[The financial impact of the NAACP boycott of South Carolina has been heavy in the news today. In case you’ve been asleep for a while, the NAACP is boycotting South Carolina because the confederate battle flag is flying over the capitol building there. I understand that the NAACP has had to pick its battles, and maybe this was the easiest to win, but in South Carolina, there’s one flag flying over one building. The NAACP press release says “South Carolina is the only state to fly the Confederate battle flag over its Statehouse " and I strongly disagree. The picture at the beginning of this post is the Georgia State flag. If you click on the image, you’ll be taken to the state’s official flag webpage. As you can see, the confederate battle flag makes up about 80% of the entire flag design. This flag is flown not just over the capitol building, but at every government office, in every state courtroom, at every public school, at every library. Millions of flags flying on millions of public flagpoles, all either proudly displaying the state’s heritage or cruelly reminding of several hundred years of atrocities depending on your point of view. Why is one flag over one building getting all of the attention? I hope that one flag gets taken down soon so that the NAACP and the presidential candidates and the press can start seeing all of the millions of flags here in Georgia. I’ve called the NAACP (410.486.9227) on this issue to see what their position is, and they’ve informed me that they don’t currently have one.

I’m hoping that this meme won’t spread too fast, but I give it here so you can view the goods while they’re still there. Cletus’ Farm ("Some folk’ll never eat a skunk, but then again some folk’ll, like Cletus the slack-jawed yokell! “) has most of the episodes of The Simpsons available for viewing in either streaming or downloadable realplayer formats. The site is heavily flashed, and certainly not legal (in the eyes of Fox, anyway). My personal favorite is “Last Exit to Springfield” from season for, where the nuclear plant workers strike over a dental plan. That episode has everything that makes The Simpsons great wrapped up in a single episode, but for some reason it never shows up in anyone’s favorites list. Thanks to Bird on a Wire for posting about this.

I live in rural Georgia. Yesterday I visited my local laundramat. The fellow next to me was washing two loads of camouflage clothes while talking on his cellphone about the hunt that evening. I asked him what was in season and he told me “We go coon huntin’!” He then proceeded to talk at me at great length about the disastrous hunt the night before with his buddies “Hoss”, “Mange”, and some kid. It was disastrous because their pack of dogs was hit by a car as they crossed a highway, killing two of them. One dog was only five months old and was just bought by the kid for $400. “I sure felt bad for that kid,” he told me. They were going right back out that night.

Here’s a badly edited panoramic view from my front porch.

My, what a beautiful morning it was. This is the ivy-covered smokehouse as seen from my back porch.

Over lunch I heard on NPR an interview with Robert Wright about his new book Non Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny. I haven’t looked over the website yet, but the interview was very interesting. Like his previous book, The Moral Animal , this one looks at the evolution of human society and takes a stab at looking where we are going.

What’s black and white and dead all over? The 500 Snacks temporary exhibit over at Lilek’s Institute of Official Cheer’s Gallery of Regrettable Food. Hurry… the exhibit may close at any time.

Always water the monkeys. Always! Let this be a lesson to you.

Last week a few bloggers wrote about deep-fried candy bars. I don’t remember which ones, and the search engines aren’t telling, but here’s a BBC article about the uproar caused when a Scottish chef put deep fried Mars bars on the menu in his restaurant in France. Apparently, the French food critics don’t care for that sort of thing. The article give a brief account of the food’s history, noting “The deep-fried Mars Bar is thought to have originated in Stonehaven, in the north-east of Scotland. Its existence may help account for the fact that parts of Scotland have the highest incidence of heart disease, cancer and strokes, the worst teeth and the lowest life expectancy in the developed world. " Leave it to the BBC to take a swipe at the Scots.

A wacky CNN story about a man and his sourdough. Must’ve been a slow newsday at the Food desk, I guess. My friend Kim takes great pleasure in telling people that I’ve named my sourdough starter, offering it up as one more piece of evidence showing just how weird I really am. If only she knew the whole of it (she will now… hi Kim!). She thinks its name is Harold, but really it’s Harald , named for Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway who invaded England in 1066, was defeated by King Harold Godwinson, who was in turn immediately defeated by William, Duke of Normandy in the Battle of Hastings. So I’m not just weird, I’m a weird dork, no? I know it’s not all that strange to name your sourdough, though. I’m sure my parents had a named starter (Herman, I think) when I was small that they got from someone else. Actually, after a quick Google search, it appears that many, many people must have had Herman.