Spaghetti alle vongole, ice cream

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At the market earlier today, I was seized with a desire for spaghetti alle vongole, one of my favorite pastas ever. I recall once, when Jack was still a baby and I was nursing like a fiend, eating a portion that should have served 4. I was in Lake Charles visiting my family there, and I seem to remember that everyone at the table was both wide-eyed and impressed by my voracious consumption of the vat o' pasta. Nice! My sister, l'italiana, passed this recipe onto me, and it's great. I'll post it for you soon. Each time I make it, I have to get over the death sentence to which I subject the poor, innocent clams, but once it's done, it's done, and I then enjoy with glee. For dessert, we have a bit left of each of my recent ice cream creations. They are superb, especially the almond joy-cardamom one. Whoa! It's awesome. Make some this Labor Day!

Unspeakable

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Did you hear about the Republican convention attendee who threw peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman and said "This is how we feed animals"? He was then expelled. I'm so sick to my stomach with hurt for the camerawoman, disgust for this jerk who is not even human, and an overall sense of horror and sadness that this kind of racism still pervades the Republican party in such ways. Remember when Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists" and being "not one of us"? Birtherism! The lunatic county judge in Lubbock who, just this month, said about Obama, "He's going to try and hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N. O.K., what’s going to happen when that happens? I’m thinking worst-case scenario: civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war, maybe. And we’re not talking just a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.”

And now this guy at the RNC? These examples abound, and it's heartbreaking and sickening. I cannot understand why we're listening to and electing people like this. Together with voices like Akin, Limbaugh, Santorum, Ryan and so many others, this is a party of hate, selfishness, pettiness and even evil sometimes. They have no real ideas that will help the people who live beyond the walls of their little white enclave. They're damning the planet to environmental destruction, they politicize everything possible -even the really stupid stuff like the penny- to obstruct real and meaningful progress which our country so desperately needs.

Sick. Sad. Scary.