Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Politics of Arugula

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE!
Why My Former Hero Shouldn’t Be President

The arugula meme was born, so far as I can tell, when a young and relatively unknown presidential candidate by the name of Barack Obama, attempting to sympathize with a group of Iowans about the challenges of rising food prices, opened his mouth and promptly inserted his foot:

“Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?” the senator said. “I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”

The state of Iowa, for all of its vast food production, does not have a Whole Foods, a leading natural and organic foods market. The closest? Omaha, Minneapolis or Kansas City.

Mr. Obama, perhaps sensing a lack of reaction from the crowd, moved along to the next topic.



A gaffe? Surely – and the fact that Iowa actually does grow and sell a fair share of arugula doesn’t do much to alleviate that. The reaction, in any case, was every bit as merciless as the rise to fame of a previously obscure leafy green was, err, meteoric: what had previously been the province of the occasional recipe-blogger immediately became the political slur du jour, an all-purpose tool for accusing your opponents of being effete, elite, and otherwise out of touch with the concerns of those fabled ordinary Americans. And Obama, in turn, was promptly anointed as the fancy-dining liberal with the Ivy League degrees: “wine track” candidate who would surely be rejected by Hillary Clinton’s shot-downing beer drinkers, the blue state counterpart to Miss Buffalo Chip and John McCain’s – ahem – salt-of-the-earth Ferragamo loafers.


Continued: A country so polarized that consuming arugula has become a political act


Nothing wrong with being an elitist arugula eater from outer space and such!


</embed>

28 comments:

wagga said...

So looking forward to the first Marin County Arugula Party.

Akira said...

And now yet another food I like is becoming controversial:
Hummus War Looms Between Israel And Lebanon
"It is not enough they (Israelis) are stealing our land. They are also stealing our civilization and our cuisine," said Abboud.

He said his group also seeks to claim the eggplant spread baba ghannouj and tabbouleh, a salad made of chopped parsley and tomatoes, as Lebanon's own.

Anonymous said...

i invented the internetz tubz! Oops, wrong election.

Akubi said...

Amusing videos of the foreign guy who was swimming naked in the Imperial Palace moat.

Akubi said...

And the debate begins! Woohoo!
Will Walnuts actually look at Obama?

Akubi said...

@Wagga,
The thong posted above is the required uniform of the Marin Arugula Party.

Akubi said...

Walnuts sounds like a tired old man.

Akubi said...

Big mistake WALNUTS!

Akubi said...

Palin is a fucking pork barrel.
You suck WALNUTS!

Ogg the Caveman said...

Just coming in. Did I miss anything good?

Akubi said...

Walnut's tax BS was simply BS.
How does he define a "small business" in the first place?
He's so vague and neck-less I want to kill my TV.

Akubi said...

@Ogg,
Not much. Obama is now providing the tax policy response I was looking for.

Ogg the Caveman said...

@ Akubi:

His response would've been more effective if he'd prefaced it with "That's a load of crap and you know it, Senator".

Akubi said...

Or "shoveitupyourass.com"?

Akubi said...

@Ogg,
Can you believe the hummus war in the Middle East?

Ogg the Caveman said...

That depends. Is it really good hummus?

Obama needs to find a way out of this game of who voted for/against what how many times. The way the game is played in congress these days (riders, etc), you can find instances of just about any candidate voting just about any way on just about any issue.

Ogg the Caveman said...

McCain's new strategy is to represent himself as the safe, familiar choice.

Akubi said...

He is so pathetic and full of shit.

Ogg the Caveman said...

Finally, a beauty queen who doesn't want world peace

Akubi said...

@Ogg,
She can ShoveItYourAss.com.
I should have bought the domain when I had a chance.

Anonymous said...

Holding Things Together

wagga said...

@Akubi

I tried the thong on but I uh.. broke it.

Anonymous said...

My friends,
Who the fuck killed the Kennedys anyway?

Ogg the Caveman said...

I felt like the debate was more or less a draw (which, in a way, is a win for Obama) but others seem to disagree. The MSM analysis that I've been reading tonight consistently says that Obama won.

In any case, McCain needed a decisive win tonight and didn't get it. His star is falling.

Akubi said...

Ogg,
Thank god.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-ai0OyCh5c&feature=related

Akubi said...

I get really angry with my stupid ass Catholic friends.
They can shove it up their ass.com;
Nothing wrong with that.

Akubi said...

I get really angry with my stupid ass Catholic friends.
They can shove it up their ass.com;
Nothing wrong with that.

Ogg the Caveman said...

The CBS poll of uncommitted voters makes it look like a very good day for Obama.

On balance, my concerns about how Obama's performance would be viewed had to do not so much with what he said but how he said it. As far as the mechanics of speaking, the town hall format is not his forte. But it looks like it didnt matter.