disoriented

New York Hot Dogs

The dis-oriented author was born and raised in the Midwest. I still live in Iowa with my wife and the five (of our eight) children who are still at home. In my job I get to travel and spend time in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas and New York.

This week I am in New York, good thing because I have been craving a New York hot dog.

One of the thing I try to do as I travel is sample the local cuisine. I have enjoyed scrapple and Gino's steaks in Philadelphia. I love the Cincinnati trifecta; Montgomery Inn ribs, LaRosa's pizza and Skyline Chili. In  Canada, I enjoy poutine, donair and butter tarts. And recently in Florida, I was introduced to rock shrimp. In Chicago I eat deep dish pizza.

But this week I was craving a New York hot dog. What makes a New York hot dog different? First, I like the pushcart dogs the best. I look for the silver pushcarts with the blue and yellow Sabrett umbrella. These carts are on almost every corner in mid-town. The rolls (buns for us mid-westerners) are always warm and fresh. The Sabrett dog is an all beef frank, thinner than midwest dogs but with a crisper casing. I know real hot dog fans will groan but I do not particularly like mustard so I order mine with onions.

The first time I ordered a NY dog, I asked for it with onions. I expected some chopped raw onions like I would get at home. Instead, the vender deftly opened a door in the counter of his cart and reached in with his tongs. He took out a what looked like a watery pasta sauce with chopped onions in it. I could see from the steam rising that it was hot.

At the first bite I was hooked! Now every time I am in New York I have to stop by and get some dogs on the street. I was teaching a class in New York this week and I mentioned my fondness for New York dogs. One of my students told me that the onions in sauce is available in jars in area grocery stores. That evening I stoped in every grocery and bodega between the office and my hotel — to no avail.

The next morning when I got into the office there wa a bottle of Sabrett Onions in Sauce on my desk! Since you cannot fly with liquids in your carry-on these days, I knew I would have to check my bag. A small price to pay!

I know I don't have the right kind of rolls and I'll be using midwestern mystery-meat dogs, even so I will have authentic NY onions in sauce — I can hardly wait.

World Without End, Ken Follet

The dis-oriented author rarely reviews fiction books. I read a lot of fiction but only the very best make it into my reviews. I just finished reading Ken Follet's World Without End, and it definitely deserves a review.

This is a big book, over a thousand pages — I could not put it down.

Most people know Ken Follet as a suspense/mystery writer. I put him in the same category with two of my favorite authors; Jack Higgins and Frederick Forsyth. In 1989, Follet broke out of the genre with Pillars of the Earth, a story about the building of a medieval cathedral. Pillars of the Earth is set in the fictional 12th century village of Knightsbridge. The book turned out to be Follets best-selling title. Oprah even selected it for her book club in 2007.

World Without End is the sequal to Pillars of the Earth. The book also takes place in Knightsbridge but the setting is a century later and the story covers the time of the Black Death in England. Many of the characters are descendents of the characters in Pillars.

In these books, Follet does a great job acclimating  the reader to the period in question.  His characters are well developed and  your soon fin yourself rooting for some and awaiting the ultimate demise of others. The book  takes a variety of twists and turns and  I found it compelling.

In both of these books, Follet develops extremely strong female characters. They are every bit the equal of the men around them. Pulling of this literary feat in  the context of 13th century England is certainly noteworthy.

World Without End gets 5 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

Purchase World Without End  from Amazon.com.

Death to the Alternative Minimum Tax!

The dis-oriented author is not a rich man. I have eight children,  I drive old cars and my family survives on my income while my wife stays home with our kids. Now, I do not want to seem ungrateful for what I have but I am definitely not rich. Yet every year at tax time, the government tries to tell me that I am rich.

For the last several years, I have had to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

The AMT was enacted in 1969 to prevent a small number of rich individuals from using loopholes in the tax code to prevent paying any taxes. The problem with the AMT is twofold: first it did nothing to address the so-called loopholes, second it was originally targeted at a small number of super-rich individuals.

The New York Times predicts that by 2010, the AMT will apply to 30,000,000 taxpayers! The AMT has not been indexed for inflation so it now affects not just the super-rich but the middle class.

Congress is currently considering a fix to the AMT. Congressional Republicans want to simply remove the AMT while Democrats want to increase certain taxes on the wealthy to offset the cost of reducing or deleting the AMT.

Democrats look at the cost of a Tax cut while Republicans look at the cost of a tax. As a tax payer, I am concerned about the cost of a tax. As for the cost of a tax cut, I say, cut the tax and let the government clip coupons, let the government drive old cars, let the government take vacations closer to home. The American people, the middle class, have been suffering under taxes like the AMT, let the government look at trimming extraneous expenses instead.

Death to the AMT.