A Friday Cocktail with BlogForArizona: The Long-Fong Split. Plus a Bonus Rant on Senate Malapportionment for Garnish!

I loved the Friday cocktail segment that Rachel Maddow would frequently do on her show. She hasn’t done one in a while, so I’m stepping in to fix the deficit in your weekend blood alcohol content (but please do drink responsibly!)

I am part of the planning for a house party fundraiser for Kirsten Engel on October 21st sponsored by TheDGT.org. I noodled out a cool tropical Tiki-style cocktail per the Hawaiian theme of the party – to highlight the entirely man-made disaster of the Hawaiian wildfires this summer and raise money for ongoing charitable relief efforts – and what I came up with is what I named the Long-Fong Split.

Ultimately, the planning committee decided to go instead with a non-alcoholic punch base with optional recommended alcohol add-ons to create your own punch cocktail, which perhaps I will share on a coming Friday.

The Long-Fong Split:

• 1 part Dark Rum (there are several very high-quality local Hawaiian rum distillers to choose from!)
• 1 part coffee liqueur (again, there are several excellent local Hawaiian-made liqueurs and cordials made from some of the finest coffee growing areas on earth)
• 1 part macadamia nut liqueur (I used Kahana Royale, but you could also use macadamia syrup instead)
• 1/2 part heavy cream (or you could use your favorite vanilla ice cream as a substitute at 1 scoop per part, or more…)
• Optional: several shakes of molasses bitters (this is a very sweet drink and I already had the bitters, so why not?)
• Ripe bananas to taste (if you are making with 1 cup equal to 1 part, you would add two ripe bananas to the mix)
• Ice to create your desired texture

Blend the ingredients to the desired texture. You will get a granita or thick slushy mouth-feel, but should you use ice cream and more ice, you can easily get to a smooth milkshake consistency if you prefer.

I would suggest garnishing with a slice of banana and/or a so-called ‘maraschino’ cherry (the bright red fruity kind you find on a banana split, or, better, the Luxardo brand maraschinos marinated in real Maraschino liqueur which adds a wonderful bitter almond note to the garnish that goes great with the macadamia nut flavor).

Now, you may be wondering why I named this wonderful confection Tiki cocktail the Long-Fong Split? The ‘split’ part is certainly pretty obvious given the bananas, but the ‘Long/Fong’ part is a bit of a Hawaiian political history lesson. Upon the referendum ratifying Hawaiian statehood in 1959, under Republican President Eisenhower, the two newly elected Senators from Hawaii were Senators Oren Long and Hiram Fong. Long was a Democrat and Fong was a Republican – hence the Long-Fong (and also the ‘split’ as double entendre).

It’s now been more than 60 years since we have admitted a new state to our Union: Hawaii was the last, preceded by Alaska 8 months earlier in January of ’59. It is high time that Washington DC be admitted as a state. It is simply unfair and frankly racist that the American citizens residing in the District have no voting power in Congress. The unfair bit is obvious, but why racist, you may ask? Well, consider that the population of the District (over 700K – larger than Vermont and Wyoming, and almost as large as Alaska!) is majority-minority (45% African American, 5% Asian, 46% white) and then you don’t really have to wonder why Republicans are adamantly opposed to DC statehood.

And then there is the shameful imperialist relict of the American territorial islands of the Caribbean and Pacific. They also lack voting Congressional representation. Our territorial islands together have a population of over 4 million people (larger than 23 of our states, 3.2 million of those are in Puerto Rico, which alone is larger than Iowa and 19 other states!) many of whom are American citizens without Congressional representation. This situation, too, is unfair and racist.

We should let the residents of these territories choose whether to continue their status as is, to choose independence with American support and treaties for defense and basing rights, or to enter the Union as a state, or states.

Many would complain that statehood would give these new island states too much power in the Senate, but the Senate is already overwhelmingly malapportioned toward smaller rural (and whiter…) states (less than a quarter of the population can elect 51% of the Senate, and as little as 11% can block any legislation in the Senate by dint of the terrible Filibuster cloture rules, and it is only going to get worse!) so any over-representation would only go a small way toward rebalancing the Senate. Perhaps it would even prompt a long-overdue reform of the Senate’s horrible malapportionment which so deforms and distorts our sputtering democracy. The result would be between 6 to 12 new Senators, depending on how the new states are drawn.

How about 1 Senator elected state-wide per 1 million in population? States below 2 million in population would get 1 (DC would only get one) and those with 2 or more million would get an additional Senator per million. Thus instead of Wyoming and California both getting two, Wyoming would get only 1 and California would get 39. You may think that unfair, but voters in Wyoming would still have twice the voting power (rather than nearly 80-to-1, as it now stands) as a Californian in that they only have a 1/2 million in population, but get a whole Senator (fractional Senators… hmmm), while Californians would only get 1 for a full million in population. Thus adding all Districts, and Territories as states would only add 8 Senators (3 for Puerto Rico, 1 for DC, and 1 each for Guam, Virgin Islands, Samoa, and Mariannas) to a body of 335 Senators. Just one possible idea, there are lots of them out there, but this one seems the most democratically fair to me.

Here’s where I note that current Arizona Senator Kyrsten #SingleTermSinema (I) will NOT vote with the Democratic caucus to reform the Filibuster to stop its abuse to prevent any reform of the Senate’s malapportionment -such as admitting new states – nor to protect basic human rights such as American women’s abortion rights, nor any other purpose. This is despite the stark fact – which she surely knows – that there are already OVER 100 exceptions to the Filibuster. Pretty much anything of real importance to the business of the Senate has been exempted from blockage by this racist historical relict. Yet Sinema thinks 11% of Americans blocking progress toward a more perfect democratic Union and the fundamental rights of the rest of us is just fine and dandy (but more importantly, it’s fine with the wealthy hedge fund rats and other wealthy donors she ACTUALLY represents). FYI, Ruben Gallego will reform or eliminate the un-democratic Filibuster. Don’t waste your vote for AZ Senator in 2024 on a phony and arrogant centrism that is actually merely a polite cover for nakedly servicing the lust for an ever-growing slice of pie amongst the many ultra-wealthy persons and families.