Countries Beginning with I

The Usenet, that free-for-all haven of digital pirates, is an interesting place to observe grassroots political opinion. Generally, any new movie is uploaded (made available, illegally that is) for only a week or two around its release date, but "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been uploaded over and over again for months. Michael Moore has said that he wants the widest possible audience to see it, so presumably he doesn’t mind – though his distributors may feel differently.

Lesser-known films in a similar vein are also repeatedly uploaded, with titles like "A Colossal Mistake – Iraq, the Whole Truth Uncovered." And some conspiracy thing about how Bush was actually responsible for 9/11 (I have not seen either of these, and can’t comment on how silly they may or may not be).

For the opposition, we have: "In Memorian [sic] 9/11 – an event that John Kerry, Michael Moore and the Dumocrats FORGET!"

People from both sides of the political spectrum have been posting clips from the conventions, and other items of more or less weird political rantery.

The audiobooks groups feature books from Maureen Dowd (of the New York Times – this is probably good), Jim Hightower, and Molly Ivins (these last two are Texas liberals – yes, there actually are Texas liberals, in large numbers even; they mostly seek refuge in and around Austin).

You may have heard that George Clooney owns a villa on Lake Como. He’s over on the Como/Menaggio side, about as far from Lecco as you can get and still be on the same lake, so we are not exactly rubbing elbows with him. But it seems that his fancy friends have now taken a fancy to “our” lake.

George has bought the two villas flanking his own, partly for privacy, partly to have room for all his guests. Brad Pitt and various other luminaries were up here a few months ago filming “Oceans Twelve,” and local rumor has it that Mr. Pitt fell in love with the place and is seeking a home somewhere in the Varenna area – a good deal closer to us.

Richard Gere is also supposedly looking for a villa somewhere on the lake. Well, none of these is among my favorite actors, but they’re not bad additions to the scenery hereabouts, so I guess I won’t complain. Especially if Brad Pitt goes boating in bathing briefs…

Torta di Pane (Bread Cake)

This is a good way to use old, dry bread. The recipe is more or less one that I scribbled down from a magazine in a waiting room.

• Cut/break 1/2 kilo of dry bread into smallish dice
• Soak it overnight (in the fridge) in about 1 liter of milk; I also add a few tablespoons of amaretto or other liqueur
• Mix two eggs with 50 gm melted butter, 200 gm sugar, and 50 gm cocoa powder (unsweetened is fine)
• Add a grating of lemon peel, raisins, pine nuts or other nuts. I also tend to toss in any other dried fruit I have around, e.g. figs.
• Mix in the soaked bread; I use an electric mixer, which also helps pulverize the bread into smaller pieces, but the batter will not be smooth in any case
• Bake at 175 C / 350 F for about an hour   It’s okay if it comes out a bit puddingy. It tastes best when warm, and reheats well in the microwave.