Our Betters

Apparently, Giving Tuesday is a thing now. Because without being herded into conformance, no one is capable of performing a charitable act on their own.

Yes, be sure and toot your own horn about it because that is one of the prime inducers of charity. What good is it if no one knows you’ve done it? How will anyone recognize you as part of the elite tribe if you don’t make your actions – not necessarily your motivation – widely known? (  /s )

Why do the people who came up with this think its something new or undiscovered? Do they realy belive that there are people on earth who have never considered being generous with what they have? Who don’t do charitable acts? Or who do them but decline to publicly brag about themselves?

I used to find it first incomprehensible and then infuriating that Our Betters, those elite progressive thinkers who have looked into the hearts of the rest of us and found us wanting, and so must direct us in how we should behave, what we should think and what words to use when expressing ourselves and identifying ourselves.These are generally young people (or emotionally stunted middle aged people) who do this. These are “our betters” because they have told themselves and each other that’s who they are and they all agree with themselves. People who are so absolutely certain in their positions that its obvious they have not gathered enough life experience to understand that differing opinions don’t mean you must declare war against those who do not accept dogma unchallenged and dare to express genuine individual thought. They demands on the hearts and minds of those who just might possibly have lived longer, seen more, think differently from the PC herd or have evolved in opinion over a lifetime. And they do this without any acknowledgment of the irony involved or awareness of their own inappropriateness.

And then one day as I was cruising the blogs I came across the pages of a very famous and influential blogger – the mother of two and a one-woman ad revenue generator. You probably know who this is but I blocked out the names in this clip below. Slipped into a charming story about her daughter’s bedtime reading is lesson for us. A lesson for the great uniformed masses who must surely live in ignorance of the concept of a moral code.

And the moment I read this passage, it all became clear to me.

This writer in particular has moved away from the religion of her upbringing. This seems to be something that is a shared trait among Our Betters – a denigration of their religion, sometimes escalation to an excoriation, an affirmation of atheism/agnosticism (often used incorrectly). A denial of God’s presence. A lack of traditional guidance for ethical conduct.And so of course, if they don’t have it the assumption is that you don’t have it either.

You can see it when they say they are sending thoughts or good vibrations instead of using the word prayers. Describing themselves as “spritual”. Or the contortions the go through to avoid using the very name of God for whatever amazing personal discovery they have made about central principle for the way they conduct – or more likely believe you should conduct – life. And the less grounded they are in religion, the louder they shout about your need for guidance.

It all makes sense to me now.

 

Bingo

As soon as we saw Angry Obama™ come stomping out to the podium last night, I knew we were in for a good show. He did not disappoint! Maybe it’s been so long since I actually looked at him and left the sound on whenever he shows up on the news, but I forgot about those distinct characteristics that make him so watchable. Just a few of the things that were highlights for me:

• Angry stomping + pigeon toes = hi-larious!
• He telegraphs his resolve my making a face that looks like he’s holding back barf
• Machine-gun style delivery that implies he took time out from his busy presidentin’ to speak to the nation but he’s got to get back right away!
• What’s up with the excessive shininess of his ears? That was a waxy distraction!
• Late to the party by a few days. People could make money setting up pools predicting how long he can avoid an issue of national interest.
• Late to his own party by a few minutes. This gave the cable guys plenty of time to set up the issue which made the actual performance look even more hollow.
• The “Man of Action” announced the firing of somebody who already had resignation papers submitted. I gotta give it to him – this was clever.
• Setting up all of Congress to take the hit from astonished America when only mild wrist slapping occurs, to be followed by the creation of  onerous regulation. At least he didn’t call out Bush this time. (momentary lapse)

Here’s an idea: how about applying the existing laws to this case instead of threatening new ones? Could it be that he is unaware of what the applicable laws are? Or was the whole gun control thing so successful in promising new restrictive laws without pointing out that zero tolerance laws already exist? Key words: Chicago, gun violence, shot down in Hyde Park.

It was all over too soon. Sadly, there’s also a list of things that did not happen but would have enhanced this performance for me. Maybe we’ll get lucky next time  and see one or two of the following:

• a fly landing on his face.
• pigeon-toe entanglement on the way out
• tie-in to free birth control
• 29 black kids and 1 wan-looking  white kid standing behind him in in cheap t-shirts whipped up 30 minutes earlier.
• insertion of iconic buzzphrase “punished with an audit”
• mention of the Show Ponies as victim-prototypes. Let me be clear – not actual victims, just mute  generational representatives of some kind of victimization.
• production of a single  Iron Eyes Cody-type tear
• appointment of a special prosecutor

He’s got another shot at it today when he appears at a WH press conference. I should make up some bingo cards.

Suzette, R.D.

NEW DEVELOPMENT OF AN IRONIC NATURE! – Wouldn’t you know that today would be the day that Food Network magazine chose to email me with an important notice. Click here to view actual email. I guess they don’t like it when someone pulls bullshit on them. They have the good grace to apologize for inconvenience. Where is the apology for inflicting bullshit, Liberta?

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Like Magnum, P.I. Except I’m not a P.I. I’m an R.D. – a recipe detective. Wait until you hear this bullshit.

IHTCB

Yesterday, we pulled out the I Hate To Cook Book and my daughter made some Hellzapoppin’ Cheese Rice, a recipe I heartily endorse. She had a bunch of cooked rice left over (God bless and watch over our Oster rice cooker) so I thought it would be a good idea to  make some more H.C.R. for tonight.

So I’m sitting at the table, waiting for my laundry to run out the pre-treatment clock and I’m casually turning the pages of the IHTCB until I come across the recipe I’m looking for. On the preceding page is a lovely little thing called Cotton Pickin’ Jam Tarts. It’s a crust made of three fattening ingredients, plus jam and now that our arteries are more than halfway clogged from the cheese rice, why not? So I read the whole recipe and it’s so simple that I know it  just by skimming through it one time. I’m thinking that even though this is a recipe from 1960 written for people who aren’t cooks and who want it as easy as possible and it’s made mostly of cream cheese and butter, anyone nowadays couldn’t help but be taken with this.

That’s not the bullshit part. The bullshit part is coming up.

Flash forward to early evening. My grueling day full of conference calls are over, and even though its dreary and drizzly outside, I need fresh air so I ask my daughter to join me on the deck and for entertainment, we peruse the latest copy of Food Network Magazine. She’s already been though this edition so I ask her to tell me what’s good inside. She reads off a title – “Melissa D’Arabian’s PETITE ORANGE AND RASPBERRY POCHETTES” and shows me  the photo of a plate full of jam tarts. I begin saying I found a fascinating recipe for jam tarts with a very rich dough in the IHTC B and she says “Oh, is it made from butter, cream cheese and flour?”

is this or is this not bullshit?

Pochettes, my ass. I am quietly outraged. Food Network magazine  printed up Peg’s recipe – courtesy of Melissa D’Arabian –  51 years after the fact. Oh, they doubled the amounts and did a head fake by saying make dough balls and freeze them to firm up instead of Peg’s advice to freeze the dough to firm it and then make dough balls but IT IS THE SAME RECIPE which is so, so bullshit.

AND to top it all off, Melissa D’Arabian was the winner of last year’s Next Food Network Stars, an elimination competition program where the winner’s prize is a Food Network show of their own. Melissa won, in part  and by her own admission, by bullshitting the judges with a recipe from the I Hate To Cook Book. Look at her brazen bullshit quote over the photo:

“These little pastry cookies are easy and inexpensive. I used them to wow the judges on The Next Food Network Star last year!”

Have you ever SEEN such bullshit? I’m sure you remember my little skirmish with the J@y Qf C@@king lawyers – where are the IHTCB  lawyers on this? Because this is bullshit if I ever saw it. Purposeful bullshit.

Conclusion: Peg Bracken rules. Food Network drools.

Rest easy, America.  Suzette, R.D. is on the lookout for recipe bullshit on your behalf.