As IF Times

link Fans support, defend Paula Deen.

So the knives are out for Paula Deen.  After almost a lifetime of promoting a diet that would give an elephant diabetes, she is felled by her use of a common racial epithet…some years ago.   For those who don’t know who Paula Deen is, she is the doyenne of down south American cuisine, where the staple ingredients are buckets of butter and slabs of bacon.  And that’s for the kid’s meals.  She is to butter and bacon what Emeril Lagasse is to pork fat.  Much of her cooking caters to the theme of “if it ain’t fried, it ain’t cooked”.  Ironically, it’s something that came out of her mouth, not what she put into it that gets her in trouble.

It’s actually amazing that up to now, no diet group has come around to denounce her cooking repertoire since she is essentially pushing crack cocaine to fat people.  It’s no argument that, notwithstanding any culinary benefit, she probably did more damage to people with her recipes than with any racial slur cast over the years. This is a twist on the old refrain of “you can call me anything you want, but don’t call me late for dinner”.  So she gets taken down not by the health police, but by the speech police.

It’s quizzical to witness just how quickly the media have circled like vultures to peck on the still warm body of Ms. Deen, served up with a whole mess o’ righteous hypocrisy.   It’s as if her admitted transgression is the most egregious issue facing people today, a crime worse than terrorist bombers, child kidnappers, global warming and IRS bullying.   The Food Network even cancelled her show’s renewal.  While there’s little evidence of malicious intent on her past utterances, nevertheless, she is now held to the standards of the day by virtue of her fame.

If poor Paula has fallen victim to the modern world of PC speech and sensibilities, then it’s a fair bet that everyone with a public persona should be worried.  We can literally hear the din of phones ringing at lawyers’ offices nationwide as opportunistic people from the pasts of present day celebrities rush to file grievances for some perceived slight 30 odd years ago.

Wop, Dago, Chink, Jew, Mick, Spic, garlic eater, Limey, Gook, Chief, Kraut, Polack and Frog are a partial list of verboten words that if ever were revealed to have been uttered by anyone famous, should also be career enders.   But it’s potentially worse that that however.  With the inexorable march of politically correct sensitivity, a big chunk of the language will likely achieve scarlet letter status, so that even the most lame pejorative epithets will arouse horror among civilized people.  No more calling people: four eyes, dufus, stupido, fatso, gimpy, wimpy, shorty, stretch, goof, or even slowpoke.

Unless of course, you happen to be a member of the mentioned groups.  So for instance, it’s perfectly ok for a homosexual to call another a fag.  Or two dumb people to call each other out, as in “I’m not stupid, you’re stupid!”

There may be a bright side to this made for TV controversy.   It may bring on the age of creative and oblique epithets.  Instead of the most commonly hurled basic insult you hear these days, perhaps referring to someone as a butt sphincter may be more creative.   Instead of idiot, you can refer to someone as “thick as manure and half as useful”.

Doing a very quick search of the web turns up some pretty artful ones:

bawdy, bat-fowling baggage
beslubbering, beef-witted barnacle
bootless, beetle-headed bladder
churlish, boil-brained boar-pig
cockered, clapper-clawed bugbear
clouted, clay-brained bum-bailey
craven, common-kissing canker-blossom
currish, crook-pated clack-dish
dankish, dismal-dreaming clotpole
dissembling, dizzy-eyed coxcomb
droning, doghearted codpiece
errant, dread-bolted death-token
fawning, earth-vexing dewberry
fobbing, elf-skinned flap-dragon
froward, fat-kidneyed flax-wench
frothy, fen-sucked flirt-gill
gleeking, flap-mouthed foot-licker
goatish, fly-bitten fustilarian
gorbellied, folly-fallen giglet
impertinent, fool-born gudgeon
infectious, full-gorged haggard
jarring, guts-griping harpy
loggerheaded, half-faced hedge-pig
lumpish, hasty-witted horn-beast
mammering , hedge-born hugger-mugger
mangled, hell-hated joithead
mewling, idle-headed lewdster
paunchy,  ill-breeding lout
pribbling, ill-nurtured maggot-pie

Of course for those of you unable to bring wit to the discussion, you can always fall back on “am not!”

link NYC Asks Food Manufacturers To Cut Salt Content – wcbstv.com

It’s getting tougher and tougher to keep on the right side of the modern politically correct, nanny culture that we’ve all embraced. It was bad enough that scientists have disparaged all manner and type of enjoyment, confection and amusement because of perceived detrimental effects. I guess you could argue that to demonize smokers was a good thing, since the idea of inhaling fumes that had just been in someone else’s lungs is pretty icky. Not to mention that smokers in general tend to be a slovenly lot, casting their spent butt ends all over the place. Is there anything more disgusting than looking at cigarette butts crushed into the remnants of a dish at the end of a meal?

But over the years, if you’ve avoided all the things that the authorities have claimed are bad for you, it’s possible you would not be alive, having died of malnutrition. Over the past few decades, the list of tsk tsk items have included:

eggs, coffee, milk, white bread, red meats, cheese, fish, shellfish, butter, ice cream, potato chips, cookies, candy, donuts, fried chicken, french fries and “fast food” in general. Hmm this looks like my weekly shopping list.

Oddly, many modern diets have espoused the virtues of eggs and red meats for their high protein benefits and coffee has seen a resurgence as a beneficial food as well as fish and of course the fast food at Subway. Just ask Jared. Strangely, margarine at one time was touted as preferable to butter, now we’ve swung back the other way. You seldom see any cooking shows or recipes calling for margarine in their mix.

Where it gets a little dicey are the arcane constituents of foods. For instance, fats per se aren’t bad for you, only certain trans and mono fats whatever those are. Maybe it’s no coincidence that Emeril Lagasse does not have a show on the Food Network anymore. I recall he never met a fat he didn’t like.

So now, the guardians of our well being (at least in NY) are pushing to move SALT from our diets. Apparently, we ingest far too much salt in forms we don’t even realize and this leads us towards the health out of bounds markers. So pressing is this crisis that they will eventually make it illegal for restaurants and food companies to exceed certain salt levels in their products. In other words, save us from ourselves, like it or not.

Boy, this is going to spur some changes in our society. Like smokers, willful salt ingesters will have to huddle in doorways outside of buildings sprinkling salt on their meals. There of course will be new camaraderies as people share shakers like lighters. Of course, people will try to quit, but can’t, therefore salt patches will be available for those who are weak. Naturally, there will be large letter warnings on salt packages and minors will not be able to obtain them.

There may be the emergence of underground restaurants where they freely use salt and other seasonings, like the speakeasies of old where you have to whisper, “Charlie sent me” through a sliding slot in a door to get in. The companies that make shakers will be severely squeezed since now only pepper shakers are acceptable on dining tables. With the passage of time and the acceptance of salt as socially evil, even common speech aphorisms will have to be modified. Someone is now the “oregano of the earth”, or we will consider someones opinions with ” a grain of nutmeg”. I’m sure it’ll sound better in 10 years.