Quote of the Day:
“Here we are in the land of the free and I can’t even talk to a child about what he eats everyday. …As Americans, that should make you furious.” –Jamie Oliver, at the conclusion of tonight’s show
TB bumped in to Jamie Oliver’s reality show, Food Revolution, last spring while channel surfing. I was immediately engrossed with his televised attempt to improve the health of West Virginians, particularly the kids of the Huntington school district. When I heard there would be a follow-up season from Los Angeles I made sure to plan ahead to watch the show.
What I have seen after two episodes is this–America, as exemplified by the Los Angeles public school system, is hopelessly lost.
The school board and it’s mutely evil superintendent, having obviously seen how Jamie exposed the garbage being fed to students in West Virginia schools, steadfastly refused to allow the acclaimed chef on it’s campuses. That’s arguably–weakly arguably, but arguably–defensible. But their purpose was not to protect students. Clearly it was to protect themselves from humiliation, because they also have refused to discuss the nutritional content of the food they provide in any way whatsoever. They are treating their food service practices like a state secret. Here’s a guy trying to replace chicken nuggets made from soylent green with grilled strips from a chicken never pumped full of chemicals and steroids. He’s trying to find out why french fries are classified as a vegetable by the government. He believes education is not only about what’s in books but on what we ingest. They view this person as a threat. A revolutionary.
Are these ideas that far out?
But America is a democracy right? The greatest country on Earth, the land of the free, yada yada yada…..We can just elect the other party and everything will be fine. The problem is clearly the liberals who run L.A. politics. Government does nothing right, after all, including this. It’s a prime example. Sooooo……we should just close the damn schools–easy conservative, libertarian answer. The whole thing’s a waste–unfixable–get the gubment outta my kid’s book learnin’.
Nah, clearly the problem is conservatives. If only they would throw more money at the menus they could provide better food. Except Jamie’s already shown he can take the existing budgets and provide high quality food without chemicals, less sugar and fat, and God forbid, less French fries.
A grassroots movement, that’s the ticket! When Jamie appealed to the parents of L.A., it generated (almost) a thousand, um, emails. Hmm. That’s how we express outrage here in the land that invented government of, by and for the people.
What about the political party that just wants to try to fix government without tearing it down and without adding more layers of red tape. Not pass a book of new regulations or throw out all of them, but to identify and strengthen the ones that are effective and shitcan the idiotic ones. The party that sees clearly–and acts on the vision–that we need government, but that there is far too much waste. The party that believes in private enterprise and fair competition and opposes monopolies and oligopolies and the cable company and calling french fries a vegetable and that sometimes the government should act and other times it shouldn’t and that simply pluggin’ a square problem in to a circular philosophy at all times is irrational. Oh, wait. We don’t have that party, do we?
After a couple of days, the obstinacy of the LA school board will all be forgotten, just like every other outrage inflicted upon us. It is one thing after another and we, as a people, are desensitized to it. Spend more money on the military than the rest of the world combined–we cheer it. Run the government so poorly a large part of the population has decided we are better off casting our lots with the corporations–we accept it. Refuse to allow the public a view of what goes on inside a public school cafeteria kitchen–we email about it. Just as long as my enormously grotesque chicken wing has enough sauce on it to mask the taste, I’ll stay compliant.
Food Revolution is not just about the schools either. It is about what is in our grocery stores. It is about our national obesity epidemic, diabetes, and heart disease and all the economic and emotional havoc they wreak. It is about ignorance and complacency and hopelessness, and no matter how hopeful and positive the host, and no matter how reasonable and doable his proposals, an American viewer knows what, perhaps the affable Brit host does not. We had our Revolution. We aren’t having another.
Maybe I am reading too much into what Food Revolution depicts. I don’t think so, but maybe. What I see when I watch is another straw dropped on the already crushed to smithereens spine of the camel that was our national spirit, our identity, long ago. Ultimately, Jamie’s show is a snapshot of America, the absolute failure of our political system to address problems that are crippling us, and the impotence of we, the people.
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Oh, Mama, Could This Really Be the End?
Quote of the Day:
“We don’t need to talk about it anymore…The world has been warned – my it has been warned. We have done our share and the media picked it up. The world has been warned that it is under judgment.” –Entrepreneur, Harold Camping
Seldom is there an event, uh, check that–a non-event more suited to ironic, sarcastic and downright comical commentary more perfect than Harold Camping and his “Family Christian Radio” sponsored Day of Judgement, previously scheduled for May 21, now postponed until October. So “why?” TB asked myself. “Why did I let this momentous (non) occasion pass by the blog unmocked?” The sad truth is, I just didn’t find it all that damn funny.
This conclusion bothered me for several days. I have been struggling lately to find topics I cared enough about, or that I found interesting or funny enough, over which to fire an essay off into the oblivion that is the TBU. This was the perfect subject–idiotic, corrupt, publicized and derided across the American political spectrum, uniting us all in a way even the elimination of Public Enemy number one could not. The quotes given to the media were priceless–not only from the diabolical leader of the doomsday cult, Mr. Camping, but especially those of his “flabbergasted”, “dumbfounded”, and “like a cream pie to the face” followers.
Finally it dawned on me. Hordes of shame-faced Americans believed in Camping’s false prophecy, including many fundamentalists who silently hoped he was right and privately gave it better than even odds of truth. (A hundred-million dollar media empire ain’t built on the backs of (only) a dozen nut-cases my friends.) How can so many be so….so….downright stupid? I cannot answer that part. I can only say they are little different than the rest of us.
If there is one thing that virtually all of us agree with in this strange time and place we share, it is that the train is off the rails. America, probably the whole world, is really screwed up. More than usual, I mean. Many liberals like myself blame this primarily on the actions taken during the George Bush Presidency. Oh, that wasn’t the only thing, but some huge powder kegs were lit by that gang. We rose up and helped elect the most unlikely new leader in, possibly, world history. Barack Obama was going to lead us in a new and hopeful direction, regulating and controlling the huge financial interests that brought our economy to ruins. We were stupid for thinking that. Republicans sent us thousands of chain emails to warn us–and lately to mock us for our hope. ‘Course, every damn one of those emails was wrong in its premise. Just not its conclusion.
Republicans? Stupid. A lot of them voted for George Bush. Twice. Most conservatives begrudgingly realize how bad those eight years were. That’s why now they call themselves “tea partiers” or “libertarians.” They are no less stupid than than they were as Republicans though. Their champions’ answers–cutting taxes on the only people who can afford to pay them, unceasing military spending increases, ever-advancing corporate power and Sarah-freakin’-Palin? Trump? Santorum? Gingrich? If there is one thing I now know for certain, it is that four years from now, no matter whether we are led by Obama or one of the TP’ers we are going to all still be stupid for believing our guy is any better than their guy and that the ones who vote the other way are the only stupid ones. That goes for you Ron Paul backers too.
What I am trying to say is, the doomsday chumps are just like us, except, perhaps, they have gained enough wisdom to see that in this F’d up world of ours, there is no earthly answer in sight. Like angry liberals and apoplectic tea partiers and sneering libertarians, they know something is wrong and just like the rest of us, with available answers ranging from the subliminal to the ridiculous, they thought they’d found the answer. Instead of being merely angry, they are hopeless. So they hope for the end, grasping for an answer. Meanwhile, Exxon and Goldman Sachs and Blue Cross executives all grow fabulously, grotesquely wealthy. Harold Camping hasn’t done to bad for himself either.
Bonus Quote of the Day:
“Now the preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With twenty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest
But he cursed me when I proved it to him
Then I whispered, “Not even you can hide
You see, you’re just like me
I hope you’re satisfied“
–Bob Dylan, Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
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