Sen. Orrin Hatch thinks we're the Chosen People

He seems like a sweet man. I hope the Kibbutz gives his new Hanukkah song a whirl this month. So what if his affection for us verges on the apocalyptic-creepy? Said the senator to The New York Times:

“Anything I can do for the Jewish people, I will do,” Mr. Hatch said in an interview before heading to the Senate floor to debate an abortion amendment. “Mormons believe the Jewish people are the chosen people, just like the Old Testament says.”

Also:

At one point, Mr. Hatch unbuttons his white dress shirt to expose the golden mezuzah necklace he wears every day. Mezuzahs also adorn the doorways of his homes in Washington and Utah. Mr. Hatch keeps a Torah in his Senate office.

“Not a real Torah, but sort of a mock Torah,” he said. “I feel sorry I’m not Jewish sometimes.”

We may be Chosen, but who knew we'd get this lucky? We now have Mormons writing us music free of charge. It's a beautiful world we live in, people. Check it out:

The song that's currently stuck in my head

It's from the Argentine movie The Paranoids.

"Inglourious Basterds"

When I was 13, my parents took me to see The Power of One, which deals with the injustices of apartheid. I remember that at one point the main character committed some act of righteous violence against the Bad Guys, and I yelped with glee. I may have even stood up, I was so excited. My pacifist parents -- who raised me without war toys, war games, or corporal punishment of any kind -- were taken aback. I felt sheepish afterwards, but in that visceral moment, who wouldn't cheer for the hero as he brought the hammer down on the despicable villains?

I saw Inglourious Basterds tonight, finally, and it brought up similar feelings. If you haven't been living in a hole, you know that Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge saga-as-Peckinpah Western is about an elite band of Jewish-American soldiers bent on killing (and scalping!) as many Nazis as possible in occupied France. (Be aware: Spoilers follow.) As their fearless leader, Brad Pitt is all kinds of fun; in the role of a strong, Jewish heroine (reminiscent of the Bride character from Kill Bill), Mélanie Laurent gives the film a lot of heart. It isn't, as some critics claim, an empty stylistic exercise. Not by a long shot.

According to my mother, her shul's rabbi encouraged the members to see Basterds because it tackles the subject of Jewish vengeance. While I wouldn't ask everyone I know to stomach Tarantino's graphic violence, I agree that the movie touches on some meaty issues. And where the similarly themed Munich was self-important and casually misogynistic, Basterds offers a good time at the movies and a kick-ass female protagonist. Tarantino even points up the antirealism of old WWII movies, in which everyone magically spoke English, by subtitling more than half the dialogue. (The film is in English, German, and French, with a little Italian tossed in for good measure.)

Spielberg and QT may be equally unsubtle filmmakers, but Tarantino's still got something Spielberg hasn't had since Jaws: the ability to serve up dark, energetic entertainment without worrying all too much about making The Big Point. Keep the slow-mo sex 'n' death mashup near the end of Munich and give me the final swastika-carving scene from Basterds. There's putting too fine a point on your movie, and then there's using the point at the end of your knife. I prefer the latter.

Tarantino builds the story in chapters, and yes, the movie is two and a half hours long, and yes, sections of it are talky, but many scenes crackle with real suspense, the entire film is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and no character is safe from harm. (That's been a Tarantino hallmark since Pulp Fiction, and I've always appreciated it. The fact that anyone could die packs a lot of emotional power.) Laurent's Shosanna Dreyfus communicates a great deal with her eyes, and by film's end I'd grown surprisingly attached to her.

Tarantino is known for outrageous violence and obscure movie references, but he actually uses violence very carefully, and his references don't crowd out the immediate drama of each scene. What happens to Shosanna's family is depicted both brutally and bloodlessly; a lesser director would have chosen one path over the other, but Tarantino has the insight and skill to combine them to devastating effect. (The Coens made similar decisions in No Country for Old Men.) As for QT's love of movies, he expresses it more touchingly than ever. During the stunning sequence in which Shosanna dons makeup and a red dress, the shots he gets are sweet tributes to feminine beauty and power in cinema.

Though Christoph Waltz's portrayal of notorious Nazi officer Hans Landa gets hammy towards the end, it's nothing he hasn't prepared us for. From the haunting first scene until Landa meets his supremely apt fate, Waltz lives up to his surname, dancing us in and out of the villain's evil aura. He comes off as smarter than the Nazi high command, whom Tarantino depicts as feeble-minded, violence-crazed man-children. Yet he isn't smart enough to elude his karma, which strikes him as soundly as it does Hitler, Goebbels, and the rest.

Some critics have suggested that Tarantino trivializes the horrors of the Third Reich by using the era as a backdrop for a bloody revenge tale. Yet there have been plenty of uprising films -- last year's Defiance, for example -- that won plaudits for telling true stories of Jewish resistance. Tarantino frames Basterds as fairy tale, fable, wish-fulfillment fantasy, and alternate history, but its climactic scene in a Paris movie theater works beautifully enough as simple catharsis.

We can't revive the loved ones we lost to the Nazis; we can't undo the infinite damage wreaked by the Holocaust. But we can take a trip into our darker dreams of vengeance and behold the splendid, horrifying sight of a building full of Nazis exploding into the Parisian night. That scene is astonishing cinema, balletic and relentless and in tune with the subconscious desire of countless Jews still furious about what happened to their people -- our people

There's a moment in which Eli Roth's character, nicknamed the Bear Jew, keeps gunning at Hitler even though the Führer is clearly dead. Out of context, it sounds juvenile and obvious, but after nearly 150 minutes of emotional buildup, it feels good -- it's a welcome release. Maybe that's fucked up, maybe not. Either way, it's worth talking and thinking about, and to me, that makes Basterds a strong piece of work.

Comment of the week

This one comes from Diana, a college friend with a lovely blog of her own, in reference to my tell-all post about the nutritional intricacies of my diet:

Any way I can get my hands on that program? I'm one of those people that convinces myself that everything is just fine... until confronted with hard evidence. We eat more than half our meals vegetarian now, but we still need less cheese/pasta and more actual vegetables. Email me if you have a copy or something.

There's nothing like gardening to make you eat more veggies; I say GO for it. There's no WAY you're going to let that home-grown stuff go to waste: it becomes precious. We ate tomato-pepper-basil salads almost 3x per week this last summer, and just knowing how much work went into it made it seem delicious every time. I'm very sad that we won't have a garden next year (because of the shade issue) or perhaps even the next (since we can't afford to get the land cleared and I'm afraid of chainsaws).

White pages

Sasha redesigned her blog, transforming its aesthetic into something strikingly minimalist. Makes me want to tinker around with mine. We'll see. Maybe something new for 2010.

I'm also still thinking about buying MazelTofu.com, a domain I've wanted for a while now. The concept: a site devoted to Jewish vegetarian cooking, including recipes, test-kitchen adventures, and anecdotes. I'd probably build the page using WordPress; I'm just concerned that it would be frivolous to buy cyber-property during a low-income month. Perhaps posting the idea here will prompt me to finally act, before someone else nabs the URL.

The Onion A.V. Club picks the best films and performances of the '00s

Both lists, of films and performances, are superb. I'm particularly pleased to see underrated gems like The Man Who Wasn't There and 25th Hour. (Thanks to Michael for sending this my way.)

My nutrition paper

It's part three of a class project for which we were asked to 1) keep track of everything we ate, including portion sizes, for 72 hours; 2) plug all the data into a diet analysis program; and 3) write an essay about our diet, including what we're getting too much of and what we're deficient in. I enjoyed the whole experience, and I think doing something like this regularly -- say, three or four times a year -- would be good for me. The Michael Pollan book I refer to in the essay is In Defense of Food, which I highly recommend.

I’m meeting most of my nutritional requirements simply by consuming too many calories each day. That said, I could use more linoleic acid; I’m only getting 78% of my daily requirement (13.28 g). I also need more water than I’m getting; I’m taking in just 68% of my daily requirement. Not surprisingly, considering where we all live, I need more vitamin D, too – I’m consuming only 79% of my requirement. I also need more of vitamins E and K. Among the food groups, I’m coming up short in the milk and fruit areas. I’m vegetarian but do consume dairy products, so I wonder how much more dairy I’d need to take in. Regarding fruits, I’ve been buying oranges and melons and trying to eat more fruit rather than juice.

I’m consuming too many calories compared to how many I’m burning. My average daily caloric intake is 3158, whereas my average expenditure is 2658. It’s no wonder I’m up to around 220 pounds and my BMI is 33. I’m consuming macronutrients in the right percentages, but the amounts are too large. I received recommendations from the diet analysis program based on a desire to lose weight, not just maintain it.

Still, my 447.55 daily grams of carbs far exceeds the 227-327 range the program recommends, and my fat intake (103.38 grams rather than 45 to 78) and protein consumption (122.93 grams instead of 80.56) are similarly high. I’m also consuming too much dietary cholesterol (143% of my daily recommendation), linolenic acid (149%), and fiber (116%). I attribute all of these excesses to a basic excess of calories.

I eat a combination of whole and processed foods, and while I could use more whole foods, I’m off to a pretty good start. Though I ate cold cereal with soy milk at the time of the recall, I now mix oatmeal with cinnamon sugar (and sometimes still soy milk). Pasta is my biggest downfall when it comes to overeating, so I’m trying to cut down.

On the first day of the recall, I shredded cheddar over whole-wheat rotini, which at least isn’t standard white pasta. I made a stir-fry on the first night that included bell peppers, onions, broccoli, mushrooms, tofu, celery, and basil. I don’t make as many stir-fries these days, but I’d like to get back to it, since it’s an easy way to consume a variety of vegetables.

On the second day, I had homemade cholent for lunch, which represents the kind of home-cooked meal I often eat in my community. The stew was packed with legumes (black, kidney, white, and garbanzo beans) and also included wild and brown rice, acorn squash, garlic, and cabbage. Making a lot of stew and eating it over the course of a week might be a good move for me as a vegetarian. I did eat a couple of mini Clif Bars that day, and I still have a weakness for processed, sugary “health bars.”

The third day, I blended bananas, strawberries, and soy milk for breakfast; at lunch, I had baby carrots and hummus. Both are typical of the whole-plus-processed food combos I often choose. I also ate veggie dogs that day – highly processed, lots of sodium – and made egg salad. I had class that night, and when I need a snack and haven’t planned ahead, I’ll often get a juice and a granola bar from the campus café. The amount of time I give myself to prepare my food varies, but I do enjoy taking an hour to cook something from fresh ingredients and enjoy it in a leisurely way.

I need to eat less. Snacking is often the problem. But sometimes I’m at a festive meal – and my community has many – and I simply eat too much. My willpower isn’t the strongest, so I need to work out some kind of structure for myself. It would be good to consume less cholesterol – fewer eggs would do it – and more linoleic acid. Also, drinking more water would be a great idea. It might help my digestion, make me feel fuller, and reduce my fatigue. More vitamin D would be good; I don’t drink milk (it grosses me out), but I do eat cheese and ice cream and sometimes yogurt. I could also eat more almonds for vitamin E and more dark leafy greens for vitamin K. I like kale, but I rarely make it myself. I should start.

I think my great-grandmother would recognize a decent portion of what I eat: the cheese, pasta, fresh fruits and vegetables, homemade stews, egg salad, and so forth. Not so much the Clif Bars. Since I’m a label reader (have been since I became vegetarian at 15), I do try to avoid unpronounceable ingredients and high-fructose corn syrup. I shop at a fruit and vegetable stand near my house and get food from the U District food bank, where things are donated from groceries like Trader Joe’s.
I don’t eat mostly plants, but I’m working on it; the produce stand helps. I eat a decent bit of cheese, yet I don’t often know what the cows were eating. Not grass, I imagine.

The farmers market is something I love but feel unable to afford. I want to become the kind of person who takes supplements, in the sense that I want to get more exercise and to balance my diet more carefully. That’s a major project for 2010. Wine with dinner? I’m not a big drinker, but occasionally I do have wine. “Pay more, eat less” – I practiced this philosophy when I had more money. As Pollan notes, snacking isn’t the best habit, but I do it anyway. I’m trying to keep more fruits and vegetables on hand for when I snack.

I eat too many meals standing up or in a rush, but I do believe that eating at a table is best, so I hope to make it a more consistent habit. Eating alone, as Pollan says, often leads to overeating, but I don’t do it too often; there’s nearly always someone around. That said, I overeat significantly at certain group meals, when no single person seems to notice how much I’m eating. Consulting my gut – that’s the trick, isn’t it? Goes along with eating slowly. I’m a notoriously fast eater, but when I take a more meditative approach – focusing on the taste and texture of each bite – I eat more slowly and have more success checking in with my gut.

I do cook frequently now, and I appreciated Pollan’s words about gardening as exercise with a purpose. Maybe once it gets warmer and stops raining as much, I’ll join in my community’s gardening efforts.