We had noodles for dinner the other night. Not just any noodles, they were fresh ones made in Japan. This never ceases to amaze me, and the kids and I spent a little time imagining the the trip these noodles had made. They’d come half way around the world just to be our dinner.
This led to an observation: Almost nothing on our dinner table was made or grown anywhere near us.
The plates were made in Malaysia, the glasses are from Italy and Turkey, the flatware comes from Germany, the table cloth was from El Salvador and the napkins were made in Guatemala. The noodles were from Japan. The tofu and veggies were from California.
How about you? Take a look at your dinner table tonight. Where did all that stuff come from?
We are so awash in cheap food that the government has to subsidize farmers to keep them in business. Hunger is a political problem, not one of economics or production capacity.
Zimmet, an expert on diabetes at Monash University in Australia, said that overweight people now outnumber the undernourished. The World Health Organization’s estimates agree: globally, there are one billion overweight adults, and 300 million of them are obese; in contrast, about 800 million do not have enough to eat. Today obesity is a problem mainly in rich countries, but the WHO estimates that by 2010 the developing world will have more than caught up.
Somebody is going to make a zillion dollars bringing weight loss programs and gyms to north Africa.
On our way to breakfast this morning, Ben and I stopped at a traffic light next to a Chick-Fil-A restaurant. Out front there was a guy dressed in a cow suit, marching back and forth with a sandwich board that read, “Eat mor chickin”.
Ben asked, “What’s that cow doing?”
I told him the truth. “He’s begging for his life. He figures that his best shot is to convince us to eat some other poor creature in the hope that we’ll like that better and let him live. Gonna be some awkward moments in the barnyard when the chickens find out he’s betrayed them.”
When they came for the cows, I said nothing because I am not a cow.
It’s good to laugh at people who are different. Their ways are stange and threatening and, when we mock them, we let them know that Our Way Of Life protects us like a shield from their strange smells, and from the diabolical grunts that they pretend are language.
TheGoodDoctor disagreed with my Super Bowl ad comments. In his eyes, there was only the Burger King ad. He went on and on about the costumes and the music. Oh, how he loves showgirls in gowns.
Sure, he claims to spend all that time in Vegas golfing, but I think we all know the truth: He’s there for the shows. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Nobody ever needs to know how many times you’ve seen Celine Dion.
Well, joy of joys, thanks to the blessed interweb you can make your own cut of the ad! They’ve put up a special site where you can wallow in everything there is to know about this masterpiece. Download the music as an MP3, or print out the sheet music and gather the family for a sing along! Like the costumes? They provide drawings and behind the scenes photos so you can make your own. There’s a making-of video. This one’s for you, Doc. Have it your way.
PS – All kidding aside, what the hell were they thinking? A small army of people is required to mount a production like this. They worked on it every day for months. Why did nobody ever say, “wait a minute! This is horrible! Let’s do something else, or even nothing.” I mean, it’s not like they show up at the office one day and there’s a video tape waiting. There are weeks of meetings and design reviews. Dozens of people have to approve every aspect. Casting, set design, choreography, music, costumes, and a million other things. There are days of rehearsal and shooting. When the dailies came back, why didn’t they just do the right thing and burn them?
Your Table is Flat
