Math was never my strong suit, not least because I barely got out of high school thanks to geometry fail, but even I know one missing letter will spoil the whole message. So whenever I read about the “Buffet rule” for taxes, I envision all 330 million Americans bellying up to the bacteria bar with their accountants — free (cold) cuts for all.
Despite the fact that my next-older sister died of breast cancer when she was younger than the age I just turned, I’ve never been exactly comfortable with the whole beribboning industry. I wouldn’t say I feel vindicated in seeing the lid blown off, but I am very glad to see endorsements like the KFC “bucket for the cure” subjected to some disinfecting sunlight. And I’m totally not surprised to learn the organization is run by wingnuts. I just love that all the Kkkrazies who attacked Mrs. O for her promotion of healthful eating and exercise have to see the Choos are on the other feet now.
Wish I could say I was thrilled to learn access to good food is not what’s holding back Americans without cushy jobs and lots o’ lucre from cooking and eating well. But my unneutered-steer-manure detector definitely went off when I went looking for the methodology on the study. And if I read right, the 1,500 happy respondents were recruited online or by email, then interviewed by landline or mobile. I know the Kkkrazies are busy persuading the not-quite-poors that the serious poors own too many appliances, and have too much gout, to be hungry. But cripes. How many have internet access at home or time to hit the library?
I’ll always think the Big O’s hugest accomplishment has been kicking over the rock and exposing the grubs underneath. The saner he sounds, the wackier the wingnuts look. Now some cretin wants to ban fetuses in food. And why am I certain said cretin had eggs for breakfast?
I’ll acknowledge being rather brutal toward the Lump in the Bed (as her husband christened her with less affection than he showed Panchito). But she did kill someone (who was it who said there are no accidents?) And she did sit by “smoking and reading” while her dry drunk drove the country into the ditch. But even she didn’t deserve the ugliness of the attacks on her successor, which all seem to have something to do with melanin. So I was glad to see Media Matters dig around to prove the ugliness has nothing to do with nutrition. Guess whose administration was pushing the very same “eat less & exercise” message. And of course it’s down the memory hole because, like everything the Texan Lady Macbeth was involved with, it was a fail. Processed crap gets crappier, kids get fatter. You can’t explain that.
Best sign yet we’re living in a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world: Frappuccino bottles used as Molotov cocktails against Muslim and Hindu and capitalist targets alike. Plus the hometown paper is even giving guidance on why/how. We are now officially so far down the rabbit hole thanks to wingnut lies printed as truth that no one even freaks out over domestic terrorism. As long as the TSA kabuki artists keep confiscating cupcakes for “gel” frosting, we’re all safe. But now I’m realizing why some employees of the chain were shutting down its pissoirs: It must be to prevent reloading with inflammables. Definitely the few times I’ve ever waited forever at one I’ve been ready to lob something incendiary.
Maybe the only good thing to come out of the clown car KKKraziness out in Middle Earth is the national exposure for Pizza Ranch. I only picked up on it after all these decades (and I lived out there) when Gail Collins mentioned it was an Eyetalian kinda place with a Western motif, but now it’s everywhere. And it’s weird. WTF kind of business advises potential patrons to “saddle up the family”? You ride the kids in? The crowning touch was its introduction of a Santorum Salad. Which is the ultimate metaphor for what the no-regulation crowd is selling: Cold chicken with frothy E. coli.
Epistemic closure is the undeniable diagnosis for most of wingnuttia, which probably explains why the deluded would look to an “economics” blogger sans calculator for advice on cookbooks. Naturally, she did not mention the manual for the socialist contraption she so proudly hailed after dropping $1,500. But she did “inform” readers that Maida’s books are out of print. Because that’s how capitalism works — no reissues are possible if the market demands. My advice to the closed-minded: Ask a liberal. We think anything goes anywhere, but especially in the kitchen.
Also, too, it’s unfortunate there’s no place where good people like Willie Nelson can go to get their food message out to a wide audience online. He’s totally right on Occupy the Food System, but I ain’t linking to a site that apparently believes we can all eat well when outlets don’t pay. Might as well shill for Smithfield processed crap behind photos of frolicking heritage hogs.
We get the actual “hometown paper” only on Sundays, so just before heading out to the 7 Train Across the Universe I happened upon one of those bizarre obits it has taken to running for dead people who achieved nothing in life beyond breeding (and not of accomplished spawn). I always read them looking for clues as to what in the name of Zelig merits inclusion alongside the likes of Lennon but always wind up recycling the paper in frustration. On this particular Sunday, though, I was glad I had wasted the time. The DPWAN of the morning was a “proud Irishwoman.” Who, it turns out, was born in Queens. Come on. This is America. You’re American if you popped out of Mom here. (And I say that as the daughter of a Belfast-born Marine.) After reveling in the Louis Armstrong House/Museum in Corona, the disconnect seemed even more obvious. As the exhibits showed, Satchmo moved into a white neighborhood that became black and is now Latino. Four of us walked to lunch on sidewalks where we were the minority. After a great Mexican lunch, we spent a long time in a supermarket gawking at shelves stocked with at least two dozen types of chorizo and a dozen types of bacalao plus endless aisles labeled not by food but by country. As one of our friends who was just back from Mexico noted, what unites us all is consumerism. No store he saw south of the border was that overstocked (or even half-stocked). Assimilation begins when you come for the tomatillos but walk out with the ketchup. I’m sure even Mrs. O’Leary-Byrne-Collins learned to love Tater Tots. And maybe even to douse them with sriracha.
I know the wingnuts are desperate to bring Zombie Reagan back to addled life, so I’m assuming the latest decision on school lunches is bait. Ketchup may have failed as a vegetable. But tomato paste on pizza will now do. Although I almost agree with Big Food: More than a quarter-cup of “paste” would make a slice inedible. Do the bureaucrats mean sauce?
And I know I’ve been overquoting the robber baron who boasted he could hire half the working class to kill the other half. But it really applies to the lowest rung on the Murdoch media ladder, where the serfs in the 99 percent are throwing rotten heirloom tomatoes at Occupy Wall Street, using every food angle to try to discredit a movement that could only improve their lot in miserable life. First there was the dissing of hippies for eating (donated) high-quality food rather than the typical fare of the poors. Then there was a bogus report of cooks going on strike because they had to feed regular homeless sorts rather than true believers. The newsroom sounds like a sweatshop where they themselves can barely stop to eat. And yet they beaver away, never seeing the real enemy. Clearly the pay and benefits are better at the broadsheet because the coverage is much more empathetic (read: rational). So here’s a thought: Someone set up a PayPal account to send pizzas to all those working for the Australian Pharaoh. Empathy through pepperoni.
And the silliest thing I’ve read in donkey’s years was advice from a psychologist in the hometown paper, warning parents it’s risky to take their Baby Jesuses down to Zuccotti Park. “There are kids who can go to a shelter at Thanksgiving and help serve a meal,” she said, “but there are kids who are traumatized by it.” Sorry, lady. Trauma would be seeing hungry hordes in the streets with pitchforks. Which is what happens when 400 people control all the food.
Given my equal obsessions with fud and pol porn, I spotted a Tweet the other day mentioning galantines and ballotines and my aging eyes mashed it up as guillotines. No wonder the 1% are nervous. But I notice ballotines are almost the definition of the Kkkrazies: chickens boned and stuffed with a farce.
And Jonathan Swift must be very pleased he is not alive these days. Satire is nearly impossible in an age when “eat the rich” is taken as a serious threat. (I mean, come on — there’s no meat on the women, and the men are all gross chin fat.) How would he even deal with what’s happening on farms across America? Thanks to reactionary crackdowns on illegal immigration, tomatoes are rotting in the fields of Alabama, the apple orchards in Washington State are reeking of fermentation and even the tree testicles in California are dropping for lack of avocado harvesters. But now the “authorities” have come up with a solution: Put convicts to work in the fields. So a state can conceivably contract with a private prison to lock up immigrants and then turn right around and bus them to the jobs they were doing before big money corrupted democracy. But now taxpayers will cover the housing and health care. Somewhere Anne Frank is quailing. . .
This is shaping up to be the most food-oriented election in history. We have the frothy “chocolate” candidate, the Subway Tweeter, the many apparent consumers/spewers of bat guano. But the mozzarella-topped elephant in the room is most laughable. Call me cynical, but I somehow suspect the vegetable garden at the White House is really going to be replaced by an industrial pizza oven.