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Weekend Butler: Points for behaving decently. Jon Stewart punks Mitch McConnell. Seinfeld and his Corvette at the White House. Big discounts on CBD cream. A much-needed corn recipe. Margaret Mead identifies the start of civilization. Beautiful music you’ve never heard. And more.

Published: Aug 10, 2022
Category: Weekend

PHOTO: Who gets the last laugh? Jon Stewart goofs as Mitch McConnell waddles off to do the serious work of pretending he didn’t really mean to deny medical care to Veterans and is now about to make it right.

IT’S AS BAD AS YOU THINK IT IS. BUT WHAT IF YOU DON’T THINK IT’S THAT BAD?
The media is one complaint after another. School shootings, environmental disasters, the clown show that is our Congress. I see all that, but I’m amazed by exactly the opposite: how much still functions. I’m impressed by how many people like us — readers, doers, thinkers, people who never lack for a POV — and people who have much, much less than us are keeping it together. On the other side of three years that have traumatized the entire world, we don’t flip out. We don’t do dramatic, violent harm to our bodies. We’re triggered all day long, but we manage to de-trigger ourselves without anyone noticing that we’d really like to stab some random asshole in the neck with a letter opener…

We deserve points just for behaving decently? Yes.

The historian Howard Zinn cast this phenomenon as an expression of a fundamental hope:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.

If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Amen.

THERE ARE RAIDS, AND THEN THERE ARE RAIDS
Keith Richards: “There was a knock on our dressing room door. Our manager shouted, ‘Keith! Ron! The Police are here!’ Oh man, we panicked and flushed everything down the toilet. Then the door opened, and it was Stewart Copeland and Sting.”

THROWBACK VIDEO: JERRY SEINFELD DROPS BY THE WHITE HOUSE FOR COFFEE WITH THE PRESIDENT
Nineteen minutes of laughter and snappy chat. Click here.

BORGEN, SEASON 3
I loved the first two seasons so much I had to lie to myself and pretend I wasn’t disappointed by season three. In truth, it’s worse than that — after the first few episodes, I winced at the story line. Now The New Yorker has dissected season three and left it for road kill. Click here for the takedown.

MAJOR DISCOUNTS ON CBD CREAM
During the pandemic, you may recall my enthusiasm for Tree Lotion CBD Cream. I still use it. I still get pain relief from it. Now Tree Lotion offers its biggest discount: 40%. If you order, please alert Tree Lotion that Head Butler sent you.

WHEN DID CIVILIZATION BEGIN? MARGARET MEAD KNEW.
Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery.

“Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts,” Mead said. “We are at our best when we serve others.”

ANOTHER GOOD MAN
(from Facebook)
Dan Gill, 75, is a middle school teacher in New Jersey. Thirty years ago he began the practice of placing a chair slightly off to the side of his classroom. It is never occupied and he doesn’t discuss it until the Martin Luther King birthday holiday. He then tells his class about an incident from his childhood.

Gill and a friend had been invited to a birthday party. The hostess opened the door to admit them, then told Gill’s friend that he couldn’t come in because there were not enough chairs. Dan Gill is White; his friend was Black.

The boys went back in tears to Gill’s house, where his mother treated them to ice cream. The empty chair, Gill tells his students, is a promise that no one will ever be denied a chair.

WEEKEND RECIPE: CORN! AND MORE CORN! AND STILL MORE CORN!
From At Blanchard’s Table: A Trip to the Beach Cookbook

CORN CHOWDER
serves 6

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 medium yellow onions, chopped
5 carrots cut into 1/4-inch slices
5 celery stalks, with leaves, cut into 1/4-inch slices
6 cups fresh corn kernels (about 10 large, or 15 small ears of corn)
3 cups vegetable stock
3/4 teaspoon salt (optional)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 large red peppers, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
Fresh thyme for garnish

Melt the butter in a large soup pot. When the butter is hot, add the onion, carrots, and celery, and cook just until tender, stirring frequently, 10 to 12 minutes. Add the corn, and cook 2 minutes more.

Strain the soup and place the vegetables into a food processor. Puree the mixture until it is fairly smooth, and return the puree to the soup pot.

Add the vegetable stock, salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, add the red peppers and simmer for 2 minutes. Serve hot. Garnish with fresh thyme.

WEEKEND MUSIC: “AICHA”
from the CD, Sahra

Cheb Khaled is little known in the United States, but he’s one of the world’s biggest music stars. Bigger in India than Michael Jackson — the “King of Rai” toppled “the King of Pop.” Forty-five million CDs sold, including the single biggest-selling album in the Middle East. Rai can be raw. And was, in the early days. Khaled’s much slicker.“Aicha” is a love song about — and for — his daughter. It’s almost a ballad. But it kicks just enough to have been the top-selling song in all of Europe the year it was released. Click to listen.