For all the carping about the menu for the Hu state dinner at the People’s House of America, it’s worth noting that the last time the Chinese president was in the capital the Chimp couldn’t stay alert past lunchtime. But I guess we’ll have to wait 30 years for the “everybody knows” admissions by the media that there was a problem — not Alzheimer’s but Jack Daniel’s.
Getting the serious stuff out of the way first: It was quite telling that Giffords’ husband issued a statement advising anyone who wants to do some good as she heals to donate to the Tucson Community Food Bank (and the Red Cross). One reason my birth state has gone batshit insane — more than usual — is that it’s not exactly in prime economic health. The Chimp did a number on this country . . .
So many shiny objects are being dangled so frenetically these days it’s hard to choose which one to pounce on, but I guess the sorry reality that the worst president ever is out trying to rewrite history with the help of corporate media is the most offensive. Given his record in allowing 3,000-plus Americans to be slaughtered in the “homeland” while he was asleep at the switch on the “ranch,” this really is like Typhoid Mary having the gall to flog a cookbook.
I have also been slow to catch on to why so many chefs are opening ambitious restaurants in airports, so I thank Andrew Sullivan for coming up with the perfect description of where you now have to spend hours before flying: police states with shopping. I’m so old I remember when the best you could hope for was a cafeteria line with $15 congealed crap; Chili’s was a major upgrade. But now half the marquee names in food are setting up kitchens almost on the tarmac. And what it all means is that the game has been rigged to lure the sheep into the pen hours ahead of flights so they have time to spend more money, since they know there will be no food once the plane finally takes off. Last time my consort and I flew we spent longer in the security line at JFK than the flight to Buffalo took and had to grab sawdusty sandwiches rather than a real meal. Message: Get there even earlier next time. Make what might be your last meal worth it by enriching a boldface name. . .
Who could be surprised no one wants to ask Panchito about the Chimp, only about restaurants? It’s awkward for everyone to bring up that epic fail. But I was actually on the side of the Section Formerly Known as DI/DO when it came to the nonsense about covering cheaper restaurants. The embarrassing new public editor is really embarrassing, and not just for comparing the food pages to a moribund design magazine. Smart people without money are probably reading the Village Voice (online) rather than wasting $2 a day on a publication that still thinks $25 and Under has meaning 16 years on. Democracy is no mission for a paper with $4,900 bags to sell.
Turns out the soulless Chimp looks to have plagiarized much of his shameless book, but I suspect what @rudepundit is calling the “Ball jar Bush baby” tale is original. It’s just weird enough that the literal son of a bitch would have been warped by a canned fetus. What I want to know is how Panchito missed such a juicy tidbit. Scratch that. I already know. He was sucking and blowing. Or vice versa.
Back in the Chimp’s reign of error, I remember being in a restaurant in Torino where the owner asked if we were Americanos and I had to say: “No, no — New Yorkese.” Guess I’m going back to that since the Big O lost the equivalent of one of three Michelin stars and everyone’s decided he’s out of business. At least we got some amusement in this miserable campaign season: Semi-Homemade was kept as far out of sight as the Chimp himself. Apparently the big fear was having New Yorkese realize if we wanted to eat her crap we would have stayed in Iowa.
The suspiciously timed “terror alert” for Americans traveling in Europe made me realize what the best definition of an ignominious end is: Meeting your maker at a McDonald’s with a bunch of other poorly dressed tourists too timid to eat foreign food.
I know we’re not supposed to blame the Chimp for anything anymore in the United States of Amnesia, but I do want to note, one more time, that I was not the one who nicknamed Panchito Panchito. But if the diminution fits, why not run with it? I kinda like “Malto,” though. Misspell the second half as Eggo and you’d have a very Boehner-colored frozen waffle to accessorize the Crocs.
After reading about Dubliners’ egg-throwing reaction to the Poodle’s memoir, I’m thinking the salmonella eggs should never have been pasteurized. Doesn’t the Chimp have a book tour scheduled this fall? The evil Iowans could have cleaned up, so to speak, selling yolked missiles.
And I Tweeted this, but will say it again: The hometown paper had to be fucking with us, running a photo of a meal tray at Guantanamo with one item labeled “yellow cake.” The only thing worse would have been a Judy Miller byline alongside it. Sicker still was that the story was all whining about reporters’ not getting access to the real story while another photo showed Ensure and a feeding tube looking as innocent as the Harry Potter books in the library at the hellhole. Anyone who saw “Titicut Follies” knows force-feeding is horrific. Showing the accouterments without discussing the technique is like a spin inside a spin. Can you imagine Upton Sinclair being shown a workman’s boots protruding from a sausage grinder and only whimpering about his obstructed view?
Keith McNally went even higher in my estimation the second I saw Mr. Calamitous Judge of Character has deemed him a horrible person. I’d reserve that adjective for the affable fool who destroyed the economy and dragged the country into endless wars after lying to a very gullible guy. Heckuva job, Panchito.
Maybe there is a god. While the Chimp is safely holed up with his Old Grand-Dad, Panchito his enabler is sentenced to hang with the sort who, to paraphrase a very angry man on Bleecker Street one night who had had about enough of the “Sex and the City” tours, promise: Buy me drinks and you can micturate where the sun don’t shine. Somewhere Johnny Rotten is laughing.
Right after reading about an oceanologist who worries countless species are already going extinct in the Gulf gusher, I saw lots of Tweets about an admirable New Orleans chef suing BP for loss of seafood and business. I feel her pain, and rage. And I guess enriching lawyers is the predictable American response. But it really will do as much good as Cindy Sheehan taking Dick Cheney to court for miring us in two wars that are pumping billions to BP. Money isn’t going to change anything. Still, someone suing makes more sense than the wingnut I saw ranting that America cares more about sea turtles than the “preborn.” I assume she never eats eggs.
And here, from an e-release I got, is everything you need to know about Americans’ cluelessness on who’s to blame for the unending eco-disaster off Texas/Louisiana/Alabama/Florida: Grilled blue Hawaiian prawns. Yep. A New York restaurant is actually flying in seafood for a benefit for the oil-soaked Gulf Coast. Forget New Zealand lamb. Why not put the waiters in BP-powered mini-cars while they’re at it?