Better Bran Muffin

For Christmas, my wife got me a subscription to Cooks Illustrated magazine, knowing that kitchen experiments are something I enjoy, and that I would appreciate Cooks Illustrated’s scientific approach to cooking. Little did she realize that previous kitchen disasters would now be turned into sanctified kitchen gourmet adventures, with style!

At any rate, as busy as we are, we have been looking for a good breakfast starter to break the routine, so we found this bran muffin recipe. I know, I know, bran…. bran not quite my favorite cereal grain; but this was different. Yes the recipe calls for half the bran to be pounded into a fine mist, and the rest straight out of the box Kellogg’s Original All Bran, but what really aids this one is the yogurt and the molasses (or Georgia cane sugar in my case). It turned out fine, a nice compact muffin with enough chewy calories to last you for several hours.

So its come to this, I’m making bran muffins. I suppose this means, regardless of what the calendar says, the 20’s are over for me..
Better Bran Muffins by Charles Kelsey

Makes 12 Muffins

• 1 cup raisins
• 1 teaspoon water
• 2 1/4 cups All-Bran Original cereal
• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 large egg plus 1 large yolk
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons mild or light molasses
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 3/4 cups plain whole milk yogurt

Bake at 400 degrees, for 18 minutes, adding the dry and wet ingredients together at once, after mixing them separately.

Coaching changes, Winthrop University and mid-major basketball today

Coach Tubby Smith tires (or the fans were tired of him) of Kentucky, and he leaves a basketball program where he won a national title, multiple SEC titles, consistent national rankings and respect of his peers for the University of Minnesota’s basketball coaching job. An odd move, but probably wise for Coach Smith, as he and Kentucky were both looking for new starts and the forlorn Minnesota program was looking for a new start after being racked by NCAA rules violations and probation and before that years of struggle in the Big 10. And so begins that chain of dominoes falling that leads to the elevation of Randy Peele as the new Winthrop University men’s basketball coach, in Rock Hill, SC.

I was associated with the Winthrop basketball team for a year in the mid-90’s, so I have followed with with a bit of special attention. Here is the chain of events that began in mid March, after Kentucky was ousted in the second round of the NCAA tournament: Tubby Smith leaves for Minnesota, work-aholic Billy Gillispie leaves the Texas A&M program that he built for Kentucky, Mark Turgeon leaves perennial Missouri Vally contender, Wichita State for Texas A&M, and then nine year Winthrop head coach, Gregg Marshall, leaves his first head coaching job, Winthrop, (where he had won 7 Big South conference titles in 9 seasons and a top 25 ranking this past year) for Wichita State this past Saturday, with Randy Peele becoming the new Winthrop Eagle head men’s coach. It is fairly standard for the college basketball off-season to start with a quick chain of events where a coach leaves for a bigger job, effecting coaches all the way down the line. Since I was connected to the Winthrop program for a while, the following are a few thoughts about where the program has been and should go.

Today we are all Hokies

HT – Sacred Journey

Murders and massacres have been more of a constant through human history, rather than an a parenthesis to normal days. Yet something of the Virginia Tech shootings have struck as if a bolt of lightening suddenly flashed on a cloudless day, or so it seems at least.

The present in the developed world is an age of disaffection and loneliness, family breakdowns and blind narcissism of individuals. Perhaps earlier ages would have had community structures built in to more quickly realize and at least arrest the vain evil of Cho Seung-Hui. Maybe. Ours did not. In the shadow of a small town in one of the more advanced centers of learning in the world, relationships among people were just not there to stop this evil.

The most disturbing thing that probably makes folks shudder in education and other public institutions is that there is nothing they can really do to stop an individual once he has geared up to be a suicidal killer with a developed plan.

Yes pray for the students, faculty, staff and families of Virginia Tech. And if you will be specific. Remember people like J. R. Foster, Reformed University Fellowship minister at Virginia Tech, his immediate work will be terrible, but no less important in the months ahead. Anyone who has spent any time on a large college campus in the last couple of decades knows there are large numbers of isolated, socially outcast, and angry individuals. When the typical blame game ends, the only folks who have a real opportunity to keep events from happening like this in a post modern world are people who can help others make sense of who they are by helping them to know themselves by knowing God in the gospel.

Read more for some insight on dealing with evil…

Legos Banned at Seatle School

Recently, Hilltop School outside of Seattle, Washington made the decision to ban Legos toys from children’s play after two months of children’s construction of a “Lego-town”, complete with “a collection of homes, shops, public facilities, and community meeting places” (community meeting places?). The reasoning behind their decision involved … well, I’ll let the teachers explain that:

“the Legotown builders turned their attention to complex negotiations among themselves about what sorts of structures to build, whether these ought to be primarily privately owned or collectively used…the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys — assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive.

A few days after we’d removed the Legos, we turned our attention to the meaning of power. During the boom days of Legotown, we’d suggested to the key Lego players that there was an unequal distribution of power giving rise to conflict and tension. Our suggestions were met with deep resistance. Children denied any explicit or unfair power, making comments like “Some-body’s got to be in charge or there would be chaos,” and “The little kids ask me because I’m good at Legos.” They viewed their power as passive leadership, benignly granted, arising from mastery and long experience with Legos, as well as from their social status in the group.

My friend Bruce has some suggestions for the Hilltop School and others like it, so that they can continue to speak truth to power:
TOP TEN OTHER CHILDRENS TOYS/CHARACTERS BANNED FROM HILLTOP CHILDREN’S CENTER:

10. Thomas the Tank Engine – Often disenfranchised by Gordon the Big Express Engine – Delivers capitalist goods to public structures of varying shapes and sizes with an obnoxious coal burning carbon footprint.

9. The Wiggles – Class-based group divided by different colored shirts. Yellow Wiggle always sings, oppressing other Wiggles, particularly Purple one who is disadvantaged by sleep disorder. “Captain” Feathersword promotes outdated concepts of rank and command contrary to the interests of the collective. Also, see carbon footprint above re: Big Red Car.

8. Jay-Jay the Jet Plane – Instrument of labor for capitalist, non-union airline that economically opresses those unable to afford air travel. See also carbon footprint above.

7. Barney the Purple Dinosaur – Constantly magically appearing in homes, shops, community meeting places and other vestiges of a class based society. Also, “Idea Bench” is dangerous setting for contemplation of new capitalistic and entreprenurial thought concepts.

6. Mickey Mouse – The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is banned as it is a “Clubhouse” and as such class-based and not a public structure.

5. Cookie Monster – Symbol of wanton greed and avarice. Also see carbon footprint above re: flatulence from overindulgence of baked goods.

4. Dora the Explorer. Explores countryside – not social justice. Also, constantly oppressing the misunderstood fox, Swiper, who is simply trying to engage in resource-sharing.

3. Cinderella. Fights class warfare battle only to surrender and become a princess herself. Lives life of power, privlege and authority in opulent castle.

2. Snow White. See 3 above. Also, abandoned model team of underprivledged dwarfs in doing so.

1. Spongebob Squarepants. Where do we begin? Holds down a capitalist job at a restaurant making unhealthy food. Owns a private residence in the politically incorrectly named city of Bikini Bottom. Opresses a free creature, his “pet” snail named Gary. Covets “cool things” valued by a capitalist, class-based society. Pineapple residence not standard sized.

Weekend that Was

So that was a wonderful Easter weekend. Spring time, reminders of the present reality of the reserection, baseball, lots of work done, good food. All blessings and ten thousand beside.

I attended a Minor League baseball game on Friday evening. And I couldn’t be happier. It was a cold Carolina evening, with a 3,000 or so crowd. The usual kabuki dance of the minor leagues began anew again, and I never grow tired of it: kooky radio station promotions outside the gate, the friendly staff that seems thrilled that you showed up, the hot dog 100% cheaper than the Major League variety, but just as good, crazy mascot antics and silly contests between innings; it was all there, and a game included for the price of admission. Hard to beat it. Were I showing a visitor to America the essential sights, so he could get an honest report, I would be sure that he visited a minor league baseball game. For all the great things about the New York’s and Chicago’s of the nation, a night with the farm team gives a fairly honest portrayl of a large section of America. Actually, I did that once for an Indian co-worker who loved cricket, yet was completely fascinated by the minor league event, in that case watching the AA team of the Atlanta Braves.

Saturday morning I picked my wife up from the airport, returning from Portland, OR, where the above image was taken, with beautiful and terrible Mount Hood in the distance. I learned that the “cell phone” waiting lot is a wonderful concept, a great attempt at modern adaption due to time constraints, transportation and technology advantages.

Sunday was reserection day worship. While I attend a Reformed church that does not formally acknowledge the church calendar year, it is nice to be reminded, even if its externally that the church has 52 stated holidays a year, revolving around the reserection, and that everything the church universal stands for, rises and fall on that day.

Every year, the United States spends $300 on pre-packaged stuffing ingredients. I had no idea of that until I read it in a cooking journal this weekend. In recent weeks, with announcements regarding just how much money the various Presidential candidates have raised, I have seen the occasional cackle about should we be spending that much for our favored candidates, even now in early 2007? The 2008 Presidential race is said to be the first billion dollar campaign. I don’t know if it will get that high, but in the meantime, Americans will be spending $600 million on stuffing, a substance that is maimed for its malice, for being evil.

Johnny Hart, the cartoonist of B.C. (thankfully never of B.C.E.) and voice of the Wizard of Id, died this past Saturday at his home, of a stroke, by simply slumping over his drawing board and passing on at the age of 78. Seems like a wonderful way to go: doing your life’s calling and then slipping off. For that I envy him. His was one of the few newspaper comics I found funny anymore. I grew up with the maxim of reading the sports page and the comics, everything else was just details, and B.C. was always on the must read list, with its usual cast of very non-PC characters: Wily – the one legged poet, the Fat Broad, the alluring Blond, Peter, the midnight skulker, the turtle and apeyx pair, even the new additions: Anno Domini and Cono Hani, which never did much for me. It was one of the few strips where there a plot was subversive to the whims of random encounters and odd characters. Even when it had its famed Easter strips, (here is his last Easter strip that ran Sunday) often controversial, it was never preachy, it was extremely well-informed, but it just told a simple narrative.

Take this strip that was printed the day Hart died:

It’s self-effacing, tight writing, an interesting perspective and a zinger one-liner. Something that were always hallmarks of the Hart strips. There simply was not any waining of talent with his work, something that afflicted the greatest creators of that original American art form. He just seemed like an optimistic man, but without the fake jokery that destroys one-liners. His art work, while never crude, was nicely simple, very well done. Most of the self-ironic, intentionally poorly drawn (with a wink, wink to the audience) and postmodern strips of today are just light years from this sort of thing.

I found this interview of Hart from 1999, and was struck if the word picture is true of an extremely simple, optimistic, complex and happy man. Not sure if we will see his sort again:

But today, he’s mostly focused on his Sunday school class and making the Bible come alive through a mural that will include, of course, cartoon characters wearing robes and sandals. More important than graphics, however, is that Hart is obsessed with compressing big thoughts into a few powerful words. Hence, his struggle to whittle the size of his Sunday school mural about the Bible.

“I just want to show them how incredibly simple the Bible is,” Hart said. He worries that young people will do as he did for years: “Start in the beginning and say to yourself you’re never going to read all this; it’s too thick.” Change doesn’t seem to faze Hart. He is incorrigibly optimistic. “I think God arranges these things. It’s something the church needed.”

Hart loves the Nineveh congregation, and especially his Sunday school class. Two of his former students are in seminary. But he doesn’t take any credit – not even for their attendance. “Do they come because of my infamy? No, they come because their parents tell them to come.”

But his class also attracts a few adults who attend without marching orders from parents.

“I try to widen their eyes, anything I can think of to do that,” Hart says. His favorite lesson series is to do an overview of the Bible, which itself is “like a banner, a long drawing that starts with Adam and runs through the New Jerusalem.”