"We did it for the show," which must go on, and conversely, The Piper must also be paid. The Sheriff commences payback time for the Balloon Boy Hoax

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

The authorities who assured us Friday that the Balloon Boy episode was not a hoax, were actually hoaxing all of us, and have in the meantime, scrambled hammer and tong for evidence to prove otherwise.

In order to get to the truth, Sheriff Jim Alderden of Larimer County said, "it was very important during this time that they [the Heene family] maintained their trust with us." The investigators misled the media (which really means you and me) while they carried out their "game plan," gathering the truth [?]. And now, the cops say the whole thing was staged.


The famous balloon at the sheriff's department in Fort Collins, Colorado, this weekend. Click to enlarge.

After young Falcon Heene [ed's note to Ex-Governor Palin: file that name!] told Wolf Blitzer of CNN "we did this for the show," the authorities, and news media went ape, and two days later, Sheriff Alderden is calling the incident a "hoax," confected by the Heenes in hopes of landing a reality show based on their kooky family.



The parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, "put on a very good show for us," Alderden said. And now, cops and prosecutors have dropped hints of various possible charges, up to and including:

- Child endangerment [Because Falcon was hiding in the attic?]
- Conspiracy to defraud law enforcement [does this mean the kids should also be charged?]
- Contributing to the delinquency of a minor [one charge per child]
- attempting to influence a public servant [Uh, wouldn't we also need to arrest about five thousand lobbyists, the heads of any corporation doing more than, say, $50 million of business a year?]
- Filing a false police report

The sheriff now says charges will be filed in the case, and says he is concerned about the safety of the youth, ages 6, 8, and 10. The local CPS (Children's Protective Service) is also making rumblings about an investigation.

Hell hath no fury like a bunch of bamboozled cops, editors, CPS workers, and a scandal-starved general public.
---o0o---

Storyboard: sketches of the news this week

click to enlarge

---o0o---

The English Beat play Stand Down Margaret [Thatcher!]

This video clip must be from the current English Beat tour...Dave made a point of mentioning Margaret's birthday and failed memory last week in Seattle too. Stand Down Margaret is one of my favorite EB tunes, since I well remember the dreaded Thatcher-Reagan years. . . and they always pair it with Whine and Grine or another tasty tune.

I wonder how long it will be before people like Steve Earle and Neil Young start writing Stand Down Barack songs?


The English Beat - Whine and Grine & Stand Down Margaret
by Rikardo1980
---o0o---

Joe Jackson's Steppin' Out video

Guilty pleasure, number 785--Joe Jackson's Steppin' Out.


---o0o---

The balloon boy fiasco & aftermath

By Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor



After yesterday's balloon boy news day, today we experience an amazingly pointless and endless postmortem of the balloon boy "story," including some serious rifling of the family's figurative underwear drawer. All in all, this was a pretty good installment of America's short attention span theatre...


---o0o---

Strange Halloween Costumes 2

Click to enlarge

OK. This one's pretty weird. It might have been funny without the kids. The daughter holding the costume junk just makes it flat out sick.



Click to enlarge

Now, this one. . .show this to your youth if you want to be done with the whole tooth fairy nonsense. I don't think anyone wants this cat flying in through their window.


Click to enlarge

Doll Man even gives me the heebie jeebies.


Click to enlarge

Again, verging on the improper.
---o0o---

Paella Recipe.

Although I often cook and come up with new recipes, I've only published a few recipes here in five years--mainly because I'm good at lists of ingredients, and bad at instructions. This is a tried and true one I often make for friends and family...

You can make this recipe using only the shellfish or the chicken and sausage, or any combination you like. It is gluten free. I have made a vegie one a couple of times. For 6-8 people:

Paella

12 pieces chicken (I usually use thighs and drumettes) or 1-4 lb chicken cut into 8-10 pieces
1 pound raw shrimp, shelled (if you have the time, simmer the shell, tails, and even heads for ten minutes in the chicken stock and then strain out the shells ).
½ - 1-pound Chorizo, cut into ¼ inch slices. I like the cured kind, not the grainy, bulk version you usually find.
1 lb small clams (steamers or manila) in the shell, lobster, mussels, or cockles, conch or snails.
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp saffron, (more, if you love saffron: I do) soaking in 1/2 cup hot white wine
2 cups Valencia or Arborio rice
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 tomato chopped
4-6 cloves minced garlic
3 ¾ cups homemade chicken stock (canned/cartoned is OK but not the same)
optional: 2 tsp, smoked hot Spanish paprika (it’s good, and you can find it everywhere now)
1/2 to 1 cup of peas
1 1/2-teaspoon salt, a few healthy grinds of fresh pepper
optional: Spanish piquillo peppers – they only come jarred

I've made a vegetarian/vegan version for friends substituting a pound of mushrooms (halve them and saute them in butter or olive oil), green beans, artichoke hearts and piquillo peppers. But you have to make your own vegie stock, because commercial ones are almost all pathetic.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Brown the chicken in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the paella pan. Set aside. Brown the chorizo in the same pan. Remove to a plate and keep warm with the chicken (cover it loosely with foil).

Heat the white wine with the saffron and let soften for a few minutes.

Add two-three tablespoons of olive oil to the paella pan and heat to medium.

Mince the garlic, and chop the onion, green pepper, and tomato roughly. Sweat the vegetables for a couple of minutes and add the rice. Stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the saffron-wine mixture, and, optionally, the smoked paprika. Coat the rice well and stir for two minutes more.

Add the chicken stock to the rice and stir. Add the salt and pepper. Now, add the chicken, and sausage. Stick it in the oven.

After fifteen minutes, take out the paella, add the peas and tuck in the shelled raw shrimp and scrubbed clams (or lobster or crab or mussels).. Toss in a handful or more of chopped piquillo peppers. Cook ten to fifteen minutes more.

After cooking 20-25 minutes total, remove from oven and let sit five minutes before serving. If it is too wet after 25 minutes, stir, and give it five more minutes.

Garnish with parsley and lemon or lime wedges and serve with a hearty red Spanish wine and a simple salad. I usually open the meal with a tiny cup of gazpacho. For desert, do a caramelized flan, or pears poached in white wine with sugar and vanilla (Julia would tell you to make a sabayon [zabaglione] sauce for this).
---o0o---

Hallowe'en Costume Ideas 1

One of our favorite costumes. . .from All This Is That, October, 2007:

Jason Larsen sent this picture, found somewhere on the internet. I don't know if the youth in the picture was in training as a young Nazi, or if this was a Halloween costume. It reminded me a little of the time in South Park where Eric Cartman dressed up as Hitler for Halloween. The principal made him take it off and gave him a ghost costume instead. Of course, the ghost costume looked exactly like a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe...



---o0o---

Poem: The Fog

I don't know if I'm dreaming or awake,
If I should go to sleep or wake up,

Quit dreaming I'm awake
Or imagining I'm asleep.

I don't know whether to
Spectate, participate, or abrogate.
---o0o---

self portrait fortysomething and fortysomethingtwo

click to enlarge


click to enlarge

---o0o---

Poem: Torches & Pitchforks

With crackling torches lit
And pitchforks raised,
The peasant horde

Marches ungoverned,
Searching for real
And confected monsters.

The posse is a mindless beast,
And the agglomerated mob
Brims with blood-lust

And madness. The whole
Is far less than the sum
Of its parts:

Each new body adds mass,
But each fresh outrage
Diminishes the hive's brain.

One if by land; two if by sea.
They're coming for you
And coming for me.
---o0o---

A letter from Son of Sam during the Summer of Sam

When I moved to NYC, it was, as Spike Lee called it, "The Summer of Sam." David Berkowitz was nabbed in a few months, and deposited in the Brooklyn House of Detention, right across the street from our apartment. This is one of the letters he wrote to the press as his killing spree continued. . .


click Sam's letter to enlarge
---o0o---