The martini is perhaps the most renowned alcoholic cocktail, which has come to be immortalized through popular culture in establishing itself as a household name. The sweet and sour blend of vermouth and gin began to make its mark on social circles as far back as 1863, where the popular cocktail known as the ‘Martini’, was allegedly discovered by a barkeep in the USA who supposedly blended Martini & Rossi brand vermouth in a chilled glass with some gin.
But the actual origins of this modern alcoholic marvel are still shrouded in mystery – the earliest historical account claims that the martini was actually invented in 1849, under the original name of ‘the Martinez’, after a miner supposedly stumbled upon the recipe in the town of Martinez during the California Gold Rush. Liking the taste of his new alcoholic blunder, he took the recipe with him to San Francisco, renaming the drink the ‘Martinez Special’, though, this account has never been historical proven – the Martinez special is a drink that exists, and has a similar yet distinctly different recipe.
In contemporary society, the Martini has been seen being drunk by highly prolific historical figures – from Winston Churchill to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Perhaps though, the most infamous inclusion in popular culture was the martini being featured in James Bond films – with the famous line “Martini – shaken, not stirred”. The whole practice of shaking a martini unearths an enormous debate surrounding the correct way to mix the cocktail as argued vehemently by cocktail purists. Many purists believe that martinis should always be “stirred, not shaken, so that the molecules lie sensuously one on top of the other”, as asserted by W. Somerset Maugham, English novelist, playwright and self-professed martini aficionado. Most believe that the effect of stirring a martini ensures that the martini maintains transparency and a crisper taste, whereas shaking supposedly ‘weakens’ the blend by breaking up the ice and adding more water, as well as slightly altering the taste.
But who cares, right? Whatever tastes good for you! The debates that shadow the mixing of the martini cocktail are biased towards the taste preferences of the person arguing their side of the story. The fact remains; it has raised the ranks to become one of the higher class cocktails amongst the drinking elite. So consider this is my informal salute to one of the greatest alcoholic icons of our time!
Now most importantly, here’s how to make the original martini:
Ingredients:
5.5 cl Gin 1.5 cl Dry Vermouth Lemon Peel or Olive to garnish
Preparation:
Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass with ice cubes. Stir well then strain into a chilled martini cocktail glass. Squeeze oil from lemon peel into the drink, or garnish with olives as desired.
Interested in cocktail making? If you’re considering a bar tending job then how about a bar skills course or a RSA course? Etrainu has a range of bar courses to get you up to speed on your bar tending qualifications for bar jobs in Australia.
Simple Complexity brought this cool bubble graph (created by Alexa and TechCrunch) to our attention. It does a great job of charting the rise of social media on a macro scale.
As Americans prepare to stuff their faces with turkey, pie, turkey pie, and all manner of bread-related foods, and clock in millions of hours of TV football viewing, it’s worth considering the Pilgrims, originators of America's holiday. (I was just thinking that a Martian would have a very hard time understanding how football and overeating are linked to an otherworldly religious sect.) How do Pilgrims fit into American history and religious history in general?
The question Mr. Stephens asks is an important one for historians and American culture at large. In our age, how do the Pilgrims fit in? Certainly, we've moved beyond the simplistic (paternalistic and possibly racist) dualism of American Indian=good, European=bad, but have the Pilgrims moved along with us?
A thesis I've been putting around in my head lately is that modern history is so complex, ostensibly in an effort to avoid rigid black and white systems, that all first becomes gray, and then ultimately black. Those who were once the "good guys" became bad guys, then became simply products of their history and culture, and finally are seen as pre-enlightened objects of scorn and pity.
But history is not about good vs. bad (except maybe in WWII studies). The historian's job is to make connections between past and present. The Pilgrims, whether we like it or not, whether we see them as heroes or villains, are a part of American history. Their story is our story, for good or ill.
I've never commented publicly on the WTO shutdown in 1999. Late-night nostalgizing with trusted, drunken comrades does not count, and neither do broad assessments of political and tactical implications. I mean to say that I have never spoken in a public forum about my participation in the events, that is, about my personal experiences or analyses thereof. And I'm not starting now.
This year, November 30th will mark the 10 - year anniversary of another Novermber 30th, the one affectionately known as N30, or the Battle in Seattle. People are talking about that distant day, and about what it was like way-back-when-we-were, and about what has changed in the intervening years. Local, and even national, media outlets are offering competing commemorations, 3-part-series, re-interviews, 20/20-hindsight reckonings. Most of them are re-broadcasting the old archived recordings they made at the time. We knew then that the mainstream coverage sucked, and guess what? It hasn't gotten better with age. They're still trotting out the same tired tropes: property damage = violence, police "gone wild" (as though the behaviors they exhibited were somehow exceoptional in quality rather than just scale.) And now these reporters have that extra sheen of smugness provided by retrospection: 'where are all those radicals NOW?' they sneer, 'guess you've all settled down and accepted How Things Are.'
Earlier this week, I was asked by a radio reporter to provide an interview for her segment of the series 'WTO: Ten Years Later.' Her piece, airing tomorrow, means to probe the changes in protesting and policing that have occurred since, and because of, the Battle in Seattle. When I initially spoke with Ms. Reporter on the phone, I got the impression that she was looking for commentary and analysis on police and activist tactics. She seemed (don't they all?) to be well-informed and reasonable. She told me that she would be interviewing the "leader" of the Ruckus Society, as well as former police chief Norm Stamper, and possibly former mayor Paul Schell. We talked about meeting in a coffee shop or in my office, but she suggested it would be easiest if I came to her studio. (She suggested this without mentioning that she wanted me on mic, in the studio, being recorded. Not that it would have been surprising to learn, just that the omission later came to seem like an evasion.) I went to see her the following morning.
That night, I studied. I wanted to refresh my thinking on the subject, and to respond to the most recent analyses available. I read more than 200 pages of documents: academic papers, a RAND Corporation report, a few book chapters on netwars and the spread of non-hierarchical organizations, and a number of essays on the philosophical problems of defining terrorism and the state of exception. I wanted to be ready. I treated the occasion as I would a conference presentation or a debate.
I should have saved my time. We were barely sitting down for two minutes before it became painfully clear that the interview would be a farce. I came as an analyst, fancying myself an expert. The reporter was looking for human interest. She had no notes, no prepared questions, no provocative assertions to debate. She was pleased to learn that I had been a wee lass of 21 years when I started organizing for the WTO ministerial, and her narrative quickly emerged: young (read: naive) woman (read: naive) gets swept up in the romance of revolt, rides the whirlwind of events surrounding the WTO shutdown, tastes teargas, resolves to Do Good Things ForEVER, and promptly settles down to a work-within-the-system variety of comfortable bourgeois liberalism, thereby continuing her 'activism' in a sensible, constructive, adult way. She sometimes shakes her head in a twee and rueful way at her radical youth, but is firmly untroubled by her decision to be a respectable 'public interest' attorney.
Gag, right? A sampling of questions:
1. "So, are all your friends grown up and working for major corporations now?"
2. "I understand [from a third party] that you're attending law school. Do you consider your legal work to be an extension of your activism?"
3. "Would you consider yourself a protester today?"
2. "I'm going to law school for one reason: to increase my power. I've never been an 'activist.' "
3. "I also never considered myself a protester. You don't get it, do you? If the WTO shutdown was a PROTEST, you wouldn't even have mentioned it on your radio station, and you certainly wouldn't be thiniking about it ten years after the fact. Protests are also known as 'rallies' for a reason: they are essentially pep rallies. They provide people within a movement with the temporary euphoria of apparent camaraderie, some slight increase of visibility, and a consolidation of symbolism. A protest, in the contemporary arena of spectacle, is a theatrical event that serves to increase momentum and fortify group identification. It does not change the enemy. The WTO shutdown was not a protest, it was a mass action with a particular goal: to SHUT DOWN the ministerial. And it worked. So, no, thanks for asking, I don't consider myself a protester, now or then."
Under this barrage of banality, my rage simmering unexpressed, I had the acute awareness that anything I said could be snipped apart and stitched back together in completely distorted form. I stonewalled the reporter, telling her repeatedly that I was not interested in discussing my personal history. It became very clear, during the 30 minutes or so I spent at the radio station, that I had failed to evaluate my own motivations for granting an interview in the first place. As I sat there, I realized that my participation was sheer ego gratification. I had been flattered by the attentions of the reporter, by her insinuation that I was a credible witness, or even an unsung expert. The problem is, I don't actually have any authority from which to make statements about the WTO, policing, the militarized state, any of it. In her eyes, I have no authority at all. If I had wanted to establish credibility, I would have had to reveal facts and stories that I don't wish to reveal. It was a stalemate. As the reporter became angrier and angrier at my refusal to divulge any "personal anecdotes" from N30, or to frame my political engagement in the context of a come-to-Jesus redemption story, or to reveal anything at all about my "emotions," "life lessons," or "inspiring thoughts," she got nastier. Eventually, I was shown the door, and it was locked behind me with a resounding click.
Walking away, I was angry with myself for giving in to the temptation. I shouldn't have answered her call; I shouldn't have appeared in the studio; I shouldn't have consented to the manipulation that followed. As I walked further and faster, I became angry with the reporter, as well, for misrepresenting her purpose, for underestimating my clan, for belittling our efforts. But, as always, walking helped to clear my head. And I remembered some basic principles that were very clearly articulated duriing the heady days of 1999.
We don't talk to the media. We don't give interviews; we don't appear on television. When reporters call, we hang up. When reporters attend our public meetings, we take our business into private session. When reporters attend our private meetings, we eject them. It was simple then, and it's simple now: reporters are not your friends. Whatever mild sympathies they may feel for your ethical standpoint, they will never put those sympathies above the demands of their medium, their jobs, their purportedly 'neutral' position. If you are being interviewed, you are being manipulated.
That's why we made our own media. That's why there are Indymedia centers, even today, ten years later, all across the globe. That's why we broadcast pirate radio, and letterpressed broadsheets, and photocopied our own books, and hijacked newspaper boxes to distribute satirical editions of the local rags. That's why we communicated through graffiti and shortwave and hand signals and face-to-face whispers.
I understand that there are tactically legitimate moments to engage with, and use, the mainstream media. But let's not forget: those engagements must be rigorously proscribed and carefully managed. And they must be viewed instrumentally, as means to an end, and embarked upon only when the potential return outweighs the inherent risk. Don't talk to reporters because you want to Tell Your Story or Be Heard. Save your stories and your authentic voices for your comrades and allies - your enemies don't deserve them. They're only listening so they can hurt you later.
I have to admit that, while coming of age and being a man in the 1970s, I engaged in some rather unsavory behavior. I wrecked a lot of women. I slept with a lot of sports cars. I ate a lot of meat. I talked on the C.B. radio.
Father became enamored the the C.B. radio when he discovered that, relatively cheaply, he could put a C.B. radio inside of the cab of each of the riot control vehicles we were selling and turn, through the miracle of communications, six vehicles into a coordinated, powerful, crowd-flattening juggernaut.
That meant that all of us boys, and my sister Diedre, had to learn how to properly enter a C.B. radio network, use the appropriate 10-whatever codes, and properly leave the network by signing off. For example, for me to call up Father and tell him that the transmission was out on one of our R-362 Crowd Sweeper vehicles, I would have to ask for permission to enter the net. I would have to say something like,
10-41 [radio test], this is Sugar Foot, over (Sugar Foot was my “handle”).
Father would reply,
10-4, Sugar Foot, this is Tater Tot (Father’s “handle”). 10-67(prepare to copy message), 10-8 (stand by).
An hour or so would go by. I’d do a 10-41 again, and then Father would wake up and holler at me in the clear.
These lengthy harangues in the clear, abandoning all pretense of using 10 signals, would inevitably end up being recorded by HAM radio operators all over the Northeastern United States. For years, during the 1980s, Father’s lengthy diatribes were handed around at trade shows and exchanged via mailing lists. He is widely credited with inventing the words “Fuck Stick” and “Pigeon Fucking Toad.”
[…] a few years later the young Sarah became enamored of Todd Palin, a quiet boy who’d moved to town to play basketball at the high school. He drove Sarah to practice. He owned both a car and a truck. He was polite. Her family approved. All was great.
But with four teenagers in the Heath household, calls to members of the opposite sex on their single phone line were banned. Sarah and Todd found a way around this when they discovered that if they stood on their respective back porches they could talk to each other on the VHF radios he used on his fishing boat in the summer.
They talked that way for months – until they discovered that the commercial trucks barreling through towns could hear them.
Instead of love, I experienced nothing but abuse on the C.B. radio. And, just like poor Miss Palin, the haters were listening and recording my conversations. Somewhere, those love notes over the open frequencies were recorded by horny truckers, and put on cassette tapes, and filed away. For her sake, I hope they don’t pop up at the next Republican National Convention.
Let me first introduce Anonymous, or Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii. I don't know how your latin is but this is apparently the "anonymous notary of king Bela".
Anonymous wrote the Gesta Hungarorum which seems to be like a 12th century census of Hungary and the peoples living there
There is controversy about the accracy of Anonymous work, and whether parts are fictitious
The bottom line is that Anonymous was a writer, historian or fiction or both
And let me introduce Someone, appearing with Anonymous in the 2nd picture
Someone doesn't write much, but occasionaly rushes off an email - like this one.
These are different times, what could Anonymous have made up about the Hungarian's in a blog?
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong put his left foot on the rocky Moon. It was the first human footprint on the Moon. They had taken TV cameras with them. The first footprints on the Moon will be there for a million years. This photograph was taken by Buzz Aldrin.
