I Hate This Kind Of Football

How many times does Dr. Lucy Ford get to pull away the football?

I got your states rights right here pal!

There have many well know cases of ruptures between politicians and their children due to the stress of living a public life. The difficulties of Ron Reagan and Patti Davis with their family have been well documented and many of the children of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were estranged for most of their father’s administration. But the worse case of family squabbling can be found in the severed relationship of the 7th Vice President of the United States, John C. Calhoun and his daughter Rory.

Although the Vice President had a loving relationship with his wife Floride they became estranged. First by the trouble she created when she to ostracize the wife of the Secretary of War John Eaton. She claimed that his wife Peggy had actually begun an affair with Secretary Eaton while still married to her first husband Justin Timberlake. Since President Jackson’s own wife Rachel had been the subject of vile rumors he did not take kindly to this friction in his Cabinet, he severely rebuked Vice President Calhoun and cut him out of all Cabinet meetings. This drove a wedge between Calhoun and his wife Floride which widened into a chasm when he misspelled the name of the new state he helped usher into the Union which was supposed to be called Floride but was misspelled as Florida.

This wedge was further exacerbated when Calhoun began an affair with a young woman journalist from New York named Barbara Walters. Rory hated her father and he wrote her off. She was as dead to him as most of Joe Biden's kids. 

Young Rory took her mothers side and they both left the crotchety politico to move to Stars Hollow Connecticut where they operated a bed and breakfast and stop on the Underground Railroad to infuriate the proslavery Calhoun. They spent the rest of their lives having meaningless conversations where they talked so fast and over each others voices so much that they were totally incomprehensible for the rest of their lives. 
(Alice Roosevelt Longworth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: The Sexuality of Political Children by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Playboy Press 2008)

Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

Albert Maignan's "Green Muse" (1895): a poet succumbs to the Green Fairy

Absinthe has a long history which I've mostly ignored. I had an aunt who brought some back from Paris and let me try as a child. I thought it disgusting. The dominant flavors--anise and fennel--are two of my least favorite things. Fennel, called finocchio in Italian,* is particularly wretch-worthy in my book.

But, I bought some recently, in my quest to render and mimic adult beverages in plastic. Here is what raw absinthe looks like rendered in plastic:

Part 1 of a retail educational display

The silver utensil is called an absinthe spoon. It is used to hold a sugar cube over the spirit. Ice cold water is then slowly dripped onto the cube, dissolving the sugar. About midway through the process--the French call it making the louche--a distinct cloudiness ensues. The final result is milky green beverage that looks like this:

Part 2 of a retail educational tool

Clueless but curious, I looked into what is going on with this drink. Absinthe contains anethole, a molecule having the following structure:

The first thing to note is that the molecule is a trans alkene. It's also an ether, and an aromatic molecule. Anethole is very soluble in pure absinthe which is high in alcohol (around 110 proof); it is much less soluble in water--especially cold water--and adding water causes the anethole to precipitate. The precipitate is the louche. Ouzo uses the same molecule except that the anethole actually crystallizes and floats on the drink. Here is video showing the making of an absinthe louche:

Gotta wonder if Trooper York ever visited that Brooklyn joint featured in the video called Maison Premiere. Probably not. It sounds too French. Who wants to hang out at a place french-themed?

[added] In the comments, ricpic mentions a painting by Degas--"The Absinthe Drinker"

"The Absinthe Drinker" Degas (1876)

According to the Wiki:

The woman in the painting was derided as a whore and the entire image was seen as a blow to morality and the degradation of society due to absinthe. 

 _________________
*Absinthe is also known as "The Green Fairy."  I'll bet there's a story behind that.