Journal

After a contentious year of judicial tumult, the Supreme Court is being seen by Congress as yet another target for review. Instead of doing the important work of making sure the damn potholes are filled in front of my house, the two chambers are busy dividing themselves into no fewer than 113 committees, sub-committees, coffee klatches, and weeknight happy hours to begin what is bound to be a year’s worth of injudicious tumult.

This is a bold move by Congress because the Supreme Court answers to no authority. The checks-and-balance system envisioned by the founders never anticipated that the life-long appointees to the bench would seek major doses of capital infusion from people with cases that might come before the Court.

And in addition to the cash prizes, there were yachting expeditions, fishing adventures, and autographed memorabilia from the Third Reich, including baseball card-like pictures and statistics of Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Hermann Göring.

The planned hearings will be unproductive in that no fewer than four of the nine have lied under oath during the Senate confirmation hearings. There is no reason to believe they won’t lie again. And again. And again.

No, it’s time to disband the current Court and start over from scratch. But first, we’ll need to disallow any gifts to the Court’s members worth more than $127, the cost of a Big Mac and fries. Anything more than that is a sign of corruption. Maybe. Who knows?

Building a new Court is fraught with danger. The current lineup is made up of lawyers. That hasn’t worked out so well. So the new Court will have no lawyers. This will put law into the proper perspective, calling only on senses of propriety, empathy, and fairness. The members of the new Court can have their clerks present papers with such judicial practices that include precedents buried deep in the literature of case law. But they don’t have to.

I have a list of potential justices that has not been approved by anybody. I just happen to believe that anyone nominated will be thrilled to serve. My list has been carefully designed to represent the mosaic that defines America. Many of the nominees are dead.

Here we go.

The only nominee who may rightfully be seen as a Supreme is Diana Ross. She’s a Black woman who seemed very nice when I met her. While she might not possess the wisdom of Solomon, I’m sure she would never suggest cutting a baby in half to satisfy a claim of motherhood.

Richard Simmons seems a good choice to provide representation of, well…you know. He will also lead the Court in daily exercise routines to keep its members fit and virile.

The Court needs both nutritional food and a French perspective on any case that involves fashion. Who better than Julia Child, a television star whose recipes called for pounds of butter and other forms of fat. So the food will be delightful, but not necessarily healthful. And Julia is not French.

If ever there was a time in the current moments of history when we could benefit from a poet, it’s now. Wendell Berry is that candidate. Not only is he a poet, but he is also an essayist and novelist. He’s also a farmer. The wisdom he possesses from the written word and the dirt that hosts our food, makes Mr. Berry an excellent nominee.

To have George Carlin be part of this august body is a no-brainer. He’s smart. He’s funny. And he is one of those willing to call a spade a spade. And if he has to bury a hatchet, it will be buried directly into the back of a head belonging to a bigoted idiot.

Carl Sagan possessed unmatched intelligence. Curious, the scientist looked in every direction to find answers to the world’s problems. He encouraged people to spend time in the library looking for the information that would be needed to form valid opinions about the world and its disputes.

A holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel has spent his life seeking justice for those being treated unjustly. His life reflects his unbounded empathy for the disenfranchised and his sense of history proves that we must read and understand it to ever discover our potential.

Nelson Rockefeller was the last man who made the Republican party make any sense. He was fiscally conservative and socially liberal. He also owes me the dime he borrowed in 1976 to make a telephone call. He was a cool guy whose best friend was the jazz vibraphonist Lionel Hampton.

So this rogue’s gallery I’ve assembled needs some reining in to advance the rule of law in these United States. Who better than Mr. Rogers to serve as Chief Justice? Kind, soft-spoken, and down-to-earth, he expresses those qualities to help generate our own goodness.

So there’s my Supreme Court. Oyez, oyez, oyez.

Photo manipulation by Courtney A. Liska

Cioppino

Every Italian chef has his or her own cioppino. Whatever you do, make sure you’re using fresh fish and plenty of spice.

1/4 cup olive oil
1 small carrot, chopped
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small serrano chile
1/2 bunch fresh basil, chopped
1/2 bunch fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1/2 bottle good red wine
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons hot sauce (recommended: Tabasco)
10 cups canned pureed tomatoes, about 5 (15-ounce)
8 cups fish stock
1 pound manila clams, scrubbed
1 pound mussels, scrubbed, debearded
1 pound uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1-1/2 pounds assorted firm-fleshed fish fillets such as halibut or salmon, cut into 2-inch chunks

For the tomato base: In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat and add the carrots, onions, peppers, and celery, and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chile, herbs, and seasonings and cook until fragrant. Add the wine, vinegar, Worcestershire, and hot sauce and reduce until the liquid is almost evaporated. Add the tomatoes and all of the fish stock, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Strain through a fine strainer, discarding the solids. Return to heat. Add seafood and cook until the shrimp are pink.

It was mere weeks after moving here thirty years ago that we began echoing the disdain our new-found friends had for tourists—tourons, in the local vernacular. Few of our new friends made their livelihoods directly off the visitors who seem to pack the town and clog the streets from June through September, that latter month devoted to the newlyweds and nearly deads who wait for the children to return to the classroom before venturing into a world populated by people in Bermuda shorts with cameras hanging from around their necks.

I never could have imagined that some ten years later I would be the chef/owner of a restaurant which relied heavily on those four months of tourism trade to help offset the winter’s dread.

Being a local business was a high priority. I didn’t want to cater to the tourists and ignore the locals who would sustain the business year round—those who would brave the snows to have a plate of pasta and a glass or two of wine. It was a good decision. When I shuttered the place after almost twelve years it was the customers at the tables and the heat of the kitchen that I knew I would miss the most.

I wasn’t wrong.

If there was a third thing to miss, it would be the funny stories and the insights into the human condition that can be gleaned from observing people who have chosen to step out of their element in pursuit of adventure. One of the big questions that emerge from these observations is how some of those people manage in their real lives if they can’t quite handle the rigors of a vacation. The stress of sightseeing alone is enough to drag a family of four into a brawling afternoon of Sturm und Drang.

I might have mistakenly referred to our tourist population as being clad in Bermuda shorts. This being Montana, the cowboy look prevails. Stetson hats, Levi’s, snap-button Western shirts, and Tony Lama boots. The boots are decorated with leather inlays of cacti—boots that have never seen the wet middle of a cow pie.

As it happens, I know several cowboys. Their costumes consist of well-worn jeans, a T-shirt that may or may not host an advertisement (same as the baseball cap) and Timberland work boots with a length of duct tape around the sole and arch.

The best “I’m not from around here” award goes to a man wearing a black satin cowboy shirt with silver trim and fringe. He looked like a goth Christmas decoration. He was with a couple of other people, and they ordered turkey sandwiches and a bottle of Barolo. The wine cost $140 and was the most expensive on my wine list. Naturally, the fringe guy paid with a black American Express card. The card has no credit limit and people have used it to buy hotels and yachts.

They left and there was about an ounce or two of the Barolo left. I carefully divided it into two glasses for me and the waitress. We both spit it out immediately. It was corked and tasted like vinegar.

I suddenly didn’t feel too bad about not having a black AmEx card.

Steaks were never much featured on my menus but there is a certain expectation of having steak when visiting a state with more steers than people. The steak I liked the best was a thick-cut T-bone that had come from an Italian breed (Piedmontese) that had been imported to Montana. I char-broiled the seasoned steak and garnished it with a sprig of rosemary dipped in olive oil.

The order came in for the steak, well-done, with a Port wine reduction. No chef likes to be told how to prepare a dish. It’s one of those things that you just have to get used to. I wouldn’t have prepared the sauce even if I had any Port wine. He later told me that it was the best steak he’d ever had, despite it being over-cooked.

For the record, I once couldn’t provide ketchup to Matt Damon because I didn’t have any. He lived.

One customer once wanted to know how long my spaghetti was. Until that moment I didn’t know it was twelve inches long and I will never know why he wanted to know. Does it matter?

We had a woman with a gaggle of children who stormed out in a huff because the little brats wouldn’t eat anything but French fries, another menu item I never had.

We had kind of a fussy woman one time who asked way too many questions about where we sourced our food and if it was organic. She quit asking questions when my waitress couldn’t keep from laughing when the customer asked if our zucchini was free-range.

Any business inside a tourist zone is peppered with questions about the local environs. For the most part, we’re pretty proud of where we live and will answer to the best of our abilities.

We’ve also been asked if we could fax a document. One guy wanted to buy a large piece of art we were showing; he changed his mind when I told him he would have to arrange for its delivery. I always liked those who came into an Italian restaurant claiming to be allergic to garlic and onions.

And then there was the guy who wondered why we didn’t have trout on the menu.

“The Yellowstone River is just a few blocks away,” he noted. “You could catch a few every morning and cook them up.”

Uh, no.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Swordfish Syracusa

This is a delightful grilled fish from Sicily. It allows the meaty flavor of swordfish to shine. Serves two.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 medium onion, minced
2 Tbs. capers, rinsed
10 large or 20 small green olives, pitted
1# plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 swordfish steaks, each 3/4″-thick
Flour for dredging
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbs. white wine vinegar
1 Tbs. minced Italian parsley
1 lemon, cut into wedges

In a skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat for 2 minutes; add the celery and onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium; add the capers, olives, and tomatoes, and stir well. After 1 minute, pour in 1/3 cup water, stir, and cook for 10 minutes, or until the liquid in the sauce has reduced somewhat.

Grill the swordfish; sauce; garnish with parsley & lemon wedges. Serve over linguine or boiled rice.

It was sometime in the ‘60s—post-Beatles, pre-Woodstock—that my sister was all riled up about what a huge waste of land burial sites were. With a sense of foot-stomping authority usually reserved for dictators, she laid claim to the fact that all told, cemeteries in these United States took up land equal to the size of Connecticut.

I chose not to engage in her discussion as I was not interested. Also, this was in a time before Google and to gather the information that might be needed to refute her declaration would have taken the better part of a day. It would have meant going to a library and searching painstakingly through the library’s index and then locating the books and finding the answer to said question.

Again, I was not interested.

Given my preoccupation with death and all that goes with it, I knew it was only a matter of time before the subject might arise. Indeed, I happened to find a photograph I took at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, Czech Republic, and I started wondering if my sister’s argument had any merit. The last burial at the Old Jewish Cemetery took place in 1786. Years before, in 1478, another Jewish cemetery was closed; its excavated land becoming what would be called New Prague.

Maybe there was a land shortage and, if so, might the U.S. also be running out of space to bury its dead?

I felt a sense of urgency to discover answers. In fewer than thirty minutes or so, I found out that there are approximately 3.5 million acres in Connecticut and today, so many years after my sister’s posit, I learned that approximately 144,000 acres across the country are devoted to providing a final home for the deceased. Surely there were fewer acres dedicated to the deceased then than there are now. Even if all American cemeteries were in the predominately Presbyterian Connecticut, there’d still be room for the state to supply the world with all the nutmeg we’d ever need.

Land use is no longer much of an issue. Fewer and fewer of us are choosing burial as a final option, instead, going the cremation route or being hoisted high in the air on an elk’s hide to rot under the summer’s sun. Only a handful of us will have our cadavers pushed to sea in a burning boat—kind of an at-sea cremation inspired by the Vikings.

Jews, we are told, are to be buried before the first sundown following our death. We are also told not to eat pork or shellfish. At a local restaurant the other day, three of us Jews had clam chowder soup. There was bacon.

Not to be too maudlin, but I’ve been wrestling with my wishes about my final resting place.

Burial appeals to me only to the extent that I’d get a tombstone that I could use to inscribe with some final dash of wit and/or wisdom. I’m also claustrophobic and afraid of being buried alive. I know the argument that I’d be dead (unless I’m not) and that there’s nothing more to do than just slowly turn to dust.

But the dust would most likely be trapped in a satin-lined casket and therefore not available to replenish the earth.

Although only three states require that the dead be in some kind of container, the funeral industry presses hard to sell caskets, frequently using sales tactics that make the next-of-kin feel like schmucks because they opted for the pine box.

Fire is another one of my fears. That brings into question cremation. Again, I know I’ll be dead and I’ll not feel anything (unless I do). The problem is that I’m making these decisions while I’m alive and it sends shivers up my spine.

Under no circumstances do I want to be embalmed. I remember the smell of formaldehyde from freshman-year biology. Why anybody would wish to be preserved like a laboratory frog is beyond me.

The idea of turning my death into a crime that a few of my friends could commit appeals to me. They could get together and steal my body from wherever it is and then transport it to some mountain ridge where the bears and the magpies could consider me dinner. Over time, there would be nothing left of me but bones—bones that would be found by some curious archeologist and pondered for several months. Perhaps I’d have been covered with a millennia or two worth of dirt, much like the woolly mammoths.

To be part of scientific discovery appeals to me.

My sister stuck to her disdain of cemeteries and willed her body to science. She had a rather grandiose vision about what her death would provide to the world of medicine. But rather than providing any insights as to how the brain worked (as was her hope), she became a practice body to somebody on the way to becoming a doctor.

But the real benefit of bequeathing your body to science is that when you die, a phone call brings the meat wagon to pick up the deceased and deliver it to some scientific institution. There are no charges for anything once the plan is in effect.

Granted, there are no ashes to put on the mantle; nor are there any comforting words about the deceased that may come up during a funeral.

I don’t want to be buried just so my friends come and lay the occasional flower or wreath against the tombstone. I’m going with the science program. I’m instructing my survivors to erect a tombstone somewhere with some pithy remark that will reflect on a life I’m glad I had.

I just hope that I have enough time left to come up with a suitably entertaining comment.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Mushrooms on Toast

This is a wonderful appetizer, full of the meaty taste of the mushrooms.

2 Tbs. unsalted butter, more as needed
1 pound thinly sliced portobello or cremini mushrooms
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
2 small garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper
Splash of sherry or Marsala (optional)
¼ cup crème fraîche
4 thick slices country bread, toasted and each slice cut into four points
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Heat a wide skillet over high heat and add butter, swirling pan. When butter begins to sizzle, add mushrooms and cook over medium heat, stirring, until lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes.
Add thyme and garlic, and stir to coat. Season well with salt and pepper and continue to sauté for a minute more, then add sherry, if using. Add crème fraîche and let mixture simmer for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, toast bread slices until golden. Lightly butter them and place on individual warm plates.
Spoon mushrooms and juices over toast points. Top with chopped parsley.

I’m intrigued by how MAGA went from a simple declaration of hope for our nation to return to greatness to being the defining principle of what’s left of the Republican Party. Make America Great Again suggests that we’ve somehow fallen from Greatness—a state of being that I would argue we have never attained.

With every moment of our national history came stories to suggest that we were far from ever being great. There is a certain nostalgia for the 1950s by people my age and older. What we witnessed wasn’t greatness; it was a decade of prosperity and economic growth among white people. Blacks, for the most part, were excluded from the advantages whites had.

At the same time as an interstate highway grid was being built to facilitate automobile travel, inner city housing developments were sprouting up in American cities to help alleviate any sense that people of color were being ignored. We weren’t ignoring them as much as we were building tenements to replace the small homes scattered about. Neighborhoods were replaced with ghettos. Those ghettos ignored the needs of its residents for education and opportunity, lack of both lead to drug addiction and crime.

Watching videos of various right wing demonstrations of protest recently, most of the participants seemed barely old enough to know that our greatness, interpreted by them, was a failure. They were racist and exclusionary—exactly defining that which the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers hoped would be our future was, in fact, our failure.

My intrigue was somehow enhanced by learning about “fifteen-minute cities,” a concept from the French academic Carlos Moreno, that provides diversity and climate concern.

“The model is based on places such as New York and Paris,” wrote Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker, “where most goods, from groceries to haircuts, can indeed be found within a fifteen-minute walk of your home.”

The author amends his description by noting that in “many New York neighborhoods, it’s closer to five, and in some Paris closer to two.” (Gopnik has lived in both cities.)

While I’ve been lucky enough to spend weeks in Paris, I have pleasant memories of being well inside those fifteen-minute (or less) parameters. Staying in the Latin Quarter in the late ‘70s, I would go to the open-air markets in the early morning to buy some assorted sausages, the wine shop for the obvious, and a mom-and-pop bakery for a baguette. Decades later, we were staying at our son’s mother-in-law’s home and my accepted offer to prepare lunch involved an easy walk a block’s distance that had different shops for meat, groceries, produce, wine, and bread.

It was a happy afternoon in the kitchen that autumn day.

Without having known before about this social construct, I realize that I have spent a good deal of my life in fifteen-minute cities. Where I grew up on Chicago’s West Side, everything was available within a two-block stretch of Roosevelt Road. A small grocery store, a dry cleaner’s, a pharmacy, the True Value hardware store that my father owned. Even our family’s physician had his clinic there. It was next door to the music store where I went for lessons and to listen to the latest records by Nat King Cole and Rosemary Clooney.

There was a corner dairy where I would go for a lunch of smoked whitefish and a dill pickle. It’s also where I would go to buy my mother’s cigarettes.

After leaving the West Side, my family bounced around the western suburbs, eventually settling on a country acreage four miles from the nearest town. Any need for products or services had to be approached by car. The same was true for my stays in Cleveland and Champaign-Urbana.

Living on New York’s Lower East Side was, in retrospect, living in that five-minute city suggested by Gopnik. A grocery store was one block south on Avenue D; on the way there was a laundromat, a pharmacy, and a deli. Four blocks west from my brownstone apartment was my favorite watering hole, McSorley’s Old Ale House. Three blocks south was Phoebe’s Tavern & Grill, just across the Bowery was the Bouwerie Lane Theatre, an off-Broadway venue in which I worked for several months.

Even my occasional jaunts to Katz’s Delicatessen or my Sunday tradition of lox and bagels at Ratner’s Second Avenue, next door to Fillmore East where I saw such performers as Frank Zappa, John and Yoko, and Miles Davis, to name but a few, my New York life was compact, contained in a small area. I didn’t have a car, but I was a 10-minute walk to the closest subway entrance.

Los Angeles is the antithesis of the fifteen-minute city. For seventeen years I contributed to climate change by not only driving a car to absolutely everything, but by doing so in stop-and-go traffic which regularly included gridlock.

When we moved thirty years ago to this small town in southwestern Montana there were two traffic lights and many of my family’s needs could be satisfied within a walking distance of fifteen minutes. One can still cover the three-block downtown in fewer than fifteen minutes, but downtown now hosts mostly restaurants, curio shops, art galleries, bookstores, and bars. The drug store is long gone and we’ve got a couple more traffic lights. And our growth is marked by stores and fast-food restaurants sprouting up on the town’s outskirts that increase the need for automobiles.

Seems like we might be moving in the wrong direction.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

VEAL PICCATA

One of my all-time favorites. It’s easy to prepare, as long as all the ingredients are ready. The recipe also works well with chicken breasts.

2 boneless veal cutlets, pounded thin
4 Tbs. unsalted butter
2 Tbs. olive oil
½ cup dry white wine
1 ¼ cups chicken stock
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
¼ cup capers, drained
2 tbsp. chopped parsley

Season veal; dredge in flour. Heat 2 tbsp. butter and oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add veal; cook 45-60 seconds per side. Remove and keep warm.

Add wine to skillet, and cook, scraping bottom of pan until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add stock and lemon slices, and bring to a boil; cook until reduced by half, about 8 minutes. Add remaining butter, juice, capers, and parsley, and season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over veal and serve immediately.

O.M.G.

The week was sated with a most desperate search for mass diversion since America was divided over our respect for Dr. Anthony Fauci at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. We saw, for instance, the return of the face mask to those whose breathing was challenged by Canada’s forest fire smoke drifting into the eastern United States. A hundred million were affected, while 230 million were left undisturbed that our neighbor to the north had watched its old-growth forests turn into a tundra.

Then, of course, was the whole Trump thing with Jack Smith delivering a 37-count indictment that leveled charges of espionage, collusion, grand theft auto and shoplifting. He’s promised to surrender to authorities on Tuesday, when two-thirds of the country will hope to witness the first presidential perp walk in history. It won’t happen…the perp walk, that is.

Russia is continuing its invasion of Ukraine. Billionaires are fighting for outer-space dominance. None have yet to come close to matching Alan Shepard’s piloting his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule in a 1961 suborbital, 15-minute flight.

There were other prominent stories: Pat Robertson died, as did James G. Watt, the latter of which was a right-winger. Oh, wait, so was Robertson. The Unibomber also died. George Santos spent the week gathering information to prove his truthful self. Boris Johnson bowed out of Parliament.

And in California, the original site of car culture, Governor Gavin Newsom is begging the legislature to not cut public transportation funds.

I rode a bus once in Los Angeles. My car was in the shop somewhere in east L.A. I had a meeting in Century City. The bus was pretty convenient connecting the two places. I boarded the bus, stuck a handful of coins in the receptacle next to the driver. I looked up to find a seat and was taken aback by the sight of a busload of men wearing tuxedos. I felt under dressed in my three-piece Armani suit.

As we worked our way west on Santa Monica Boulevard, the tuxedo-clad men started disembarking. It was 10:30 in the morning and the busload of men were on their ways to their work as waiters.

But what was really important in the grand scheme of things this week was that the PGA and the Saudi Arabian pay-for-play LIV, after two years of suing each other, were merging. Maybe. No one knows for sure.

“The parties have signed an agreement that combines PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from a model that delivers maximum excitement and competition among the game’s best players,” a statement from some golf faction reads.

Well, that certainly clears things up.

In a surprise press release Tuesday morning, the two circuits, along with the DP World Tour, announced “a landmark agreement to unify the game of golf, on a global basis.”

If anyone could do such a thing, it would come from the financing of the cash-rich Saudi Arabia. Blood money, it should be remembered, is the official currency of Saudi Arabia and only a year ago PGA head Jay Monahan suggested that players who defected to the up-start LIV were sullying the memories of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks.

Monahan was named to be head of the planned merger, but will cede financial dealings to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which also deals in FIFA soccer. The Arab nation is using sports as a platform to improve its image soiled by human rights violations and murderous dismemberment allegedly ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

That’s an undertaking that seems difficult to accomplish.

This whole ruse is simply about the guarantee of millions of dollars for the golfers. It’s embarrassing to watch Monahan and those participating players contending that “this is what’s best for the game” and “this will allow our game to grow around the globe.”

To do what’s best for the game, I suggest following in the footsteps of Major League Baseball and start setting time limits on certain areas of play.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a PGA tournament in which a golfer landed on a patch of pine straw. It was his second shot on a par-four hole. The color announcer recalled his various times spent shooting out of pine straw—with and without the presence of trees. Then the play-by-play announcer recalled a bunch of statistics. All the while, the player was trying to decide which club to use. Then they cut to a break that showed advertisements for a luxury car, a Rolex watch, and an investment fund.

After the break, viewers were treated to the golfer consulting with his caddie before finally settling on a club. After a few more minutes of taking practice swings, the golfer extricated his ball from its lie to roars from the crowd.

If baseball players are limited to how much they can take adjusting their gloves and jockstraps, golfers should be similarly restrained, not that there’s any need for a golfer to wear a jockstrap.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

PORK CHOPS ADAGIO

This was a popular item at my restaurant, Adagio. It’s simple and delicious. Serve with mashed potatoes.

2 (1″-thick) bone-in pork chops
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 Tbs. olive oil
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
12 pickled cherry peppers, halved
¼ cup dry white wine
¼ cup chicken stock

Heat oven to 425°. Season chops with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tbsp. olive oil in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat. Fry chops, flipping once, until browned, 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer pan to oven; roast until pork is cooked through, 18–20 minutes. Transfer chops to a plate. Return pan to medium heat, add remaining oil, garlic, and peppers; cook until garlic is golden, 3–4 minutes. Raise heat to high, add wine and stock; cook until reduced by half, 3 to 4 minutes. Spoon sauce over chops.

As I awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, I found myself transformed in my bed into a small dog.

I recognized myself for what I had become, mainly because I was vigorously chewing on a hairy paw, its claws like talons scratching the surface of my maxilla. I tried to speak, but nothing would emanate from my vocal cords besides a few barks ranging from guttural rumbles to shrill cries—any of which was meant to tell anyone within earshot that I was communicating an entire gamut of feelings or desires. Usually, my pleas are for food. Sometimes it just feels good.

Here I was then, a sentient being with an incurable desire to mark any territory as my own by baptizing said areas and objects with my distinctively malodorous urine. Why they say it’s a dog’s life leaves me bewildered. After only a few minutes I had determined that I would have been happier as the man I was before I opened my eyes to the morning’s light.

But that wasn’t to be. And how long before I would return—if ever—to that being was the unknown. Along with that uncertainty came what I can only figure to be canine angst about whatever it was I was to do in my new incarnation.

At first, I supposed, was to leave the warm comfort of my bed and explore familiar surroundings from nine inches above the floor.

I knew I had to tend to my toilette and beg for food with one of my new sounds. But first, fewer than ten minutes as my new self, I felt the need for a nap. As time would pass by, I seemed to need frequent naps in numerous places.

My human—the former me—knows little about me. He knows that I was put up for adoption after my first human died. There were two of us dogs in our little family, but the survivors chose to keep my brother and sentenced me to a cage in a shelter for abandoned dogs. That situation left me with severe separation anxiety.

I met my second human because he thought I would make a good companion for a blind dog that lived in his house. His wife thought he needed a dog of his own because the blind dog chose only to bark incessantly at him.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to nap.

Okay, then. I like the little blind dog because I get to torture him by hiding his toys and leading him on mad dashes that make him run into walls and the chair legs in the dining room. He gets salmon and lima beans to eat; I get turkey and sweet potatoes. They both come in kibble form and we get the same thing three times a day. (Boring…) I just finished breakfast, so it’s clearly time for a nap.

There are two other dogs besides me and the blind guy. I don’t particularly care for either of them. They are both large and, for their size, rather meek. One of them is part dingo and I suspect the other part is hyena. She screams like a banshee. The other one holds his head sideways as if he’d suffered a neck injury. They both have funny names.

Nap time.

All of us are fixed, though it’s possible that none of us were ever broken. At birth I identified as male. Now I identify as a eunuch. For the one year I could—fifteen for me, about the same age as my namesake—I never had a chance to demonstrate my maleness. Oh well. All of this talking is making me sleepy.

There is a large cat living here too. I hate him.

Normally, I don’t get too excited about things although I don’t like it when people come onto the porch. I love to dance and I’m good at it, my nails making tapping sounds on the linoleum much like Gregory Hines. My human seems to enjoy my dancing—at mealtimes, or when we go for a walk or a drive in the car. I’ve recently added a snort to go with the dancing. The snorting makes him laugh.

Guess what? I need a nap. This time it will be under the table my human sits at for most of the day while he reads and surfs the internet.

There is a television in our room that is on to some channel where people talk about politics and gun deaths. It makes me sad that children have to die. I pay little attention to the television, unless I hear barking, in which case I’ll bark along. I also pay little attention to politics, though I imagine I would be considered a leftist.

I saw myself in a mirror once. It confused me because I didn’t know who it was that seemed to do everything I did. After all, I had no idea what I looked like until then. My human always says that I’m a pretty boy. Several times a day he asks, “Who’s a good boy?” That’s my cue to roll over onto my back so he can rub my belly. Then I fall asleep.

I wonder if I’m wasting my life by sleeping so much. Then I wonder what I would do if I stayed awake for a long time.

I can’t think of anything productive that I could do.

After all, I’m just a dog living a dog’s life. It’s time to sleep.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Clams Oreganati

Yet another delicious way to enjoy linguine with clams.

A dozen fresh clams
1 Tbs. shallots
1 Tbs. garlic
red pepper flakes
extra virgin olive oil
splash of white wine
fresh basil
1 tsp. oregano, dried
zest of one lemon
lemon juice
parsley for garnish
6 oz. cooked linguine

Sweat shallots and garlic in oil. Add clams and white wine. After the clams have opened, add basil, oregano, zest and lemon juice. Toss. Spoon over linguine and garnish with parsley & lemon wedges. Enjoy!

It must be something in Florida’s drinking water that has given rise to the likes of Marco Rubio, Matt Gaetz and Ron DeSantis, the latter of whom has declared war on the LGBTQ+ community, libraries and Disney’s fairy princesses.

Swimming around in Florida’s swampy politics is Daily Salinas, the Miami Lakes mother who petitioned her children’s school to ban students’ access to “The Hill We Climb,” a poem written by Amanda Gorman. The poet, a 25-year-old Black woman, read her poem at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Salinas challenged the Gorman poem—which she says she hasn’t read in its entirety—on the grounds that it contains “indirect hate messages.” The review committee said it “erred on the side of caution” in deciding to limit students’ access.

Salinas also petitioned the school to restrict children’s books about the Black poet Langston Hughes and about Black and Cuban history. After a committee reviewed her challenges, the Miami-Dade County school district opted to restrict all but one book about Cuba from grades K-5, while leaving them available to middle school students.

The Miami Herald identified Salinas as the petitioner. After the story about her was published, a left-wing group, Miami Against Fascism, called attention to a Facebook account it identified as hers. The account, which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reviewed, features a flood of political posts reflecting right-wing ideologies—and the antisemitic The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the most notorious and widely distributed antisemitic publication of modern times.

Salinas’ post about the Protocols included a list of steps depicting how “Jewish Zionists” would achieve world domination.

Salinas apologized to JTA for the post, but not for appearing with the ultra-right Proud Boys at a rally for Moms For Liberty, a “parents’ rights” group active in pushing for book removals across the country.

The fact that Salinas had yet to read Ms. Gorman’s poem before asking for its being restricted, spells out that Salinas’s objection is to the fact that the poet is a Black woman. Period.

But don’t take my word for it. Please read the poem (which follows in its entirety). I’ve read it four times in the past few days and find only hope and inspiration in its beautiful expression. And it seems only appropriate for this weekend when we take a few moments to honor those who gave their lives for our freedom.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

The Hill We Climb

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it.

Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.

We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.

And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge our union with purpose.

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.

We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.

That even as we grieved, we grew.

That even as we hurt, we hoped.

That even as we tired, we tried.

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.

Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.

If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.

It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.

It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.

We feared at its inception.

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.

But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.

Our blunders become their burdens.

But one thing is certain.

If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.

Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the golden hills of the West.

We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.

We will rise from the sun-baked South.

We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.

And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

It was the 1950s and everything was perfect.

We had emerged victorious in what would become known as the last good war, yet another war to end all wars. The boys were home and there were good jobs and opportunities to go to college on the GI Bill. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had managed the war in the European Theater of Operations, was at America’s helm. Social change was on the agenda and the infrastructure of a still-young country was being masterminded. The landscape was being re-shaped by a system of roads that would make the country more mobile and sate our wanderlust.

And schoolchildren were reassured that a desk would protect them from any nuclear attack and its attendant fallout.

Everyone had a new car and a cracker-box house in the suburbs. Service clubs thrived.

At least that’s how it was for white people. I’d advise that those interested in Black history, sign up for a class in Critical Race Theory.

To help sustain this new order of the “Leave-It-to-Beaver” era of social enlightenment, Norman Vincent Peale, a clergyman from Ohio, published his 1952 best seller, The Power of Positive Thinking. Dr. Benjamin Spock taught the parents of the baby boomers how to be, well… parents. His Baby and Child Care, advised several generations of new parents to be more flexible and affectionate with their children and to treat them as individuals.

And men, most of whom would never say anything publicly more than a toast at a wedding, flocked to Toastmasters International to develop skills at communication, public speaking, and leadership. I was taken to a Holiday Inn conference room twice a week to partake in Evelyn Wood’s Reading Dynamics—a speed-reading program endorsed by those in congress who had to read the Congressional Record every day.

Keeping things positive was the chore laid before what Tom Brokaw called the “greatest generation.” It was a dire direction and required them to deny some simple realities.

“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.’ It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult,” wrote M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled. “Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

I would argue with Mr. Peck that a difficult life is a difficult life. Period. And it matters a lot. We need not gush about a good life in that the difficult life is more easily adapted to cynicism—a natural reaction to the inane.

The struggle for positivity today is best witnessed on social media. For instance, it’s where I found the Peck quote, and it’s where thousands of people spread the gospel of high hopes. Those messages are typically written in script with a floral-pattern backgrounds. Frequently there are birds or fluffy puppies. A growing number of people will be unable to read these advisories since they were never taught cursive penmanship. Lucky them.

When I’m not cringing at the Goody Two-Shoes missives on Facebook, I’m blushing at their sentimentality. I want to believe, for instance, that “better days are on their way.” While offering a positive note about the future, what does it say about today? Positivity is in the offing; negativity is the reality.

“Be yourself and people will like you,” noted some Pollyanna. I can think of hundreds of exceptions.

Buddha, in his role as a wise man who weighed in on most matters facing each of us in daily life, offered the cautionary “what we think, we become.” The message here, of course, is to entertain only positive thoughts lest one becomes one’s own avatar.

The Dalai Lama, recently embroiled in a tongue controversy, advises us to “choose to be optimistic, it feels better.” This is a variation of the half-empty, half-full question that embodies the choice we have to be either hopeful or dire as we trundle through our lives. A lot of this depends on our cultural, ethnic or religious experiences.

A variation of the above might be that “sometimes, when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place.” Whatever.

“Do good and good will come to you,” while innocent-sounding on one level, is actually a denial of doing good for no reason other than to do good. A promise of a reward for one’s actions on that arcane level is to deny reality.

“Surround yourself with positive people.” The definition of positive is essential to find any meaning in the quote. In my book, positive people are those who wake up smiling and want to engage in conversation before noon.

I’ll pass.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Grilled romaine salad

Now that grilling season has finally arrived it’s time to prepare this delicious salad.

Dressing
1 Tbs. minced shallots
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
5 tsp. Champagne vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt

Combine ingredients in a lidded jar and shake well to mix.

Salad
3 heads romaine lettuce
1 bunch small radishes
2 hard-cooked eggs
1/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs
olive oil
salt

Trim romaine and halve each head lengthwise, leaving enough base to hold the halved head intact. Slice the radishes as thinly as possible. Finely chop the eggs.

Combine the breadcrumbs in a small saucepan with the olive oil. Stir to coat well, season with salt and place over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the crumbs have darkened and toasted, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Grill the romaine on over high heat, cooking just long enough to sear, 1 to 2 minutes to a side. The heat must be intense so as to char the lettuce but not allow it to wilt too much.

Arrange lettuce on a platter, season lightly with salt and spoon a generous tablespoon or so of dressing over the top. Repeat until all the romaine has been cooked and added to the platter.

Distribute the thinly sliced radishes over the top. Scatter the chopped eggs. Spoon over more of the salad dressing, scatter the toasted breadcrumbs and serve.

It must have been that part of me as a journalist that made me eager to see for myself Justus Township, that area called a sovereignty by the Montana Freemen just outside of Jordan, a small town in eastern Montana that at one time was known as the vaudeville center of the West and had a bustling bar scene with drag-queen shows.

It was in the fall of 1996 that I headed there to hunt antelope, the fleet-footed ruminant that populates the high plains in great numbers. The 81-day-long armed standoff between the anti-government militant “Christian patriot” group and U.S. federal officers was over, the leaders sitting in jail cells awaiting trial.

Rain stopped me from camping that first night and I checked into what I believe was the only motel in a town whose population was under 400 people. I read a small placard on the inside of the door informing me that Sam Donaldson, the legendary ABC television journalist, had slept there.

Another hand-written sign warned occupants against skinning animals in the room. Who would do such a thing, I wondered. Then I thought of those people who pronounce “government” in two syllables.

A cursory glance at the telephone directory seemed to suggest something about a town with only four listed surnames, perhaps that the dating pool offered only first cousins as prospects.

I had a burger and a beer at a keep-your-back-to-the-wall bar on Jordan’s main drag. The other customers’ reactions to a stranger in their midst prompted me to think that the feds had not rounded up all of the Freemen. That same thought came to me when, the next morning, I encountered locked gates blocking access to public lands.

I failed to get an antelope.

The feds and the media seemed to be the only ones who cared much about the Freemen. The ragtag group of armed militants looked, in retrospect, to be the models for the Proud Boys and other 1/6 insurrectionists. I read the stories and watched the television reports with enough interest to tell my out-of-state friends that the Freemen were something of an anomaly in the Last Best Place. We, after all, tend to be individualists with a “live and let live” attitude toward all that surrounds us.

That attitude, I fear, is changing. Montana’s political scene saw us turn a deep red from its longtime standing as purple. This is a state that gave Congress Jeannette Rankin, who in 1917 became the first woman to hold federal office. Almost three decades later, Mike Mansfield, a progressive Democrat, began his Congressional tour that lasted thirty-four years.

A few legislative sessions ago, a Libertarian lawmaker introduced a piece of legislation that would make it illegal for women to wear leggings. Talk about overreach.

Now we have a right-wing roster of elected officials who have pledged their allegiance to Donald Trump: Sen. Steve Daines, Rep. Ryan Zinke, Rep. Matt Rosendale, and Gov. Greg Gianforte, each of whom seems irrationally obsessed with the southern border. Our legislature features a Republican super majority that is trying its level best to strip Montana men of our right to cross dress. They also want separate bathrooms for every known kind of Montanan—men, women, girl singers, trans, etc. It’s almost as if none of them have ever used an airplane toilet.

All of this seems frivolous during a time with serious issues facing us.

The Repubs have targeted the LGBTQ+ community for its right to live normal lives and went so far as to censure Zooey Zephyr, a transgender representative from Missoula.

But it’s their opposition to drag queens that bothers me most. As disgusting as it might sound, men dressing as women dates back to the beginning of time. Nero’s costume of the day looked decidedly feminine. Shakespeare’s theatre troupe was all male but there were plenty of women in his plays. Milton Berle and Bob Hope frequently appeared in drag. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis cross-dressed in the Billy Wilder’s 1959 film “Some Like It Hot.” (For the record, the classic movie was banned in Kansas.) Robin Williams played “Mrs. Doubtfire,” as well as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.

Deplorables every one.

The Republican super majority wants to ban drag queens from putting on shows and reading to children, the latter of which I didn’t even know was a thing. (My friend, Lisa D. Snow, is hosting the Livingston Pride Coalition’s “Drag Story Hour” at Wheatgrass Books on Saturday, May 20 at 11 am. Geared for children, all are welcome.)

Considering our history of cross-dressing—there are stories of women dressing as Union soldiers during the Civil War—the Repubs should not throw stones at the glass house. J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the FBI from its beginning until he could no longer feed himself, frequently dressed in drag. Mamie Eisenhower found him to be repulsive.

And look at Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina. If ever there was a drag queen, he is the one to put on the sequined gown, the ruby red lipstick and smoke using a bejeweled cigarette holder. I see it in his eyes. There are other closeted drag queens in Congress. Matt Gaetz, Mitch McConnell, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kyrsten Sinema, and the 89-year-old senator Chuck Grassley top the list. We’re still on the fence about Kevin McCarthy, and God-only-knows what’s up with Joe Manchin.

Or any one of them could be. And who cares?

I don’t know about you, but I could not care less than I do about men dressing as women to put on a show or read to children. I also don’t object to any department store Santa Claus.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska 

Mussels Appetizer

This was one of the most requested appetizer at my restaurant, Adagio, for most of the 12 years I was open.

(8-10 mussels per serving)

Sauté medium chopped shallot in 1-2 Tbs. butter over low heat for 5-7 minutes. Add 1 tsp. cracked black pepper and add mussels. After a minute or two, add ½ cup of white wine and cover pan until mussels have opened.

Arrange mussels in a circle atop a handful of fresh spinach.

To finish sauce, add a tsp. or so of deli mustard, capers, fresh basil and cream to the cooking liquor. Pour over mussels and serve.

There is great wisdom expressed by the novelist Kurt Vonnegut about The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life… but that’s not enough anymore.”

In search of what might be missing, I followed his advice and read Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. While that book might in fact be the book that best demonstrates the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government, a lot has changed since its publication in 1831, thirty-eight years before professional baseball became America’s sports obsession.

Clearly, more written guidelines are needed to help steer the course of one’s life. For me, the next literary breakthrough came from Neil Postman’s 1985 Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Long before the internet or Trump, Postman saw television’s entertainment value as a present-day “soma,” the fictitious pleasure drug in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, by means of which the citizens’ rights are exchanged for consumers’ entertainment.

Last week, I was given a copy of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande, the surgeon-author whose resume makes everybody else seem like slackers. The 2014 book begins with an acknowledgement of what we all know is an inevitability—death—and then explores the multitude of ways we are given to approach it. While we might be accepting of death, how we die is the question most fraught with fear.

“I don’t mind dying,” an old friend used to quip, “I just don’t want any pain.”

Gawande spends a good part of the book examining those places where most of us will spend at least part of our final year. Hospitals, retirement homes, nursing facilities, and assisted living communities are among the choices. Hospice, of course, can take place in a dedicated facility or at home. Given the choice, most of us would probably opt for home, surrounded by family.

Both of my sets of grandparents and my parents skirted the out-of-hospital experiences. My grandfathers died before there was such a thing a dedicated care and housing for the elderly. One died at work, the other at home after a short battle with colon cancer. By today’s standards, they were young.

My maternal grandmother, Ruth, died at 95 in the hospital in her western Nebraska town. She was active in her community, active to the point of pretty much running things. If she happened to miss a city council meeting and learned about an ordinance that she didn’t like had passed, she talked to however it was to facilitate its reversal.

When the DMV wouldn’t renew her driving license, she bought a golf cart. She spent at least three afternoons a week reading to “the old folks” at the town’s nursing home. She was decidedly older than many of the residents.

My paternal grandmother never drove a car. She spent her entire adult life in Cicero, an early settlement of Bohemian and Czech immigrants on the western edge of Chicago. Her last apartment was a two-story walk-up above a bakery on Cermack Road that she shared with a parakeet. Though she couldn’t read English, she subscribed to The Sun-Times for the obvious reasons.

Gawande wrote a single chapter about a young doctor who was hired to be medical director of a nursing home. Many of his ideas were to break rules that he systematically gained exceptions for to advance his views on how to best live one’s final weeks, months or years. A two-story building, he had one dog and two cats per floor. He also had 100 birds—birds that were caged in every residence. He wanted the facility to be as homelike as possible.

My father had a similar view about helping the elderly better enjoy old age. It was coming up on his mother’s birthday, a day in November when the entire family would gather to honor her. Dad went to a pet shop and bought a very expensive parakeet that was even banded to show its pedigree. Later, the bird somehow got out of the cage and flew into the picture window in our front room.

The bird died.

It was time to leave for babička’s party and the pet shop was closed for the day. Dad went to E.J. Corvette, kind of a poor man’s Walmart, and bought a parakeet for pennies on the dollar. He removed the band from the dead bird’s leg and put in on the cheap replacement. Who would know? Who would care?

My babi accepted the caged birth with nothing short of disdain. As the weeks went by, I’d go to visit babi. I noticed the bird squawked a lot. Turns out she had taught it to swear in Bohemian. The bird outlived my grandmother.

I spent nine weeks in a skilled nursing facility in Denver. After sixteen days in a coma and several weeks in ICU, I had lost the ability to walk, dress or feed myself. While the stay wasn’t altogether unpleasant, I missed my family, and I was deeply depressed about being there. I shunned all of the little concerts and activities (bingo, crafts, etc.) that were offered. Like my maternal grandmother, I thought those things were for old people.

The highlight of each week was when volunteers would bring their dogs to visit the patients. Each was a big dog, full of friendly tail wags and wet kisses. In a place that reeked of death, the canine visits were little reminders of home, which, of course, was the point. Most of us will want to face being mortal as comfortably as possible. And there is no place more comfortable than our own homes.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska