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The Hersch

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Everything posted by The Hersch

  1. The Hersch
    Oh yeah, well Franco-American was superiore--it said so right on the can. Sadly, Campbell's has discontinued the Franco-American name for their delicious canned pasta products.Happily, my mother was never so pressed for time or money that she fed us canned pasta, which consequently I have never tasted. We got Mexican TV dinners!
  2. The Hersch
    I don't think "substantive" means what you think it means.
  3. The Hersch
    The sovereignty of the individual states was firmly subordinated to the national government only by the Civil War. Of course you don't get a vote on whether to have an FCC, but the FCC was created by act of Congress (all of which was popularly elected at the time) and signed into law by the more-or-less popularly elected President, who could have vetoed it if he cared to. The bills that became the Communications Act were introduced in Congress by duly elected representatives, written by them and their staffs, not handed to them on a like-it-or-lump-it basis by the executive branch. It would be absurd to deny that the United States has a lot of unaccountable bureaucrats, but the government's underlying popular sovereignty gives democratic legitimacy to the whole enterprise, and there is nothing remotely comparable about the governance structure of the EU.
  4. The Hersch
    Today, Midsummer Day, also the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, is Kiko's eighth birthday. I don't have any Irish whiskey in the house, so a Campari and soda will have to do.
  5. The Hersch
    You and I may disagree profoundly, but I think in at least one way we are talking at cross purposes. My reference to "sovereignty" was not intended to refer to thing like "states' rights" or the like. I was attempting to make the point that to the extent institutions are founded upon popular sovereignty they are democratic. To the extent they're not, they're not. The European Commission, which is roughly the executive branch of the EU government, is essentially answerable to no one. Its president is elected by the European Parliament, but solely on nomination by the European Council, which represents the current administrations of the member countries, who in turn are answerable to nobody. There is a European Parliament, of course, but it is largely a talking shop, with no ability to propose laws, which is the sole province of the unaccountable President of the Commission. If that looks to you like a set of institutions based on popular sovereignty, I'm afraid I'll have to borrow your spectacles. On the 13 American colonies giving up most of their sovereign rights, that was only accomplished via the most calamitous episode in our history. Oh, and a free Scotland and a free and united Ireland wouldn't be such a bad result.
  6. The Hersch
    Most of the discussion here assumes that Brexit will be a very bad thing. I'd have be persuaded of that. Say what you will about Nigel Farage, and I certainly don't agree with his views generally, but he's quite right that the EU is more and more about the abandonment of sovereign democratic institutions, built up over thousands of years, to the unelected, unaccountable institutions in Brussels. Britain should never have joined, and while extricating herself from the spider's web is going to be extremely painful and messy, good money should never be thrown after bad.
  7. The Hersch
    Unless you're the CIA. I was in a pub-quiz type of event years ago (only it wasn't in a pub and there was no alcohol). The question was something like which language is a primary language of the most countries. I was thinking it's got to be Arabic or Spanish, but no. The answer came from the CIA World Factbook (as interpreted by a not-very-bright person) and it was English, at 58. For the purposes of this count, among the "countries" where English is spoken are Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guam, the Falklands, American Samoa, and the Isle of Man.
  8. The Hersch
    Janet Baker at the height of her powers singing Haydn at the height of his, with Raymond Leppard on fortepiano.
  9. The Hersch
    I last ate at Durgin Park in I think the mid-70s, when it was a landmark but not yet a tourist trap. The servers were notoriously brusque, but not known for great rudeness. Sort of like the old brigade of waitresses at the Trio in the late 70s and early 80s. Well, Estelle could be breathtakingly rude at times, but that might have been because she was always drunk. I remember I was there once with a slightly timid little boyfriend who ordered something or other for dessert, and Estelle brought him something completely different. My friend wouldn't speak up for himself, but I said "Estelle, that's not what he ordered". She looked down at whatever it was and huffed "he'll eat it" and walked off.
  10. The Hersch
  11. The Hersch
    Pesce almost always has them as an appetizer, at least this time of year. Three on a plate, perfectly grilled, paired with nothing but a piece of lemon (currently 12 dollars). I've had them there twice in ten days. I must say I love Pesce; Always bright and cheerful, prompt, helpful service, excellent food, reasonable prices. There should be more like this.
  12. The Hersch
    Was it called something else before?
  13. The Hersch
    My dear old dog Cassie, who was my soul mate, had Addison's disease. She came within a hair's breadth of dying of it, before being saved by the heroic people at Friendship Animal Hospital. A special shout-out to Dr. Kimberley Schultz. As to Cary Grant and Grace Kelly: He was beautiful to look at and one of Hollywood's great actors. She was beautiful to look at.
  14. The Hersch
    Who is still around in Georgetown from the 1960's or earlier? Martin's Tavern, obviously (unless they closed it when I wasn't looking). Blues Alley. Georgetown Veterinary Hospital claims to have been in business since the 1940s. Damned if I can think of any others. You may remember that Georgetown Tobacco used to be called Georgetown Tobacco and Pipe.
  15. The Hersch
    How about the Junkanoo? (Where Chipotle is now on Connecticut below R)
  16. The Hersch
    Bob Dylan at 75.
  17. The Hersch
    I haven't looked very hard, so if this has been discussed already, please excuse it. No preview function before you submit a comment? I'm kind of lost without that.
  18. The Hersch
    It might be noted that the Hope Diamond was probably the gem Arthur Conan Doyle had in mind when he wrote the Sherlock Holmes tale "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", although diamonds are not carbuncles, and carbuncles are never blue.
  19. The Hersch
    I don't think "thereby" and "therefore" are often confused with each other, at least in writing. What really does bug me is people who seem to think that "therefor" (meaning for that purpose, for that thing) is a classy alternative spelling of "therefore". The same applies to "discrete" for "discreet".
  20. The Hersch
    I believe that the height of One Franklin Square falls under the exception in the Height of Buildings Act for ornamental "spires, towers, domes, pinnacles, or minarets", like the Shrine and the Islamic Center.
  21. The Hersch
    Long before the hotel at 21st and Mass was a Ritz Carlton, it was the Fairfax Hotel, from its opening in 1927 until a renovation and rebranding as a Ritz Carlton in 1982. Al Gore grew up there. His father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., was a cousin of the long time owner, also a Gore.
  22. The Hersch
    Strictly speaking, Eric Burdon was the lead singer of "Eric Burdon and War", not of "War", which existed outside his participation with it. Eric Burdon had no role in "The Cisco Kid", which was recorded by War, on their great album The World Is a Ghetto, which was entirely Burdon-less. Don't get me wrong: I love Eric Burdon, but only for the work he actually did.
  23. The Hersch
    I think you're right, Boss Shepherd's came before Peppers. I can't find dates for either. And what came before them? I thought it was Sun Foods, which was a little grocery that sometimes had the best produce in the neighborhood, but I think Waitman shot that memory down several years ago, saying Sun Foods was next door. So I can't remember. This is the sort of thing that you often can't find out on the Internet, much as you think you ought to be able to. Like when did Schwartz's Drugstore (Connecticut and R) close?
  24. The Hersch
    Doh! Yes, it was Radicchio, not Rucola as I said above. Pepper's I think may have been there while I still lived in the neighborhood, but I'm not sure. It was subsequently Boss Shepherd's (unrelated, I believe, to the restaurant currently using that name), Jack's, and now Agora, I think. I don't think I ever ate in any of those incarnations, although maybe I ate at Pepper's once. If you go to 16th and P Streets looking for a restaurant, you'll be disappointed to find a Methodist church.
  25. The Hersch
    The 17th St. strip certainly wasn't a culinary destination back in the day when I lived in the neighborhood, which was 1981-1993, but it wasn't a wasteland either. Sushi Taro, mentioned above, was far less up-market then, but it was a pretty good sushi joint. Where Komi is now was a pretty good Chinese place, the name of which I forget, and then a Roberto Donna place, originally, I think, an instance of Rucola, and then something else. Dupont Italian Kitchen was always dreadful, and I can't believe it's still in business and apparently thriving, but next door was a really wonderful little Latino place called El Tropical, which I loved, and which was probably the best 17th-Street restaurant during the two or three years it existed, in the mid-1980s. At the corner of 17th and R was a good Mexican restaurant called La Fonda, where I had several meals that were all probably better than anything I had at Skewers. Just to the east on R St. was a Washington institution, the fairly highly-regarded Spanish place called El Bodegí³n, which I never dined at. I agree that Skewers wasn't bad, and was better than most of the places on the strip, like the aforementioned Italian Kitchen, and Annie's, and the Trio (although you could eat well and cheaply at the Trio if you knew what you were doing, which I did).
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