Tea and Politics

I was all fired up this morning after watching a good interview on C-span with Molly Ivins. But by the time I am writing this I've been distracted...
I just got a new shipment of TEA from Adagio. I decided to go with some new flavors a little more mainstream, so I went with some flavored and one "weird" one... I got a medium jar (4oz? I think) of Peach, a medium container of Vanilla (pictured above), a small (2oz) of Mango, and one wierd one called Dragonwell Requiem (which had very high ratings for the black teas). I also got another of their "ingenuiTEA" tea pots for work. When I opened the box, I was flooded with the smells of all the tea's combined. Mmmmm. The Mango is very strong smelling, and the vanilla is incredible (I hope they taste just as well).
I'll be sure to post back a review of these flavors.

Ok, a little bit more on the Molly Ivins... I originally saw Molly on a discussion panel with Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken (yes on c-span) and what a circus that was! She was overshadowed by the events between Al and Bill, but I was impressed with what I heard of Molly. I never got one of her books, but I think I will now. She's a "straight shooter" woman from Texas, and writes a syndicated column for various newspapers across the country.
She fielded several phone calls and answered each one well. It was also a bit funny, because she said last time she was on c-span the "kooks" were calling in, so this time she came in prepared for a battle, and she was thrown off due to the "intelligent" callers.
I encourage you to take about 30 minutes to watch her interview (1/27/06 on the Washington Journal). It's streamed via RealPlayer.
One quote that stood out was this one:

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

As Molly responded, she paused and said something to the effect that she thought that quote may have been from a fictional character. After looking the quote up this morning, there's an interesting story behind this. Read it hear on Snopes.com.

TGIF!!! Enjoy your weekend.