Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Taser Nation

by digby

This one’s especially interesting. A baseball fan is drunk and apparently belligerent (clearly the first time in history such a thing has happened. )The police are called to remove him. He argues with the cops for a little over 30 seconds and then it happens:

Since tasers were supposed to be a replacement for deadly force, I can only assume that in the past drunken baseball fans were shot dead for arguing with police. There must be quite a body count.

You can hear the the electrical sparking of the taser and it’s familiar enough to me that I got sick to my stomach at the mere sound — there are audible gasps on the track. It’s an interesting Pavlovian response which I woud imagine will be fully absorbed into the collective American psyche before too long.

The muy macho dudes at the Sporting News reported it like this:

This gentleman, we’ll call him Belligerent Santa, was clearly not happy about something going on at the A’s game last night. (A YouTube commenter who claims to have been sitting near where the incident took place said it was a loud Texas fan who was yelling inappropriately and got angry when he was asked to quiet down. Judging from how few people were around him, that doesn’t really sound like much of a stretch.) After what seemed like a decent amount of time trying to reason with Belligerent Santa, the jig was up, and like that scene from The Hangover, they had to unleash the full power of the Taser.

The officer pulled out his taser after talking to the man for 41 seconds and hit him at a little after the one minute mark — at which point he fell head first out of his seat on to the cement and rolled down several steps. I didn’t hear anybody laughing on the soundtrack to this movie. Maybe that’s because the sight of a drunk being shot with enough electricity to make him fall out of his chair onto cement stairs just isn’t so funny in real life.

But we are all getting the message, aren’t we?

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The Underbelly

by digby

From the Washington Independent:

A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds that 28 percent of Americans believe that there’s been “too little” coverage of “allegations that President Obama was not born in the United States” — including a plurality, 39 percent, of self-identified Republicans. Only 14 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents share that view.

“If anything surprised me, it’s how many people have heard about this,” said Michael Dimock, an associate director at the Pew Research Center. “When we put the question in, we said to ourselves, well, Lou Dobbs has covered it, and it’s been discussed on the Internet. For 80 percent of people to have heard something about this is pretty high.”

I hate to get myself in trouble here, but why would anyone think this is unusual in a country where only 39% of people believe in evolution?

[A] Gallup poll tied to Darwin’s birthday finds that just 39% of Americans believe in evolution. As expected, Gallup notes, education plays a big role here: 74% of those with post-graduate degrees believe in evolution. That’s compared with only 21% of high school grads (or those with less education) who believe in the theory. Ditto religion: 55% who don’t attend church believe in evolution, versus 24% of weekly churchgoers who believe in it.

This isn’t the smartest country in the world.
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Amateur Hour

by tristero

The most shocking thing, and the worst thing, about the fake healthcare riots and the very real thuggishness of the paid Republican operatives involved in them is not that they’re happening. That’s what Republicans do, after all. No, the really terrible thing is that by all appearances, the Democratic party was caught completely by surprise.

It’s as if the eight years of Bush/Cheney, with its lockstep Republican Congressional goons, its relentless intimidation and marginalization of anyone to the left of the John Birch Society, its proactive (and successful) effort to target Democrats for prosecution by hand-picked Attorneys-General – it’s as if all of that – and so much more – never happened.

Democratic leadership once again failed to perceive political reality as it is in 21st century America: The Republican Party is dominated by fascists who will do anything, anything at all, to undermine what’s left of this country’s democracy after the successful Bush/Cheney assault on it. After all, this is a party that used the Department of Homeland Security to hunt down Democrats when they bolted from Texas in order to avoid committing political suicide. After all, this is a party that aggressively opposes the regulation of computerized voting machines, voting machines manufactured by none other than prominent members of their own party.

Shutting down town hall meetings is precisely the kind of tactic these characters love, they spend night and day meticulously planning them, and get well-paid to boot. Shame on Democrats for not seeing these latest Republican riots coming.

Kerning

by digby

I get lots of interesting emails, but one of the most interesting recurring ones is a list that sends articles from this web-site:

WND and Corsi are now partnering on a new weekly online global financial strategies newsletter called RED ALERT. It is designed to help you survive – and maybe even prosper – in the turbulent times in which we live.

Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is not for everyone.

It is designed for people of wealth and those who want to be people of wealth. It is for Americans who still believe in the American Dream and freedom-loving people around the world who would like to be part of the American Dream. It is for people who understand government’s power must be limited or freedom ceases to exist. It is for those who understand national sovereignty is under attack as never before.

Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is about empowering you to fight back – to turn challenges into opportunities, to turn economic downturns into personal wealth upturns, to find out what’s ahead so you’re not left behind.

* If you have assets of $1 million or more to protect, including your home, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is for you.

* If you earn $85,000 a year or more, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is for you.

* If you want to leave a legacy of freedom and opportunity to your children and grandchildren, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is for you.

Unlike some other exorbitantly priced financial newsletters, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT represents a real bargain. Priced at $99 a year or $9.95 a month for credit card users, you won’t have to spend a fortune to find out if this newsletter can help you build one.

And what do you get for your money? You get the insights and behind-the-scenes reports and deep analysis of one of America’s top political thinkers, journalists, commentators and financial gurus.

Sounds awesome. All those millionaires must be lining up for the kind of financial insights only Jerome Corsi can provide. Insights like this:

More cracks have appeared in the official story of Barack Obama’s
family life, with the revelation in school documentation from the
University of Washington that Ann Dunham most likely left her
husband, Barack Sr., within weeks of the baby’s birth.

The official story as presented in his autobiography, “Dreams from My
Father,” and in various accounts in newspapers and websites
supporting Obama conflicts with the results of a careful analysis of
the documentary evidence available.

For example, the official story claims Dunham relocated to Seattle
late in 1962, but documentary evidence establishes she left Hawaii
when she moved to Seattle in August or September 1961, only a few
weeks after the birth of Barack Obama Jr.

Likewise, the official story describes how Dunham and Obama Sr. lived
as man-and-wife in Hawaii until he left for Harvard to begin the fall
term in September 1962. But the documents establish Dunham abandoned
Obama Sr. when she left to begin school at the University of
Washington in Seattle for the fall term of 1961, which began in
September of that year.

The repositioning of the timeline revealed by the school documents
may mask a yet undisclosed secret that lies at the heart of the Obama
birth certificate controversy.

The Obama long-form original birth certificate continues to be hidden
from the public by Obama despite a multitude of requests to make the
document public.

But here are a number of critical dates documenting the birth of
Barack Obama Jr. from available public records.

•Ann Dunham was born Nov. 29, 1942, according to her original Social
Security Card. This would have made her 18 years old at the time
Barack Obama Jr. was born.

•Barack Obama Jr. was born Aug. 4, 1961; this would put his date of
conception at the earliest on or around Nov. 4, 1960, assuming there
was a full nine months of pregnancy.

•Records provided to WND by Stuart Lau, university registrar in the
Office of Admissions and Records at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa, document that Ann Dunham’s first day of instruction at the
university was Sept. 26, 1960, less than six weeks before the
earliest date Barack Obama, Jr. could have been conceived.

•Ann Dunham and Barack H. Obama, Sr.’s divorce decree states they
were married Feb. 2, 1961, in Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii. This would mean
Obama’s parents were married approximately three months after Barack
Obama, Jr. was conceived, if the baby went full-term.

•Instead of staying in Hawaii with her husband and new baby, Ann
Dunham began classes at the University of Washington in Seattle in
September 1961 for the autumn semester, less than two months after
Obama was born. WND confirmed this date with Madolyne Lawson of the
Office of Public Records at the University of Washington.

•Ann Dunham took up residence in Seattle at 516 13th Ave. E.,
according to the 1961 Seattle Polk directory. This residence was torn
down in 1985 and is now replaced by twin Capital Park residential
towers; the Seattle Polk Directory listing is for a “Mrs. Anna
Obama,” a variant of her name that most researchers have considered
to be Ann Dunham.

Ann Dunham’s residence in Seattle, 1961 (Washington State Archives,
Puget Sound Branch, King County Assessor Property Record Card
collection)

•At most, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham lived together for
approximately eight months, from Feb. 2, 1961, the date of their
marriage, until September 1961 when Ann Dunham began her studies at
the University of Washington. But there is nothing on the public
record to suggest Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. ever lived together
again as man and wife.

•There is nothing on the public record to suggest that Ann Dunham’s
mother, Madelyn Dunham, accompanied her daughter to Seattle in
September 1961, even though she was 18 years old and responsible for
a baby who was less than two months old.

•There is no evidence on the public record that Obama Sr. ever joined
his wife in Seattle. Instead, the public evidence is that Obama Sr.
remained in Hawaii, while his wife and infant son established their
residence in Seattle.

•Obama Sr. began studies at Harvard University in September 1962,
which means Dunham did not return to live in Hawaii until after Obama
Sr. had left the islands, never to return to Hawaii again as a
resident.

•The same records show Dunham did not resume her studies at the
University of Hawaii until April 1963 for the spring semester, when
Barack Obama was approximately one year and five months old.

•Dunham and Obama Sr. were divorced Jan. 20, 1964.
The dates appear reliable, especially given the limited documentary
evidence available about Barack Obama’s birth circumstances.

Timeline of President Obama’s birth

The timeline raises several questions:

1.Were Dunham and Obama Sr. ever very much in love, even at the
beginning of their relationship, or was the marriage always one of
convenience arranged to mask an inconvenient pregnancy?

2.Did Dunham and Obama Sr. ever live together as man and wife, and if
so, what testimony is there from neighbors at the time that would
establish their residence address?

3.Was Obama Jr. born in Hawaii, or was he born in Kenya? Could he
have been born in Seattle or possibly even in British Columbia?

4.What hospital was Obama Jr. born in, and who was the attending
physician? What official records establish these facts?

5.Who are Obama Jr.’s true birthright parents?

6.Why has President Obama prevented the release to the American
public of his long-form original birth certificate listing the
hospital of his birth, the attending physician and the identity of
his parents, as recorded at the time of his birth? What information
is on the original, long-form birth certificate that President Obama
does not want the American people to see?
Many of these questions should be able to be answered if the American
public could authenticate Barack Obama’s original long-form birth
certificate listing the hospital where he was born, the date and time
of the birth, the attending physician and the names of the parents.

This leads to what is perhaps the key question: What is it the White
House is determined to hide by refusing to release the president’s
original long-form birth certificate?

Moreover, while President Obama and his supporters have made many
photographs available from his childhood, important gaps remain:

•No photographs have yet surfaced showing Ann Dunham pregnant in 1961.

•No photographs have yet surfaced with Barack Obama Sr. and Ann
Dunham with Barack Obama Jr. as an infant in the hospital where he
was born.

•No photographs have yet surfaced of Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr.
with Barack Obama Jr. after the newly born infant was taken home from
the hospital.

When and why did Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham separate?

In his autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama Jr. tells
the story that his mother and father first separated when Barack
Obama Sr. left Hawaii to attend Harvard.

On page 10, Obama presents this version of the story, writing: “He
[Barack Obama Sr.] won another scholarship – this time to pursue his
Ph.D. at Harvard – but not the money to take his new family with him.
A separation occurred, and he returned to Africa to fulfill his
promise to the continent. The mother and child stayed behind, but the
bond of love survived the distances …” (ellipsis in original)

The Seattle Times, reporting on the Obama family history in April
2008 when Obama was emerging as a frontrunner for the Democratic
Party presidential nomination, disclosed that the family separated
when Ann Dunham left Hawaii to enter the University of Washington in
Seattle. But the paper incorrectly pushed Ann Dunham’s relocation to
Seattle to 1962.

In the published article, Seattle Times staff reporter Jonathan
Martin wrote: “By 1962, Dunham had returned to Seattle as a single
mother, enrolling in the UW for spring quarter and living in an
apartment on Capital Hill.”

This version allows a few more months for the young mother to care
for her infant son while living yet with her husband in Hawaii.

On Oct. 21, 2008, the Seattle Weekly published yet a different
version of the story: “But [Ann Dunham] returned to live in Seattle
around 1962, after Barack was born in August 1961, leaving her
husband, Kenya-born Barack Sr., and his newborn namesake in Hawaii.”

The assumption in the Seattle Weekly story is that Ann Dunham left
the baby with her parents, Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Dunham,
who ultimately raised the future president.

Nicole Brodeur, a Seattle Times staff columnist, interviewed Ann
Dunham’s high school “best friend” Maxine Box in February 2008.

According to this version, Box last saw Ann Dunham in 1961, “when
[Ann Dunham] visited Seattle on her way from Honolulu to
Massachusetts, where her then-husband was attending Harvard.”

Box also told the Seattle Times that Ann Dunham showed no interest in
baby-sitting when they were in college, suggesting she was surprised
when Dunham ended up pregnant only a year after graduating from
Mercer Island High School.

“[Dunham] felt she didn’t need to date or marry or have children,”
Box recalled for the Seattle Times interview published in March 2007.

Then, commenting on the birth of Barack Obama Jr., Box said, “I just
couldn’t imagine [Ann Dunham’s] life changing so quickly.”.

Unfortunately for Box, Barack Obama Sr. still was in Hawaii; he did
not leave for Harvard until the following year.

In an unusual video now removed from the Internet, Ann Dunham’s high
school friend Susan Blake also claimed Dunham visited Seattle in
August 1961 with her infant son. Blake said she changed the baby’s
diapers. The video is still noted and transcribed as footnote No. 21
in Ann Dunham’s Wikipedia entry.

What Ann Dunham was doing in Seattle immediately after her baby was
born is unclear, unless she was there to find an apartment so she
could start school in September 1961 at the University of Washington.

Others have speculated that perhaps Barack Obama Jr. was born in
Seattle, or possibly in Canada, allowing Dunham to be in Seattle
immediately after the future president’s birth without having to fly
from Hawaii to the mainland sometime between Aug. 4, 1961, when the
baby was born, and September 1961 when the fall term began at the
University of Washington.

Barack Obama Jr.’s babysitter in Seattle

Mary Toutonghi, according to an interview published in the Seattle
Chat Club blog, claimed to have baby-sat for the future president at
Dunham’s Seattle apartment in January and February 1962. The Toutongi
interview provides no information about Dunham arriving in Seattle to
begin classes in September 1961.

When asked why Dunham left her husband in Hawaii to come to Seattle
with her infant son, Toutongi explained Dunham told her that she and
the baby would be going to Kenya when she finished her education, as
she had promised her parents when she was married.

Toutongi also added Dunham’s explanation that her husband had an
obligation to his tribe to take another wife that was a full-blooded
Kenyan. Toutongi further commented, “I don’t think I could have been
that brave.”

In an interview with WND, Toutongi said she baby-sat for infant Obama
“for two or there months, when he was seven months old,” adding “it
was in the spring.”

Given Obama’s birth on Aug. 4, 1961, this would put the dates
Toutongi baby-sat infant Obama in February and March 1962.

“My daughter was 18 months old and she just had her 50th birthday
this year,” Toutongi recalled. “So, that would make the time around
February and March 1962.”

“Ann Dunham and the baby moved in while we were there,” she
remembered. “We managed the house and they had the rooms on the first
floor to the right, immediately above the garage. Each of the rooms
on that floor comprised a one-bedroom apartment. I can’t remember
when she moved in, but the baby was seven months old.”

“It was kind of weird, but she never told me why she abandoned her
husband,” she commented. “I don’t know if the courses she wanted were
here. I couldn’t figure out why she was here in Seattle while her
husband was in Hawaii.”

Did Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham ever live as man and wife?

WND has previously reported the birth notices for Barack Obama Jr.
that were published in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin
in 1961 do not provide solid proof of a birth in Hawaii because of
uncertainties over the policies and procedures used by the newspapers
at that time.

WND hired a private investigator in Hawaii to seek out neighbors who
lived in 1961 adjacent to 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, the address
listed in the newspaper published birth notices.

According to an affidavit filed with WND by the private investigator,
Beatrice Arakaki was a neighbor who has lived at her current
residence of 6075 Kalanianaole Highway from before 1961 to the
present.

Arakaki did not recall the Obama family living in the neighborhood,
and she was unaware of any young couple living at 6085 Kalanianaole
Highway that met the Obama family description.

If Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham lived at this address when Barack
Obama Jr. was born, the original long-form birth certificate should
confirm this address as the residence of the baby at birth.

The Hawaii short-form Certification of Live Birth lists no residence
address information.

Obama’s birth certificate is not the only document at issue. WND has
reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama
includes his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental
College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis,
Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly
articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records,
files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar
Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.

Case closed. Not only isn’t Barack Obama a citizen of the United States of America, he isn’t a citizen of planet earth. In fact, he doesn’t actually exist.

And to think that for only a hundred bucks a year you too can be privy to this kind of “deep analysis.” A bargain at any price.

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Spitting Out The Mouthpiece

by dday

Where oh where will I get my weekly dose of horrendously bad comedy now?

The Washington Post has brought down the curtain on “Mouthpiece Theater.”

Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli killed the satirical video series Wednesday after harsh criticism of a joke about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, which had prompted him to pull the latest episode from the paper’s Web site Friday night. The Post staffers who appeared in the videos, Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza, agreed with the decision and apologized in separate interviews.

“I don’t think the series worked as they intended,” Brauchli said. “It was meant to be funny and insightful and translate the superb journalism Chris and Dana do in print and online into a new format.”

“Mouthpiece Theater” was designed as a sendup of pompous punditry, with Milbank, the paper’s Washington Sketch columnist, and Cillizza, a White House correspondent who writes The Fix blog, appearing with oversized pipes and smoking jackets.

Um, it wasn’t a sendup of anything. It was exactly what it looked like – bitchy, self-regarding gossip from two inside-the-Beltway Villagers who accurately translated their feelings of entitlement into video form. They weren’t sending up pompous punditry, they were EXHIBITING it.

By the way, you’ll be excited to know that Brauchli praised Milbank and Cillizza effusively and welcomed them back to work on their regular assignments of spouting conventional wisdom and producing Mean Girl low-rent Maureen Dowd ripoffs (which is quite a feat).

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I Know You Are But What Am I?

by digby

This just gets better and better:

On today’s call with reporters, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele took credit for the RNC’s response to a new Democratic National Committee ad asking voters to call Republicans and tell them to stop ginning up town hall heckling. The RNC redirected these calls from its main switchboard over to the DNC’s switchboard — a response, said Steele, to the White House arrogantly blaming regular Americans “like my mother, like my sister” for the health care impasse.

“I thought it was a good idea,” Steele said. “Don’t sit there and think you’re going to direct a bunch of angry liberals to call the RNC when I know full well what that’s all about. I get the joke. My response was, talk to your own party, because they’re the ones ginning this up.”

These junior high school delinquents have proven once again that they have no place in deciding important issues for the American people. They are great political theatre and masterful pranksters, but it’s irresponsible for anyone to let them near policy that affects people’s lives. They are circus clowns.

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Thug Life

by dday

For all the conservatives trying to make some equivalence between Code Pink ralliers and lobbyist-supported teabagger groups on their side, please let me know the instances of left-wing protesters physically assaulting politicians:

As lobbyist-run groups encourage conservative activists to “rattle” members of Congress at local town hall events, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the president of the freshman Democratic class has revealed that “at least one freshman Democrat” has already been “physically assaulted at a local event” by right-wing activists. Connolly warned that conservative groups had taken things to a “dangerous level“:

“When you look at the fervor of some of these people who are all being whipped up by the right-wing talking heads on Fox, to me, you’re crossing a line,’ Connolly said. ‘They’re inciting people to riot with just total distortions of facts. They think we’re going to euthanize Grandma and the government is going to take over.”

I think Harold Meyerson has this right. We’ve become a Filibuster Nation, with the minority reduced to shouting down the majority, using procedural tricks and rage and in some cases violence to veto the popular will.

Health Care for America Now has a memo on how to counteract the right at these rallies. There are probably a range of options. Invoking the Larouchies would be a start. Just getting the teabaggers on camera spouting their inanities is probably enough for them to embarrass themselves. But shutting up a mob that has shown a propensity for physical assault is probably not going to be handled with reasonable techniques. I’m thinking back to my days as a comic, when I was heckled. I actually enjoyed hecklers, it meant people were paying attention, for one thing. And I found two techniques to be successful:

1) Go meta – you cannot just plow ahead with your presentation. You have to comment on what’s happening in the room. And making clear what’s happening, essentially speaking for those in the room who aren’t shouting, gets that segment of the room on your side. Saying things like “this is a coordinated effort by people funded and directed by Washington lobbyists to deny 47 million people health care” is a start. “Where are you from?” is another.

2) You have a microphone and they don’t: use it – people on the fence generally go with the side that they feel has the upper hand. A microphone can be a powerful tool to talk over, above, and through a heckler. It can also be wielded for shaming them, although a politician probably has to do this tactfully. In other words, don’t do this. I’m thinking more in the Arj Barker mold.

There probably aren’t a lot of former comics among the Congress outside of Al Franken, but they should maybe take some advice from him. I mean, these people at the town halls aren’t even belligerent drunks! They will, however, try to beat you up after the show, just like regular hecklers.

…TPM has a live news wire of events happening on the ground, which may be useful.

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Getting Their Backs

by digby

CNN can run programming claiming that Obama is an illegal alien and employ “consultants” who call Hillary Clinton a bitch and call it “analysis.” They can defame any politician, celebrity or ordinary citizen with total impunity under the first amendment.

But don’t even think of taking on a wealthy CEO. That’s where they draw the line:

What on earth is going on at CNN?

The network — already taking criticism for declining to run an ad criticizing Lou Dobbs — is now refusing to run an ad nationally criticizing the insurance industry, the group that tried to place the ad tells me.

CNN’s reason: The ad “unnecessarily” singles out a top insurance industry executive by name for criticism.

The labor-backed Americans United for Change, a top White House ally in the health care wars, tried to book time on CNN and MSNBC for the ad, which hits the insurance industry for wanting to preserve the status quo and levels harsh criticism at insurance giant Cigna’s CEO, Ed Hanway.

“Why do insurance companies and Republicans want to kill health insurance reform? Because they like things the way they are now,” the ad says, and then slams Hanway’s annual salary of over $12 million and golden parachute retirement package of over $70 million.

Americans United for Change’s spokesman, Jeremy Funk, tells me that CNN refused to run the ad nationally. He says CNN emailed the following reason for rejection:

“This ad does not comply with our clearance guidelines because it unnecessarily singles out an individual company and person.”

They are refusing to run the ad because it unnecessarily singles out an individual company and (Very Important) person. Meanwhile, they typically run political ads that portray candidates and government officials as outright criminals. And people wonder why citizens hate government but have no knowledge of the criminal, exploitative avarice of the leaders of the private sector?

When the networks aren’t making sweet little deals among themselves over canapes at Charlie Rose’s house they are protecting their wealthy pals from truthful criticism. It’s a dirty job keeping the pitchforks at bay, but the masters of the media empires are happy to do it for their fellow corporate overlords. If they don’t look out for each other, who will?

Update: CNN’s batting a thousand these days. Check this out by Davide Sirota.

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Sir Taxalot

by digby

Last night Jon Stewart gave us a much needed insight into the thinking of the top Senate Republican negotiator for health care reform:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Chuck Grassley’s Debt and Deficit Dragon
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

It’s a miracle the human species has survived as long as it has.. If this is the leadership of the most powerful country in the world we’re clearly living on borrowed time.

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In Defense Of Food (Network)

by tristero

Thank you, Jill Richardson! I thought I was the only one! For the past few days, I’ve been accumulating ideas to respond to Michael Pollan’s characteristically brilliant article in the Times because I really had some problems with some of it. Of course, I share many of his attitudes: after all, we inhabit roughly the same cultural/intellectual milieu – in fact, a relative of my wife was married to one of his best friends, a famous food movement figure – but like Jill, I learned to cook, to the extent that I can, from Food Network, while recovering from a serious operation last year.

I’ll go further. Two days ago, I was at a benefit for a group that encourages restaurants in upstate New York to obtain most of their ingredients from within the same county. I can honestly say that I would never have thought to attend had it not been for Food Network. Pollan, and the food movement, had nothing to do with it. By the time I read Pollan’s wonderful “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, I had already grasped the basic issues, simply from watching the FN shows, cooking my own food and thinking about it: The most delicious food, and the best, is the food you prepare yourself from the freshest, most basic ingredients. Furthermore, I grokked that cooking from scratch is a political, perhaps even radical, act in 21st Century America. Pollan’s book simply filled in a lot of truly amazing details.

While Pollan is well aware that this country is food illiterate, and dangerously so, even he doesn’t quite grasp exactly what that means. The way I see it, it means that nearly everyone, including the poor, the middle class, and even the most highly educated members of the upper classes, don’t know squat about what they put in their mouths at least three times a day, let alone how to prepare any of it. Yes, indeed, even Ivy League graduates need to be taught how to hold a knife or how to boil an egg. Making delicious asparagus, as ridiculously simple as that is, came as a shocking revelation to me: So that’s how it’s done and that’s how it’s supposed to taste! As for dear Saint Julia, trust me, Michael: to you she demystified cooking, but she was incredibly daunting to this modern American kitchen illiterate, and in fact still is.

I echo Jill’s appreciation of Alton Brown’s science-spiced Good Eats (which also has the added advantage of thoroughly annoying my 13 year old whenever I watch it). But I want to defend Guy Fieri, of all people, who Pollan singles out as egregiously ludicrous. Pollan seems to be unaware that Fieri has a “how to” cooking show (in addition to Triple D, which, sorry Michael, I love) in which he takes Sports Bar food (apparently, Guy is a spokesperson for TGIF: hey, no one’s perfect ) to a level of truly impressive complexity. I’ve made a few of his vegetarian dishes and they taste fantastic and are a blast to fix. But, of course, no one in their right mind should cook like that at home, at least not with any regularity. That’s not the point. The real point is that Guy loves cooking food and eating food (he is far more articulate about food than Pollan realizes) and he imparts that love with unadulterated pleasure.

Enjoying the food we eat, really enjoying the food we eat and knowing what that means: Pollan has written eloquently about exactly that, that Americans are consumed with “nutritionism” and forget that eating should be pleasurable and celebratory. One would think he would be at least a partial Guy fan (hell, Fieri even promotes his local Sonoma County wines given half a chance). But no. And the reason why Pollan can’t understand Guy well enough even to loathe him properly (his criticism of Triple D is so off-base as to make me seriously question whether he actually watched more than one episode) is quite simple: class. Michael’s one classy guy; Guy, on the other hand, is … a guy.

The food movement is, at present, an elitist movement. Nothing wrong with that, imo: abolition was an elitist movement in the early nineteenth century, as was women’s suffrage, etc, etc. But if you are serious about helping Americans create a truly joyful relationship with real food (the starting point for any genuinely healthy cuisine), then understanding both the myriad problems with Food Network AND its strengths is vitally important. Of course, the commercials are disgraceful; of course, many of the recipes are preposterous (watching Ina Garten say to add a “quarter cup of whole milk” to a recipe when actually she dumps in, unmeasured, what surely is two cups of a suspiciously thick milk is rather… distressing), and the competitions (to me, I admit) profoundly stupid, but when you know absolutely nothing, and I really knew exactly that, Food Network is a place to start.

Can FN be better? Well, duh. But I’m not alone in finding it incredibly useful. Just ask Jill. And I suspect that there are so many of us who started cooking after watching FN that the larger cultural observations Michael makes in his piece really aren’t terribly useful. I hasten to add that most of the time Pollan is spot on. I simply don’t think he truly grasps how complex the cultural meaning of Food Network is. The way I see it, much as he would be horrified to think so, Pollan and FN are sometimes on the same side. Even Guy Fieri.