The watery part of the world

For a bit of a change, the Spousal Unit and I spent Thanksgiving week on the Florida Gulf Coast. It's been nice renewing my pretty shallow acquaintance with salt water. Among the things I've seen that aren't usually part of a West Virginia November are dolphins, an alligator, pelicans, lizards and any number of seabirds. It's been good to verify that saying of Melville's from Moby-Dick about the link between water and meditation:

Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries- stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

The salt mines of Appalachia await...

Annual Thanksgiving possum recipe...with a bonus

It has been the custom at Goat Rope from time immemorial, or at least the last 8 years or so, to post a link to a possum recipe every Thanksgiving.

(For the record, I have never eaten a possum nor do I have intentions of doing so, but traditions are traditions.)

Here's one for this year.

And here's a bonus. At this moment, I happen to be in Florida. So, in the spirit of when in Rome, here's a link to alligator recipes.

(Also for the record, I have never eaten an alligator nor do I have intentions of doing so, but I think I'd rather eat one of them than a possum. Just saying.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ferguson

Robert Reich had this to say on Facebook about the situation in Ferguson after last night's announcement that there would be no indictment in the Michael Brown killing:

When St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch announced last night that no charges will be brought against Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson for the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, McCulloch lashed out at the media for the unrest in Ferguson, blaming its “24-hour-news cycle.” He’s wrong. The real culprit is the 24-hour racism that still pervades our system of criminal justice. Wilson shot Brown six times. Witness reports differed as to whether and when Brown had his hands raised and whether he was moving toward Wilson when the final shots were fired. Why shouldn’t these questions and inconsistencies be aired at a trial?  

The New York Times had a pretty insightful editorial as well. Check it out here.

Meanwhile, a number of civil rights groups had these recommendations to prevent more tragedies like this.

What she said

I want to give some props to a WV poet and artist I respect immensely, Crytal Good, a self-described Affralachian (African American Appalachian). She totally nailed it in this WV Public Broadcasting story on the 2014 elections. Title: "Appalachian Blackface."

I plan on giving her some backup, but I need to warm my metaphorical pen up in hell first.