Festival Fun in Yokosuka

We went out in town last night to eat dinner and unexpectedly ran into a mikoshi festival. We ate our way up and down Blue Street instead of hitting our favorite restaurant.

Giant crepes, fried round potatoes (with options of garlic, mayo or chocolate sauce), bits of fried chicken on a stick, little Pokemon shaped doughnut holes, pork yakitori (again with options of garlic salt or chocolate), and then shave ice (no, not as good as the cart at the foot of Diamond Head, but with Japanese Matcha - Green Tea as a flavor option). For all our sakes we avoided the stands with little doughballs filled with squid, although at the booths here, you had the pick of long tentacles the size of a good cucumber that they would chop up or having a whole small squid in each ball. Wait, I just realized that I totally forgot the long pineapple slice dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. The chocolate covered banana probably would have been a bit easier to eat.

It took us about 90 minutes to wander down the street and back, a walk which we can usually do in about 15 minutes. Great people watching. There were lots of families and young kids out. The festival seemed to be especially kid friendly, with masks of anime figures for sale, booths selling shiny plastic baubles by the scoop, and pellet gun shooting, ring toss and tombolas for prizes. The kids spent about ten minutes watching one target shooting game and concluded that it was almost physically impossible to knock the prizes off the shelf to win them, a lesson in the house always winning that I hope they realize transends location.

There were also booths where kids could get goldfish and tiny green turtles. Naturally there was a bit of a contest aspect. At the fish booths, you were given a bowl and a flat net. You had to try to scoop the fish into the bowl with the net. Seemingly you get as many fish as you can scoop up, however the net is just a loop of wire with paper stuck to it. Even harder was the turtle catching. Here you were handed a skewer with an edible ice cream cup stuck onto the end. Evidently you have to try to scoop up the turtle and get it into your bowl before the cup dissolves.

Walked home tired but pleased with our unexpected brush with Japanese fun. No fish or turtles (or prizes from the shooting galleries), but the kids were plotting how to use their shave ice cups for breakfast drink.

After the Hangover Disappoints

I just finished reading After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr as part of the Thomas Nelson Booksneeze program.

Considering myself a conservative, I looked forward to reading this book. I thought that it might provide a thoughtful analysis of where conservatives have drifted away from their core values. I found on the whole that the book disappointed me. The first half struck me as an extended introduction. The historical retrospectives didn’t go back far enough for me, leading the reader to think that conservatism started in the 1960s without considering that it might have any older origins. There were few if any references to the founders or to conservative thought from the 19^th or early 20^th century.

Tyrrell often classifies people or groups as movement conservative, neo-conservative, and new conservative without taking enough time to explain what he sees as the distinctions between the groups. For someone who criticizes what he sees as insufficient interaction and mutual reference between conservative writers and intellectuals, it seemed like most of his references to other conservatives were negative. Even William F. Buckley, whom Tyrell admires, was criticized for not staying in the thick of the battle through his last decades. What struck me as even odder was his relative silence on the influence of conservative talk radio and internet blogs and websites.

I’m not really sure what the intended purpose or audience of the book is. While complaining of the pervasive effects of what he has termed Kultursmog, he gave insufficient historical background for his points. Even as a 40-something who has voted in six presidential elections, the stagflation and oil rationing of the 1970s is at best a dim memory of childhood. I think that younger readers would find many of the conservative figures mentioned to be less than even a distant memory. There also didn’t seem to be a detailed vision of what a conservative movement would believe or advocate (his policy points are limited to a few pages in one of the last chapters). He also seemed to ignore the concept of social conservatism, with little discussion of how viewpoints on issues like abortion, marriage, immigration or parental rights affect a voter’s willingness to label themselves as conservative. In fact the short paragraphs that he spends on immigration in the last chapter seem too approving of amnesty for this conservative’s ears. It strikes an especially off note given the furor over legislation passed in Arizona since the book’s publication.

All in all, this seemed less of a book about conservative ideals than about Mr. Tyrrell’s position in the conservative movement. Even viewed as a memoir of his role during the waxing and waning of conservative influence, it still felt like it was a series of columns hanging loosely together.

I received a copy of this book for review from Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Dinner Tonight

So my dear husband spends a fair amount of time traveling, in this job to exotic places like Jakarta and Borneo and Singapore. I don't get to go with him, but he has learned to be a wonderful personal shopper.

And he has started hitting up grocery stores for spice mixes. Last time he was away, he brought back several Maggi packs for fried black pepper beef that were luscious. This time he bought an entire box of them. And a few other goodies like 5 Spice chicken mix and satay sauce.

Tonights dinner is Thai style chicken satay. I wonder how you say Betty Crocker in Thai?