commonly, the outrage of the week comes from less credible sources, like AM radio or World Net Daily.) Of course, the threat is exaggerated and the slanted facts are picked like ripe red cherries, and the fact that the School District has already resolved the problem in favor of the little boy has not caught up (and never will catch up) to the exaggerated story of his peril, but that's part and parcel of stories like this one.

While this particular anecdote is being circulated as an attack on zero tolerance policies, the same facts could be used as an instance of outrage if the official response had been to ignore the tiny knife-wielder.

"Troubled child from a broken home, in defiance of well-publicized policy to protect his tiny classmates from injury and death, brandishes a knife in the classroom. Upon being stopped before the blade 'accidentally' removed some little girl's eye, he claimed he only brought it to use on his lunch. His irresponsible single mother, who sent her child to school armed with a knife even though she knew of the policy, is seeking to get the policy changed so that 6 year-olds can carry weapons to school when they or their parents see fit."

Outrageous, isn't it? If the story had included a few other facts, such as a child being accidentally hurt or, God forbid, if the child had been poor and a minority, these same circumstances could be circulated among the Outrage Addicts as a shining example of why common sense requires that we need a strong policy of zero-tolerance to protect our children from these knife-wielding barbarians.

So, in that context, what does the outrage du jour teach us about the impact of zero-tolerance policies? Sadly, it teaches us almost nothing, except for the fact that they can, in some instances, result in penalties for those who choose to ignore them. But acts portrayed as outrageous can have a disproportionate impact on public policy.

Long before the Delaware Dagger case made headlines in the Times, serious people have been struggling with the issue of the impact of zero-tolerance policies. Some argue that they over-criminalize, and others argue that more discretionary policies result in discrimination against minorities and ignoring dangerous behavior. A quick search can turn up dozens of studies supporting either view.

Honestly, I have no spectacular wisdom on the subject of zero-tolerance policies (surprised, aren't you?). Having glanced at a few of the studies and given it a bit of thought, I probably lean against them, and certainly acknowledge that, for them to be fair and effective, they need to be drafted with incredible care and forethought - more of both than one typically finds in policy manuals.

But I insist that my knowingly-uninformed indecisiveness is superior to the knee-jerk "common sense" being spread by the Outrage Addicts. I know what I don't know, and I would not want to form public policy on the basis of a cherubic 6 year-old Cub Scout who wanted to eat lunch with his new toy. My critical faculties make me realize that I could just as easily be forming public policy on the basis of a thuggish 6 year-old crack baby sent to school with a blade by an unemployed drug-dealing mom.

Reaction to outrageous anecdotes is a poor substitute for careful thought. If we're going to engage in a rational discussion of zero-tolerance - and I think that's a great discussion to have - then let's be careful to look at both the angels and the demons.

Osceola Cheese - Disappointment on Highway 13

When traveling through Missouri, there are lots of fascinating spots to visit for a quick break. Those brown Missouri Department of Conservation signs point to dozens of small parks, and the flea markets and antique shops hold treasures.

But the Osceola Cheese Shop is not one of them.

Always crowded with slow-moving sample-takers, the store is harshly lit, poorly laid out and filled with cheese that mostly tastes like American with artificial flavorings. On top of that, you get "gifts" offered by an attached Christian bookstore and Precious Moments figurines next to dew rags festooned with the flag of the Confederate Losers.

It manages the difficult feat of being completely tacky without even offering visitors an opportunity to be ironically amused by kitsch. It's a cheese shop that can't even be engagingly cheesy.

Sunday Poetry: Epic, by Patrick Kavanagh

Epic

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

- by Patrick Kavanagh
______________________________________________________

How could a property dispute over a small bit of rocky soil compare to the Trojan War, or the gathering storm clouds of World War II? It is absurd to suggest such a thing, just as it is absurd to attach the grandiose title "Epic" to a 14 line sonnet. A shirtless man shouting at his neighbor on some insignificant plot in Ireland does not compare in any rational way to the clashing of god and city-states on the plains of Troy, nor the horror of World War II.

When I first read this poem, I accepted it at face value - the speaker is claiming that in some ways, the McCabe clan shouting at the Duffy clan is the literary equivalent of the Trojan War, and has greater import to local participants than wars across water. And, while the abduction of Helen is a greater event than a disagreement over land ownership, and Helen's face is more likely to launch a thousand ships while McCabe's stripped torso, a lengthy family feud could certainly provide the basis for great literature.

Now, I wonder whether Kavanagh was being more ironic than I thought. His "epic" is 14 lines - an unrhymed sonnet with roughed-up scansion. And the closing words - gods make their own importance. Are those Homer's words, or are they the speaker's? If Homer's, are we to believe that McCabe is the equal to Apollo, who shot arrows at the Greeks from the walls of Troy? It's difficult for a contemporary monotheist to accept that gods are active in the land dispute. Or are those words from the speaker, and Homer is a god for having taken a tribal dispute and crafting it into one of the most important works of literature.

Either way, it is a wonderful poem, and makes us ponder the important events that pass us by without heralding every day.

Scooping Playboy

I try to keep a high level of dignity on this blog, and my respect for women is boundless, but, as a citizen-journalist, I feel the need to run with an EXCLUSIVE SCOOP of a widely-read (for the articles) magazine.

Before the new issue of Playboy hits the stands, featuring Marge Simpson, I can offer a sneak preview of what that lucky Homer lives with every day.

( . ) ( . )

Gun Laws or Tax Laws?

Acorn recently drew a rash of right-wing scorn and repercussions because a video came out showing a couple of their people offered tax advice to investigators posing as a prostitute and a pimp. It was a knuckle-headed thing to do, and it was even mildly amusing, since the "pimp" looked like something out of a Halloween costume shop.

Yesterday, new videos came out, showing sellers at gun shows selling deadly weapons illegally. It's creepy to watch the video of people talking about "stopping power" and concealability while selling pistols to a guy claiming he probably couldn't pass a background check. It's not mildly amusing at all.

Which videos will get more attention from major media?

KC Sports - Rednecks Preferred?

Ancillary Adams raises a fine question: "What is it about this town's athletics franchises that makes them want to portray themselves as the Official Teams of Hee Haws everywhere?" At Royals games, the family atmosphere is shattered every game by a public singing of a country song celebrating threatening behavior and problem drinking. Now, the Chiefs have decided that Trace Adkins - with no apparent Kansas City ties - should be the pitchman for the Chiefs. Trace Adkins?

If it hadn't been for Ancillary Adams, I confess that I would not have any idea who the guy in black leather on the screen was. After a little research, I've discovered that he is an anti-union conservative who appeals to a heavily caucasian audience. The only obvious tie to the Chiefs I could find is that he sings a song called "You're Going to Miss This", which I haven't heard, but it might be directed toward the receiving corps.

Like Ancillary Adams, I'm sick and tired of having our sports teams portray us to the world as a bunch of drunk rubes. If I recall correctly, it was Kansas City that made a $2 million donation to the stadiums, not some rural cowpatch. Maybe we ought to be promoted by Kansas Citians instead of boot-wearing bumpkins from Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Blogging is Dying

The FTC has issued new guidelines requiring that bloggers disclose conflicts of interest clearly and conspicuously, such as when they receive freebies for product endorsements.

Does that mean that I'm actually going to have to pay for all those restaurant meals when I write my posts?! I can't imagine how that would work - do they really mean that I'm going to have to reach for my wallet and pay, rather than standing up at the end of my meal, telling the wait staff "I'm going to blog about this", and walking out, as I always do now?

And what about beer? Do they really expect me to pay for the bottles of beer I write about, rather than simply browsing through various retailers, pulling interesting selections off the shelves, and walking out?

Of course, those benefits of blogging are minor in comparison to the lucre I bring in through my writing on poetry. The compensation packages I have worked out with various publishers of poetry have made this blog into the economic engine that it is. The estates of Frost and Yeats have made me a wealthy man, and I resent having to disclose every time I cash one of their six-figure checks, or they send me on a junket to Tahiti.

If not for the profit motive, why would I even write this thing?

Fortunately, the guidelines don't become effective until December 1. Until then, it's business as usual. If you want me to mention your business on this blog, just email bigdollarendorsements@gonemild.com. We'll work something mutually beneficial out, just like we always have.

Italian Meatballs

I love meatballs. I've had fancy, lowbrow, Swedish, baseball-sized, Himalayan, frozen, crockpotted, sandwiched, fried, marble-sized and other varieties I can't even remember. If there's a meatball on a menu, I'm a sucker for it.

So, yesterday when I decided to add a carnivorous twist to my vegetarian spaghetti sauce, meatballs were the obvious choice. But not just rolled up pieces of ground beef - I wanted something that would stand up to the long-simmered tomato sauce.

2 pounds of lean ground beef, a half pound of ground pork, a little less than a half pound each of pancetta and prosciutto cut into tiny pieces, 3 eggs, some bread crumbs, some red wine, spices and Italian parsley, tossed in a bowl and mixed. I browned them in olive oil, then put them in a dutch oven for an hour at 350, covered in the spaghetti sauce. The recipe makes too darned many meatballs - a crowd of 10 barely put a dent in them.

Few things are better than meatballs on an autumn afternoon, but two things that come close are the aroma of spaghetti sauce and meatballs filling the house, and leftovers.

Sunday Poetry: The Red Poppy, by Louise Gluck

The Red Poppy

The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.

- by Louise Gluck
_____________________________________________________________

Poppies hold a disproportionate share of the literary imagination. They grow hauntingly among the crosses In Flanders Fields. They put Dorothy and her posse to sleep on her way to the Emerald City. They appear on tombstones and are offered by veterans before Memorial Day.

Louise Gluck offers her own take on the poppy in this poem, but it is enriched by awareness of the other uses. By speaking as the flower itself, she reverses the typical dialogue. This is not about what a human thinks of poppies, it is about what a poppy thinks about humans. Her poppy sees humans as guarded and closed, unable to show the fire in their own hearts. Unburdened by a mind, the poppy is pure feeling.

For me, this poem is made by its last word. Such an unlikely word for a poem where the poppy is a little didactic and even superior to its audience, lecturing the humans on their failure to open up, and claiming a connection to God because God's glory is of the heart.

What has shattered the poppy? The countless deaths it is associated with? The intensity of its color? The brevity of its life? And how are we shattered?

(Purchase poetry by Louise Gluck here, or at your favorite local bookseller.)

My Favorite Comedian

My favorite comedian does a great show in NYC.

Economic Impact, Street Value and Crowd Counts

Three of the most consistently false statistics that we see in our world are economic impacts, street value of drugs, and crowd counts. It seems that these numbers have reached an escalation lately that rivals the height of the arms race, and statistical overkill may break out to such an extent that intelligent people will be forced to give up on numbers entirely.

Economic impact is probably the most profitable lie in civic life. Have you ever noticed that fantastically large numbers get tossed about when we discuss a convention, arts project, or sports team? Have you ever noticed that the fantastically large numbers are calculated by someone with a motivation to inflate them?

Here's how it works. Let's say I announce a convention to be held here in Kansas City for the Association of Middle-Aged Blogger/Homebrewers. First off, you aggressively round up the number of people coming. If there are 40 of us that can be expected to attend, well, that's approximately 100, and then, you never know, it could be 250, and then don't forget that they will bring spouses, so we have 500, and then don't forget that they are all family people, and the entire family will want to come for this event, so now were up to a couple thousand, easily. Now, let's talk about the money they will spend.

Suddenly, we have 2,000 Middle-Aged Blogger/Homebrewers coming to town, and they're each going to need a hotel room (notice that we've converted each family member into a separate attendee - get with the spirit - nobody checks the math on these things!). Let's just assume that they are all going to pay the highest rates at the most expensive hotels, alright? So we have 2000 rooms at, say, $250/night. The convention only lasts two days, but let's assume they will all spend the week, alright? And don't forget that they need to eat - so let's figure that they will each spend an average of $200/day on food and beverage, alright? (That might seem high, but remember, nobody's checking the math, and we want to come up with a high total.) As you can see, the numbers get awfully high awfully quick - my little example is up to over $6,000,000, and we haven't even talked about souvenir shopping yet.

The same thing happens with estimates of economic impact of sports teams and arts events. You just figure that a high percentage of attendees are coming from out of town (round up!), that they will all stay at expensive hotels (round up!), that they will all eat expensive meals (round up!) and they will all stay a week to attend a ballet performance. Then you can claim that your ballet troupe generates millions of dollars of economic impact, so a little public subsidy makes perfect sense.

Police have a similar incentive to inflate numbers, with a similar lack of oversight, when they report street value of drugs. If you arrest a guy with a little bit of crack or crystal, the press release isn't going to say that the guy was peddling poor quality drugs to poor people. No way - you've gone from thrift store drugs to Tiffany's Drugs. A bag of weed that might go for $50 on the street suddenly becomes the finest pot ever sold, and well-heeled druggies would happily pay $300 for that stuff, so the street value of a pound is astronomical! Over the past several days, the KCPD claims it captured $170,000 in street value in the Northeast sweep, and I'm darned happy they did it, but I'm guessing the total value on the street didn't really approach six figures. Who's going to argue with the police when they claim a big bust?

Finally, crowd counts are the most pointless and amusing lies. Recently, several thousand tea-baggers gathered in DC to ride public transportation and complain about paying for it. Sober, legitimate estimates put the crowd at between 70,000 and 100,000, but one participant tweeted that there were two million people there, and the FOX team sprang into action and reported that estimates were that the crowd was 2,000,000, and that word spread through the right-wing fringe. The sadly inevitable but hilarious result was that their inability to find any serious news agencies reporting 2 million people became evidence in their minds that the media was intentionally not covering their "huge" turnout. If they really had 2,000,000, the news would have covered it, and the organizers would have arranged for aerial photos to prove it.

Whenever you see numbers that seem incredible, take a few moments to examine who is creating those numbers, and what their assumptions were. They probably are incredible - in the sense of lacking credibility.

(For extra credit on this lesson in fake math, please calculate the economic impact of the 70,000 teabaggers in DC, adding in the street value of the drugs they must have taken to make them see 2,000,000 of themselves.)

Not A Restaurant Review - Mezzaluna on Gregory

I had lunch at the freshly opened Mezzaluna now occupying the former Papa Keno's space at Gregory and Rockhill (formerly Waldeaux Wines and Liquors, and Circle K when we moved into the neighborhood 20+ years ago). Before I get started describing the experience, I want to make a quick acknowledgment that I am not a real restaurant reviewer. I fear that sometimes we bloggers get a little full of ourselves, and think we're the equivalent of a legitimate restaurant reviewer, because we go to restaurants and write about our experiences.

That's kind of like claiming you're a football player after tossing the ball around on the lawn, or claiming you're a golfer after a round at Cool Crest. Just because you go through some of the motions doesn't mean you've played the whole game. Tiger Woods does more than putt on felt, and there are a lot of Xs and Os in a real football game.

Real reviewers know a lot more than I do, and work a lot harder. I'm about to spout off on a restaurant I have visited once, by myself, for lunch, during their "soft" opening. I have no experience in opening a restaurant, and I don't have any advanced culinary training. I haven't written a ton of reviews, and I haven't studied the work of the great restaurant reviewers.

A proper restaurant reviewer would approach his or her task with a wealth of experience in the restaurant and journalism businesses, and would visit several times with multiple friends to get a sense of the breadth of the menu and the skill of the service. It's easy to laud or lambast a restaurant for one meal, but it's not a fair assessment, nor is it particularly helpful to the reader. Your praise of a lamb chop doesn't give a vegetarian much of a guess about what to expect.

I write all this not to belittle those of us who happen to publish on a blog - there are some top-notch true restaurant reviewers on blogs who have the skills and put in the effort to do first-rate reviews. I write all this simply to pay proper homage to those who work while I play, and to heighten the readers' awareness of the rigor required of real restaurant reviewers.

Now that all that is out of the way, I'm happy to be welcoming Mezzaluna to the neighborhood. It's a small Italian restaurant with a menu full of the basics, a good wine list and a nicely-done beer list, enhanced by a few craft brews on tap. The downstairs space is nice but a little utilitarian, with floor-to-ceiling retail coolers covering one entire wall, left over from the space's days as a liquor store. The upstairs space is surprisingly elegant, though, with cloth-covered chairs, white tablecloths and a pleasant breeze when the garage-door walls are opened. The guys at the table next to me ordered a bottle of wine (well-served by the waiter who swore it was the first time he had ever, in his life, opened a bottle of wine), and I envied the prospect of staying there for the afternoon, sipping wine with friends at tree-level.

The menu included several tempting options, all within the $8-12 range, including all the classics like ravioli, chicken parmesan, caesar salads, etc. I sought and accepted the waiter's advice in choosing between the Pizza Mezzaluna (a carnivore's concoction with garlic) and the lasagna. He recommended the lasagna, and it was a generous serving of well-prepared meat, cheese and pasta. It stood out for its restraint - some lasagna beats you over the head with dark red marinara sauce and spicy sausage, but this one was more elegant. The meat featured ground veal and a delicate hand with the spices, and the sauce was tamed with cream. I'd recommend it highly.

I visited the restaurant on its third day, and there were the expected kinks in service. The credit card machine was not working, and the waiter was stretched too thin serving both upstairs and downstairs. Given his apparent lack of experience (never having opened a bottle of wine), he did a fantastic job, with a friendly, relaxed style while running up and down the stairs.

I look forward to returning sometime soon for dinner, and sharing wine with friends in the upstairs space. Mezzaluna should thrive as an elegant addition to the neighborhood.