Why our president has not declared himself born again

[jbuck919]

State Dinner in Honor of His Excellency, Aleksander Kwasniewski
The President of the Republic of Poland and Mrs. Jolanta Kwasniewska

Menu

Lemon-Basil Seared Striped Bass
Artichokes and Young Squash
Roasted Golden Tomato Sauce

Robert Pecota Sauvignon Blanc 2000

*
Pepper Smoked Beef Filet
Fresh Corn Polenta
Grilled Portobella Mushroom and Summer Vegetables
BBQ Shallot Sauce

Stags Leap Wine Cellars "Fay Vineyard" Cabernet 1998

*
Orange and Avocado Salad
Crispy Potato Tartine
Cilantro Dressing

*
Peaches and Cherries
Ginger Almond Ice Cream
Assorted Cookies
Bonny Doon Muscat "Vin Glaciere" 2000

[Corlyss_D]

No grass or twigs anywhere? Shameful!

[Ralph]

No dim sum?

[RebLem]

Mebbe I'm just too thick, but I don't understand the connection between the headline and the contents of the post.

[jbuck919]

Mebbe I'm just too thick, but I don't understand the connection between the headline and the contents of the post.

Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control. This has presented a tremendous dilemma to our presidents going back to at least Abraham Lincoln, who took the pledge but did not enforce it on others.

This has nothing to do with the inherently ludicrous nature of the menu. (Roasted golden tomato sauce, BBQ shallot sauce, orange and avocado salad with potato tartine? Someone is verging on lunacy, not to mention that no one in his right mind would serve a sauvignon blanc except to his horse.)

[Werner]

Certainly not a definitive opinion, is it, John?

And I have to assume that the various beverages listed were on the menu but not necessarily imbibed by Mr. Bush, considering his conversion. If it wasn't "born-again," it does seem to be "weaned-again."

[jbuck919]

Certainly not a definitive opinion, is it, John?

And I have to assume that the various beverages listed were on the menu but not necessarily imbibed by Mr. Bush, considering his conversion. If it wasn't "born-again," it does seem to be "weaned-again."

I have to think that state dinners at the White House must be the joke of the world, going back to the dinner for Queen Elizabeht at the bicentennial. In the first place, they had to hold it in a tent because the state dining room in the White House is famously too small. Then, on broadcast TV, they featured as a preveiw Julia Child, who took one bite of the featured dish and made the most disguised yucky face there must have been in television history. "Why did you prepare this?" she asked the White House Chef, at that time, incredibly, except not, a Frenchman, barely disguising her double entendre. Evidently it was awful. Long live the queen, who got through what she could only have considered an oreal.

[RebLem]

Mebbe I'm just too thick, but I don't understand the connection between the headline and the contents of the post.

Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control. This has presented a tremendous dilemma to our presidents going back to at least Abraham Lincoln, who took the pledge but did not enforce it on others.

This has nothing to do with the inherently ludicrous nature of the menu. (Roasted golden tomato sauce, BBQ shallot sauce, orange and avocado salad with potato tartine? Someone is verging on lunacy, not to mention that no one in his right mind would serve a sauvignon blanc except to his horse.)

I do know that William Jennings Bryan was a hard-liner on this one; he accepted Woodrow Wilson's offer to be his first Secretary of State only on condition that he not have to serve alcoholic beverages at any dinners where he was the host.

I first learned of some of the Bryan story in a negative way from the chapter on the Scopes trial in Irving Stone's biography of Clarence Darrow. But I later learned that he resigned as Secretary of State to protest Wilson's order to send a diplomatic note to the German government protesting the sinking of the Lusitania. The German government had placed ads in the NY newspapers warning Americans that they intended to sink it en route because they said it also contained munitions bound for the UK, and warned people not to board it. Everyone in the US governent and the UK said it was not carrying munitions. Then, I recall that it was finally revealed sometime in the 60's or 70's that it indeed was carrying munitions, even though the US was allegedly neutral. Although I despise Bryan's anti-evolution position in the Scopes trial, I have to respect him for his principled pacifism. And even with regard to the Scopes trial, it turns out that all the truth was not on one side; the textbook Scopes was using promoted eugenics even more than it did evolution.

But what I want to know is, where the hell is the soup course, and why is the salad served after the entree? That seems to me bizarre, although the individual menu items sound fine to me.

And I like Sauvignon Blanc.

[Corlyss_D]

I want to taste that Ginger Almond ice cream. I have never heard of ginger being put in ice cream before. I love ginger.

[DavidRoss]

Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control.

Huh? No doubt true of some but no more a defining characteristic than left-handedness or literacy.

[david johnson]

'Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control.'

one can not become a christian w/o being born again.
around where i live, those that claim that rebirth aspect as a 'title' or descriptor often do have certain views on alcohol that other christians do not go for.

dj

[RebLem]

Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control.

Huh? No doubt true of some but no more a defining characteristic than left-handedness or literacy.

Reminds me of two things--

One was a Johnny Carson Show on which one of his guests, country singer Eddie Arnold, joking about the then recent Papal lifting of the ban on eating meat on Friday. "Maybe someday, Baptists will even drink in front of one another," he said.

The other is about a visit I made once, on one of my various trips between Chicago and Albuquerque, to Jonesboro, AR, which a few years before had been the scene of a schoolyard slaughter by a couple of young boys. The folk there still don't believe in much in the way of gun control.

But I asked the motel clerk who had the best pizza in town. She told me. Then I asked where I could get some beer to go with it.

"You can't," she said. "This is a dry county."

[Ralph]

Mebbe I'm just too thick, but I don't understand the connection between the headline and the contents of the post.

Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control. This has presented a tremendous dilemma to our presidents going back to at least Abraham Lincoln, who took the pledge but did not enforce it on others.

This has nothing to do with the inherently ludicrous nature of the menu. (Roasted golden tomato sauce, BBQ shallot sauce, orange and avocado salad with potato tartine? Someone is verging on lunacy, not to mention that no one in his right mind would serve a sauvignon blanc except to his horse.)

*****

Remember that great White House non-tippling hostess, "Lemonade Lucy."

[Ralph]

Certainly not a definitive opinion, is it, John?

And I have to assume that the various beverages listed were on the menu but not necessarily imbibed by Mr. Bush, considering his conversion. If it wasn't "born-again," it does seem to be "weaned-again."

I have to think that state dinners at the White House must be the joke of the world, going back to the dinner for Queen Elizabeht at the bicentennial. In the first place, they had to hold it in a tent because the state dining room in the White House is famously too small. Then, on broadcast TV, they featured as a preveiw Julia Child, who took one bite of the featured dish and made the most disguised yucky face there must have been in television history. "Why did you prepare this?" she asked the White House Chef, at that time, incredibly, except not, a Frenchman, barely disguising her double entendre. Evidently it was awful. Long live the queen, who got through what she could only have considered an oreal.

*****

Buck House dinners are any better?

[david johnson]

'The folk there still don't believe in much in the way of gun control.'

i live 20 miles from there, a friend of mine was the h/s principal at the time and my wife taught one the surviving student targets.

i disagree with your statement. a similar, tackier, snotty comment from katie kouric on air during the tragedy is why i will never watch her again, nor any network that employs her.

dj

[jbuck919]

Mebbe I'm just too thick, but I don't understand the connection between the headline and the contents of the post.

Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control. This has presented a tremendous dilemma to our presidents going back to at least Abraham Lincoln, who took the pledge but did not enforce it on others.

This has nothing to do with the inherently ludicrous nature of the menu. (Roasted golden tomato sauce, BBQ shallot sauce, orange and avocado salad with potato tartine? Someone is verging on lunacy, not to mention that no one in his right mind would serve a sauvignon blanc except to his horse.)

I do know that William Jennings Bryan was a hard-liner on this one; he accepted Woodrow Wilson's offer to be his first Secretary of State only on condition that he not have to serve alcoholic beverages at any dinners where he was the host.

I first learned of some of the Bryan story in a negative way from the chapter on the Scopes trial in Irving Stone's biography of Clarence Darrow. But I later learned that he resigned as Secretary of State to protest Wilson's order to send a diplomatic note to the German government protesting the sinking of the Lusitania. The German government had placed ads in the NY newspapers warning Americans that they intended to sink it en route because they said it also contained munitions bound for the UK, and warned people not to board it. Everyone in the US governent and the UK said it was not carrying munitions. Then, I recall that it was finally revealed sometime in the 60's or 70's that it indeed was carrying munitions, even though the US was allegedly neutral. Although I despise Bryan's anti-evolution position in the Scopes trial, I have to respect him for his principled pacifism. And even with regard to the Scopes trial, it turns out that all the truth was not on one side; the textbook Scopes was using promoted eugenics even more than it did evolution.

But what I want to know is, where the hell is the soup course, and why is the salad served after the entree? That seems to me bizarre, although the individual menu items sound fine to me.

And I like Sauvignon Blanc.

Nice comments about Bryan.

I have to think they were following the European custom of using the salad course as a palate cleanser. That would be universal in Italy and much of the rest of Europe. You'll notice they (presumably) only served water with that course. Can't answer about what trend, fad, or sensible gustatory practice is being served by having what looks on paper like two main courses.

[BWV 1080]

Mebbe I'm just too thick, but I don't understand the connection between the headline and the contents of the post.

Born-again Christians do not drink alcohol or allow it in any context over which they have any control.

This may be true of some Baptists, but is not true of all evangelical Christians.

[Donald Isler]

My mother also serves the salad after the entree, but then she was born within a couple of hundred miles of Bamberg, not here.

[Dies Irae]

It's impossible for GWB to be "born again".

That's because he wasn't completely born the first time.

It should be obvious that an essential part of him dripped down his fathers leg. You know,----- the parts involving good judgement, character, compassion, lack of stubbornness and intelligence. Missing such qualities should mean that he shouldn't have been born the first time, let alone be born again.