Shame on you, Michelle Obama, for selling out -- again -- to the evil empire that is crippling the nation and chipping away at any goodness in the world. The White House announced that "First Lady Michelle Obama joined Walmart executives today to help launch the company’s Nutrition Charter, a groundbreaking new initiative that has the potential to have a transformative impact on the market place and help families across America put healthier, more affordable food on their tables." Even less appetizing are the *news* reports that rewrite this repulsive release without any mention of how this is another crime against our citizens. You'll need to read The Telegraph for anything more than a gratuitous endorsement masquerading as news: "The apparent contradiction between Sen Obama's political calculation to join the Wal-Mart-bashing lobby, and his wife's profitable role with a company that makes money from Wal-Mart, is being closely scrutinised by "opposition" research teams working for rival White House candidates, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt." For more on Obama's re-election to the board of Treehouse Foods, the Illinois-based union- and worker-hating pickles and peppers producer, click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1551441/Obama-called-hypocrite-for-wifes-Wal-Mart-link.html
Walmartians aren't looking for "healthier" food. They consume processed crap in lieu of anything that resembles whole food. The socially conscious aren't going to trade down from their local farmer's market or Whole Foods to be fooled into believing they are saving money at the behemoth that sucks dry any semblance of humanity from the masses. The world's biggest retailer claims it is "reformulating thousands of everyday packaged food items by 2015 by reducing sodium 25 percent and added sugars 10 percent, and by removing all remaining industrially produced trans fats." Why is this poison loaded with so much sodium, sugar (no doubt mostly high fructose corn syrup) and trans fat to begin with? And why is it taking until 2015? Because the chemical concoctions on the shelves are forever fossilized in their processed state and "good" for years after they come off the production lines. Specifically, Walmart has vowed to "reduce sodium by 25 percent in a broad category of grocery items, including grain products, luncheon meats, salad dressings and frozen entrees." This death by diet campaign is acknowledging it doesn't stock whole grains but "grain products." Good luck finding lean protein at any price in this mecca of mock. There you'll find "luncheon meats." Luncheon meats? I guess that's what you serve with American cheese, a blend of milk, milk fats and solids, with other fats and whey protein concentrates. I'm too nauseous to even comment on the contents of the "salad dressings and frozen entrees." Walmart also promises to "reduce added sugars by 10 percent in dairy items, sauces and fruit drinks." Added sugars in "dairy items?" Want to commit to health Walmart? Don't sell diabetes causing "dairy items, sauces and fruit drinks" to human beings! Even fruit juice (just fruit without any of the fiber reduced to a "healthy" sugar) needs to be doled out in moderation. That something called "fruit drinks" is even legal is heinous. To round out the trinity of "reformulation," Walmart says it will "remove all remaining industrially produced trans fats (partially hydrogenated fats and oils) in all packaged food products." Thanks, Walmart, for introducing me to an even deeper, darker circle of dietary hell known as "industrially produced trans fats."
I dare doubters who still think I'm a snob to show me any evidence that even the slightest improvement in any packaged Walmart product will transform it into anything approaching healthy. Take a serving of Sam's Club frozen pizza. The store brand supreme pie packs 350 calories per serving. Sounds OK, right? That serving is a tenth of the pie, or 5.57 ounces. How many Walmartians really eat one slice? Let's be conservative and say a family of four shares the pie, with three slices doled out to dad, the biggest eater of the bunch. That means dad's scarfing down 1,050 calories, 48 grams of fat (24 saturated), 120 mg of cholesterol, 2,340 mg of sodium and 42 grams of sugar. And that's before the fruit drink. And what if mom, who's only eating two slices, decides to serve a healthy salad with store bought dressing? I'll spare you the staggering statistics.
Since I'm nowhere near a Walmart (one legitimate reason for paying astronomical rent) and I have vowed to never step foot in one, I can't give you a price comparison. But I assure you that you can find bulk items of whole foods like grains and legumes much cheaper at Whole Foods. I tried to search online for Walmart prices. Funny that a site search for "organic" in the grocery department yields just 10 results. Those items include tea, coffee, infant formula and diapers. What more do you need for a healthy, organic diet?
The press photos of the First Lady and Walmart President and CEO Bill Simon against a backdrop of super shiny peppers and tomatoes makes me squint (from the grotesque glossy veneer) and shudder. I challenge any Walmartian to monitor that produce pile, watch for any takers or any turnover of the shellacked racks.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Mass. Emotion
It's taken me nearly a week to write this. Largely because I've had very little chance to write anything, and have stolen what little time Michael Alexander naps during the day to bang out my personal finance column. And this week I've struggled to even answer emails after he goes to bed. We're all sick with stuffiness, sore throats and sniffles, so my energy is zapped by the time the baby falls asleep. It's nearly impossible to eke out a sentence when Michael Alexander's awake, as the keyboard is far more fascinating than any of his baby toys and he dives in as soon as I start tapping.
There's also the emotional impact of writing about emotions. I might be writing this only because I have such limited time to put anything in print. My restrictions may be freeing me to get this out without overthinking whether I'm oversharing.
Michael Alexander and I last week spent four nights in western Massachusetts, two without Mike. We were there to celebrate Rosghestvo, Christmas by the Julian calendar. That's two nights of sleeping -- alone -- in the bedroom where my father died, right next to the bedroom where my grandmother died. And just a hallway away from the room where my grandmother was waked. Every childhood home is awash in memories, good and bad. Few childhood homes in today's America are like mine. Americans love to divorce themselves from the reality of their family's disease and death, shipping them off to nursing home where strangers bathe them, change their bandages, refill their IVs and generally regard them as flesh waiting to go cold and and be replaced. I have many friends who didn't see grandparents for months at a time, as they were removed from their reality, dying a sanitary (at least by emotional standards) and soulless death in some money-making deathpit.
As my favorite undergraduate professor, Charles Kay Smith, said, Americans are as Puritanical about death as the Victorians were about sex. We changed the name parlour (or parlor) to living room (what an absurd term!) to erase any trace of dying from our homes. Up until 1918, Americans and Europeans called the front room of the house the front parlor (or parlour). The 1918 flu pandemic (or Spanish Flu), a pandemic which wiped out between 50 million and 100 million people from June 1917 to December 1920, reportedly forced people to pile bodies in the front parlor. (The first cases were reported in the continental U.S. and the rest of Europe long before creeping to Spain. But the pandemic was dubbed "Spanish flu" because as a neutral country in World War I, Spain had no censorship of news regarding the disease and its consequences. Spanish King Alfonso XIII became the high-ranking poster child for the disease after getting sick.) All this death was far too depressing for American society to bear! The desire to boost sales of its lifestyle magazine drove the editors of "The Ladies Home Journal" to rename the parlor the "living room" in honor of those who survived. God forbid Americans grow too sad to seek advice on redecorating their new room!
Though I grew up in a bucolic New England suburb, cushioned by the liberal utopia of America's higher education mecca, my life was very different, at least at home. My mother, a fashionista who shopped at Saks in New York and walked the red carpet to her various executive roles, made every effort to ensure my sister and I were clad and coiffed to fit in with the proud Protestants and fallen Catholics. We played sports. We were Brownies and Girl Scouts (my mom was a troop leader.) I was such an archetypal New England child that I won a Memorial Day poetry contest and read proudly in patriotic red, white and blue. I marched in parades dressed as a pilgrim. But beneath all the costumes and conformity, I was buffered from the uptight American denial of death. I went to wakes and funerals as a baby. And Russian Orthodox wakes and funerals involve open caskets and close contact with the corpse. I am grateful I was raised this way. I cannot imagine the detachment and denial that plagues so many of my peers. Sheltering your children from reality and the natural cycle and ritual of life is absurd and unnatural. "The Ladies Home Journal" is not an infant care handbook. It can make for good comedy, though.
As always, I digress. While I wouldn't trade my old world upbringing for the milktoast, mundane, Main Street mainstream, I do acknowledge that my early emotional intelligence makes some adult experiences more volatile. Like coming home. Home, where my father and grandmother died. My mother cared for both of them, after she helped my grandmother care for my grandfather. She was incapable of discarding them in our nation's dollar-driven deathcare system. With names like Home of the Innocents, South Mountain Restoration Center and Cokesbury Village (among the winners of U.S. News America's Best Nursing Homes rankings), America disguises these places to die and makes people think they are doing something humane in exchange for a small fortune amassed in a lifetime. Some 1.5 million people are living in the nation's 16,000-plus nursing homes, and in a typical year more than 3.2 million Americans will spend at least some time in one. That statistic saddens me far more than the purpose of a parlor.
But I struggle to sleep when I am my mother's house, where I grew up. I am startled by nightmares (often re-runs from my childhood), flooded by emotion and angry at myself for how I neglected my mother in some of her greatest moments of need. I suppose if I were raised in a home that banished the old and ill at the first sign of convalescence I wouldn't have this problem. Sorrow aside, I am comforted most by compassion and empathy which can only come with experience. I wouldn't trade my tossing, turning and night terrors for a bland background.
"Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain."
_ William Hazlitt (1778-1830) British essayist (and Irish Protestant)
There's also the emotional impact of writing about emotions. I might be writing this only because I have such limited time to put anything in print. My restrictions may be freeing me to get this out without overthinking whether I'm oversharing.
Michael Alexander and I last week spent four nights in western Massachusetts, two without Mike. We were there to celebrate Rosghestvo, Christmas by the Julian calendar. That's two nights of sleeping -- alone -- in the bedroom where my father died, right next to the bedroom where my grandmother died. And just a hallway away from the room where my grandmother was waked. Every childhood home is awash in memories, good and bad. Few childhood homes in today's America are like mine. Americans love to divorce themselves from the reality of their family's disease and death, shipping them off to nursing home where strangers bathe them, change their bandages, refill their IVs and generally regard them as flesh waiting to go cold and and be replaced. I have many friends who didn't see grandparents for months at a time, as they were removed from their reality, dying a sanitary (at least by emotional standards) and soulless death in some money-making deathpit.
As my favorite undergraduate professor, Charles Kay Smith, said, Americans are as Puritanical about death as the Victorians were about sex. We changed the name parlour (or parlor) to living room (what an absurd term!) to erase any trace of dying from our homes. Up until 1918, Americans and Europeans called the front room of the house the front parlor (or parlour). The 1918 flu pandemic (or Spanish Flu), a pandemic which wiped out between 50 million and 100 million people from June 1917 to December 1920, reportedly forced people to pile bodies in the front parlor. (The first cases were reported in the continental U.S. and the rest of Europe long before creeping to Spain. But the pandemic was dubbed "Spanish flu" because as a neutral country in World War I, Spain had no censorship of news regarding the disease and its consequences. Spanish King Alfonso XIII became the high-ranking poster child for the disease after getting sick.) All this death was far too depressing for American society to bear! The desire to boost sales of its lifestyle magazine drove the editors of "The Ladies Home Journal" to rename the parlor the "living room" in honor of those who survived. God forbid Americans grow too sad to seek advice on redecorating their new room!
Though I grew up in a bucolic New England suburb, cushioned by the liberal utopia of America's higher education mecca, my life was very different, at least at home. My mother, a fashionista who shopped at Saks in New York and walked the red carpet to her various executive roles, made every effort to ensure my sister and I were clad and coiffed to fit in with the proud Protestants and fallen Catholics. We played sports. We were Brownies and Girl Scouts (my mom was a troop leader.) I was such an archetypal New England child that I won a Memorial Day poetry contest and read proudly in patriotic red, white and blue. I marched in parades dressed as a pilgrim. But beneath all the costumes and conformity, I was buffered from the uptight American denial of death. I went to wakes and funerals as a baby. And Russian Orthodox wakes and funerals involve open caskets and close contact with the corpse. I am grateful I was raised this way. I cannot imagine the detachment and denial that plagues so many of my peers. Sheltering your children from reality and the natural cycle and ritual of life is absurd and unnatural. "The Ladies Home Journal" is not an infant care handbook. It can make for good comedy, though.
As always, I digress. While I wouldn't trade my old world upbringing for the milktoast, mundane, Main Street mainstream, I do acknowledge that my early emotional intelligence makes some adult experiences more volatile. Like coming home. Home, where my father and grandmother died. My mother cared for both of them, after she helped my grandmother care for my grandfather. She was incapable of discarding them in our nation's dollar-driven deathcare system. With names like Home of the Innocents, South Mountain Restoration Center and Cokesbury Village (among the winners of U.S. News America's Best Nursing Homes rankings), America disguises these places to die and makes people think they are doing something humane in exchange for a small fortune amassed in a lifetime. Some 1.5 million people are living in the nation's 16,000-plus nursing homes, and in a typical year more than 3.2 million Americans will spend at least some time in one. That statistic saddens me far more than the purpose of a parlor.
But I struggle to sleep when I am my mother's house, where I grew up. I am startled by nightmares (often re-runs from my childhood), flooded by emotion and angry at myself for how I neglected my mother in some of her greatest moments of need. I suppose if I were raised in a home that banished the old and ill at the first sign of convalescence I wouldn't have this problem. Sorrow aside, I am comforted most by compassion and empathy which can only come with experience. I wouldn't trade my tossing, turning and night terrors for a bland background.
"Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain."
_ William Hazlitt (1778-1830) British essayist (and Irish Protestant)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Tooth and Nail
I've been fighting tooth and nail today to stay smiley. I'm finally feeling better after battling a monster headache. It's the intense throbbing and pounding pain that moves from temple to temple like with a migraine, but mercifully without the blinding nausea. I have to keep grinning and giggling, even as I grind my teeth and chomp the insides of my cheeks to offset the fear my head may implode. Michael Alexander has cut his first two teeth and he needs Nommers to be especially cheerful and patient and attentive and concerned with his pain, not hers.
Of all the baby gear people are convinced parents need, teething rings are the most useless. Michael Alexander cut his first tooth -- bottom left front -- on Thursday, the day before Rosghestvo (Christmas by the Julian calendar) and the second -- bottom right front -- on Saturday. He wants to gnaw on everything. Well, everything except teething rings. Clean socks. The diaper box. My knees. Just about anything seems to offer at least a few seconds of comfort. But the teething rings get ousted almost immediately.
Michael Alexander might be one of the happiest babies ever. He doesn't complain and rarely cries. Cutting teeth is the first thing to rattle (rattles, another useless item, as babies prefer the packaging) him. He had a fever over the holiday weekend at his Babushka's, but quickly perked up after a dose of Baby Tylenol. Now Daddy's sick with a cold, I have a sore throat and he's starting to sniffle. We can't all be sick at once.
Michael Alexander's being a champ compared with most teething babies. I just hope I'm feeling better tomorrow. This teething is tough enough without my being ill. And I'm going a little crazy as he demands much more of my attention. I've already spoiled him just a teeny tiny bit, so I am not allowed to so much as glance at the laptop when he's awake and watching. He wants to help me, pounding on the keys and striking macros I didn't even know existed. At just a couple months old, he killed one MacBook by shoving it off my left thigh as I attempted to write an article with the laptop balanced on my right thigh. He's since removed the Control keys from the new MacBook Pro and the the new PC. There is a major cost associated with focusing on anything other than his sparkling eyes.
But I'm not complaining. I know this is a major developmental milestone and I am so thrilled when he lets me peek inside that little mouth. They may be baby teeth, but they are sure sign my baby is growing up quickly. I'm so glad I get witness every amazing moment. As James Brown said, "Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all."
Of all the baby gear people are convinced parents need, teething rings are the most useless. Michael Alexander cut his first tooth -- bottom left front -- on Thursday, the day before Rosghestvo (Christmas by the Julian calendar) and the second -- bottom right front -- on Saturday. He wants to gnaw on everything. Well, everything except teething rings. Clean socks. The diaper box. My knees. Just about anything seems to offer at least a few seconds of comfort. But the teething rings get ousted almost immediately.
Michael Alexander might be one of the happiest babies ever. He doesn't complain and rarely cries. Cutting teeth is the first thing to rattle (rattles, another useless item, as babies prefer the packaging) him. He had a fever over the holiday weekend at his Babushka's, but quickly perked up after a dose of Baby Tylenol. Now Daddy's sick with a cold, I have a sore throat and he's starting to sniffle. We can't all be sick at once.
Michael Alexander's being a champ compared with most teething babies. I just hope I'm feeling better tomorrow. This teething is tough enough without my being ill. And I'm going a little crazy as he demands much more of my attention. I've already spoiled him just a teeny tiny bit, so I am not allowed to so much as glance at the laptop when he's awake and watching. He wants to help me, pounding on the keys and striking macros I didn't even know existed. At just a couple months old, he killed one MacBook by shoving it off my left thigh as I attempted to write an article with the laptop balanced on my right thigh. He's since removed the Control keys from the new MacBook Pro and the the new PC. There is a major cost associated with focusing on anything other than his sparkling eyes.
But I'm not complaining. I know this is a major developmental milestone and I am so thrilled when he lets me peek inside that little mouth. They may be baby teeth, but they are sure sign my baby is growing up quickly. I'm so glad I get witness every amazing moment. As James Brown said, "Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all."
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