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Latest Article – Obama and Food Policy
February 14, 2009 at 5:44 pm (Clips, Politics)
Pollan Nation?
BY JENNIFER MAYER
PHOTO COURTESY OF LUCID NUTRITION
activist michael pollan spreads sustainability gospel as president obama
grapples with food policy
Barack Obama may have raised a hand and
lifted a nation, but is his food policy something
you can believe in? A small but clamorous group
of food activists—led by revolutionary author Michael
Pollan—are calling not just for sustainability,
but for a complete shift in the food paradigm.
Food policy is not a new concept. It first became
a political issue in 1906 after the publication
of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”, an exposé on the
corruption of the meat industry. The ramifications
of the book were so powerful that President
Theodore Roosevelt ordered an investigation of
the meat industry that resulted in the establishment
of the Food and Drug Administration. In the
1970s, organic farming began as a small, radical
movement after agricultural experts realized that
chemicals used in the treatment and production of
food products negatively affected both the environment
and people’s health.
Now, once again, food has become a hot issue.
Organic food is the fastest growing sector of the
American food marketplace, with sales growing
17 to 20 percent a year for the past few years. But
even as people are making a conscious effort to
eat in a more sustainable way, the term “organic”
has become so open-ended, according to federal
definition, that the “organic” food sold in supermarkets
is not very different from the corporate
farms the label began as a protest against. Because
of this, many sustainability activists are calling
for President Obama and his administration to
take a tougher stance on changing the way food is
produced in the United States.
The First Lady in Vogue
February 11, 2009 at 10:33 pm (Politics)
From envisioning a more inclusive White House to embracing fearless fashion, Michelle Obama is poised to become the most transformative First Lady in history.
André Leon Talley reports. Portraits by Annie Leibovitz.
“Do you see our new house?” Michelle Obama asks, walking to a corner window of the reception suite at the Hay-Adams and drawing back the white curtains. It is a wet, chilly Tuesday afternoon in Washington, D.C., two weeks before the Inauguration, and the Obamas have just moved into the hotel so their daughters can begin the new semester at Sidwell Friends. Through the window we can see armed security men in black walking around on the White House roof.
“They tell me they do that a lot,” she says.
Mrs. Obama has a hug—a sincere and friendly embrace—that has become familiar to countless supporters from coast to coast. And when she talks to you, she focuses all her calm attention on your face. For a passionate supporter like me (someone who, like millions of regular American citizens, volunteered in the campaign trenches and basked in the glow of glory at the Inauguration), being the focus of this reassuring gaze is akin to hearing a chord from John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Or maybe Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending”: All is well and right and real.
With her long, lean, athletic frame, she moves as if she could have danced with Alvin Ailey in another life. Curled up in the corner of a huge taupe velvet sofa, wearing knee-high boots as she nestles into the cushions, she almost seems like any other mom recently relocated to a city because of her husband’s new job.
The work-life balance that this particular mother struggles with is not typical, but the early-days challenges she faces are remarkably ordinary. Getting her bearings, checking out churches to join, helping her kids adjust to unfamiliar surroundings—these are her top priorities and preoccupations. The First Lady puts her family first.
Read the rest of this entry »
Country Music Award Nominees
February 11, 2009 at 10:16 pm (Music)
Ok, so maybe (probably) I’m the only one who cares about this, but I still think award season is fun, so poo on you. 
People who I want to/think will win are in bold. Check them out after the jump.
My Review of “United States of Tara”
February 4, 2009 at 5:52 pm (Clips, Narcissism)
Mental Illness Comes to Primetime Comedy
BY JENNIFER MAYER
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 02, 2009
Searching for a way to laugh at mental illness without becoming a social pariah? Diablo Cody’s new series, United States of Tara (UST), might be your answer.
UST centers on a family dealing with their mother’s multiple personality disorder. Tara, much to her children’s chagrin, morphs into alter egos raging from an out-of-control teenager to a hillbilly to a ’50s housewife.
In many respects, UST resembles Diablo Cody’s other famous creation, Juno. Both plotlines center on women living a life that makes society squeamish. While Juno was criticized for mitigating the seriousness of teen pregnancy with humor, the same could be said of Tara and mental illness.
Tara’s multiple personalities provide the comedic relief of the program, but the series has potential to make a much more meaningful statement about mental illness. In just the first two episodes, we begin to get a glimpse of how Tara’s husband deals with the circumstances as well as the community’s misconceptions about her situation and her sister’s refusal to acknowledge her condition.
Part of Cody’s ability to normalize such taboo subjects stems from her protagonists. Both Ellen Page and Toni Collette are typical ultra-hip girls with a self-deprecating and honest sense of humor, which makes their abnormalities more easily acceptable to viewers. Just as Juno did not fit the typical image one conjures up when hearing the words “pregnant teen,” Tara puts a human face to a largely misunderstood condition. And just as critics praised Page for her performance, it would not be surprising to see Rosemarie DeWitt (who plays Tara’s sister, Aunt Charmaine) as a Golden Globe nominee next year.
While watching UST, though, we must remind ourselves that the ultimate purpose here is entertainment with only secondary statements about society. Cody does, in a sense, mock both pregnancy and mental illness through her comedies. Most sufferers of multiple personality disorder do not behave as Tara does, nor do their alter egos surface in the convenient manner in which Tara’s do.
However her motives play out, Cody has created a captivating premise for a series. The challenge will be whether or not she can adapt her style to fit the television format. While the pilot was endlessly entertaining because of how much it revealed about the main characters, the second episode did little to build on their complexity.
To keep its viewers entertained, UST must dig deep and flesh out all of its characters—and refrain from a singular focus on Tara’s alter egos. For example, Aunt Charmaine is obviously in denial over her sister’s diagnosis, but little has been revealed as to why she finds it so disturbing.
With such acclaimed talent on board (Steven Spielberg is the executive producer), UST has all the makings of an award-winning and highly rated series. Whether it will reach its potential remains to be seen.
Wah. I wanna go to Cuba.
February 4, 2009 at 4:55 pm (Uncategorized)
Cnn.com wrote a great article on Americans’ desire to go travel to Cuba, and the pressure on Pres. Obama to lift the travel restrictions Bush put in place in 2004. You can read more here. Or just check out these pics:
Cookies are better than bribes, right?
February 4, 2009 at 4:18 pm (Politics)
By JEFF ZELENYWASHINGTON — Can the shrill tone of Washington be changed through a presidential act of contrition? Or, perhaps, an enticing platter of oatmeal raisin cookies?
This week, President Obama has already served up both at the White House.
To one set of visitors, a gathering of Democratic and Republican members of Congress whom he invited to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, he carried around the freshly baked cookies as he mingled with his guests. To another set of visitors, the five broadcast and cable television anchors he invited to the Oval Office on Tuesday, he extended a blunt mea culpa and said he took responsibility for nominating aides with tax troubles.
With two weeks of the presidency now under his belt, both of these cases offer a window into how Mr. Obama may try to build relationships — and dispatch controversies — during his time in office.
Since the inauguration, one of the hottest tickets in town has been an invitation to the White House. And Republicans have been scoring them nearly as often as Democrats.
The president has held a cocktail reception for a bipartisan group of legislators, conducted sit-down meetings with House and Senate leaders of both parties and staged an indoor tailgate party Sunday to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Arizona Cardinals.
The social calendar continues on Wednesday evening, when the president and First Lady Michelle Obama open the Blue, Green and Red Rooms of the White House to more leading members of Congress.
The guests gain a bit of prestige from being invited to the White House. Does the president stand to gain anything in return by opening the door to Republicans who have already signaled their disapproval of his economic recovery plan and other items on his agenda?
