Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
56 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-04-08/an-emotional-audit-irs-workers-are-miserable-and-overwhelmed
Paying taxes to the IRS is no fun. Neither is working there...
...A 16-year IRS veteran, Gaddy wishes she could share some of her own IRS troubles with her visitors. Her salary has risen only 2 percent in the last four years. The center lost its secretary and hasn’t replaced her because of a four-year-old hiring freeze throughout the agency, which means Gaddy and the remaining employees handle clerical duties, too. One of her fellow specialists spends all his time now answering questions via webcam from taxpayers in Harrisburg, Pa., because that office is short-staffed. Last year, to reduce the lines, the IRS discontinued its practice of preparing simple tax returns as a courtesy for people, many of them elderly. But in Philadelphia the queues have stayed the same or grown longer, because so many people come in with questions about tax credits for Obamacare and what to do to prevent identity thieves from stealing their refunds. (Because the refunds come on ATM-ready debit cards, thieves like to file victims’ returns ahead of time, with a different address.) “I mean, we still had lines,” Gaddy says, “but not out the door and around the corner.”
The IRS has never been an easy place to work. Its 84,000 employees, 65 percent of them women, generally don’t tell people outside the service where they draw a paycheck. It’s no way to make friends. They toil in purposely anonymous buildings—a big sign outside might attract crazies. In 2010 an antigovernment zealot flew a single-engine plane into a building in Austin, Texas, where 190 agency employees worked, killing one of them. “Well, Mr. Big Brother I.R.S. man, let’s try something different, take my pound of flesh and sleep well,” the pilot, Joseph Stack III, wrote in a six-page suicide note.
More recently, the IRS has become a casualty of the budget battles between the Obama White House and House Republicans. Since the GOP won control of the chamber in 2010, the agency’s annual budget has fallen by $1.2 billion, to $10.9 billion in 2015. Meanwhile, the agency has lost 11 percent of its employees. Last year it started 19 percent fewer criminal investigations than 2013. This year alone, it expects to close at least 46,000 fewer audits. Nobody likes being scrutinized by the IRS, but audits are a key component of the tax system that keeps the U.S. afloat. “It’s core to the country,” says Jeffery Trinca, a former Senate aide turned lobbyist who specializes in tax policy....The agency’s customer service operation has been hobbled, too. In late March, the IRS said fewer than 40 percent of the people who call during this tax season will get through to someone. A decade ago, the figure was 83 percent. The agency is so short on funds that some employees purchase their own office supplies, even though the IRS says they shouldn’t. “I buy my own pens,” says Catherine Ficco, a revenue officer in West Nyack, N.Y. “I buy my own clips and hole punchers and things of that nature. It’s not uncommon. There’s no money to order supplies or paper for my printer.”
The IRS has long been disliked, but its employees aren’t used to being vilified. In May 2013 the agency disclosed that it had given extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups that were seeking nonprofit status. To Democrats, the decision to group together Tea Party applications and other politically oriented groups was merely a misguided attempt to find a consistent rule after years of muddled policy. “There were some boneheaded decisions,” President Obama told Fox News. To Republicans, the IRS’s hard look at Tea Party groups proved the service has a political bias. Since then the IRS has been consumed with scandals large and small: an expensively produced internal video that featured top executives dressed as Star Trek characters; a lavish conference funded with enforcement money where officials slept in presidential suites, albeit discounted ones; and the rehiring of employees accused of misconduct, including some who hadn’t filed their own taxes.
...In May 2013, Obama ousted Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, and shortly after named John Koskinen, a former corporate takeover expert, as his replacement. Koskinen has two challenges: restoring the public’s confidence in the service and keeping employees from giving up hope. It may be too late for the latter. IRS veterans say it’s fine for Republicans and Democrats to disagree about the level of taxation in America, but they can’t do their jobs without functional computers and sufficient supplies. “I still get calls from people that worked for me who talk about the overload they are facing and what’s happening to them,” says Dorothy Taylor, a former IRS territory manager who was based in Plantation, Fla., before retiring in December 2013. “I try to reassure them that there have always been ups and downs in the organization. I tell them to just keep their heads down and do their job, and hopefully the IRS will pull through like it has in the past. But my concern is, will it?”
ENDLESSLY MORE
Paying taxes to the IRS is no fun. Neither is working there...
...A 16-year IRS veteran, Gaddy wishes she could share some of her own IRS troubles with her visitors. Her salary has risen only 2 percent in the last four years. The center lost its secretary and hasn’t replaced her because of a four-year-old hiring freeze throughout the agency, which means Gaddy and the remaining employees handle clerical duties, too. One of her fellow specialists spends all his time now answering questions via webcam from taxpayers in Harrisburg, Pa., because that office is short-staffed. Last year, to reduce the lines, the IRS discontinued its practice of preparing simple tax returns as a courtesy for people, many of them elderly. But in Philadelphia the queues have stayed the same or grown longer, because so many people come in with questions about tax credits for Obamacare and what to do to prevent identity thieves from stealing their refunds. (Because the refunds come on ATM-ready debit cards, thieves like to file victims’ returns ahead of time, with a different address.) “I mean, we still had lines,” Gaddy says, “but not out the door and around the corner.”
The IRS has never been an easy place to work. Its 84,000 employees, 65 percent of them women, generally don’t tell people outside the service where they draw a paycheck. It’s no way to make friends. They toil in purposely anonymous buildings—a big sign outside might attract crazies. In 2010 an antigovernment zealot flew a single-engine plane into a building in Austin, Texas, where 190 agency employees worked, killing one of them. “Well, Mr. Big Brother I.R.S. man, let’s try something different, take my pound of flesh and sleep well,” the pilot, Joseph Stack III, wrote in a six-page suicide note.
More recently, the IRS has become a casualty of the budget battles between the Obama White House and House Republicans. Since the GOP won control of the chamber in 2010, the agency’s annual budget has fallen by $1.2 billion, to $10.9 billion in 2015. Meanwhile, the agency has lost 11 percent of its employees. Last year it started 19 percent fewer criminal investigations than 2013. This year alone, it expects to close at least 46,000 fewer audits. Nobody likes being scrutinized by the IRS, but audits are a key component of the tax system that keeps the U.S. afloat. “It’s core to the country,” says Jeffery Trinca, a former Senate aide turned lobbyist who specializes in tax policy....The agency’s customer service operation has been hobbled, too. In late March, the IRS said fewer than 40 percent of the people who call during this tax season will get through to someone. A decade ago, the figure was 83 percent. The agency is so short on funds that some employees purchase their own office supplies, even though the IRS says they shouldn’t. “I buy my own pens,” says Catherine Ficco, a revenue officer in West Nyack, N.Y. “I buy my own clips and hole punchers and things of that nature. It’s not uncommon. There’s no money to order supplies or paper for my printer.”
The IRS has long been disliked, but its employees aren’t used to being vilified. In May 2013 the agency disclosed that it had given extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups that were seeking nonprofit status. To Democrats, the decision to group together Tea Party applications and other politically oriented groups was merely a misguided attempt to find a consistent rule after years of muddled policy. “There were some boneheaded decisions,” President Obama told Fox News. To Republicans, the IRS’s hard look at Tea Party groups proved the service has a political bias. Since then the IRS has been consumed with scandals large and small: an expensively produced internal video that featured top executives dressed as Star Trek characters; a lavish conference funded with enforcement money where officials slept in presidential suites, albeit discounted ones; and the rehiring of employees accused of misconduct, including some who hadn’t filed their own taxes.
...In May 2013, Obama ousted Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, and shortly after named John Koskinen, a former corporate takeover expert, as his replacement. Koskinen has two challenges: restoring the public’s confidence in the service and keeping employees from giving up hope. It may be too late for the latter. IRS veterans say it’s fine for Republicans and Democrats to disagree about the level of taxation in America, but they can’t do their jobs without functional computers and sufficient supplies. “I still get calls from people that worked for me who talk about the overload they are facing and what’s happening to them,” says Dorothy Taylor, a former IRS territory manager who was based in Plantation, Fla., before retiring in December 2013. “I try to reassure them that there have always been ups and downs in the organization. I tell them to just keep their heads down and do their job, and hopefully the IRS will pull through like it has in the past. But my concern is, will it?”
ENDLESSLY MORE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/06/kansas-wants-to-ban-welfare-recipients-from-seeing-movies-going-swimming-on-governments-dime/
There’s nothing fun about being on welfare, and a new Kansas bill aims to keep it that way.
If House Bill 2258 is signed into law by Gov. Sam Brownback (R) this week, Kansas families receiving government assistance will no longer be able to use those funds to visit swimming pools, see movies, go gambling or get tattoos on the state’s dime.
Those are just a few of the restrictions contained within the measure that promises to tighten regulations on how poor families spend their government aid.
State Sen. Michael O’Donnell, a Wichita Republican who has advocated for the bill, said the legislation is designed to pressure those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to spend “more responsibly.”
The double-standard of making the poor prove they’re worthy of government benefits
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/07/the-double-standard-of-making-poor-people-prove-theyre-worthy-of-government-benefits/
Poverty looks pretty great if you're not living in it. The government gives you free money to spend on steak and lobster, on tattoos and spa days, on — why not? — cruise vacations and psychic visits...Enough serious-minded people seem to think this is what the poor actually buy with their meager aid that we've now seen a raft of bills and proposed state laws to nudge them away from so much excess. Missouri wants to curtail what the poor eat with their food stamps (evidence of the problem from one state legislator: "I have seen people purchasing filet mignons"
. Kansas wants to block welfare recipients from spending government money at strip clubs (in legalese: any "sexually oriented business or any retail establishment which provides adult-oriented entertainment in which performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment" .
Then there are the states that want to drug-test welfare recipients — the implication being that we worry the poor will convert their benefits directly into drugs.
Sometimes these laws are cast as protection for the poor, ensuring that aid is steered in ways that will help them the most. Other times they're framed as protection for the taxpayer, who shouldn't be asked to help people who will squander the money on vices anyway. But the logic behind the proposals is problematic in at least three, really big ways.
The first is economic: There's virtually no evidence that the poor actually spend their money this way. The idea that they do defies Maslow's hierarchy — the notion that we all need shelter and food before we go in search of foot massages. In fact, the poor are much more savvy about how they spend their money because they have less of it (quick quiz: do you know exactly how much you last spent on a gallon of milk? or a bag of diapers?). By definition, a much higher share of their income — often more than half of it — is eaten up by basic housing costs than is true for the better-off, leaving them less money for luxuries anyway. And contrary to the logic of drug-testing laws, the poor are no more likely to use drugs than the population at large.
The second issue with these laws is a moral one: We rarely make similar demands of other recipients of government aid. We don't drug-test farmers who receive agriculture subsidies (lest they think about plowing while high!). We don't require Pell Grant recipients to prove that they're pursuing a degree that will get them a real job one day (sorry, no poetry!). We don't require wealthy families who cash in on the home mortgage interest deduction to prove that they don't use their homes as brothels (because surely someone out there does this). The strings that we attach to government aid are attached uniquely for the poor.
That leads us to the third problem, which is a political one. Many, many Americans who do receive these other kinds of government benefits — farm subsidies, student loans, mortgage tax breaks — don't recognize that, like the poor, they get something from government, too. That's because government gives money directly to poor people, but it gives benefits to the rest of us in ways that allow us to tell ourselves that we get nothing from government at all. Political scientist Suzanne Mettler has called this effect the "submerged state." Food stamps and welfare checks are incredibly visible government benefits. The mortgage interest deduction, Medicare benefits and tuition tax breaks are not — they're submerged. They come to us in round-about ways, through smaller tax bills (or larger refunds), through payments we don't have to make to doctors (thanks to Medicare), or in tuition we don't have to pay to universities (because the G.I. Bill does that for us).
Mettler's research has shown that a remarkable number of people who don't think they get anything from government in fact benefit from one of these programs. This explains why we get election-season soundbites from confused voters who want policymakers to "keep your government hands off my Medicare!" This is also what enables politicians to gin up indignation among small-government supporters who don't realize they rely on government themselves. Mettler raises a lot of concerns about what the submerged state means for how we understand the role of government. But one result of this reality is that we have even less tolerance for programs that help the poor: We begrudge them their housing vouchers, for instance, even though government spends about four times as much subsidizing housing for upper-income homeowners.
That's a long-winded way of saying that these proposed laws — which insist that government beneficiaries prove themselves worthy, that they spend government money how the government wants them to, that they waive their privacy and personal freedom to get it — are also simply a reflection of a basic double-standard.
There’s nothing fun about being on welfare, and a new Kansas bill aims to keep it that way.
If House Bill 2258 is signed into law by Gov. Sam Brownback (R) this week, Kansas families receiving government assistance will no longer be able to use those funds to visit swimming pools, see movies, go gambling or get tattoos on the state’s dime.
Those are just a few of the restrictions contained within the measure that promises to tighten regulations on how poor families spend their government aid.
State Sen. Michael O’Donnell, a Wichita Republican who has advocated for the bill, said the legislation is designed to pressure those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to spend “more responsibly.”
Missouri Republicans are trying to ban food stamp recipients from buying steak and seafood
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/03/missouri-republicans-are-trying-to-ban-food-stamp-recipients-from-buying-steak-and-seafood/
In 2013, Fox News proudly broadcast an interview with a young food stamp recipient who claimed to be using the government benefit to purchase lobster and sushi.
That story fit a longtime conservative suspicion that poor people use food stamps to purchase luxury items. Now, a Republican state lawmaker in Missouri is pushing for legislation that would stop people like Greenslate and severely limit what food stamp recipients can buy. The bill being proposed would ban the purchase with food stamps of "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak."
Curbing food stamp purchases of cookies, chips, energy drinks, and soft drinks at least falls in line with the food stamp program's mission to provide nutrition. Nutrition experts are already discussing whether to remove unhealthy items from the list of foods participants can buy.
But seafood and steak? Seafood has been shown, time and again, to be a healthy part of any diet. And steak is such a broad category that it's essentially banning people from buying any flat cuts of beef, from porterhouse to flank...
AND HOW IN HELL CAN THIS BE ENFORCED?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/03/missouri-republicans-are-trying-to-ban-food-stamp-recipients-from-buying-steak-and-seafood/
In 2013, Fox News proudly broadcast an interview with a young food stamp recipient who claimed to be using the government benefit to purchase lobster and sushi.
"This is the way I want to live and I don’t really see anything changing," Jason Greenslate explained to Fox. “It’s free food; it’s awesome."
That story fit a longtime conservative suspicion that poor people use food stamps to purchase luxury items. Now, a Republican state lawmaker in Missouri is pushing for legislation that would stop people like Greenslate and severely limit what food stamp recipients can buy. The bill being proposed would ban the purchase with food stamps of "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak."
"The intention of the bill is to get the food stamp program back to its original intent, which is nutrition assistance," said Rick Brattin, the representative who is sponsoring the proposed legislation.
Curbing food stamp purchases of cookies, chips, energy drinks, and soft drinks at least falls in line with the food stamp program's mission to provide nutrition. Nutrition experts are already discussing whether to remove unhealthy items from the list of foods participants can buy.
But seafood and steak? Seafood has been shown, time and again, to be a healthy part of any diet. And steak is such a broad category that it's essentially banning people from buying any flat cuts of beef, from porterhouse to flank...
AND HOW IN HELL CAN THIS BE ENFORCED?
The double-standard of making the poor prove they’re worthy of government benefits
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/07/the-double-standard-of-making-poor-people-prove-theyre-worthy-of-government-benefits/
Poverty looks pretty great if you're not living in it. The government gives you free money to spend on steak and lobster, on tattoos and spa days, on — why not? — cruise vacations and psychic visits...Enough serious-minded people seem to think this is what the poor actually buy with their meager aid that we've now seen a raft of bills and proposed state laws to nudge them away from so much excess. Missouri wants to curtail what the poor eat with their food stamps (evidence of the problem from one state legislator: "I have seen people purchasing filet mignons"
. Kansas wants to block welfare recipients from spending government money at strip clubs (in legalese: any "sexually oriented business or any retail establishment which provides adult-oriented entertainment in which performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment" .
Then there are the states that want to drug-test welfare recipients — the implication being that we worry the poor will convert their benefits directly into drugs.
Sometimes these laws are cast as protection for the poor, ensuring that aid is steered in ways that will help them the most. Other times they're framed as protection for the taxpayer, who shouldn't be asked to help people who will squander the money on vices anyway. But the logic behind the proposals is problematic in at least three, really big ways.
Mettler's research has shown that a remarkable number of people who don't think they get anything from government in fact benefit from one of these programs. This explains why we get election-season soundbites from confused voters who want policymakers to "keep your government hands off my Medicare!" This is also what enables politicians to gin up indignation among small-government supporters who don't realize they rely on government themselves. Mettler raises a lot of concerns about what the submerged state means for how we understand the role of government. But one result of this reality is that we have even less tolerance for programs that help the poor: We begrudge them their housing vouchers, for instance, even though government spends about four times as much subsidizing housing for upper-income homeowners.
That's a long-winded way of saying that these proposed laws — which insist that government beneficiaries prove themselves worthy, that they spend government money how the government wants them to, that they waive their privacy and personal freedom to get it — are also simply a reflection of a basic double-standard.
as·pic
ˈaspik/
noun
noun: aspic
a savory jelly made with meat stock, set in a mold and used to contain pieces of meat, seafood, or eggs.
"chicken in aspic"
late 18th century: from French, literally ‘asp,’ from the colors of the jelly as compared with those of the snake.
Aspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads.
When cooled, stock that is made from meat congeals because of the natural gelatin found in the meat. The stock can be clarified with egg whites, and then filled and flavored just before the aspic sets. Almost any type of food can be set into aspics. Most common are meat pieces, fruits, or vegetables. Aspics are usually served on cold plates so that the gel will not melt before being eaten. A meat jelly that includes cream is called a chaud-froid.
Nearly any type of meat can be used to make the gelatin: pork, beef, veal, chicken, turkey, or fish. The aspic may need additional gelatin in order to set properly. Veal stock provides a great deal of gelatin; in making stock, veal is often included with other meat for that reason. Fish consommés usually have too little natural gelatin, so the fish stock may be double-cooked or supplemented. Since fish gelatin melts at a lower temperature than gelatins of other meats, fish aspic is more delicate and melts more readily in the mouth.
Vegetables and fish stocks need gelatin to maintain a molded shape.
History
Historically, meat aspics were made before fruit- and vegetable-flavored aspics or 'jellies' (UK) and 'gelatins/jellos' (North America). By the Middle Ages at the latest, cooks had discovered that a thickened meat broth could be made into a jelly. A detailed recipe for aspic is found in Le Viandier, written in or around 1375.
In the early 19th century, Marie-Antoine Carême created chaud froid in France. Chaud froid means "hot cold" in French, referring to foods that were prepared hot and served cold. Aspic was used as a chaud froid sauce in many cold fish and poultry meals. The sauce added moisture and flavor to the food. Carême invented various types of aspic and ways of preparing it. Aspic, when used to hold meats, prevents them from becoming spoiled. The gelatin keeps out air and bacteria, keeping the cooked meat fresh.
Aspic came into prominence in America in the early 20th century. By the 1950s, meat aspic was a popular dinner staple throughout the United States as were other gelatin-based dishes such as tomato aspic.Cooks used to show off aesthetic skills by creating inventive aspics.
Uses
A speciality of northern Thailand, kaeng kradang is a Thai curry aspic
Aspic can also be referred as aspic gelée or aspic jelly. Aspic jelly may be colorless (white aspic) or contain various shades of amber. Aspic can be used to protect food from the air, to give food more flavor, or as a decoration.
There are three types of aspic textures: delicate, sliceable, and inedible. The delicate aspic is soft. The sliceable aspic must be made in a terrine or in an aspic mold. It is firmer than the delicate aspic. The inedible aspic is never for consumption. It is usually for decoration. Aspic is often used to glaze food pieces in food competitions to make the food glisten and make it more appealing to the eye. Foods dipped in aspic have a lacquered finish for a fancy presentation. Aspic can be cut into various shapes and be used as a garnish for deli meats or pâtés.
Worldwide variants
Eastern Europe
Russian aspic - kholodets with chopped horseradish (chren).
In Russia, a meat aspic dish is called kholodets (Russian: Холодец derived from the word kholod meaning cold. The dish is part of winter holiday festive meals. In central, eastern and northern Europe, aspic often takes the form of pork jelly, and it is popular around the Christmas and Easter Holidays. A Georgian version is called Mujuji.
Among the Newars of Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, buffalo meat jelly is a major component of the winter festivity gourmet. It is eaten in combination with fish aspic, which is made from dried fish and buffalo meat stock, soured, and contains a heavy mix of spices and condiments.
When cooled, stock that is made from meat congeals because of the natural gelatin found in the meat. The stock can be clarified with egg whites, and then filled and flavored just before the aspic sets. Almost any type of food can be set into aspics. Most common are meat pieces, fruits, or vegetables. Aspics are usually served on cold plates so that the gel will not melt before being eaten. A meat jelly that includes cream is called a chaud-froid.
Nearly any type of meat can be used to make the gelatin: pork, beef, veal, chicken, turkey, or fish. The aspic may need additional gelatin in order to set properly. Veal stock provides a great deal of gelatin; in making stock, veal is often included with other meat for that reason. Fish consommés usually have too little natural gelatin, so the fish stock may be double-cooked or supplemented. Since fish gelatin melts at a lower temperature than gelatins of other meats, fish aspic is more delicate and melts more readily in the mouth.
Vegetables and fish stocks need gelatin to maintain a molded shape.
History
Historically, meat aspics were made before fruit- and vegetable-flavored aspics or 'jellies' (UK) and 'gelatins/jellos' (North America). By the Middle Ages at the latest, cooks had discovered that a thickened meat broth could be made into a jelly. A detailed recipe for aspic is found in Le Viandier, written in or around 1375.
In the early 19th century, Marie-Antoine Carême created chaud froid in France. Chaud froid means "hot cold" in French, referring to foods that were prepared hot and served cold. Aspic was used as a chaud froid sauce in many cold fish and poultry meals. The sauce added moisture and flavor to the food. Carême invented various types of aspic and ways of preparing it. Aspic, when used to hold meats, prevents them from becoming spoiled. The gelatin keeps out air and bacteria, keeping the cooked meat fresh.
Aspic came into prominence in America in the early 20th century. By the 1950s, meat aspic was a popular dinner staple throughout the United States as were other gelatin-based dishes such as tomato aspic.Cooks used to show off aesthetic skills by creating inventive aspics.
Uses
A speciality of northern Thailand, kaeng kradang is a Thai curry aspic
Aspic can also be referred as aspic gelée or aspic jelly. Aspic jelly may be colorless (white aspic) or contain various shades of amber. Aspic can be used to protect food from the air, to give food more flavor, or as a decoration.
There are three types of aspic textures: delicate, sliceable, and inedible. The delicate aspic is soft. The sliceable aspic must be made in a terrine or in an aspic mold. It is firmer than the delicate aspic. The inedible aspic is never for consumption. It is usually for decoration. Aspic is often used to glaze food pieces in food competitions to make the food glisten and make it more appealing to the eye. Foods dipped in aspic have a lacquered finish for a fancy presentation. Aspic can be cut into various shapes and be used as a garnish for deli meats or pâtés.
Worldwide variants
Eastern Europe
Russian aspic - kholodets with chopped horseradish (chren).
In Russia, a meat aspic dish is called kholodets (Russian: Холодец
derived from the word kholod meaning cold. The dish is part of winter holiday festive meals. In central, eastern and northern Europe, aspic often takes the form of pork jelly, and it is popular around the Christmas and Easter Holidays. A Georgian version is called Mujuji.
Among the Newars of Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, buffalo meat jelly is a major component of the winter festivity gourmet. It is eaten in combination with fish aspic, which is made from dried fish and buffalo meat stock, soured, and contains a heavy mix of spices and condiments.
I AM A FULL-STACK BLOGGER...
FOR EZRA POUND
IL MIGLIOR FABBRO
I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html
The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot, is widely regarded as "one of the most important poems of the 20th century" and a central text in Modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. It was published in book form in December 1922. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", and the mantra in the Sanskrit language "Shantih shantih shantih".
Eliot's poem loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many literary and cultural allusions from the Western canon, Buddhism and the Hindu Upanishads. Because of this, critics and scholars regard the poem as obscure. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time and conjuring of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures.
The poem's structure is divided into five sections. The first section, The Burial of the Dead, introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second, A Game of Chess, employs vignettes of several characters—alternating narrations—that address those themes experientially. The Fire Sermon, the third section, offers a philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial in juxtaposition influenced by Augustine of Hippo and eastern religions. After a fourth section Death by Water that includes a brief lyrical petition, the culminating fifth section, What the Thunder Said, concludes with an image of judgment.
The poem is preceded by a Latin and Greek epigraph from The Satyricon of Petronius. In English, it reads: "I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her, Sibyl, what do you want? she replied I want to die."
Following the epigraph is a dedication (added in a 1925 republication) that reads "For Ezra Pound: il miglior fabbro". Here Eliot is both quoting line 117 of Canto XXVI of Dante's Purgatorio, the second cantica of The Divine Comedy, where Dante defines the troubadour Arnaut Daniel as "the best smith of the mother tongue", and also Pound's title of chapter 2 of his The Spirit of Romance (1910) where he translated the phrase as "the better craftsman". This dedication was originally written in ink by Eliot in the 1922 Boni & Liveright edition of the poem presented to Pound; it was subsequently included in future editions.
Following the epigraph is a dedication (added in a 1925 republication) that reads "For Ezra Pound: il miglior fabbro". Here Eliot is both quoting line 117 of Canto XXVI of Dante's Purgatorio, the second cantica of The Divine Comedy, where Dante defines the troubadour Arnaut Daniel as "the best smith of the mother tongue", and also Pound's title of chapter 2 of his The Spirit of Romance (1910) where he translated the phrase as "the better craftsman". This dedication was originally written in ink by Eliot in the 1922 Boni & Liveright edition of the poem presented to Pound; it was subsequently included in future editions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land
