Stuff

I often send emails, particularly to my children, with a tag line of "stuff." Jordan doesn't like it, preferring to have one subject per email. But today's blog is about stuff.
This morning on the TODAY show I saw a segment about the Museum of the Little People in China. It's apparently one of the country's most acclaimed theme parks, and people throng to it. The "little people" or dwarfs (Help? what is the politically correct term these days) do gymnastics and slapstick comedy to amuse the audience, and they apparently are grateful for a steady job and regular income. The park is beseiged with applications from little people all over China. But one can't help wondering if this is making a spectacle out of challenged human beings--or is it genuinely offering them an opportunity? The little people interviewed seemed quite cheerful and happy about their situation, but a lingering doubt remains in my mind. It's makes them sort of like the the bearded lady or the fat lady in midway side shows.
The Texas SBOE continues to be a subject of concern, now getting national attention with some very good points. For one thing, Texas buys more school texts than almost any other state (California isn't buying new ones until 2014), so what Texas demands is likely to go into texts that go to smaller states and school districts.So the nation will be raising a generation of kids who believe that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president ever, global warming is a myth,and Jefferson Davis, not Thomas Jefferson, a model of leadership. Jefferson is out because he coined the phrase "separation of church and state." The head of the SBOE was quoted as saying the way he judged a book was by first looking at how it handled Christian values (i.e. right-wing Baptist). These people are not historians, and I am bothered that historians (and apparently teachers) have no say in the content of textbooks. Makes me want to start writing supplemental texts for Texas schools. Hmmmm--wonder if there's a market there.
My cooking experiment of the evening: spinach, mushrooms,and an egg, baked at a high temperature in a parchment paper envelope. I tried this once before, and ended with a hard fried egg (I like them runny), which I attributed to Jacob dallying over something and saying, "Be patient, Juju, be patient," when I told him my dinner was overcooking. Tonight I had no Jacob to blame it on, but I still didn't think it was a success. The egg was partly hard-cooked and partly too runny, even for me, and it was sort of without a spark of flavor. I won't give up cooking in parchment--fish are wonderful done that way--but no more eggs. Speaking of cooking, I was reading Bon Appetit tonight and found a recipe for sole meuniere. Delighted to read that it was the way I've been cooking Dover sole for years--one of my favorite dishes!
Texas weather is about to triumph again. Today it was in the 70s (not sure it ever quite got there because it didn't feel that warm to me, and I was out in the morning but didn't venture out much after noon). Tomorrow it is to thunderstorm and go to the 30s by late afternoon, with possible snow. Ah, the first day of spring!