As much as I may believe that it is entirely unseemly to call a grown man who is not a cartoon “Tommy* Tuberville,” Tommy Tuberville is a 69-year-old man who has been speaking English all of his life and should probably know most of our more common terms.

For instance, abortion, as a medical procedure, is the termination of a pregnancy while one is still pregnant with a fetus that, in cases where there is nothing life-threatening happening, could not survive outside the womb.

Once the baby exits the womb, however, that is homicide. Or infanticide, if you want to get real specific about it.

This comes up because, once again, Tommy Tuberville is echoing Trump by claiming that post-birth abortions are a thing.

“You have to give it to the Democrats, progressive Left; they’re all in on abortion, anytime, anyplace, on the public dime,” Tuberville said on a podcast on Tuesday. “They’re for abortion anytime, sometimes past the birth of the baby.”

So, first of all — we are not in favor of abortion “anyplace.” I am vehemently opposed to anyone having an abortion or any other medical procedure at the table where I am eating, as it is both rude and unsanitary. Neither I nor anyone else I know would recommend one have an abortion on a rollercoaster, or on a flight to the Maldives, or in the dressing room at Nordstrom Rack. We would all prefer that abortions occur in clean, sterile environments.

That being said, it is deeply concerning that both Tuberville and Trump are going around telling people that it is entirely legal to execute newborn babies, because you never know who is going to hear that and decide “Hey, if it’s legal, I think I’ll go kill me a newborn baby.”

It could happen.

But the real sick thing here is that, you know, we all know that’s not what either of them is talking about. They’re talking about palliative care, the standard procedure that happens when a child is born who will not survive more than a few minutes or hours after birth.

Donate Just Once!

It was repulsive before, but it’s extra grotesque and extra cruel now that Republican politicians are forcing people to give birth to babies with no chance of survival. What is it, exactly, that they want doctors to do when babies are born with their brains on the outside of their heads or other fatal fetal anomalies? They don’t want the women to have abortions, they don’t want the doctors to do all they can to make the babies comfortable before they pass on, what is it that they want?

I sent a message to Tuberville asking him some of these questions I have. I doubt he will write back. But it would be really nice if people in the more “legitimate” media could be just a little harsher with this nonsense as well so that we don’t have people going around making this claim — or anyone thinking that homicide is legal.

PREVIOUSLY:

Nine years ago I said Donald Trump had a good chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination, and eventually the presidency, at a time when this opinion was considered self-evidently ridiculous by the Wise. Now not even the Wise can see all ends, and I’m no prophet, and I don’t know nature’s way, but with those characteristically academic caveats out of the way:

I think that Donald Trump is on the verge of collapsing as a political force in America.

I’m NOT saying that his political collapse is inevitable. I’m arguing for the OPPOSITE of complacency. At this most perilous moment, the opportunity to drive a stake into the avatar of revenant fascism in America is just that.

Let me point to three signs and portents:

(1) Trump’s affect and behavior during the first of what will be multiple trials has been a disaster. He can’t stay awake; he can’t control his bodily functions in a socially acceptable way; he is increasingly coming across to all but the most unreachable zealots (admittedly these make up something like a third of the voting public, but that is still a vastly lower percentage than necessary to win or even seriously compete for the presidency) as a viscerally disgusting old man, despite the fancy suits and the drag queen-level cosmetic interventions. And disgust is an extremely powerful political emotion. Yes I realize his base is not disgusted with him, or at least very little of it is. But again, his base only makes up around half of Republican voters, let alone anyone else. For those outside the cult, what is happening in that New York courtroom is a ritual humiliation that for many of them is destroying the idea of Donald Trump as anything other than a pathetic buffoon. Contemporary American elections are won at the margin, and at the margin Trump is getting killed right now. Indeed I believe there’s a serious question of whether he’s even capable of enduring the rest of this trial without having a frank total emotional and physical breakdown. We shall see (If the trial were televised I would be even more confident about all this, but unfortunately it’s not).

(2) Trump and his minions have spent the last couple of weeks begging his supporters (I’m on his email distribution list) not just for money, but to show up in person at his current trial, as a symbolic act of solidarity and resistance. These pleas have been an almost indescribably comprehensive flop. No one — almost literally no one among the 74 million people who voted for him four years ago — has shown up. Yesterday afternoon you could count Trump’s supporters outside the courthouse on the fingers of one hand. This is not a small thing. Trump is so humiliated by this development that he’s making farcical claims about how the police are physically barring thousands of his supporters from the site of the completely non-existent protests in support of him. This massive public absence of support is obviously driving him up the wall, and may well play a key role in the potential breakdown over the course of the trial I mentioned above.

(3) Last night, Pennsylvania held a closed Republican presidential primary, seven weeks after Nikki Haley formally withdrew from the race, and the media noted accurately at the time that there was no longer even the formal semblance of a race for the Republican presidential nomination. This again is at a moment when Trump is begging his supporters for any gesture of loyalty and solidarity. Haley got nearly 17% of the vote — 157,000 out of 946,000 votes cast. These are all registered Republicans, who bothered to go to the trouble of casting an explicitly anti-Trump vote under the most purely symbolic of conditions. Yes I realize most of them will vote for Trump in the general. But a lot won’t vote at all, or will vote for RFK Jr., and a few will even vote for Biden. And again, contemporary elections are won at the margin. Trump can’t afford to lose any of these voters and be competitive in Pennsylvania, or any other swing state. All in all, it’s a terrible sign for him.

Six months is a long time. A lot can happen in the interim. The Electoral College is wildly favorable to any Republican presidential candidate at the moment. A lot of the mainstream media are prostitutes who want a close race more than they want to avoid fascism. All this is true. All this means that anti-Trump efforts should be redoubled. Far too much is on the line to take anything for granted.

Still: I think he’s done.

The post The world is changed: Cassandra on Zoloft appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Background here.

Note that this means that the majority of USC’s graduating undergraduates will have missed both their high school commencement (because of Covid) and their college commencement (because upper university administrators have evolved into an invertebrate species.)

The post USC cancels its commencement appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

The olive tree was domesticated in the Near East about the fourth millennium B.C. and there is evidence of olives being cultivated in pharaonic Egypt, though the Greek geographer Strabo observed they only grew in Alexandria.

Olives were a staple for the average Greek and Roman, and they were usually stored in the dark by layering them with fennel in jars filled with brine. Olive oil must be stored in the dark and with little or no contact with air. They were also used in a popular dip, which, according to the Roman author Cato, was made by pitting the olives, choping them up and then marinating them in oil, vinegar, coriander, cumin, fennel, rue and mint.

In Arabic, olives are known as zaytūn (زيتون) and in the medieval culinary tradition its fruit was mostly used for its oil, and less as an ingredient. They were often consumed as a side or snack, seasoned (mutabbal) and preserved in water and salt. Olives were used far more in the Muslim West (al-Andalus and North Africa) than in the East, often also to decorate dishes, or in the stuffing of meat dishes. Olive oil, too, was used far more in the Maghrib, in contrast with the sheep’s tail fat used in the Near East.

Green olives were considered to have a large number of benefits, including as an aphrodisiac. The best are the unripe ones; when salted, they strengthen the stomach, but cut the appetite, and are harmful to the lungs, which can be remedied wth honey.

Black olives are quickly digested. The best types are those that are reddish, rather than entirely black. As they arouse the appetite, they should be eaten before the meal. Mountain olives came highly recommended because they were appetizing and useful against sciatica. They should be eaten in the middle of the meal, with vinegar.

(Editor’s Note: With our state of the Stomach pieces, Culinary Backstreets looks at how – and why – a city is eating right now. This is our latest one for Istanbul.)

On a weeknight near the tail end of March, Istanbul found some clear skies after an annoyingly wet winter. The sky was navy blue, verging on purple, and it was jean-jacket weather, the best kind. Just shy of 10 p.m., we ambled through our most-frequented corner of the Beyoğlu district, the area where Mis, Kurabiye and Süslü Saksı Streets converge. This triangle is home to some of our favorites: Köfteci Hüseyin fires up some of the tastiest grilled meatballs in Istanbul, Zübeyir Ocakbaşı grills skewers of the best lamb money can buy, Müşterek and Meclis offer excellent meze in a warm setting, while Marlen is our favorite place to drown in pints of Tuborg beer or sip reasonably-priced cocktails. That early-spring night, the outdoor tables were mostly full, and would have been jam-packed had it been a weekend.

If a city can be described as having a heart, then Beyoğlu is Istanbul’s – the neighborhood has long been synonymous with cosmopolitanism, urbanism, nightlife and tradesmen culture. Like the city, it has undergone rapid changes throughout its history, and the present is no exception. Having struggled for years with a massive influx of capital that transformed much of the area into a shopping-oriented tourist wonderland, Beyoğlu is fighting back harder than ever to maintain its authenticity and spirit, in spite of all odds against an economic and political situation that prefers it resembles one huge, contiguous mall. 

For centuries, Beyoğlu’s Taksim Square (taksim means “division” in Ottoman Turkish) distributed water that came from the north to different parts of the city. The historic reservoir stands there to this day – right in front of the giant, shiny new mosque built a few years ago. The reservoir serves as a powerful symbol, with Beyoğlu today still a center for the city’s urban energy and barometer of its mood and well being. As the neighborhood rises and falls – and, like today, rises again – so does the rest of Istanbul.

In Beyoğlu and Beyond

As we strolled through Beyoğlu, tables left and right were full of mostly locals and a smattering of tourists, drinking and having a good time. But these days, the specter of inflation looms over every corner of the city. Those who come to Istanbul even for a weekend trip can see the price of their coffee or meal of kuru fasulye go up a couple lira from their Friday arrival to Sunday departure – no matter if it’s the same order at the same restaurant. For the past several years, Turkey has been grappling with a deepening economic crisis characterized by unprecedented inflation that has reached over three digits and the ongoing devaluation of the Turkish lira. While Istanbul may seem cheap for foreign visitors, it is very expensive for locals, who continue to see their purchasing power grow weaker.

To make matters worse, the government, no friend of adult beverages, continues to raise a special luxury tax on alcoholic drinks twice a year. This has resulted in particularly high and perpetually climbing prices of the national spirit rakı, making it more and more difficult for us to seek comfort from all the madness in the pleasantly potent drink – heaven in a slim glass when sipped with meze, green melon and white cheese.

However, in recent years we’ve seen more bars, restaurants and meyhanes opening than closing, not just in Beyoğlu but across the city. It might be a result of that old cliché that these kinds of spots stay full during times of crises, but there is a political angle as well that seems to have worked against what the government is trying to do. Sure enough, the consumption of both rakı and other spirits continues to increase annually in Turkey.

We took this all in as we crossed over to Balo Street, which once was loaded with bars and clubs and was the place to party if you were a student 10-15 years ago. Nowadays, all that remains is a popular Irish pub and a few dodgy establishments with flashy signs and multiple bouncers at the door. Our go-to bar a stone’s throw away recently closed, a neon-pink perfume shop now in its place. We head into Nevizade, among Beyoğlu’s liveliest areas, and the meyhanes and bars there are far from empty. For years, Nevizade reeled from the aftermath of the 2013 Gezi Park protests, where indiscriminate police violence spread to its backstreets numerous times over that summer, causing many to abandon it entirely.

On top of that, a government crackdown on outdoor dining and drinking in Beyoğlu in conjunction with the mass commercialization of the district, which replaced historic small businesses with chain clothing stores and bars with hookah cafés, has drastically changed the area. Many people have declared Beyoğlu dead and have chosen to socialize elsewhere. We have never bought this pessimistic take, and saw growing evidence that the area’s storied nightlife is being revitalized.

Moreover, the wildly unexpected March 31st local election results saw the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) sustain a shocking nationwide defeat, which included ceding Beyoğlu. The district had been run by the party or its predecessor for the past 30 years, but was captured by the main opposition center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) this time around, providing more hope that a new local government would prioritize the district’s historic and cultural legacy as well as its nightlife and culinary scene over crass commercial development and gentrification.

Crossing Istiklal Avenue, we ducked through Kartal Street. Here, in this alley with its ceiling of ivy hanging overhead, two neighborhood establishments – Urban bar and Çukur meyhane – have managed to stay afloat. Just next door is Sendika, a brand new bar, restaurant and club that is a sleek symbol of the return of Beyoğlu. Decorated sharply with mirrored walls, an old-fashioned bar and elegant lamp posts guarding a winding staircase that leads to a dance floor, Sendika offers a menu of ambitious bar food with a formidable cocktail list. We started with a citrusy bourbon drink spiked with sumac – one of the secret weapons of the Turkish spice arsenal – and found ourselves diving into a spicy fried chicken sandwich and taquitos, of all things. We have not seen them on a menu in Istanbul or anywhere else on this side of the Atlantic, but they came out freshly fried and garnished with cilantro and lime, two ingredients that a few years ago would’ve been hard to come by in this city. Creative people are continuing to take major risks in Istanbul to do something new and different, and it is enriching the dining scene as a result.

Waves of Change

Even beyond Beyoğlu, traversing our beloved behemoth of a city from corner to corner, we’ve noticed a string of other changes and trends taking hold. We remember barely a decade ago lamenting the difficulty of finding a decent cup of coffee, a solid slice of pizza or a proper burger, and wishing historic neighborhoods like Karaköy’s Perşembe Pazarı – devoid of life after dark – could get a good spruce. We’ve since learned to be careful what we wish for.

When Doğuş Group and Bilgili Holding won the privatization tender for the ultra-luxe Galataport construction in 2013, bars, cafés and restaurants – all impeccably designed but lacking in any real character or soul, and expensive, to boot – arrived on the scene in no time. Spreading all over the city, cookie-cutter burger joints and third-wave coffee shops that probably cost a fortune to decorate grew from irritating to hair-raising reminders that the banality of globalization manifests itself in even subtle signifiers, like red La Marzocco espresso machines and exposed brick.

If we’re in Karaköy, it’s likely only to stop into the excellent Karaköy Lokantası, which came long before the uninspiring newcomers we’ve elected to avoid entirely. The restaurant recently moved to another location in the neighborhood with a glitzier, more upscale dining room, but has maintained its combination of high quality without outrageous prices. However, walk through Galataport – a massive $1.7-billion-dollar project that essentially created an expansive seaside promenade flanked by another shopping mall packed with tourists – and outrageous prices will be all you see. After years of delays, the port slow-rolled its opening at the end of 2021. The promenade itself – which is heavily surveilled and can be accessed after walking through metal detectors – is pleasant enough, that is when there aren’t massive cruise ships that have docked alongside it, blocking the exquisite Bosphorus view completely.

But it’s migration, not tourism, that has strongly dictated Istanbul’s foreign food scene over the years, with newcomers making inroads. What began as a flurry of restaurants offering a surprising array of flavors from the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and the Far East has now become an established subsect of the city’s cuisine. Many of these places are centered around the Aksaray neighborhood, where we’ve feasted on excellent Georgian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Uzbek, Uighur, Azerbaijani and Russian dishes.

The Fatih district has also become a Little Syria of sorts. The 3.6 million people who have come to Turkey seeking refuge from Syria’s catastrophic civil war over the past decade have left an indelible trace on Istanbul’s food universe, as hundreds if not thousands of Syrian restaurants ranging from stands hawking falafel and shawarma to sit-down restaurants serving Damascene home cooking have become standards across the city. More recently, the Beyoğlu and Şişli districts have seen a surge in the number of down-home restaurants offering the cuisine of Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan, more than welcome additions to the city’s now-international food scene and a tableaux of the new patterns of migration unfolding on the streets.

The World’s Most Dynamic City

Though we’ve witnessed changes both negative and positive, many things remain intact. The city is still a simmering synthesis of delicacies and delights from all over, many of which are within a convenient arm’s length. If we have an inkling for Erzurum’s çağ kebabı, Trabzon’s kuymak, Mersin’s tantuni or Hatay’s humus, we know where to go. On the flip side, it appears that we might be witnessing the last era of the usta, as masters of kebab, köfte and other classic dishes are getting older, with no one eager to replace them when they hang up the apron.

Many of these men were unable to have an education, working their entire lives to ensure a better future for their children. Almost every usta we’ve talked to says that this means their kids won’t be carrying on the tradition. But all is not lost. As with the revitalization of Beyoğlu, folks like former ad-man Cihan Turan are bringing their creative talents to the food world, offering Turkish twists to dishes like the Sloppy Joe at Kurtuluş’s Horo Burger, which is decked out in eighties horror movie and retro video game paraphernalia.

Cool new projects notwithstanding, we’ve been watching warily as the number of hip coffee shops, cocktail bars and restaurants in the historically cosmopolitan Kurtuluş increases slowly but surely. Even mentioning the high cost of rent has reached the point of cliché. But the area’s deeply rooted small-business ethos is holding strong. Walking down the main street and exchanging pleasantries with familiar shopkeepers reminds us of the rich neighborhood culture that thrives here and in so many other places throughout the city, in spite of everything.

And while our pockets have been hit hard by inflation and the constant hikes on booze, we still manage to find ourselves in our favorite meyhanes crowding around a bottle of Prototip and an assortment of the best meze, some of which are so complex and rich in flavor we cannot believe they were made with just two or three ingredients. It is during these moments, when we clink our glasses and smile at one another, that we are happy to be in (what is still) the world’s most dynamic city, able to spend another night indulging in its favorite pastime.

The post Istanbul: The State of the Stomach appeared first on Culinary Backstreets.

We’ve been missing Halloween at Atlas Obscura, so we decided to bring a little horror into early summer: Welcome to Rites of Spring, a curated collection of frights from around the world.

Over the next week, we’ll take you to the vast, arid deserts of the Gobi in search of the Mongolian death worm. We’ll dive beneath the Pacific to witness the horrors of the 600-pound King Octopus. We’ll gaze at the immortal horror of Haxan, the groundbreaking 1920s documentary about witchcraft, and much, much more.

So as the Beltane fires blaze and flowers anoint May Queens, we at Atlas Obscura invite you into this terrifying tapestry of stories. We hope you make it out alive.