Parsnips-a-Plenty

I know that one ought to only have righteous rage regarding the important issues in life: injustice, violence, and poverty should make us angry, but at the moment, I'm quite angry about veg. I hate parsnips, turnips, and celery with a fiery and all-consuming passion. I've always felt this way, but the soup I'm desperately trying to eat at the moment has brought it to the front of my consciousness.

Parsnips and turnips are similar in that they both have miserable flavors and textures--they're like horrible imitations of potatoes that simply haven't got it right. They are the rubbish covers of Beatles songs of the vegetable world. They're somewhat similar in appearance to the real thing, and if you're not paying attention, you might be fooled, but ultimately they're an unpleasant surprise. There is nothing worse at the dinner table than biting into what you thought was a lovely potato and discovering it to be none other than the dreaded parsnip.
There is no situation where someone could hand you a parsnip, and you could not say, "Hey-- lemme do ya one better: here's a potato!" Parsnips, however, have one redeeming trait: they are the subject of one of my favorite idioms:

"Fine words butter no parsnips."

World Wide Words has an interesting discussion of the origins of this expression here.

On the topic of celery, which is a vile form of veg if I ever unintentionally ate one, I can only say this: there are two kinds of people in the world--people who hate celery, and people who cannot taste celery. If you complain about celery, non-celery-detesting-people invariably claim that it has no taste. They are horribly wrong: I can genuinely smell it from the other side of a room, and it is instantaneously recognizable in any sort of a soup, stew, or salad. Apart from it's polluting flavor, it has a shockingly disgusting texture that ought to put any right-thinking person off their food for several days!

How do people consume these horrifying vegetables? I do not know.

DAMN YOU MCCLATCHY!

I'm more than a little peeved. I have been peeved for quite some time now. The Raleigh News & Observer is the source of my frustration. It was never a brilliant paper that had exciting journalism going on, but since the McClatchy-Bastards laid off about 70 people in June, it has been steadily going down hill. They've decided that if something must go it's going to be the news not the drivel, and thus the front page has been shrinking and the 'Life' section (with comics) has been getting fatter and fatter. Part of the bloating comes not from content, but from the addition of a prodigious classifieds section stuck to the back of the comics. Unacceptable. The comics are sacred. You do NOT attach ads to the funnies, man. *Ahem* Anyway, it's an unfortunate and unpredictable situation--you never know what they're going to cut or change in order to cut costs. The editorial section has suffered and is generally only one page on Mondays. What?!?!?!?

Not only am I ticked about their organizational choices etc, but their content has been quite lacking as of late. I've already complained about Jesse Helms, and their coverage of Edwards' affair over the conflict between Russia and Georgia was horrifying! On the day that Russia invaded, that story was a tiny bit in the corner while Edwards' baby-mama was taking up almost the entire front page. This ridiculous coverage lasted for a good 3-4 days! How can any respectable newspaper justify ignoring serious world news in favor of the sex life of a man who isn't even running for office anymore?! It was sickening. This is just one of their desperate and craven attempts to garner attention and sell papers. They've abandoned journalistic integrity to become a tabloid.


"So their organization and their story content has gone to pot, Jessie, but there can't be anything else wrong", you say. Au contraire mes amis--their recent choice to distribute the propaganda film "Obsession". With the support of publisher Orage Quarles, the N&O VP of display advertising said, "Obviously, we have distributed other product samples, whether it's cereal or toothpaste." The News and Observer has lost the ability to distinguish between basic consumer products and propaganda.

I don't know what the hell they're thinking, but they'd damned well better fix things.

What can you say?

'Man shot churchgoers over liberal views'

American society is very very sick.

• In 2006, about 68% of all murders, 42% of all robberies, and 22% of all aggravated assaults that were reported to the police were committed with a firearm.
• in 2001 about 39% of the deaths that resulted from firearm injuries were homicides, 57% were suicides, 3% were unintentional, and 1% were of undetermined intent.
• On the wikipedia List of School-Related Attacks, 102 occurred in the United States, and only 44 in the rest of the entire world. It even includes actions by the Viet Cong. The US is STILL more violent.
  

Disillusioned with Disillusionment

A couple days ago, I was enjoying an indulgent lunch at the Bear Rock Cafe when it occurred to me that I had a beverage packaged in a glass bottle. I got up and upon being unable to locate a recycling bin, I queried the cashiers,

"Excuse me, do you have recycling facilities?"

"Uh... no.... sorry..."

"Do you have a suggestion box?"

"Uh... no... YES- yes we do. Right over there -->"

I must say that it was a pathetic excuse for a suggestion box and only had space for postal information and one's favorite sandwich. I ended up carrying the bottles home. Normally, I don't really think about recycling while I'm at restaurants- not even fast food joints, but the Bear Rock Cafe sells almost all of it's beverages in glass or plastic bottles. It seems like a logical step to get recycling facilities. Most people don't really doubt the value of recycling these days, so why wouldn't this have come up previously? M'Colleague Kat and I have both e-mailed the all powerful BRC and received the same form letter:

Thank you for taking the time to email us your feedback. We agree that it is important to recycle in our restaurants. I have forwarded your comments to our Vice President of Operations and we will work on this matter. Please accept the attached coupon and enjoy your next sandwich or salad on us. Thank you for your patronage. I hope you will visit again soon.
*Best regards,* *Deneen* **

*Deneen Nethercutt*
*Vice President of Marketing*
*Bear Rock Services, Inc.*

Hardly a satisfactory response. Worse than that is the unsettling truth that not for one second did I expect success from this venture. I assumed that my note would go unnoticed. This is a microcosm of a much larger issue. Things that should be shocking or outraging have become ho-hum and commonplace. Our nation has been lied to? Big Whoop. Since childhood, I have been taught that politicians lie and that they never to what they promise they will. We have made the mistake of becoming pessimistic realists with every ounce of idealism squeezed out. We have adapted and learned to accept and function in a world where our efforts are completely worthless.