Composed by lead vocalist Ray Davies the Kinks released this song on their 1972 album - Everybody's in Show Biz. My high school years.
Aside from mentioning Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame the song includes a Who's Who of film stars.
The Kinks have been featured here several previous Fridays. This is one of my favorites. And you'd likely agree Davies is a damn-fine guitarist.
Celluloid Heroes...
I didn't see this coming; consequently, it caught me by surprise.
Here we are, barely one month into the new year, and the Conference Board's long-running consumer confidence index fell 9.7 points from 94.2 in December. This was a sharp drop with all five components of the index deteriorating making it one of the largest monthly drops in four years and placing American's confidence in the economy at the lowest it has been in a dozen years.
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| click on image for a closer look |
Popular sentiment about the economy is both a curious and fickle phenomenon. Over the last couple of years consumer confidence did not necessarily reflect the underlying strength of the US economy. This drop is an assessment of survey respondents' current state of economic affairs and their expectations for the future. Notably, the index is now below the level it sank during the pandemic when unemployment was approaching 15%.
Asked about jobs the share of consumers who shared that jobs are plentiful fell to 23.9% from 27.5% in December. Similarly, 13.9% expected more jobs to be available in the next six months compared with 17.4% in December.
Economists suggest that these data point are the latest evidence of American's perceptions of a weaker labor market than the actual numbers may imply. It this a wariness of potential impacts from artificial intelligence?
Again, economists over at the Conference Board suggest that respondent's answers to the survey continues to trend pessimistic with elevated concerns over food and grocery prices, health insurance, utilities, future business conditions, income prospects and trade war impacts.
Despite robust GDP growth and an overall low unemployment rate U.S. consumers are pessimistic about the general economic outlook.
Go figure.
All of the foregoing involve different sub-decisions about how to layer-up or is the trip even necessary. How do the resident critters that make their home around here adapt and adjust?
The short answer is that wildlife does have adaptations to the seasons and this time of year they manifest as both physical change, behavior or a combination of the two.
Thinking of the critters that show-up most frequently on the trail cameras; the resident white tails, raccoons, coyotes, fox and other mammalian species all grow a thicker coat of hair and fur that absorbs sunlight, and provides camouflage properties avoid detection by predators. Additionally, this fur coat generally consists of several layers; the softer, thicker layer adjacent to the skin traps air and retains body heat. Next to this undercoat is an outer layer of guard hairs that repels rain, snow and wind.
As I observe the dark-eyed juncos scratching in the snow beneath my bird feeders they look like grey on white puff balls. They also have two layers of feathers to repel the elements and retain body heat. This effect, related to goose bumps, is called piloerection and animals puff up their fur or feathers to not only look larger as a defense mechanism but also as a means of thermoregulation to conserve energy and retain heat.
In the run-up to winter wild animals consume more calories to build-up stores of fat. This additional fat not only adds an extra layer of insulation it also is a store of energy reserves that can be metabolized during periods of food scarcity.
Deer and rabbits modulate their circulatory systems (an evolutionary mechanism - not a parlor trick) such that blood vessels found in the ears and other extremities have reduced blood flow helping to retain core body temperature.
Naturally, many animals (just like many of my neighbors and friends) beat it out of dodge before the Thanksgiving holiday and return with the warmer temperatures and lengthening days of springtime. The herons, cranes, orioles and many other birds winter in warmer climes along with many of their warm season human neighbors.
Other animals split the difference. They don't migrate and they don't recreate; they hunker down to ride-out the winter. The resident skunks, snakes, muskrats, salamanders, chipmunks, badgers, bears, turtles and other burrowing wildlife retire to their underground dens and enter a state of torpor or hibernation - a condition characterized by reduced metabolism where they survive on fat reserves or food caches over the winter season. While our apex species, the whitetail deer, do not have a location or den; they do regulate their movement during the harshest winter conditions and seek bedding areas in thick conifer cover which provides browse and serves as a windbreak and thermal protection.
Over millennia native wildlife have evolved and developed adaptations to managing all seasons and living conditions. It is both remarkable to witness and not so remarkable to understand. Get yourself a trail camera and situate it within view of a deer trail. Over the course of a season you can use your citizen science skills to document the changes one animal undergoes as they go through their annual molt.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
-Winston Churchill*
*Attribution to Churchill is questionable. Still a good quote.
That didn’t take long at all.
Border Czar Tom Homan is arriving in Minneapolis today.
Homan is a cooler head with a steady hand who’s worked under multiple administrations and is a solid career law enforcement guy. He oversaw and shepherded Obama's record-breaking deportation of undocumented criminals, security and terrorism suspects without the loss of any US citizen or other civilian lives as a consequence of deportation operations.
Lessee if Homan can wrangle the shitshow Bovino and Noem have unleashed on Minneapolis before any more asshat masked ICE paramilitaries kill another of our countrymen.
Meanwhile, Greg Bovino has been immediately relieved of command for unspecified legal, operational and safety reasons.
Good riddance.
Good Monday morning friends.
My Friday ritual is to feed my sourdough starters.
With freezing temperatures across the land it is opportunities like this
that call for baking. You know, if you can’t stand the cold; stay in
the kitchen.
At Friday bedtime I set this handmade dough ball of future sourdough breadness on the counter (covered) to proof overnight. Arising on Saturday....
At the time of another pipe freezing sunrise there was this.
This recipe is from a sourdough baking class and is a reasonably fool-proof bake. Step-by-step illustrated instructions as follows:
Sourdough Bread
Making Pat’s Sourdough Bread at Home:
Pat is from the neighboring town of Algoma. The starter I received as a gift to the class participants can be traced over the years through Pat’s sister in Michigan, to her daughter in NYC, to her friend Laurent Gras*, a Michelin starred chef from France. I received a gift of a 40-year-old starter that began its life in France. Here’s how to keep it going.
Feeding the starter:
120g water
100g old starter
100g flour (10g rye flour and 90g high protein bread flour)
(Any discarded starter is used for baking)
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| double in volume |
Whisk the water and starter to make a slurry. Add flour and whisk until lumps have dissolved. Pour into a quart mason jar and set on the counter at room temperature. The starter should double in volume. Then settle down to its original level. After 24 hours, refrigerate. I use a Mason “Pickle Pipe” (fermentation airlock) to seal my jars.
Starter can live in the fridge for approximately 7 days. Feed once a week. For more sour flavor use starter that has been refrigerated 4-6 days. If you keep your starter in the garage beer fridge like I do I’ve learned it will keep for up to three weeks without feeding while we’re away traveling. Lastly, I keep frozen batches of both my starters in a basement chest freezer as a backup against loss.
Starting the bread:
Start to finish about 12-16 hours - mostly overnight. Hands-on time is less than 1 hour.
385g water
90g starter
520g flour (100g whole wheat and 420g high protein bread flour)
12g table salt (to be added later)
Mix water with starter to make a slurry. Whisk the two flours together and add to the slurry. Mix everything by hand or a plastic bowl scraper. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
Stretching the bread:
Stretch and fold eight times. Rest another 15 minutes. Sprinkle half the salt on the dough then stretch and fold 8 times. Let it rest for 15 minutes. Sprinkle the dough with the remaining salt and stretch and fold 8 times. Cover the dough and let it rest overnight (8-10 hours) at room temperature (68-70 F) until doubled in size. If it is warmer this may take 6-8 hours. Wet hands are non-stick.
Note: The stretch, fold and rest process is three times. Resist any impulse to fold and knead on the countertop. I like to finish this step before bedtime. (top photo)
Forming the loaf:
First thing in the morning after the dough and I have risen is this step. Start the coffee and dump the dough out onto a floured counter. Cover with a bowl and let it rest ½ hour. With wet hands stretch and fold the dough forming a round loaf. Place on a floured towel and place in a bowl seam side up. Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 1-4 hours. (It is cold enough this time of year to leave it on the kitchen countertop)
Drink coffee
Baking the loaf:
45 minutes before baking allow the cast iron pot and lid to preheat in a 450 oven. Tip the towel-lined loaf from the bowl into parchment paper-lined cast iron. Slash and bake covered for 40 minutes at a reduced 425. At the 40 minute interval remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 minutes at 375 (uncovered). Total bake time is 60 minutes. Remove loaf to a wire rack and allow to rest at room temperature.
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| slash |
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| cover |
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| 40 minutes at 425F covered - uncover and 20 additional minutes at 375F |
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| cool on wire rack |
DO NOT give in to any urge to cut the loaf before it has cooled! After it has cooled you can place the loaf cut side down on a cutting board for up to a day before bagging in plastic. Sourdough bread is naturally resistant to turning stale; if it lasts that long anyway.
Pro Tip: This sourdough bread is a very forgiving bake; don’t feel like you’re a slave to pinpoint timing. Nevertheless, weights and measures must be precise. Pull and fold your dough like taffy. Do not knead it on a countertop.
Once upon a time my whole wheat flour had turned so I tossed it out. Substituting 100g of all-purpose flour resulted in a fine result.
If you care to introduce all the salt to the dry flours before mixing I could not detect any detrimental effect to the loaf. This saves a step in the stretching and folding process.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Gras_(chef). As of 01.24.26 the starter is now 44 years of age.
Somewhere along the line I shared that I refreshed my CCW training during COVID.
My instructor had some sage advice. Basically, she had this to say (I am paraphrasing):
If you happen to be legally carrying and someone invites you to a protest, an act of civil disobedience or a riot; run the opposite direction.
The gist of this was in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings your CCW permit isn't a superpower against kryptonite circumstances. A perfectly innocent legal carry situation is not a shield against an overzealous prosecutor. Mounting a successful defense can drain your financial resources. Worse case? Worse case is always worse. Use your imagination.
Anyway, her words were good advice. Prescient too.
Nevertheless, what happened in Minneapolis shows that ICE will treat the
mere presence of a legal firearm as justification for lethal force.
Carrying a gun is not a crime, yet it was readily used as irrefutable
proof of dangerous intent. And now that Alex Pretti is dead and unable
to contest that narrative; that’s the narrative.
From the president on down the chain of command the instant narrative is this:
Pretti was obviously a domestic terrorist and a would-be assassin. Consequently, he deserved to die. This was a good shoot.
The practical upshot of this is if you are interdicted by the Federales while carrying - even legally - masked paramilitary forces without visible personal identification can and will kill you on the spot. With the support of our government.
Judge.
Jury.
And executioner.
At this point there isn't much you can do about it; you're dead.
Because our government has declared you guilty beforehand.
Am I willing to be wrong about all of the foregoing? You bet I am. Yet the president has expressed a desire to impose martial law across the land. And he usually gets around to trying to do everything he says he wants to do. I'd also bet he'll continue to use his shadowy veiled paramilitary forces to terrorize a small blue enclave in Minnesota with only an estimated 130,000 undocumented migrants to provoke unrest.
It's rather quiet where I live; not that counts for anything in a world where the Constitution counts for nothing....
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