GOODNESS GRACIOUS, GREAT GOBS OF FAT
Fat. Americans are fat. Our children are fat. Our pets are fat. We’ve become a nation of unhealthy chubbos — thanks largely to the fact that we snarf down too much of too many overfatty foods.
In the face of this growing health problem, the National Cattleman’s Beef Association has come out with just what the doctor didn’t order: cheeseburger fries. Yes, strips of deep-fried cheeseburgers! Instead of something lean and light to meet America’s nutritional needs, the big beef purveyors have concocted a fat-soaked, calorie-laden new snack item guaranteed to add to our total tonnage.
Shaped like oversized french fries, this plump delicacy is made by mushing ground beef and cheese nuggets together, then breading the mixture and plunging the strips into the deep fryer. Just one of these sticks of nutritional dynamite contains about 75 calories and up to six grams of fat. But no one eats just one — they generally come five to an order, so in one quick setting, you can pump a greasy 375 calories and 30 grams of fat into your bod.
Now, I’m no dainty prig of an eater — I grew up eating corn dogs and Frito pies, I just recently enjoyed a batch of deep-fried cheese curds in Minnesota, and nachos with refried beans and cheese are a way of life for me. But there’s already plenty of tasty fat in our lives without larding in an extra-fatty finger snack. Especially galling is the intention of the beef boys to foist their corpulent creation on our children. They are now trying to market cheeseburger fries to public school cafeterias, peddling a version that contains the most fat of all.
But kids’ nutrition be damned, there’s beef to be sold! This is about raw profiteering. As the Beef Association says, “We want beef in dessert if we can get it in there.” Oh, goodie: Cheeseburger ice cream coming up next.
CAMP WELLSTONE
The rabid partisans of the Republican far right truly loathed Sen. Paul Wellstone, the spirited and popular Minnesota progressive who died in a plane crash last year. In a testament to their partisan loathing, Minnesota right wingers have put out an ugly postmortem bumper sticker that angrily says of Wellstone: “He’s dead, get over it.”
But Paul — or at least his spirit — just won’t die. Indeed, Paul and his wife Sheila, who also died in the crash, are now the rallying point of an important and exciting organizing effort to carry their spirit and policies into a long-term campaign to build a progressive future for our country. It’s called Wellstone Action, and it literally is taking action to bring power back to America’s grassroots.
Among modern political figures, Wellstone was unique, for instead of throwing all of his campaign funds at pollsters, consultants, and TV ads, he put a big percentage into grassroots organizing. He and his staffers ran a series of weekend political boot camps called “Camp Wellstone,” where they trained thousands of volunteers, campaign managers, and future candidates. By strengthening the civic skills of on-the-ground people, Paul strengthened his own populist base, enhanced democracy, and extended the framework for an ongoing progressive movement.
Now, the good people who worked with Paul and Sheila are continuing this democracy-building effort by taking the Camp Wellstone concept national. Wellstone Action is holding nine or so intensive training camps this year in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, with about 20 Camp Wellstones planned cross-country next year.
If they build it, people will come, for folks are thirsting for community and a politics that matters, and this is one political effort that genuinely puts people first. As the Wellstones preached tirelessly, democracy is not something to be awaited … it is something to be achieved.
To connect to Camp Wellstone, call: 651/645-3939.
This article appears in October 17 • 2003.