Unfair criticism

I was dismayed to read the April 16 New York Times editorial, “Guns and Bitter” where, in discussing Sen. Barak Obama’s remarks about working class voters, the editor wrote of his “bonehead remarks” covering small towns. What an adjective to use. I had to look in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary – – bonehead was defined as “a stupid person: numskull.”

Well, surely neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Obama can be defined that way. They are both very bright and articulate. The rest of the editorial was favorable, but the two were accused of not facing important issues of today.

The five letter writers on the same page favored the Obama remarks. The heading was “Obama and Working Class America.”

A lady from Indiana wrote, “Unlike William Kristol, I did not interpret references to bitterness in Barack Obama’s speech as condescension to small-town America. His comments could apply more universally, to people on farms and in cities, too. What I cling to is the audacious hope that the presidential election will usher in real change – beginning with Day 1.”

Words about walking

For years I have enjoyed William Hazlitt’s essay on walking, and I’ve just discovered another of my favorite authors, Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote an essay on walking in “Aes Triplex,” and they both preferred walking alone. Hazlitt’s opening lines in his essay, “On Going A Journey,” says: “One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.”

Stevenson, in his essay, “Walking Tours,” says: “Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone. If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is no longer a walking tour in anything but name; it is something else and more in the nature of a picnic. A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl.”

I have hiked for many years, and usually with a group. In my Deering High School days, I belonged to the Ski Club, and we had many fall and spring hikes to the White Mountains. Later I hiked with friends in the Appalachian Mountain Club, and later with Joe Kocknavate’s group of seniors that he used to lead on walks, when he worked for the city of Portland’s Recreation Department. I also have had many walks with my own family, four children and my husband.

So it is not necessarily the British authors’ preferring solitary walking that attracts me to their writing. Their literary feelings about the out of doors are very well expressed, too. They both write beautifully.

Listening to Glass

Last Saturday’s Metrepolitan Opera broadcast of a recently written opera, “Satyagraha,” by Philip Glass, was surely different from the earlier operas I had listened to. This opera had its premiere in 1980 in the Municipal Theater in Rotterdam.

I had listened to Verdi’s “Ernani” March 29, and was interested to hear the tenor, Marcello Giordani, the handsome man who was pictured on the March cover of Opera News. He had the lead of Ernani, and gave a wonderful performance. Also I enjoyed the production of Puccini’s “La Boheme,” on April 5. It has the claim of being the world’s most popular opera – beautiful music.

“Satyagraha” has an interesting write-up in Opera News: “Mahatma Gandhi’s work during his formative years in South Africa is the subject of Philip Glass’s extraordinary opera, performed at the Met in a co-production with English National Opera, where it opened to phenomenal acclaim. The opera’s Sanskrit libretto is comprised on passages from the Bhagavad Gita. Each of the three acts makes reference to an historical figure relating to Gandhi’s life and philosophy; Leo Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore and Martin Luther King.”

I would like to see an opera I’m not familiar with performed so that I can understand it better. But I doubt if I will see “Satyagraha” on the stage. I can perhaps borrow a copy from a library later and become familiar with it that way.

I was pleased to read that it opened “to phenomenal acclaim.”

Sweet combo

Today’s recipe is from the 1986 National Grange cookbook, “The Glory of Cooking.” It was submitted Phillis I. Ellyson, Danville Grange, New Hampshire. We enjoyed last week’s Grange recipe for Lemon Pudding, and plan to make it again soon.

COOKIE PUDDING

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups milk

4 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups cookie crumbs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Soak raisins in water to cover, for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain. Combine next 4 ingredients in blender container. Process for 1 minute. Combine with cookie crumbs and raisins in baking dish; mix well. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Ramblings