Friday Hodgepodge

Four Things

1. An assortment of errands and appointments have allowed me to catch up on a few episodes of Don Watkins's interesting and enjoyable Liberty Unlocked podcast.

Watkins is on a mission to understand how best to aid the cause of liberty by exploring how and why individual human beings decided to take up the fight for freedom. It is hard to do justice to what he accomplishes with this approach in a short recommendation, but I'll try, anyway.

You get to meet real people, one at a time, who are on your side.

You gain insight by seeing the individual paths the participants take to the conclusion that they need freedom. Likewise from their approaches to the problem of promoting freedom. With each interview, you begin to see in more fully real terms the enormous value of freedom for yourself, and the many ways it can appeal to others. Both sides of this equation are important.

These things are valuable, but, again, the thing I like most about the interviews is that it's a little bit like actually meeting the participants.

Today's rancorous, clueless, superficial, politicized culture seems designed to make an individualist feel isolated and completely invisible. If this sounds familiar, I recommend trying this podcast for a very welcome and, yes, necessary change of pace.

Whatever you do, don't just take my word for it.

2. It may be patting my own back, but I deserve it: Good on me for using what I call evolving checklists for nearly everything. A brief trip out of town, as of this morning, will now double as a hurricane evacuation. This happened last year, with a visit from Hurricane Dorian enough of a possibility that I had to get ready for it ahead of a trip across the state. (At least this time, I don't have to worry about the storm following me after I leave: We can just go.)

This time, I already have a fairly comprehensive list of preps and gotchas to work from, based on last year's list.

Part of this Floridian misses the Florida I used to know: The one I sometimes visited. If there was a hurricane coming, I could just stay at home.

3. Some time ago, I learned that the hilarious Science Made Stupid, by Tom Weller is available with his for download in multiple electronic formats. A bonus for me was that I did not know about Weller's Cvltvre Made Stvpid, which is also available.

Image by Renee Comet, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

4. I haven't posted a recipe here in ages, and this one's short, so I might as well pass along this foolproof way to bake potatoes now.

Your ingredients are: baking potatoes, olive oil, koshering salt, and pepper. Here's the executive summary:

1. Heat oven to 350°.
2. Thoroughly clean and dry potatoes.
3. Use a fork to poke small holes all over surface of each potato.
4. Coat the potato skins with olive oil.
5. Season the skins with salt and, if desired, pepper.
6. Bake for 90 minutes.

If you follow the link, you see lots of verbiage before the actual recipe. Credit that verbiage -- which gives reasons for each step -- for getting me to try this recipe, which someone invariably asks for when I make these for anyone new.

"But everybody knows you need the oven on high," you may protest.

No. They do not.

-- CAV