Joe the Plumber speaks for you. And he'll speak to you for just $19.95.
I'm so mad right now I could spit. Michael Ruhlman put up this post about a new documentary called Food Fight. He encourages everyone to pay more for their food, which is, of course, a great idea. But, honestly, how in hell can his readers think it's just a matter of changing priorities? A lot of the comments pissed me off, but this is one of the worst:
The "buy staples at the lowest price so we can splurge on the trinkets" is an epidemic of modern society. Over the next year or so we will begin paying the real cost of that folly as federal bailouts start hitting our pocketbooks. It's time for all of us to refocus on what's really important and that's the real quality of our lives.
WTF? Splurging on trinkets? Does he mean stuff like heating bills? Are those trinkets? Going out for a beer is a big deal for us these days.
If I could, I would gladly pay $5/lb for organic chicken at the farmer's market. But I can't. It's all we can do right now to pay our mortgage. Our health insurance premiums are $2500/month, and they're killing us. We have one car and it's 8 years old. Thank God we finally paid it off.
I have a savant-like ability to stretch both our grocery money and the food I buy. I do everything I can to eat healthily and locally (despite my addiction to Oreos and potato chips). We do a good part of our food shopping at a locally owned food store and at the farmer's market. I haven't stepped inside a chain grocery store in months. Oops. Does Costco count? Yeah, well, if it's a food crime to buy some of my food at Costco, it's a bigger one to shop at Whole Foods and pat your self-important ass on your self-important back about it. Whole Foods is a chain too.
I truly believe that we can only do better by being conscientious about where we buy our food and what its origins are. But too many people in this movement apparently have no idea that there are Americans who are in such dire straits that paying higher prices for everything isn't a possibility. Local farmers deserve every penny they charge at the markets, but I can't afford it. Neither can a lot of other people.
Maybe I have no place in this movement, but if there's no place for me, then it's just a whole bunch of assholes congratulating each other for how enlightened they are. Instead of it being about The People, it becomes a classist movement with no connection to the lives of millions (number pulled out of my ass in order to make a point). This movement should be about doing what you can, not judging those who can't.
(Also posted on my food blog, The Wooden Spoon)
Downtown Durham, NC celebrates the Obama win.
For any Mad Men fans who don't read Alan Sepinwall's blog, here's an interview with Matt Weiner about the show. There's a list of highlights and a transcript of the entire conversation.
I love Weiner's response to this question:
People lied this year about a lot of things.
I think they did last year, I don't think people were attuned to it. There were a lot of comments last year, "Why did she say that? We saw that she did something else." It's because she was lying!
I find it incredible that any fans of Mad Men, of all shows, don't get this. People lie every day. Anyone who watches MM and doesn't understand that, and can't accept that from the characters, should be watching reruns of Matlock.
Of all the comments Weiner makes, this is my favorite:
I can say one thing in advance: the Kennedy assassination is very well-trod territory, and I just don't see myself adding new to that. But I might start the day before it. Or I might do what I did with a lot of historical events, which is to put it in the background and show people's personal events overtaking it. That's one of the things I love about the finale. Here's the Cuban Missile Crisis, which other than the assassination was the defining moment of the '60s. It really changed people's lives. There is not one account, not one news report that says it was anything but completely catastrophic to people's personal lives and their perception of the world. I tried to get that feeling in there, but to show that, like any crisis, it's an excuse to tell the truth.
Writing is all about telling the truth, and Weiner does it better than most.
