Canada Particularly More Free Than Syracuse Today

Flipping around the channels last night after the Red Sox creamed the Indians, I saw an item on Syracuse channel 5 news that was fairly shocking: City workers were fired for living outside of City limits. Here is the story in the Post-Standard:

Eight of the 12 Syracuse city workers who were suspended Wednesday on suspicion that they were violating the city’s residency requirement were fired today after they failed to persuade city officials that they lived in within Syracuse’s borders. Three of the 12 retired, according to city Director of Personnel Donald Thompson. The 12th worker convinced the city that he did live in Syracuse. He will return to work Monday, Thompson said. A 13th worker, Eric Weber, who had been the director of the Lakefront Development Corp., was fired Wednesday. Unlike the other workers, Weber was not entitled to a hearing on his residency because he is a mayoral appointment, according to the city.

I can’t claim in any way to understand why residency is required in Syracuse. What is startling to me is how this is something that has been determined to be unconstitutional in Canada…and unconstitutional based on the “liberty” right in our Charter of Rights, a protection that has often been described as the poorer cousin to the liberty available under the constitution of the United States.

It goes back to our old pal autonomous decision making. Canada’s Supreme Court has held a number of times in a number of contexts that the right to liberty enshrined in s. 7 of the Charter protects within its ambit the right to an irreducible sphere of personal autonomy wherein individuals may make inherently private choices free from state interference. OK, I quoted that. But notice some of those words: “irreducible”, “inherently”, “free”. Good words and words that show there are bits of life that the government simply cannot govern. Within these few areas, the individual is sovereign. One of the most important statements in forming this aspect of the liberty Canadians enjoy was the 1997 Godbout ruling about where city workers near Montreal could live. In that ruling, Justice LaForest stated at paragraphs 66 and 67:

…I took the view in B. (R.) that parental decisions respecting the medical care provided to their children fall within this narrow class of inherently personal matters. In my view, choosing where to establish one’s home is, likewise, a quintessentially private decision going to the very heart of personal or individual autonomy.

The soundness of this position can be appreciated most readily, I think, by reflecting upon some of the intensely personal considerations that often inform an individual’s decision as to where to live. Some people choose to establish their home in a particular area because of its nearness to their place of work, while others might prefer a different neighbourhood because it is closer to the countryside, to the commercial district, to a particular religious institution with which they are affiliated, or to a medical centre whose services they require. Similarly, some people may, for reasons dearly important to them, value the historical significance or cultural make-up of a given locale, others again may want to ensure that they are physically proximate to family or to close friends, while others still might decide to reside in a particular place in order to minimize their cost of living, to care for an ailing relative or, as in the case at bar, to maintain a personal relationship. In my opinion, factors such as these vividly reflect the idea that choosing where to live is a fundamentally personal endeavour, implicating the very essence of what each individual values in ordering his or her private affairs; that is, the kinds of considerations I have mentioned here serve to highlight the inherently private character of deciding where to maintain one’s home. In my view, the state ought not to be permitted to interfere in this private decision-making process, absent compelling reasons for doing so.

So, since Godbout, it has been clear that the wholesale rounding up of auslanders from the suburbs is something beyond the jurisdiction and capacity of our municipalities and other levels of government. It appears that the land of the free has yet to catch up to us in this aspect of our relative liberty.

Ontario Election 2007: Harper Loses

Let me be the first to point out that, once again, my votes did not carry the day so I can assert the ability to spot a very bad stretch when I see one. And, just so I can also be among the first to point it out, between the massive win in Newfoundland yesterday for an anti-Harper Tory and today’s ditching of any vestige of a right wing agenda in Ontario, I see the message this week for the Prime Minister is not good.

If there were any chance that a leader – through some miracle, mystery or intrigue – might arise within the Liberal Party of Canada who grasps the responsibility of the demands of the nation as opposed to continuing the recent history of party obsession with in-fighting and pop causes, this might be the beginning of a golden era for them and the beginning of the end of that bit of history started by the splitting of the Tories which will end, as these things do, in ugly dismembered fashion.

But that leader is not there. What strange times.

Sour Beer Studies: Sweet, Sour And… The Brewmaster’s Table

I have been a bad beer blogger. I just got a copy of Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table. One baaad beer blogger. And not bad like ManRam says either. The fact is, I thought it was really more like The Brewmaster’s “Kitchen” and had expected it was more like a recipe book. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Lucy Saunders obviously does a great job at telling us how to cook with beer. But I didn’t feel drawn to another similar one.

How wrong I was. How shallow the uninquisitive mind. This is a great and valuable text. No wonder everyone recommends it. Let me be a guest late to this party. It is well laid out with sections of the traditions of the great brewing nations, a discussion of the major styles found in each, examples and their properties as well as a description of the foods that go with each. It is the table because it is what a craft brewer would (and does) place place before himself in terms of food and drink. Good. Handy.

For present purposes, though, the book provides me with one thing that no one else in my meager span of attention had mention. Many traditional sour beers – and especially the sourest – were not intended to be consumed without sweetening. See, this is what has always bugged me about lambics and gueuze. We do the medievals and thems that followed a disservice when we say that the pure raw lip puckering drink is what they would have consumed. First of all, most of them would have consumed mostly unhopped ales bittered with gruit made and swallowed within a few days. Then, few would have had access to the resources required to buy aged ale, including any which might have been aged for souring. Additionally, those that were aged were likely aged within the annual cycle as is most every other agricultural product. These general observations seem both logical and consistent with the histories by Cornell, Haydon, Hornsey and Unger. Plus I have another pet theory – no one drinks extremely sour things without a certain purpose and sour in beer has long standing recognition as a failing in brewing.

But I have gone over that before in these sour beer studies. What is new is the mention made of one tradition of Belgian lambic drinkers – as opposed to its brewers – described in The Brewmaster’s Table. At page 71, comparing dry lambics to their sweet siblings, Oliver states:

Lambic afficiandos are given to frothing at the mouth when the latter versions are mentioned, but I feel both types have their place. Don’t forget that some people always sweetened their beers, when they could afford it – sugar was once a luxury.

Sadly, I can not longer wallow in vindication dancing the merry jig as these studies have given me both respect and a taste for the sour beers of Belgium. I still find Cantillon too stark but that is like saying Guinness is too dark. It simply is. And sour for me now holds an interesting and worthy place in the beery pantheon.

But, still, there is comfort knowing that now and likely in the past people did not suffer austere acidity except as a mild fetish or a consequence of poverty. Two traditional styles, neither of which I have tried as they are quite localized, confirm how sweetening may have been undertaken, Berliner weisse and faro. Berliner weisse is a German sour brew uniformly taken with a sweet fruity syrup and preserving sweets is entirely reasonable as a form of storage though the centuries. I would expect that facing another pitcher of dry lambic before him on the table, your average 16th centurian may well have had a spoon in the jelly or honey jar next to it. In addition to Berliner weisse, Belgian faro is described as a “low-alcohol, slightly sweet table beer made from lambic to which brown sugar has been added” – taken on draft, again, it is a reasonable approach to making a rather restrictive brew more approachable for the many.

Point? I am relieved to find this confirmation from somewhere that lambics were sweetened by drinkers in much the same way as the old guys shook the salt over their draft in the Nova Scotian taverns of my youth. People, as we learned from Depeche Mode, are people. Other point? Buy The Brewmaster’s Table.

Make My Vote One For MMP!

First let me say well done Danny. Any Tory who is anti-Tory is my kind of Tory. Maybe he tries for NL independence next.

And it is now clear that I am voting for MMP because no one else is. Most people I know who are intelligent and well-informed are not, through the pure badness of the MMP campaign, aware of the fixed lists that parties would have to submit and so are turned off by the prospect of back-room shuffling. I, on the other hand, see the world as it truly is (am I the only one???) and know that this is no different than the status quo in any case. Plus I never vote for a winner. Not out of principle but due to my principles. Plus-plus it would just be dumb to have MPPs voted in through MMP.

MMP! MMP! MMP! MMP!

To The Cubs, To The Cubs, To The Cubs, Cubs, Cubs!

A late night at work saw me driving for home at around eleven with 660 AM WFAN and the callers bringing out the Long knives for the Yankees. Who was to blame? Torre? A-Rod? Wang? Even Posada was a target. Apparently one person is not likely waiting around to find out:

A clubhouse attendant packed the belongings from Alex Rodriguez’s locker into cardboard boxes yesterday, in what may have been a sign that Rodriguez did not plan to visit Yankee Stadium anytime soon. He may never return as a member of the Yankees because he seems sure to exercise the opt-out clause in his contract. While the agent Scott Boras did not specifically say that Rodriguez would opt out with three years left on his 10-year, $252 million contract, he suggested that becoming a free agent again would be his client’s savviest choice.

“When the arbitrator gave free agency to baseball, is there anyone in baseball who the free-agent right meant more to than Alex Rodriguez?” Boras said yesterday. “Not with his last contract, but right now, now more than any point in history.”

You would think free agency value would coincide with actual on the game day value. Is that A-Rod? Sure he is great and has tthe stats but…umm…I’d prefer someone who plays well in the playoffs? I can think of four Red Sox right now who are more valuable than A-Rob and I don’t think I even need to mention them. Who else puts up lower numbers but is of more actual value? Byrd, Cleveland’s fourth pitcher the other night, the man who beat the Yanks, comes to mind with his literally throw-back style of pitching.

Anyway, A-Rod, good luck in your likely destination of Chicargo, as we called it as kids, making kissy-eyes with Lou. Likely you will disappoint there as well.

Was That A Boring First Round?

Was the first round of the MLB playoffs boring? With one game avoiding a four series sweep across the board, hard to argue otherwise. Frankly, I don’t care much about Arizona v. Colorado in the NL championships either. But The Sox and Cleveland starting Friday night could be amazing. Both teams are making runs happen but in very different ways. It certainly could be the most bunt friendly series in decades and a game with Wakefield pitching against Byrd with neither getting the ball above 90 mph would be wonderful if both were at their best.

But pause a moment for the Yankees who exited yesterday. There was an outpouring of tears after the game on 880 AM with Suzyn Waldman choking up, John saying he loved her, Damon (pittuie!) using the past tense in relation to the team and Joe Torre walking into an era where he can write a bigger cheque as any team’s manager or any station’s broadcaster. They out performed themselves in 2007 so should feel good about themselves as they now go off to play for other teams. Who shall they buy for next year?

Baltimore Pit Beef For Christmas


Highlight of the last bit of 2007 (and have you realized that we are 3/4s though the first decade of the 21st century?) is going to be a trip to Baltimore. I got invited last Christmas to write a chapter of a book called Beer and Philosophy and now we are invited to the book launch.

Being a 20 watt bulb in the brightly lit world that is beer writing has a few perks and none is so perkier [Ed.: wow, did that came out wrong!] than the genial clan of more senior writers who will answer important questions like the one I posed to Lew Bryson about where to find the best BBQ in Baltimore:

The thing you want in Bawlmer is pit beef, a sinfully delish pile of rare, juicy beef piled high on a roll. There are several of these joints out on Pulaski Highway (like in this catty review: I liked Chaps, so there, nyah. I understand Big Al’s is closed now…sigh. More at this Chowhound link which also makes reference to the Double T local chain of diners (WELL worth your time for breakfast, my friend) and while some of them are not in the most savory of locations, the beef is nothing but. Pit beef is kinda like spiedies in that for some odd reason it’s never really traveled, but is definitely worshipful in situ.

Fabulous. Having already, in 2007, checked the wonderful western NY sandwich called a “weck” off my list of local US foods, the prospect of pit beef adds another layer of glowing orange to my vision of the next Yule. I found a great article from 2000 in the New York Times that further elaborates the concept:

Pit beef is Baltimore’s version of barbecue: beef grilled crusty on the outside, rare and juicy inside and heaped high on a sandwich. Several things make it distinctive in the realm of American barbecue. For starters, pit beef is grilled, not smoked, so it lacks the heavy hickory or mesquite flavor characteristic of Texas- or Kansas City-style barbecue. It is also ideally served rare, which would be unthinkable for a Texas-style brisket. Baltimore pit bosses use top round, not brisket, and to make this flavorful but tough cut of beef tender, they shave it paper-thin on a meat slicer.

Then there’s the bread: the proper way to serve pit beef is on a kaiser roll or, more distinctively, on rye bread. The caraway seeds in the rye reflect the Eastern European ancestry of many Baltimoreans in this part of town and add an aromatic, earthy flavor to the beef. Finally, there is the sauce. No ketchup, brown sugar and liquid smoke, as you would find in Kansas City. No Texas-style chili hellfire or piquant vinegar sauces in the style of North Carolina. The proper condiment for Baltimore pit beef is horseradish sauce — as much as you can bear without crying. And speaking of crying, you need slices of crisp, pungent white onion to make the sandwich complete.

This is all so excellent. One of my gripes as a Canadian is that there are few actual local foods. We can speak of Quebec cuisine (whether lowly comforting poutine or the selection of game that you do not get in English speaking Canada) and we can think of the seafood of Atlantic Canada but these are entire ranges of food based on local resources. A phenomenon at far too high a level. No, what I love about traveling in the US is that local thing on a bun that is made only in that neighbourhood or those couple of counties: Rochester’s garbage plate or the various regional BBQs of the Carolina, the pinnacle of one of which Lew encountered this week. Where is our Fat Boy fish sandwich with a wild blueberry frappe? Our humble hot or our bap and square? Where is our Chocolate Boston – which I have learned is made even more over the top at Purity Dairy by placing an entire sundae on top of a milk shake?

Session 8: Food and Beer With Lucy Saunders

Most excellent! I forgot it was session day today and the topic is food and beer as picked by the poetical industrial complex behind Beer Haiku Daily. As it happens, a few weeks ago…or more likely months…beer cook extraordinaire Lucy Saunders was kind enough to forward a review copy of her handy book Grilling with Beer – with, I just noticed, a very nice inscription. And, as it turns out, I took today off to make an extra long weekend and as it turns out it is the last stinking hot day of the year here at the east end of Lake Ontario. So it is time to BBQ and we are ‘cueing and brewing with Lucy.

Updates throughout the day as I review my options, pick my victims and start the fire.

 

 

 

 

Later: OK. Things can take surprising turns as I seem to have wanted to deal with (by which I mean “eat”) the entire ark with a shoulder and center roasts of pork, beef and pork rib and lamb sausages – and corn…and bunch of peppers, too. My theory of BBQ is that if you are going to spark the dang thing up you may as well cook from match to the final orange glow. Going through Lucy’s book, I decided to do a dry rub and a beer mop for the most of it and cook everything on a slow smoke.

So I got out a bottle of Black Irish Plain Porter, chopped up some cilantro, red pepper and green onion for the mop. For the rub, I put together kosher salt, paprika, cayenne, ginger, cumin, fennel seed and a few other things. An hour and a half on the dry rub and then on to the grill with a steady supply of dampened smoking wood added as I went along.

In the end we were left with an insane amount of meat…unless you believe that is something of an oxymoron. As I mopped, I had a Southern Tier IPA as well as a Great Lakes 666 Devil’s Pale Ale, a new LCBO listing here in Easlakia. Both were solid BBQ brews for the last hot day of the year.

So was I cliche going with the BBQ? Should I have made beer ice cream or a lager and partridge tarte? Not a chance. Beer is the partner to the flaming pit and is where the sweet notes and smoky tones play out best. And that porter mop added a layer chocolate espresso over the bite of the pepper adding even more depth. Even though I didn’t follow a particular recipe, Grilling with Beer is a source of great inspiration if you are into this sort of thing and a book I will return to again and again for great ideas for cooking with beer outdoors.

An Evening Of Convergence

While the top story in my last 24 hours has to be Beckett finishing his
complete game by setting aside the Angels like a librarian shelving a book
[Ed.: Yes! My own sports analogy!] in time for the Bionic Woman’s second
episode to start, it was really the realization that BW2 [Ed.: Yes! My own TV
acronym!] is the game Counterstrike meeting Blade Runner. At the end of the
show, the guy who got booted off Gray’s Anatomy is leading a bunch of
crouched guys with newbie CS guns down a dark alley towards a fabulously unguarded lit den
of baddies when I thought “flashbang” and, lo and behold, t’was so as bang did flash and baddies
did give up.

El Predicto: MLB Playoffs 2007 Contest

It is a grand thing when your fantasies and solid factual reality coincide so that your predictions for the playoffs can be as good as mine are:

American League

1) Angels vs. Red Sox (Sox in 7)
2) Yankees (yeecht!!!) vs. Indians (Cleveland in six)
3) Red Sox vs. Indians (Red Sox in 6)

National League

1) Rockies vs. Phillies (Phillies in 6)
2) Cubs vs. D-Backs (Cubs in 6)
3) Phillies vs. Cubs (Cubs in 6)

World Series
Red Sox vs. Cubs. Sox in 7.

Update: error noted and fixed in coments.

Ry has submitted here but can change before the deadline.

Prize? A real 1970s baseball card. Not my 1971 Hank Aaron or anything. But a real one. Maybe I have a double Billy Martin or something. Scoring? Simple: most games won by teams predicted to win series, divided by deviation from actual multiplied by extra factoring for style. What could be easier?

Put in your best guess before Thursday at 9 pm. That is right. You actually get to see some games before the deadline closes. How fair is that?