Okay, so it's lunch

I'm close to being out of leftovers, and I was kind of hungry, so I adapted a recipe from Carol J. Adams' Living Among Meat Eaters. Her recipe was for tofu cubes, I mixed a little nutritional yeast, flour, pepper, and paprika and used it as a coating for tempeh sticks, which I then sauteed. They are beautiful and yummy and perfect for a quick bite. I had leftover quinoa pilaf and leftover pea pods and carrots. I know, I know, it's Passover, but I haven't been observant for years. The only times I go to synagogue anymore is if a cousin is having a bat mitzvah. I can say, however, that I keep kosher. After all, since there are no animal products in my home (except for what I feed my kitty), I don't need to worry about mixing meat and dairy, so I only need one set of dishes. If I were observant, which I'm not.

Earlier this week, there were protests over the proposed immigration "reform." Now, I understand that people come to this country because they a better life. My great-grandparents were all immigrants. However, they followed the proper channels and came here legally. They worked hard, assimilated, and now, just about everyone in my family calls themselves Americans. I don't have a problem with immigration. I do have a problem with people who break the law. Now, some people will say that by working for low wages, they depress wages for others. Five bucks an hour in the U.S. is better than what these immigrants could make at home. Others point out that the minimum wage has remained stagnant for 10 years, because Congess has been pressured, no doubt, by businesses and their lobbyists to keep the minimum wage low. Of course, nobody can live on minimum wage, much less support a family. The argument that they do the jobs Americans won't doesn't hold a whole lot of water when you realize that people may well be willing to pick fruits and vegetables or clean toilets, but not for five bucks an hour.

Meanwhile, Delta Airlines is whining that it wants its employees to give concessions to save the company. Gee, when United Airlines employees took pay and benefit cuts to "save the company," I do believe the executives used that money to increase their compensation. The next time a business is in trouble, executives, you might want to try decreasing your own compensation and stop driving down the wages of workers who are trying to support and feed their families. There is something seriously freaking wrong with this country when an executive gets paid more on the last day of work, cleaning out his desk than the average employee earns over his entire career.

The Washington Post had a feature on a Los Angeles blogger who is, shall we say, opinionated and very left-of-center, and after poking around there, I had to do a little progessive ranting.