The Dish

Now there’s a headline I probably never thought I’d write. Anyway, for those of you curious as to what a spotted dick actually looks like, here’s an unhinged webpage with visuals of various puddings depicted in Patrick O’Brian’s novels. The “spotted dog” is a dead-ringer for the spotted dick. Slightly more alarming is a picture of a pudding called a Drowned Baby. I’m not sure I want to ask what’s in it.

In defense of mushy peas, a Southern Democrat’s lament, the barbarism of Supermax jails, etc.

No, he’s not in an Enron fix. But it’s interesting to see former labor secretary Robert Reich report over $750,000 in corporate speaking fees last year. “I do the speeches because it’s very, very easy money,” he told the Boston Herald. “I am utterly amazed the businesses are willing to pay so much for my economic expertise . . . but, if they want to pay that much, it’s a free market, I’m delighted.” Among the companies that have given him money – at $32,000 for a sixty minute speech – are Ford Motors, Panasonic, Merrill Lynch, Aetna Financial Services, Standard & Poors, Deloitte & Touche, Forbes Management Conference Group and Behrman Capital. Now, he’s running for governor of Massachusetts, and pandering to the left in the primaries. There’s nothing wrong with what he has done; and he has disclosed it all. But he’s also a journalist and founding editor of the American Prospect – a magazine often railing against corporate excess. It’s useful to know – however belatedly – just how much Reich has benefited from corporate speeches recently, while writing columns that often deal with economic issues that affect such corporations. I guess, like Paul Krugman, he is in the circle of Those Who Get Money Calls. Fair enough. But I hope he doesn’t push his new-found populism a little too far in the campaign. It would sound just a little bit phony, don’t you think? He even backed out of an early candidates’ debate in order to cash in on a $40,000 IBM gig. Those are his priorities. Or maybe they’re just a Third Way. Take it away, Mickey Kaus!

… in the lobby of the St Martin’s Lane hotel? I could have been hallucinating, but I swear it was Tina Brown. Coward that I am, I fled. Wouldn’t you?

FRIEDMAN’S SMARTS: “There is a lot about the Bush team’s foreign policy I don’t like, but their willingness to restore our deterrence, and to be as crazy as some of our enemies, is one thing they have right.” Couldn’t put it better myself than in Friedman’s column today (although the turkey story veers dangerously toward self-parody). Tom Friedman is now clearly the most significant liberal voice in favor of this war. Check out the rest here.

SCHAMA ON CHURCHILL: If you’re a Winnie fanatic (as I am), then don’t miss this wonderfully fresh and perceptive piece by Simon Schama in the New York Review.

As usual, a sharp insight into Iran’s internal politics from Michael Ledeen.

SPOTTED DICK ONLINE: No, it’s not another sex-site. If you’re curious about what spotted dick actually tastes like, a reader sends word of this site as a source of gastronomic heaven/hell. Click on puddings. You can even get it in a tin can. But that’s for hard-core types only.

Two new pieces on the growing phenomenon – from Fortune and PCMag. Both are on the right track, but neither quite gets it. As with most truly revolutionary technologies, it’ll take time for people to absorb what’s really happened to publishing and journalism.

BOOK CLUB UPDATE: Getting ready for next week. We’re coming close to a thousand active reading members of the club. But if you’re interested in the war on terrorism, classical military theory, insights from Churchill, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and others, feel free to eavesdrop.

I had steamed haddock and treacle pudding last night. Up to a 34 waist again. Meanwhile, a reader sends in a literary reminiscence of British food. It’s from – who else? – Kingsley Amis, from his book, “The Folks That Live on the Hill”:

[A waiter] came and laid in front of him a considerable plateful of fried slices of white bread and thick salty bacon with all the rind left on and ancillary tomatoes, as specified. Fats swam and bubbled there.
‘My God,’ said Harry with remote envy. ‘Butter too.’
Freddie shook his head as he picked up two of the three varicoloured plastic dispensers before him. ‘Butter, who said anything about butter? This is marge. Very hard to get these days I can assure you. . .’

“Marge,” by the way, is British for margarine. At the end of the meal, Amis continues:

‘Do you know what I enjoyed most about that snack?’
‘The marge?’
‘The fact that it wasn’t beef Stroganoff or sole bonne femme or steak en croute or tripe a la mode de Caen.’
‘I see. Aren’t you going to have some afters?’
They looked over at a blackboard advertising spotted dick – roly poly – syrup pudding – plum duff. . .

Now, that’s patriotism.

CIVILIAN DEATHS: Here’s the first solid piece I’ve read about them in the Afghanistan war. Noam Chomsky probably shouldn’t read this story. The truth is always a problem for him.

LADS IN TROUBLE: Here’s an interesting cultural indicator. In Britain a few years ago, the “hottest” magazines were testosterone-laden, chauvinistic men’s magazines – the kind that soon came over to the States and made Maxim a huge success story. According to this piece in the Guardian, they’re now in trouble. Big declines in circulation and advertizing. But my favorite detail, noticed by a reader, is the fact that the editor of the leading “lad” magazine, “FHM,” was unavailable for comment because he is on “paternity leave.” As my reader points out, “It’s like finding out that the editor of Cigar Aficionado is on the nicotine patch.”

This time, it’s a cartoon.

Guess who I ran right into in the lobby of the St Martin’s Lane hotel last night?

DASCHLE’S BALLOON: Word travels fast. Last night, I was having dinner with two English journalist friends. Of course, the war came up. I hadn’t been following the wires all day so I was surprised to hear one of them ask me for an explanation of Senator Tom Daschle’s criticism of the “axis of evil” phrase in the State of the Union. If Americans are so united about the war, I was asked, why is the Senate majority leader taking on the president? I had three off-the-cuff explanations: a) just to get himself in the paper; b) a simple gaffe – it’s what he believes, but he knows it’s politically dumb to say it; c) he wants to get a premature end to the war so he can use domestic politics to tackle the president’s popularity. Of course, it could also be a combination of the three. And the ruse works better if you subsequently disown it. This was a trial balloon. And at small intervals in the future, the Democrats will do it again. After all, it’s their only hope. Meanwhile, the president should ignore the politics and get on with the deadly serious task of protecting the West from another September 11 – or worse.

Sodomy and unequal protection in Kansas; the few alternatives to Supermax prisons, etc.