The greater and lesser Seitan: Iran and cooking for inlaws

I just finished a meal with olives and gorgonzola, as well as lemon juice and parsley, cooked for Koreans. (And praise seitan made from scratch. Not bad for a first try, but I wonder if it will get better.) Talk about culturally inappropriate. Dong-sa trying the gorgonzola with chopsticks before not adding any to his dish was... Yes, I intentionally try to cook just outside guests' comfort range. For my wife and her sister, it can sometimes be wonderful experience. My wife previously couldn't stand olives. But with multiple guests, Dong-sa gets screwed.

Anyway, I've mostly stayed off the events in Iran. Despite personal interest, I've largely limited the topics on this blog in a way that they previously didn't seem to fit. But I do need to pass along this bit of news. Chavez is supporting Ahmadinejad. Chavez is no Leftist, but is often inexplicably treated as such. Screwiness on the Left often has repurcussions for Jews, so this was a good excuse to share.

And while I'm at it, let me recommend Richard Jeffrey Newman's careful interpretations. Often, democracy is best understood as institutionalized power for the individual. But often, for the sake of moving beyond dualism, it is better understood as the ability of the government to listen to the people. Newman bridges that gap as well as anyone.

Update: My wife instists it's dong-SUH. Like I'm some kind of expert transliterator.

Helping Dongsa move

Yesterday, I helped my Dongsa move. We met one of the tenants in the new building, Ya'el. By the name, I asked if she was Israeli. She was, and explained that she's lived in a lot of places. LA was shallow; she hated Phoenix. And we talked about Israeli politics. She's pretty close to Meretz. However, last time she voted - and she said she was proven right about this, though she was also clearly a little embarrased about it - she voted for Begin. Her thinking, Israeli thinking at the time as she characterized it, was that only a real hardliner could make concessions for peace work. That said, she's really upset by the current government. But when I said I hoped it wouldn't last two years, she said confidently that it wouldn't even last that long.