Archive - Jan 2009

Rush is getting a fair amount of media play this week, since Obama threw out to congressional Repulicans that "you can't listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," or whatever bogus rationalization The Chosen One threw out there to get that stinkin' stimulus bill passed.  

I've never really listened to talk radio on a regular basis before now.  I have a big empty house, and occasionally I need some background noise during the day, whilst I'm doing household chores, so that the silence doesn't drive me batty.  I turn on the local talk radio station, mainly because they have news on the half hour, and the morning guy, Chris Baker, is freakin' hilarious, but I wind up listening to a fair amount of conservative chat in the meantime, and Rush is on from 11-2, so it's kind of hard to avoid him. 

Please, Rush fans, don't kill me for this next bit.  I think Rush is all right.  Don't have a problem with any of his views, but I am REALLY TIRED of his "I'm always right," and "talent on loan from God," schtick.  He's been floating this stuff since the early nineties, when I was first introduced to Rush, and, dear God, but it's tired.  I can barely get through that crap to get to the good stuff.  And there's plenty of good stuff, but when he's promoting how brilliant he is all the time, it's hard to listen.  Really it is.  I know he's smart.  I know he's right on most of the time.  I don't have a problem with him articulating the principles of conservatism, because when he talks about this kind of stuff, he's great.  But the rest of it is just boring and exhausting.  Would it kill him to just shut up about how brilliant he is for one show?  It is nauseating when a call comes in, the caller makes an interesting point, and he turns it into yet another platform for self-promotion.  If this is his way of bolstering himself up to take the hits that come at him, well, I suppose I can't blame him for being his biggest fan, but, dude, you're losing me with it.  You're losing the husband, because he, the person who introduced me to Rush, can barely stand it anymore.  The father-in-law, who listens to Rush every day and has for almost twenty years, is getting tired of it. 

Please, Rush, stop with the self-promotion.  We get it.  You have a fantastic opportunity to bring people over to our side right now, and even more so as people become disenchanted with Obama.  It wouldn't take them the all holy "six weeks" to get used to your broadcast style.  If you didn't talk about yourself so much, you could get more listeners on board, more swiftly. 

Please note that the lack of the usual Blog Rolls in the right column is due to a very popular service called BlogRoll has been down for quite a while.  We expect the information to return soon.  You can find more information about it here.

Thank you for your continued reading.

Your chuckle of the day. 

I particularly appreciate the warning about running to a colder climate. Helpful, that.

Only the husband could fall asleep in the dentist's chair while having his teeth cleaned. 

Damn. Damn. Damn! the man to hell and back for being able to fall asleep, literally, anywhere. 

This story from the local, bankrupt, rag has been me laughing like a loon.

The trouble in Lowry Hill started with one neighbor accusing the other of having marketing and construction businesses operating out of her mansion.

Then the dispute took a nasty turn. Barbara and Jimmy Fogel, who complained to the city of Minneapolis about the alleged zoning violations of an across-the-street neighbor, have endured a wave of vandalism. Over the past 18 months, the couple's house, yard and car have been the target of dumped feces and grass-killing chemicals. In late December and early January, someone fired bullet-like pellets into their house.

On Jan. 13, in the most ominous incident so far, the Fogels were jolted out of bed by a tremendous crash. Two bricks had been hurled through their century-old front windows.

The Minneapolis police are investigating, and the Lowry Hill Neighborhood Association held a special meeting last week so residents could voice the fear that is seizing this district of grand old homes.

"We would like the nightmare to be over," said Jimmy Fogel, a realtor who sells many homes in Lowry Hill. He and his wife no longer feel safe having their grandchildren visit, and they have set up a surveillance system in their 1900-vintage home.

Minneapolis police have made no arrests in the pellet shooting or brick-throwing case. But Jeffrey Morgan Groves -- a contractor who was living with the mansion's owner Tina Wilcox -- has been charged with nine misdemeanor counts, including harassment and stalking, damage to property, violation of a restraining order and fifth-degree assault, in connection with vandalism, threats and confrontations between September 2007 and October 2008.{...}

After reading this, you'd probably feel sorry for the Fogels, right? After all, breaking the law is no way to retaliate against someone who simply wants the lot to be upheld, right?

Of course, that's not the entire story.

In October, Wilcox told the Hennepin County courts that she was the one being harassed by her neighbor. Barbara Fogel admits that she did go over the line once, when she dumped garbage and debris around Groves' van in frustration. The act earned her a ticket for littering.

Groves says he is innocent, the victim of a frame-up. Wilcox, who did not respond to interview requests, herself has a restraining order against Barbara Fogel.

Wilcox's manse looms over the corner of Summit and Colfax Avenues, so large that it has addresses on both streets. Wilcox's marketing business, Black Design, occupies part of the house. Groves, who had worked on the extensive restoration of the house, moved in with Wilcox about two years ago.

In 2007, the Fogels complained to the city about a constant parade of vehicles across the street. The city issued citations to Wilcox and Groves for violating the zoning restrictions, which forbid home occupations from generating excessive traffic or employing more than one nonresident.

City zoning officials determined that Groves' company, A Cut Above Restoration, was running a contractor's yard out of the property.{...}

Not everyone in the neighborhood is aligned with the Fogels. Caroline Dunn-O'Brien has only good things to say about Groves, who did recent work on her Lowry Hill house. "I know he hasn't had a squeaky-clean slate. It's very, very hard to believe what's being said about him is true," she said. "I think the public airing of this is very vicious."

In an interview Thursday, Groves said he didn't know who was responsible for the vandalism. He said the Fogels want to whip up public opinion against him in advance of his court appearance Monday on a felony theft charge involving a trailer stolen from nearby Groveland Terrace.

"The Fogels have called the police over 40 times on me over last three years, and used every channel to try to get me out of their neighborhood," he said. Groves wouldn't say whether he is still living in the neighborhood, and said he is currently operating his business out of his van. His driver's license has been revoked.

"I have not done anything to the Fogels," he said.{...}

God, this is hilarious.  The comments on this article are eighteen pages of fun reading.  Go and check it out if you need a time waster. 

Normally, I would be on the side of the Fogels.  No one deserves to have their home vandalized because they complained to the city about their neighbors.  But let's take a look at a few things here.  First, the neighborhood involved, Lowry Hill, is, for those of you not familiar with the Minneapolis metropolitan area, a chi-chi place to live.  Situated just west of downtown, it borders Kenwood, which is where the really rich urbanites, like Josh Hotnett and Walter Mondale, live.  Lowry Hill is Kenwood's embarrassingly poor set of parents, if you know what I mean. The houses are old, and were built with the money gained from Minneapolis' original industries--- flour milling and the like.  It's not a cheap neighborhood, and it's populated with limousine liberals, who buy houses there because they want to support the inner city, but who really don't want to live near poor people.  They renovate these houses, which are historical and should be renovated, and then pat themselves on the back for saving the neighborhood with their efforts.  Second, look at the people involved, particularly the Fogels.  Now, I don't know if Jimmy Fogel is a limousine liberal, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was.  He is widely regarded as an asshole, due to his business practices as a real estate agent.  I don't know who is included in the who's who of Minneapolis, because I just don't pay attention to that sort of thing, but even I've heard about Jimmy Fogel and what prick he is, so that should say something. Reportedly, he's cutthroat, will push someone under the bus wihout a second thought if it suits his purpose is to do so, and if he's got a dollar he'll squeeze eleven dimes out of it. So, knowing that, and knowing what he did to his neighbor, constantly trying to get her busted for violating zoning ordinances which only he, as a real estate agent, would know about, because he was exercised that she was running a business out of her house, can you really side with him in this dispute? Never mind the bit about her "running a contractors yard" out of her house---he was pissed off with her well before that point.  Or, on the other hand, did he simply get what was coming to him?

The moral of this story is, quite simply, avoid living next door to a real estate agent.  Don't live on the same block with a real estate agent.  In fact, try not to live within a square mile of a real estate agent.  I know this one to be true.  Our life has gotten immensely better since we moved to our new location, away from our obnoxious ex-next door neighbor, who also happened to be a---you guessed it---real estate agent.  While we may now have a next door neighbor who, if he had his choice, wouldn't let us hook up to his water supply in an emergency, I can at least understand that.  He didn't want his water bill to go up, and he didn't want to be inconvenienced.  He was open and honest about what he wanted and didn't appreciate being manipulated by the city into sharing what was his.  Again, I can understand that.   What I can't understand, are the constant maneuvers and manipulations a real estate agent will slip into your ear about your property, the properties on the block, the properties in the neighborhood, which are all about about increasing their bottom line, rather than any concern they might have about the condition of your neighbors or the place you both live.  The husband and I rent, not because we wouldn't like to own a house, but we don't want to have to buy a house in the middle of nowhere, which is all we could afford right now.  So, to live where we want, we rent.  This makes us a minority in this neighborhood, and it's quite interesting to see how people are bothered by this.  One person, in particular, who was bothered by the fact we rented part of the duplex for ten years: the obnoxious ex-real estate agent neighbor.  Always and forever was he reminding us that he be more than happy to be our real estate agent, and when he couldn't sell us on that, he turned his attention to the house we lived in, because it was something of an eyesore.  It was standing, what little lawn there is was mowed, we try to keep things neat and tidy, but when he added on to his house to the tune of about a hundred grand's worth of renovations, our house was a perpetual thorn in his side, because he could tell his real estate value was plummeting as a result. It wasn't our fault we had a slumlord, but we received the brunt of his complaints nonetheless.  Furthermore, for years we drove a 1983 Toyota Camry, which was a complete and utter rust bucket, but which worked great.  That car, sitting in our driveway, I'm sure caused many apoplectic fits on his behalf, because he felt it was taking dollars off the value of his house.  He gave us no small amount of shit about that car.  One 4th of July, when we were sharing our stash of illegality with him and his family, he jokingly asked the husband if he'd spent more money on the fireworks than he did on our car.  I sent him the nastiest look I could muster, and his wife caught it, and a few days later, he apologized for "being out of line," but he didn't let up about it.  It got to the point when, one night, at a neighborhood gathering, after the neighbor bitched about the car again, the husband got so pissed off and told him that if it was such a problem, by all means, he should feel free to buy us a new car.  A few weeks later, the offer came from the neighbor that we could buy one of his Volkswagens off him for greater than blue book value and, as it turns out, for an amount greater than what he paid for it (word travels)---and it was a freaking diesel no less!  

Ms. Wilcox, if she truly didn't have anything to do with the vandalism, did nothing wrong other than to move in across the street from one of these noxious types of real estate agents.  Fogel is obviously one of these types of real estate agents, one who thinks he has a stake in everything that happens in his neighborhood and if he doesn't like it, he has the knowledge to make life difficult for his opponents.  I mean, seriously, who complains that their neighbor is running a business out of their home?  What?  Would he prefer that the people in his neighborhood be gone during the day, at offices across town, working, when they could be at home keeping an eye on things?  People who work at home, I can attest, because I am one of them, keep an eye on things, like garbage contractors who go down a residential street at 45 mph, and call the company in question to complain.  It means fewer squashed kiddies and squished cars.  We can keep an eye on all the contractors who go in and out of houses in our neighborhoods, and can report when somone is acting suspiciously or is robbing somone blind.  Just having us around means that the neighborhood is safer.  Fogel, apparently, doesn't want his neighborhood to be safe during the day; he would prefer there not be contractor trucks coming in and out of the house across the street from him, even if it's not doing him any harm, because "it looks bad."  Because that's what this ultimately boils down to: the neighborhood potentially looking bad, and Fogel's real estate value going down in the process. That's what he's complaining about, even if he doesn't say it flat-out.  And God help Ms. Wilcox if his next county assessment is less than he thinks it should be.

I'm not saying all real estate agents are selfish bastards. I know they're not. I've met plenty of people who work in the industry that are good people, and who are truly interested in helping their clients.  Yet, even these good real estate agents know who I'm talking about, and if they don't start reeling these people in, people are going to start hating them as much as they hate lawyers.

Self regulation, kids, that's what it's all about. If the Fogels had simply talked to their neighbor about what the problem was, instead of filing complaints with the city about zoning violations, they probably could have spared themselves a brick through the window.

The magnanimous, Scott "Brains" Johnson, over at Powerline gives the rundown on what's going to happen today with the trial over Norm Coleman's election contest. 

Go read.  It's the best summation you'll get all day.

Go Norm, GO! 

Insert sound of my head repeatedly slamming against my desk here

{...}Chatham House, the London-based think-tank, suggests that the recent fall in food prices is only a temporary reprieve and that prices are set to resume their upward trend once the world emerges from the current downturn.

“There is therefore a real risk of a ‘food crunch’ at some point in the future, which would fall particularly hard on import-dependent countries and on poor people everywhere,” the report states. “Food prices are poised to rise again,” it adds.{...}

So food prices will increase as we come out of the current economic downturn? 

Thanks ever so much for that bit of enlightenment.  Really, I had no clue.  Seriously.

{insert rolling of eyes here}

This is as obvious as the need for a tissue when your nose is full of boogers.
 

Some vile funny to help you find your Monday morning jollies before work.

And if you happen to be at work, make sure you put some headphones on, as some of the language is not safe for your environment.  You know, unless, you'd really like to be jobless in this economy.  

*Where'd that come from?

Well, I'll be.  It looks like the Tamil Tigers might finally be on the run. For good. 

Sri Lankan security forces captured the last major Tamil Tiger base in the northeast, the military said, as President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government moved a step closer to its goal of ending the country’s 26-year civil war.

Troops “have gained total control over the Mullaitivu township after completing mop up operations,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on its Web site. No rebel leaders were captured in the operation, a military spokesman said yesterday from the capital, Colombo. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam haven’t commented on the report.

The military is targeting the jungle bases of LTTE commanders, including the group’s leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. Army Chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka said last week Prabhakaran may have fled Sri Lanka and police in Malaysia are on a nationwide alert after reports he may have entered the country, the New Straits Times newspaper reported on Jan. 22.

Sri Lanka’s military says it has driven the Tigers into a 400-square kilometer (155-square mile) area in the northeast. It estimates the LTTE has only about 1,000 fighters left after its political headquarters at Kilinochchi was captured on Jan. 2.

Some defense analysts say the number of Tiger fighters is higher and the group is resorting to guerrilla warfare in the jungle terrain of the north.{...}

I don't for clean to know much about all of this, except for the basics: the Civil War in Sri Lanka has been going on for the majority of my life, and that the fighting has been quite nasty. I understand what the Tamil Tigers want, a homeland, but I haven't the foggiest idea of why they want it. Even though the article explains it, and basic terms, I don't know that quite gets to the heart of the matter.

There's a very nice older gentlemen who works in one of the local shops here in Cake Eater land, who is originally from Sri Lanka, and who, occasionally, is called in by the U.S. immigration services to translate at the asylum hearings of young men who have fled Sri Lanka for our country.  Apparently, these boys' parents take their life savings and buy them one way ticket to the U.S., in hopes they'll be granted asylum and can start a life here, because if they stayed at home they would wind up being "drafted" by the Tamil Tigers.  Supposedly the lifespan of the Tamil Tiger fighter isn't very long, and these parents, naturally, would like their child to live a long and happy life, even if it's on the other side of the globe, away from them and everything they know. Ram, the Sri Lankan shopworker, finds the situation very sad, but is happy to do what he can to make sure their story is told to the authorities, even if most of the boys do eventually get sent back.

While I know Ram enjoys the extra income and the occasional trip to Phoenix, where the government puts him up in a nice hotel with a pool and feeds him well, he would prefer not to go at all. Perhaps this news means he won't have to go, and life will finally settle down for Sri Lanka in general.  And fewer boys will be sent halfway across the world, away from their familes, in an effort to stay alive.  One can only hope. 

Oy. 

Visiting one of his favorite Chicago restaurants in November, Barack Obama was asked by an excited waitress if he wanted the restaurant's special margarita made with the finest ingredients, straight up and shaken at the table.

"You know that's the way I roll," Obama replied jokingly.

Rick Bayless, the chef of that restaurant, Topolobampo, says Obama's comfortable demeanor at the table — slumped contentedly in his chair, clearly there to enjoy himself — bodes well for the nation's food policy. While former President George W. Bush rarely visited restaurants and didn't often talk about what he ate, Obama dines out frequently and enjoys exploring different foods.

"He's the kind of diner who wants to taste all sorts of things," Bayless says. "What I'm hoping is that he's going to recognize that we need to do what we can in our country to encourage real food for everyone."

Phrases like "real food" and "farm-to-table" may sound like elitist jargon tossed around at upscale restaurants. But the country's top chefs, several of whom traveled to Washington for Obama's inauguration this week, hope that Obama's flair for good food will encourage people to expand their horizons when it comes to what they eat.

These chefs tout locally grown, environmentally friendly and — most importantly — nutritious food. They urge diners, even those who may never be able to afford to eat at their restaurants, to grow their own vegetables, shop at farmer's markets and pay attention to where their food comes from.

{...}Most of the chefs say they realize food policy and government support for larger corporate farms won't change any time soon. Congress, with Obama's support, overwhelmingly enacted a $290 billion farm bill last year that directs many subsidies to the largest agricultural players.

But Obama has already given chefs like Barber a small reason to hope. At his confirmation hearing, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made an overture to the growing number of food groups and experts who have criticized government subsidies for large corporate farms, saying he will seek to work "with those who seek programs and practices that lead to more nutritious food produced in a sustainable way."

"There's a lot of work that can be done in this area," Vilsack said after he was sworn in.{...}

See, this is the problem with letting everyone think that they can direct policy. Yes, a chef, particularly a successful chef, might indeed have very good ideas about what is needed with the nation's food policy. Who else has to deal with suppliers on a daily basis? Suppliers that range from a liquor distributor right on down to a farmer who supplies the eggs for Sunday brunch. But there is a problem with this and I think most people who have worked in the restaurant industry know exactly what it is: a head chef rarely, if ever, is in charge of ordering supplies; that job and generally falls to the sous chef, without whom a head chef would actually have to work, rather than just showing up to create certain dishes for the menu and then taking all the credit when they go over.  Any restaurant kitchen would fail without a sous chef, and while I am certain that Rick Bayless and the other chefs mentioned in this article have repeatedly dictated they want nothing but the finest, freshest, local grown ingredients, the sous chef is aware of their dirty little secret: that it's not always possible to get local ingredients for the head chef's latest taste sensation creation.  They're the ones who have to beg, borrow, or steal, in some instances, to ensure that the restaurant has supplies and stays within budget---and they can't always worry about whether the beets for the borscht came out of a garden less than 50 miles away.  Particularly not when there might be perfectly good beets at half the price on offer, the only problem being that that they were grown in Mexico. Sure, diners at a fancy restaurant are impressed when the server tells them that all the food has been sourced locally, I know I have been,  but someone who dines regularly at TGI McFunsters, to steal a line from Bourdain, isn't going to care so very much: all they care about is if the food is tasty, filling and that it's cheap.

These chefs are asking people to go back to growing and canning cabbage, when they're used to eating fresh vegetables that don't taste quite so nasty.

Because that's what they're doing---they're asking the government to direct people to eat only the finest locally grown root vegetables and fruits that can be preserved in Mason jars, and stored over the winter. That is what eating only local grown produce would mean for people in my neck of the woods. Warmer parts of the country may fare better than those of us who reside here in the frozen tundra, but as a good portion of the country does not live in temperate zones, this means the rest of us would have to work hard all summer long to have nutritional vegetables and fruits to last us all winter long---and the only way to do that is to preserve them.  The ground freezes here in November, but all the crops are out of the ground by late September, which is when we usually have the first frost. Nothing can grow here after that period of time, unless you have a greenhouse and a cash fat wallet to pay for heating it.  If I were to eat only local grown produce for the winter, that would mean going back to the 1930's for my inspiration. Sure potatoes and onions and the like can be stored for the winter in their natural state, but not much else can be without a big speckled black pot and a stash of Mason jars. What cans well?  Beets can well. Pickled cabbage---aka sauerkraut---cans well.  Peaches and pears can well---and are particularly delicious in that form.  Jellies and jams can well.  Applesauce cans well. But all of this is moot, as I have absolutely no idea how to can, and neither do most people. This is not a skill it was essential for me to learn, hence I have not learned it. I know my mother knows how to do it, because I've watched her. I remember well the stash of large Mason jars in our blue storage room.  Peaches and pears and beets were all lined up on two large shelves in the back of the room, and it was nothing for Mom to ask one of us to go down and get a jar of peaches or pears (or beets.  yuck.) for dinner.  It meant climbing over my father's golf clubs and my brothers' hockey skates to do it, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  Or so I thought, until I found out later in life how rare it was that someone knew how to put up fruits and vegetables for the winter.  Canning is almost a lost art, and to ask a good portion of the country to go back to the ways of the past is not only impractical, it would mean dooming them to a nutritionally challenged life (not to mention what would undoubtedly be a massive outbreak of botulism, from people who followed this advice and canned but had no idea what they were doing.).  We need fruits, vegetables, and greens to live healthily.  This is what our doctors and nutritionists and the government have been telling us for the past fifty years, and to ignore the benefits we have gained from this advice---less disease, longer lifespans, teeth that still are attached to our jaws---is not only foolhardy and expensive, it's bloody dangerous.  It's the whole flouride-in-the-water argument all over again, and it's positively ludicrous and hypocritical, because five will get you ten that Rick Bayless does not can the jicama he uses on his salads.  He undoubtedly sources it from a grower somewhere in the warmer climates, and has it trucked to Chicago, where it will then appear on Barack Obama's dinner plate, at an astronomical price. Sure, Obama can afford it, but isn't it just a wee bit hypocritical to ask that the citizens of this country should try to source their produce locally when said chef doesn't even do it himself? Because I can assure you that no one in Chicago, or in the surrounding farmland, is producing jicama at this time of year. And if Rick Bayless is serving canned jicama, well, then I'm the Queen of England. 

I like good ingredients just as much as the next person. I poke the meat to see if it's good, I make sure to pluck from the back of any rack, to get the freshest ingredients, because everyone rotates the oldest to the front, but, sheesh, I can't go much further than that.  Every day, in the grocery store, I am forced to make the choice between great ingredients that cost a fortune, and those, which some people might see as being of lesser quality, which I can afford. I don't buy organic, not because I wouldn't like a lesser amount of fertilizers in my food, but because I can't afford it.  Organic produce costs twice as much as non-organic produce.  This past weekend I needed celery for a dish I was going to make.  I couldn't find the regular, non-organic, variety, and was terrified I was going to have to pay almost four bucks for a package of celery, when my eyes finally lit on the regular stuff, which was $1.29.  I would like to buy hormone-free meat, but, again, I can't afford it.  It's too expensive.  And, and you have ever noticed, when it comes to organic, they want you to pay more for less product?  I can understand that some people think this is something that's worth the cost, that they want to feed their families food in its most natural state, and are willing to trade off on other things to make that happen. But are you honestly going to try and tell me that someone who can't make that trade off, because their budget won't allow for it, should have to do it? Particularly when there are so many other options available? The chefs would have us to rearrange the entire food supply around what they think is best to be served at their restaurants, where they can charge people an arm and a leg for their food?  It's not only elitist, it's flat-out discrimination against the working poor.  Why, precisely, do they think so many people eat at McDonald's? Because the food is good? People eat at McDonald's because it's cheap and it's filling. We have an obesity crisis in this country because nutritious options are more expensive than a box of Mac and Cheese. Yes, people are lazy, and they don't work as hard on feeding their families nutritiously as they should, but, sheesh, can you blame someone for buying a package of Mac and Cheese to feed their hungry kid when all the grocery store has on offer in the healthier sections of the store is expensive organic produce and hormone-free meat?

I don't think large corporations should get some subsidies from the government for mass production of food.  That's just a simple fact: if they're making money, they don't need subsidies.  But neither do I think we should flip that subsidy program around to make sure small farms get the majority of the money, like some of these chefs would advocate, because a. subsidies are annoyingly stupid to a free-market person like myself (don't ever get me started on the ethanol thing, or I'm likely to burst a few blood vessels) and b. they would be encouraging a way of life that most people do not want to live, and, moreover, are ill-equipped to live.  I don't want to have to can tomatoes, for fuck's sake, and I'm fairly certain I'm not alone. I don't know how to can.  I like the convenience of being able to buy a head of lettuce, shipped from California, in the middle of January.  I like that I can get oranges cheaply at the supermarket when, sixty or seventy years ago, that would have been unheard of.  It's not only better for the farmers, because they can grow and sell more product when they expand their market, but it's better for us, the eating population, because we'll live better, longer lives if we eat with nutrition in mind.  If people want to buy organic, or source their produce and meat locally, that's their choice.  But do not think for one minute that it should be government policy to force the rest of us to do the same.  Just because some people want to go back in time to experience what they believe was the do-it-yourself romance of the New Deal Era, doesn't mean that everyone else should have that foisted upon them, because it would be "good for the country."  My family got out of farming in the 1930's, partially, because of grasshopper plagues that swept across the plains and ate all the crops in the field.  One wonders what these chefs would do if their locally-sourced produce were to magically disappear due to a grasshopper plague.  Would they tell their customers that they didn't have any food to serve because of said grasshopper plague, thus chalking it up to the trials and errors that go with farming, and sending their customers home with empty stomachs?  No, they wouldn't.  They have to stay in business, hence they would find the food they needed elsewhere.  That's the beauty of our food system: there's plenty to go around, options galore from all over the world. To ignore that, to instruct people to only eat what they can find right in front of them is hypocritical at best, and irresponsible at worst.