Norbu

Here I am back at my Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling Autumn Flush 2012 FTGFOP1 blog. I have not been adding new reviews to the Steepster database, in protest to the protracted dysfunctionality of the site.

I’ll be unveiling my new tea blog, sherapop’s tea leaves, soon… It’s just a matter of deciding whether I want to transfer all of my 1000+ reviews or start from scratch. Not sure what to do. To be perfectly frank, I do not have an enormous amount of faith in the folks at Steepster, which inclines me to make back-ups of all of my reviews before the place is shuttered permanently.

Let’s face the facts, my tea-infused friends: it has been months since this site functioned. I haven’t used my cupboard and most of the time the forum and dashboard are many hours behind the actual time, all of which makes this place not very fun to hang around anymore. My best guess is that the people in charge have “other priorities”, as Dick Cheney would say… Otherwise it just does not make any sense. How difficult can it be to make the changes needed to bring a site back to its formerly functional state?

Baffled, I remain.

Another glass of palate-cleansing Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling Autumn Flush 2012 FTGFOP1.

Today’s random and tangentially relevant observation is that people’s tastes are definitely molded in part by availability. The more I drink this tea, the more I reach for it! This was my tenth batch, so about seventy more to go.

perfect Autumn breeze
purple mountain majesty
amber waves of gold

Apologies for the neglect of my Norbu Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling Autumn Flush 2012 FTGFOP1 blog. I hate to admit it, but I’ve been frequenting Starbucks this week. No worries: I’m back on the tea track!

I stayed up late last night Googling responses to Obama’s imminent (“at a time of our choosing”) preemptive war on Syria—er, against the strongest enemies of President Assad. What???? I wanted to know if anyone else noticed that Obama has morphed completely and utterly into George W. Bush, having now waged multiple wars without the approval of the UN Security Council. Oh wait, I do believe that The Hawk Obomba has exceeded Bush on this front, having waged undeclared drone wars on several different countries simultaneously.

The funniest thing that happened to me last night was that I accidentally pulled up Obama’s Syria speech of September 11, 2013 (a year ago) first. So I was listening to him say how he had to deliver some missiles to Syria against Assad. About half way through, I realized that I was watching the wrong year’s speech! So this year’s speech is all about ISIL, the new boogey man du jour—a cross between Hitler and Al Qaeda, it seems!!!! In drumming up support for his new undeclared war, Obama omitted mention of the facts that Assad and ISIL are arch enemies, and so are Iran and ISIL (for some reason Obama does not call them ISIS—perhaps embarrassed about last year’s failed war effort?)! In fact, it appears that Iranian boots are already on the ground in Syria. This means that we have a true Coalition of the Incoherent: Obama, Iran, and Assad!

I always thought that the U.S. government’s most fundamental principle was “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. That’s why they’ve propped up—and handsomely paid—far-right military dictators and thuggish war lords all over the globe. In this case, “No Boots” Obama is planning to arm only “appropriately vetted moderate rebels” to take down both the “unvetted radical rebels” and, apparently, Assad! In the meantime, scores of civilians are bound to die in the crossfire of what can only be termed a bona fide Quagmire with a capital ‘Q’!

Needless to say, Obama, like Bush before him, fell for the provocation strategy to draw the U.S. military back into conflict. Two journalists were beheaded, yes. I dare ask most sincerely: is beheading any more barbaric than blowing human beings apart with a Hellfire missile, spraying blood and scattering body parts far and wide?

This is the kind of nonsense that creates conspiracy theorists out of mild-mannered skeptics. Big time.

I need another cup of tea.

Here I am once again, back at my private “Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling Autumn Flush 2012 FTGFOP1 from Norbu” blog.

Today’s glass was lovely, as always! I am definitely using this tea as a palate cleanser between green and new darjeelings…

Interestingly, a thread in the forum poses the question whether any Steepsters drink darjeeling. My hypothesis is that because darjeeling is so very easy to ruin by overheating or oversteeping, many people had early negative experiences and assumed (as many neophytes about green tea do as well…) that all darjeeling is bitter and overwhelmingly grassy.

Properly steeped, it’s a wonderful tea!