First Impressions of Kerry Speech

These are the notes I jotted down last night. I want to dig into the comparison between Cold War Liberalism and Kerry's approach to the Islamofascists, but right now I am typing in edits while the (sick) toddler naps.

Kerry is not Clinton, but very few people are. A better speaker than GWB, but many people are.

Felt like he had too much material. As a result he worked too quickly, stifling his audience at several points rather than feeding back from them. Killed the energy in order to get his words in.

Needs an editor.

Fascinated that the first time he challenged GWB on values, he muted the accusation - literally he dropped his voice and told the audience not to cheer the line about values are not words, but deeds.

Audience liked hearing his later discussion about values, especially his use of Lincoln - I will never claim that God is on our side, but with AL I will pray that we are on God's side.

Amused, he ran through the faults of the Bush admin - will not hire a VP who makes secret deals with polluters, will not hire a sec def who refuses to listen to the professional soldiers, will hire an atty genl who will uphold the Constitution - then towards the end challenged GWB to argue the issues and not politicize the Constitution.

Trying to work a nuanced position on trade - fair trade, no tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, tax breaks for keeping jobs here. Did not hear what I wanted to hear, a simpler tax code. Instead appeared to be raising corporate taxes, repealing GWB's "windfall to the rich," engaging in extensive give-aways through tax breaks and targeted relief.

What is the 21st century equivalent of Cold War Liberalism? Because much of his move to the right of GWB on the war on terror was made using CWL approach - best way to win an ideological war is to uphold the promise of American values, strong military with strong domestic, mix hard and soft power abroad.

Strong critique of the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war. Remember, GWB himself in his call for invasion of Iraq agreed that the threat was NOT imminent. JFK would wait until there was imminent danger, or at least a clear and present danger, rather than GWB's clear and future danger. (And, of course, we later found out it was not so clear.)

Federal Reserve on Civil Religion

I have been wrestling with the chapter on civil religion over the last few weeks, most recently on a section discussiong what happened when civil religion met the Jacksonian party system.

I was thus amused to see that the St. Louis Federal Reserve has a short article on civil religion and prosperity. They focus their analysis on fear of hell, on eternal punishments and not on eternal rewards, but that does seem to be a reasonable proxy for their test. They find a high correlation between low corruption and high prosperity, a moderate correlation (correlation coefficient .34) between fear of hell and low corruption.

One of the problems that Americans wrestled with during the early nineteenth century was how to balance individual religious freedom - something that everyone praised - with the social consequences of religious belief. Antebellum Americans, as Tocqueville pointed out, felt more comfortable when surrounded by people who feared that their actions on this world would be judged after death.

The section I am having trouble framing discusses the interaction between political parties, civil religion, and politicized religion, something that appears in national politics today in a way unlike the abstract correlations of the Federal Reserve article or, for that matter, of Tocqueville's analysis. The problem comes in the details - the point of my dissertation. Everyone agreed that a more religious society would be a better society; they differed on how best to achieve that religious society. More, one person's attempt to build a common Christianity that all could agree on was another's sectarian imposition.

So, how do I want to tie the Anti-masonic movement of the 1820s, Clay and Jackson in the 1830s, Frelinghuysen and Catholics in the 1840s, and frame it all in a few powerful pages?

And back to work.

+- 25

So, over the weekend J was rubbing suntan lotion into my back. I made the mistake of whining that my comfy old swim trunks were wearing out.

"Well" she said "You have some grey hair here on your back, so you can go get a Speedo."

"No" I replied "Not yet. I am the wrong weight."

"What do you mean?"

"I am 5'7" and 175 - I am pudgy. To qualify to wear a Speedo I would have to either gain or lose 25 pounds and become either scrawny or obese."

"Hmm, good point. Gain the weight. That way your belly will hang over the swimsuit and you will look fat, grey and nekkid."

She always wins these arguments.

Powerful rhetoric, broken streams

I did not watch the first couple of days of the Democratic convention. I did skim a couple of transcripts earlier today, and I have the CSPAN feed of Monday's speeches lurching in the background.

They say not to bitch about things you get for free, but it is hard to follow the thread of a speech when it constantly stops to refresh the buffer - not sure if this is CSPAN's servers being pummeled, the worm du jour hitting the internet, or the inherent suckiness of RealOne Player, but it makes it hard to follow the flow.

Bitching aside, Obama gave a good speech, Carter gave a solid Carter speech, and Clinton, who is streaming in the background, gave a wonderful speech.

I got about halfway through Clinton's memoirs before having to return it to the library, I will finish it when it comes around to me again, but one of the things that I noticed in that book is also true about this speech; retirement has been good for Bill, as a person. It has given him a chance to think about what he did and what he did not do, to engage in a perior of introspection, and to discuss his record without the pressure to be right, a pressure that inflicts all Presidents while they are in office. Clinton's best moments in this speech, and in his memoirs, use self-knowledge to make a larger point. Ulysses S. Grant did something similar in his memoirs, and that is why many have made the comparison between Grant and Clinton. For that matter, Alexander Hamilton did the same, although few have linked Clinton to Ham..

My final convention thought, one that may be carried out tonight, is that the Democrats are making the very strong point that their values are consensus values, that they are the party of uniters while the Republicans are dividers. I happen to believe that Bush followed his violently partisan domestic agenda in part to discredit Nader's accusation that the parties were all alike, and that the Democrats are being very smart to take advantage of GWB's leap to the right.

More later.

EDIT - The Democratic National Convention has much better streams. This makes sense; they are spending a lot of money on their infomercial.

Home again, home again

Home from a trip to the beach - we went down the shore to visit with my sister and her family who were back for a couple of weeks from their home in the Western desert.

I am not sure what the highlight was, it might have been that on the 4th day at the shore the toddler finally stopped being afraid of the ocean, largely because my brother and I dug him a little wading pool and sand castle that he could use to watch the rising tide, and that let him figure out that the waves were more fun than scary.

It might also have been watching my nephew chase his uncle around, and watching my toddler chasing the nephew around, like 3 ducks in a row, all wanting attention and play with the bigger duck up ahead. (does that make any sense?)

Or, it might well have been the first day, where we overlapped with some old friends and their kids, and we had 10 adults and 6 kids for breakfast. Thats a full house!

Oh, and one day we took the toddler to the zoo in the afternoon. He saw a lion and was hypnotized by it. I think we get to take him to the local zoo one day when we will have more time to spend looking at critters.

The power of a single letter

The folks in Spinal Tap comment that there is a very narrow line between being clever and being stupid.

There is a similar narrow line between being cute and being gross. Consider what happened yesterday while I was babysitting a sick toddler.

"Oh, how cute, the baby is sitting in his bath and playing!"

Add an "h".

That was a messy cleanup, yep.

Which guns?

The discussion on gun control below got me thinking a random thought the other day. If I were to take some money and buy guns and a gun cabinet, what would I get and what order would I get it in?

As a practical matter, while it is fun to punch holes in paper targets, there are other things that I find more fun, and so I do not expect to do anything with guns until the kids are old enough to take the NRA's gun safety classes (one of the things that organization does that I approve of.)

So, what would I get?

0, A good gun cabinet.

1, Brown Bess Musket, firing black powder replica. Why? Well if you are going to get an "assault rifle," get the 18th century version. I have thought about getting a non-firing replica to use to play show and tell in class, and I would rather like to have the real thing even if I only fired it a couple of times a year.

2, Sprinfield 1903 rifle. Again, there is something to be said for the classics, and the big Mauser bolt-action rifles are classics. The problem with this is that I am too cheap to pay for the ammunition, or at least for enough ammunition to figure out how to use it well.

3, A good cheap plinking rifle. Kim Du Toit likes the M1 Carbine, I have shot 22 caliber bolt action rifles in the past - something cheap to shoot.

4, A general purpose shotgun, something I could use for either skeet or deer. I do not know much about shotguns, but given my height and small hands would probably look at some of the "ladies" models.

I have no particular desire for a handgun, nor do I have the hands and wrists for one.

More books

In the reading blog, a quick comment on Laurie Winn Carlson, A Fever in Salem.

The short version - clever use of medical history to help make sense of cultural history. Not a fully persuasive explanation of the Salem Witch Trials.

EDIT
Add Peter Hoffer, The Devil's Disciples
and Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator

EDIT again
add Roger Zelazny, Chronicles of Amber

I watched the movie last night, read the two Salem books this morning and the Zelazny novels this afternoon while thinking around a construction problem on the revised chapter two. Why yes, I did more skimming than reading today. Why do you ask?

Blueberry Spice Jam

No new jam this week, but last week's jam is still spectacular and I realized that I have not yet shared the recipe.

I use whole spices - nutmeg, allspice, cloves - and grate them or crush them myself. It makes a BIG difference in the quality of the spice and does not take much more time than measuring powder. I use a spice grater and a little marble mortar and pestle, plus a microplane grater for the lemon zest.

This makes a bright, flavorful jam that is excellent on challah.

Or on bagels with cream cheese

Or on toast.

OK, it is excellent in just about anything that uses jam, although I am too protective of it to make it into a jelly roll.

Ingredients
3 pints fresh blueberries
4 cups sugar
1 packet dry pectin (Sure-gel)
20 grates nutmeg
12 allspice berries
4 cloves
1 slice lemon
4 grates lemon zest (microplane grater)
1 tbsp walnut oil

Method
Wash the berries. Sort through them removing stems and discarding any overripe or soft berries. I often add an extra handful of berries to make up for the discards.

One layer at a time,crush the berries with a potato masher

Put the crushed berries into your jamming pot
measure out your sugar into a holding bowl
grate the nutmeg into the berries
in a mortar and pestle, crush the allspice berries to dust
mash the heads of the cloves into the mortar to break off the flower, discard the stalk. Crush the flowers.
add spices to berries
squeeze the juice from the lemon slice onto the berries - very little juice
run the lemon over the microplane grater about 4 times - very little zest
add the walnut oil
sprinkle the dry pectin over the berries - I prefer Sure-Gel brand.

Heat the berries, pectin, and spices to a rolling boil (bubbles even while you stir) while stirring constantly
add the sugar all at once
continue to heat, stirring constantly, until the jam comes back to a rolling boil
boil for 60 seconds, then turn off the heat. If you pour jam off the stirring spoon it should just gel at the end. Blueberries have a LOT of pectin and jam up very easily.

Storage
Can normally with a hot-water process.

Enjoy.

Assault Weapon Ban?

The Washington Post is lobbying for a renewal of the assault rifle ban.

Via Rocket Jones, I see that a number of people on the pro-gun side are not so happy about the prospect with a number of single-issue pro-gun voters intending to vote against GWB if he signs an extension.

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about the measure. On the one hand, the law is profoundly stupid. It bans a few weapons by name, based largely on their styling, and appears to have had little effect on gun violence. On the other hand, this political posturing does send an important rhetorical message about the dangers of gun violence. Personally, I will be voting against GWB on other grounds, so this won't make a difference with me.

However, if I could come up with my own gun bill, it would be something that would never ever pass. I would ban all short guns and all concealed carry. I would then legalize any long gun: rifle, shotgun, or military rifle, including fully automatic M16s or AK 47s, and subsidize gun safety courses - perhaps even making a gun safety course a requirement for graduating high school.

Why?

The original intent of the founders was that a well armed militia would be a crucial part of the balance of power. Now, even though they very quickly discovered that most citizens had no desire to maintain their own military weapons - all states I have examined quickly went from requiring to providing muskets for the state militia - they still kept the idea of an armed citizenry. That ideal has faded as a professional police force has replaced the hue and cry and the posse comitas and as the national guard has replaced state militia. Still, you can make a good case for citizens having the right to possess military arms for their own defence, and the modern descendent of the Brown Bess is the AK 47.

Hunters use long guns - rifles and shotguns. They would not be affected by the ban. People who actually think they will be defending their homes are better off with a shotgun than a handgun - they will not be much affected by the ban. What the ban will restrict is easily carried and hidden guns, Saturday night specials, and the like.

Now, this proposal will get the police mad - they don't like the idea of facing assault weapons even though few criminals use them. And, while the assault weapon ban is a sop to police morale just like quiet suburban police forces going to Glock 14 revolvers, morale matters.

This proposal will get the pro-gun folks mad - they think that they are only safe in a society where a meaningful percentage of the population is packing hidden heat, thus making it dangerous for anyone to attack anyone.

And, this proposal will get the folks who think that guns are scary mad, wrongly so, because I am far more scared of a handgun than a long gun - if only because my kids' friends' parents are less likely to have a long gun in their bedside table.

As for the proposed renewal - sometimes you go with the experts. If the police chiefs want the ban, even though it is largely symbolic, then give it to them, for it is largely symbolic.

Reading Log update

New entries in the reading log.

Walter Jon Williams, Dread Empire's Fall: The Praxis

Walter Jon Williams, Dread Empire's Fall: The Sundering

Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels audiobook

Enrique

We have seven critters living in the house:
me and J
the two boys
the dog
the cat
and Enrique.

Enrique lives in the refrigerator and eats once a week.

He is a sourdough sponge.

We know he is a boy because he is a slighly ruddy shade of beige, and in our house the boys have red hair while the girls are all dark tressed.

I got him the new-fashioned, way, by mail-order.

Every time we go to use him for bread or pancakes or whatever, we scoop out half of Enrique, add half a cup of de-chlorinated water(1) and a cup of AP flour, stir well, and let him sit out for about three hours before chucking him back into the 'fridge.

The half of Enrique that gets used is either used as starter in a recipe or worked into any yeasted product as if it were half a cup of water, a cup of flour, and a half-teaspoon of yeast. So my normal one pound loaf of bread changes from 3 cups of flour, 1 cup water, 1 1/2 tsp yeast, 3/4 tsp salt to being 1 unit Enrique, 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp yeast, 3/4 tsp salt. Does that make any sense?

Anyhow, Enrique needs to come out and play, for I ate the last of the bread for breakfast.

Did I mention that home-made bread and fresh blueberry jam is a very fine thing? I should mention that, for it is very true.

ps, this entry dedicated to Rocket Jones.

(1) To get dechlorinated water, either leave a pitcher out overnight or, for the lazy folks, keep some bottled water around. We use bottled water for baby formula and for feeding Enrique - buying the 2 1/2 gallon bottles at the discount club and keeping them in a corner of the kitchen.

Civil Religion and Oaths

I have not gotten much work done this week. I blame poor sleep and rainy weather, but it is getting frustrating. Part of the slow pace is because I am wrestling with something that I am not quite sure what it is doing in the current draft. I am very unlike, say, Heather Corinna who has been cranking out 20 to 50 pages a day for months (you GO girl!).

Basically, the section discusses civil religion in the context of social control - people are less likely to do wrong in situations where they have sworn not to do that wrong. In other words, oaths of office or oaths to tell the truth in a court of law are enforced by two means, one secular and the other eternal. In this world, we can require officials to post bonds for the performance of their office, or prosecute them for misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance, or impeach them from office. In this world we can prosecute someone for felony perjury for telling a lie under oath. But, say the folks who like civil religion, those penalties are not sufficient. People will only do the right thing and tell the truth if they believe that there will be eternal consequences for their actions here on earth, and if they swear a specific oath reminding themselves of what those consequences are.

I want to use oaths of office and oaths in court as a tie between the religious settlement - religion in the form of laws and constitutions - and civil religion as practiced every day. I am just having trouble phrasing the connection.

My common fault when I am not quite sure what to say is to say something that is almost right, then say something else almost right, and again, and again - like firing a birdshot at a hard target in the hope of getting at least one pellet where it needs to go.

And, of course, I have been sleeping poorly so I am having trouble parsing my stuff to figure out what I need to say, what is bloated verbiage, and what is a nice idea but not needed for the argument.

And back to work. With any luck this little think piece will get me over this stupid block. Otherwise, I cut the entire four page section and keep going without it.

Question

Does anyone read the reading blog?

Should I indicate on this blog when I have a new entry on the reading list?

Buddy can you spare a name?

Eugene Volokh points out an incredibly bad Missoury State Supreme Court Decision. Comic book artist Todd McFarlane used the name Tony Twist for a villain in his Spawn comic books. Tony Twist is also a semi-famous hockey player - I had never heard of him before, but it appears that the comic book character's name was copied from the real person. The hockey player sued and won.

Volokh wrote a very good amicus curae brief that, I was amused to note, made extensive use of Robert A. Heinlein, both as an author who used real people's names for fictional characters and as a real person who appears as a fictionalized character in other people's work (although, in the work cited, the Robert Anson character was supposed to be RAH while in the comic book case the artist is arguing that the villain was NOT supposed to be the hockey player.

My followup thought was more personal. I sometimes contemplate writing fiction, although I am a slow distractable writer and I have all I can handle with the monster. Still, I do expect to write it again someday. If this ruling holds, would I have to do due diligence on all my character names to make sure that they are not the same name as someone who could reasonably claim to be famous? We all have our 15 minutes of fame after all.

I hope it will be overturned, but considering the success that rent-seeking entities have had with copyright law lately, including the Sonny Bono steal-from-the-future-in-the-name-of-the-past Copyright Extension Bill, I worry.

Sourdough Blueberry Pancakes

I like blueberries. I like sourdough. I like real maple syrup.

Sunday we had wonderfulness on a plate.

We had bought wonderful fresh berries the day before - there is something to be said for living in the Garden State - and I had reserved a pint from the jam parade to eat in pancakes.

My sourdough pancake recipe (below the fold) makes a pancake that, when properly cooked, is smooth, creamy, and a little bit tart.

They really are quite good - creamy pancakes, bright sharp bursts of berry, and the sweet melding embrace of the syrup around it all. The tartness from the sourdough combines with the bright sour of the berries and they sweet of the syrup to produce something halfway between fireworks and an orgasm on the taste buds.

Of course, when I undercook a pancake or flip it too soon, it becomes thick and gluey, but even those were still pretty darn good.

Blueberry pancakes is one of the signs of summer for me. I guess summer really is here.

I wonder if the farm market will have more wonderful blueberries next week? If so, we might just do it again.

But, we won't go through another flat of berries - the todder has the runs from too many berries and that is not so good, even if he did like the pancakes, and the muffins, and the jam, and the fresh berries.

Maybe blueberry pie next week. I make a very good blueberry pie ...

Sourdough Pancakes
Modified from the Waffle recipe at King Arthur Flour

The Sponge
1 cup All-Purpose Flour
1 cup other flour or flours (1/2 cup buckwheat, 1/2 cup cake flour is very good indeed.)
2 tablespoons sugar (unbleached or white)
4 tablespoons buttermilk powder
1/2 cup yoghurt
2 cups milk
1 cup sourdough starter

The Batter
all of the sponge (above)
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil (or melted butter if you feel like throwing caution to the winds)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
1 teaspoon baking soda

The Good Stuff
1 pint fresh blueberries, washed and stemmed

Making the Sponge: This first step is best done the night before you want to serve the pancakes. First, remove your starter from the refrigerator, stir it together with a spoon or whisk and pour out a cup. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flours, buttermilk powder and sugar. Pour in the milk, the yoghurt, and the sourdough starter. Stir this mixture until just combined. Cover loosely and let this sit on your counter until the next morning.

Either over night or the next morning, feed the starter and let it rise. Put it back in the 'fridge.

Creating the Batter: Next morning, complete the batter while you preheat your skillet.

Wash the berries, remove any remaining stems, discard any soft, overripe or otherwise bad berries.

In a small mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, oil or butter, salt and baking soda. Let the children (of any age) blend this into the sponge you made the night before. (Watch what happens; it's neat.) Dampen a couple of non-stick pans with light oil (I use walnut oil), and fry.

Spoon the dough into the pan for pancakes the size you like (we make 3 in a pan), then sprinkle 3 to 5 berries onto each pancake. Fry. Try not to turn them too often.

Serve with real maple syrup, preferably grade B dark.

Blueberry Season

It is blueberry season here in New Jersey.

This is a very good thing indeed.

I got six pints of berries three days ago. So far we have gorged on berries, made a batch of wonderful blueberry muffins, and made my best blueberry jam yet!

I plan to buy another flat of berries this weekend, and make even MORE jam. It really is better with fresh berries than with the frozen.

And so to bake more blueberry muffins

blueberry Muffins, by Red Ted
10 minutes prep
20 minutes cook
my muffin tray makes 12 medium muffins.

Dries
1 cup AP flour, scooped and leveled
1 cup cake flour, scooped and leveled, plus one heaping tablespoon cake flour.
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (crumble it in your palm to get rid of the lumps)
pinch salt (1/4 tsp?)
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp powdered buttermilk

Wets

1 egg
about 1/4 cup non-fat yoghurt
about 2 tbsp oil (again, I measured by eye. I use olive oil.)

other
1 cup skim milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 425
combine dries in a large bowl, stir them together with a whisk
combine wets in a small bowl, beat the egg, oil, and yoghurt together

spray a muffin tray with non-stick spray coating
Wash the berries. Remove stems. Discard any soft or bad berries.

Add wets to dries
add milk to dries
mix together in a few short, deft strokes
when almost combined, add blueberries
finish mixing - remember that if you develop the gluten the muffins will be tough, so easy does it.

pour batter in to muffin tray.
use a spoon to steal from the large and fill the low until they are all about even
bake for 15 to 18 minutes

remove muffins from the tin immediately, cool on a rack.
Once they are cool enough to eat, they are ready to eat. (Unlike bread which should breathe for an hour before cutting)

New Gig

Well, Suburban State University just called; they have at least one slot of US1 available. I will be teaching there and at Urban Research University.

Looks like I will make enough to pay daycare next semester - any further classes will actually increase household income.

I am torn by this. I like to teach. I also feel that I should be spending more time with the boys. And yet, by Sunday night, I am also exhausted by the boys and looking forward to having Monday available to get work done without little people running around underfoot.

iTunes

The last time I updated Quicktime Apple convinced me to download iTunes as well.

A few days ago I fired it up and started messing with it.

I like it a LOT more than Windows Media Player.

My only complaint is that it does not read Windows Media Player files. So, I had to convert my WMP library into iTunes - luckily I had burned my cds at 100% the first time so I had good sources to copy over. Still, it took some 24 hours of hard processing to convert a couple of thousand songs.

Since then I have been copying more of my CDs onto the computer - I do like having my music handy and mixable. So far I have some 3439 songs, and I still have a good hundred cds not yet scanned.

The scary thing is, I think I have a small music collection and we have not been buying much music for a couple of years now. I have almost NO idea who is hot right now, or why. And yet I have days of music on my computer.

I do like the random playlist feature - 25 random songs from my collection listed below the fold.

I Remember When I Was Young -- Kukuruza
So. Central Rain -- R.E.M.
She's Your Cocaine -- Tori Amos
Finale -- Cabaret [Original Soundtrack]
Shady Grove -- Bill Monroe
Blood Red Roses -- Oysterband
Star Wars [1977] -- John Williams/Skywalker Symphony Orchestra
Don't Sit Under the -- Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me) -- Glenn Miller & His Orchestra
Miner's Wives -- The Battlefield Band
Cold Gray Light of Dawn -- Blue Öyster Cult
La pointe du jour / La marche des freres Gagnon -- Jeter Le Pont
Poco sostenuto - vivace -- Beethoven
Lovely Joan -- Boiled In Lead
Tommy's Holiday Camp -- The Who
Bennie and the Jets -- Elton John
The Galtee Set -- Boiled In Lead
I Got A Good 'Un -- John Lee Hooker
Hipbone -- Rare Air
Feed My Frankenstein -- Alice Cooper
Now It's My Turn -- Berlin
That Was Your Mother -- Paul Simon
Infinite and Unforeseen -- k.d. lang
Fallen Angel -- Blue Öyster Cult
Old Virginia [Live]-- Cordelia's Dad
Summertime -- Janis Joplin
Hopalong Peter -- Jerry Garcia & David Grisman

Complete Rebuild

I managed to corrupt my Berkely DB database and render the entire blog unstable.

Rather than fixing the not very robust system, I went ahead and converted to mysql.

I think I lost a couple of posts, and I know I lost "me"'s last comment.

I almost lost my templates, but was able to dig into the old database and recover them.

What a bother.

I will be recreating the lost posts from copies archived on my hard drive. Most of them are not all that interesting, but there you go.

ps, trackbacks and links to individual posts no longer work. I need to fix my front page template.

A movie about flour

As we were heading home from the shore the other day I saw a big billboard for the King Arthur movie.

I was confused.

In these low-carb days, will people really turn out for a movie about flour?

Eye Candy: Married v Single

This is an older thought, but there was a cute young thang in a miniskirt at the bank earlier today and I reminded myself of it.

What is the different between a dirty single man and a dirty married man?

Well, when I was single I do admit that I would sometimes see a cute young thang dressed in attractive clothing, and then I would mentally undress her.

Now that I am married, I tend to mentally undress her, then mentally hand her a dressing gown while I mentally dress my honey in the cute young thang's outfit and decide if it would look good.