While GOP leadership feigns anti-corporate anger
to please and appease one arm of The Tea Party,
they also attack financial reform proposals
& show no interest in regulating banks.

After Obama convenes a historic conversation
about reducing the nuclear threat globally,
conservatives caught in Cold War paralysis
attack his proposal & come out pro-nukes.

Once Justice Stevens announced retirement,
Republicans attacked Obama's nominee
...who hasn't even been named yet.

GOP obstructionism wastes our money & time,
shakes our financial & international security,
& is a threat to the American Way of Life.

This Tax Day, a lesson for the Tea Party:
don't protest a tax FOR our country that helps us;
protest attacks ON our country from the right-wing
who want government to fail us all.

Be Proud to Pay & toast to Invest-in-America Day
as you join an evening of high spirits & high ideals
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

Green Day has come to Broadway! The exclamation mark is not my own -- rather it's energy that's been punctuating the buzz around the new theatrical version of the album "American Idiot," originally released in the politically-charged election season of 2004. Every poster and promotional pitch seems to shout as though to let you know this will be really real, really fresh, really loud.

It was, in fact, very loud, which is fitting for a rock concert. The performers bounded and writhed and moshed and left every calorie they had to burn on the stage. There was something electric happening -- bright and flashy and moving -- and the angst they were wailing about mixed with shrieks of delight from enthusiasts in the audience.

Lots of electricity...but what was it charging? In the end, not much. The show does a fine job creating a through-line among the songs with light a touch: bits of monologue tell of suburban youths filled with rage and angst and wandering. Ultimately, though, the story isn't that interesting.

So the musical lives or dies by how you connect with the music -- and in my case, that reaction was ambivalent. Much of the time, I was more engaged by the visuals on the overwhelming number of televisions that dotted the scenery than by the lyrics. The charm and strength of the performers pokes through but at times my attention wandered -- not a good sign in a 95-minute event. The only song you leave humming is cleverly positioned as an encore number (I'll leave the "unpredictable" choice unsaid) so you walk out of the theater with a tune fresh in your mind.

My mixed reaction probably had to do with my own expectations. Part of me had expected the show to transport back to 2004. Sounds strange to be nostalgic for a time so recent? Yet that was a year of protest, of election fever, of feeling like we were campaigning, fighting and, yes, singing for the future of our country. I was ready to experience 2004 again.

Other than a video montage at the top, the show provided no such nostalgia. Which may be OK for its overall success -- how many people feel that strongly about a 6-year time machine? Interestingly, the audience members shouting the loudest were probably in high school in '04 -- for whom an opera of angst may be the most nostalgic feeling of all.

In New York, on Saturday, May 1st, the Living Liberally Annual Celebration promises to be a party that will put the Tea Party to shame.

Buy your tickets now, and learn more about why we're honoring organizing powerhouse SEIU and food policy activist Marion Nestle.

(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally's kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)

KT: The last two episodes of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution have yet to air, but folks are already assessing whether Oliver's attempt to launch a culinary coup in the community of Huntington, West Virginia was a success or a failure. Jamie's 'people' consulted you at the start of this project. Did they heed your advice? If it had been your show, how would you have gone in and done it?

Dr. Nestle: I don’t watch much TV (technophobe that I am, I have yet to figure out how to turn it on without resorting to instructions), but I would not miss the Jamie Oliver show. I first heard about it from students in my NYU Food Ethics class. They made it clear that the show was well worth watching by anyone who cares about how America eats.

I was dubious. When I met with Jamie Oliver’s staff in London last summer—an information session, not a consult—I thought the project sounded kind of arrogant but knowing nothing about reality television, I was curious to see how it would go.

Splendidly, I would say. What I hadn’t realized is how much fun this guy is, and how gutsy. OK, he has annoying Briticisms. OK, a lot of this is about him.

But he wants everyone to learn to cook healthy food and have fun doing it. He wants school lunches to be better. He wants people to be healthier. Along the way, he is exposing deep flaws in the federal school meal programs and in the kinds of foods that many people eat without giving what they eat much thought. Sounds good to me.

I’m kind of stunned by the hostility the programs have evoked among people I would have expected to support these goals. My teaching assistant, Maya Joseph, a doctoral student at the New School, categorized the criticisms for me:

• the wounded ego messages (how dare Jamie Oliver not mention MY work!!)

• the ugly foreigner message (how dare Jamie tell AMERICANS what to eat!)

• the outraged sensitivity messages (how dare Jamie Oliver not take account of X,Y, and Z when he so rudely ballooned into this town).

Maya adds: “I would have thought that it would be obvious…that this is (a) a TV show! and (b) great publicity for our food system tragedies.”

Me too. Or, as food consultant Kate Adamick points out in her review on the Atlantic Food Channel, “the revolution will be televised.”

This is reality TV aimed at an important public health problem. Is it theater, or is something bigger going on?

From the number of people I know who are watching it and talking about it, I’m voting for bigger. I think it’s useful for people to know that kids at school think it’s normal to eat pizza for breakfast, French fries for lunch, and nothing with a knife and fork. And they have no idea what a tomato or a potato looks like. People need to know that schools and USDA regulations allow these things to happen. They need to know that better food costs more.

From my observations of school food over the years, getting decent food into schools requires:

• A principal who cares about what kids eat

• Teachers who care about what kids eat

• Parents who care about what kids eat

• Food service personnel who not only care what the kids eat, but also know the kids' names.

Jamie Oliver is trying to reach all of these people, and more.

I think the programs have much to teach about the reality of school food and what it will take to fix it. The New York Times reviewer, also dubious at first, ended his review with this comment:

One thing noticeably absent from the first two episodes is a discussion of any role the American food industry and its lobbyists might play in the makeup of school lunches and in the formulation of the guidelines set for them by the Agriculture Department. If Mr. Oliver wants a real food revolution, it can’t happen just in Huntington.

Yes! And these programs could help.

Finally, let me comment on the West Virginia University’s evaluation. This survey found that the kids didn’t like Oliver’s meals (but did try them). The staff didn’t like the increased work. Everything cost more.

Once again, this is TV, not a real school intervention. Real ones start at the beginning of a semester, not in the middle, and are about food, not entertainment. They also do not leave it up to the kids to decide what to eat.

As I said in one of my blog posts on these programs, I want to know what happens in schools and in the community after the TV crews are gone. If the programs are any indication, I think real changes will take place in the minds, hearts, and stomachs of at least some participants and viewers. Whether researchers can figure out how to capture those changes is another matter.

Watch them. And get your kids to watch with you.

President Obama and Russia's Medvedev
signed an agreement to cut their nuclear arsenals.
Bush never got further than looking into Putin's soul.

Obama prompted national dialogue with new rules
limiting when the US would use nuclear force.
The only conversations the GOP has started
have been about bondage clubs & Confederacy Month.

And the Prez has been bullish on nuclear
as one piece of a new national energy policy.
Republicans haven't had the energy to say anything
except "No" to any and all energy reforms.

One side has a new clear vision for nuclear.
The other has no clear vision for anything.
One side says "nuclear." The other "nukyuler."

Who would you rather trust with the launch codes?

To toast the treaty, treat yourself
to a night of debates, drinks & democracy
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally's kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)

KT: Monday's New York Times had an editorial supporting the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, a bill that would give the US Agriculture Department "new powers to set nutritional standards for any food sold on school grounds, particularly junk foods that contribute to obesity."

The current standards leave a lot to be desired, as Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution has revealed. In the first episode, Jamie stood accused of shortchanging the kids on carbohydrates because he omitted the bread from a meal that already included rice.

Last Friday, in episode three, Jamie found himself charged with the violation of "insufficient vegetables," despite the fact that his noodle-based entree featured seven different vegetables. The remedy? Add a bunch of french fries to the meal to meet the veggie quota.

How did the USDA's school lunch standards ever get so nutritionally nutty? Would passage of the CNA support the wholesome, made-from-scratch meals that Jamie Oliver's trying to bring back to our cafeterias?

Dr. Nestle: You are asking about the history of the USDA's school lunch program? Nothing could be more complicated or arcane. Fortunately, two new books take this on: Susan Levine's School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton, 2010), and Janet Poppendieck's Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (California, 2010).

I used Poppendieck's book in my Food Ethics class at NYU this semester and reading it while watching Jamie Oliver's programs was a lot of fun. Yes, Oliver is doing reality television but no, he's not exaggerating. If you find this difficult to believe, read Poppendieck's book or take a quick look at Kate Adamick's review of Oliver's Food Revolution on the Atlantic Food Channel.

As Levine and Poppendieck explain, and as I discussed in Food Politics (California, 2007), school lunches started out as a way to dispose of surplus agricultural commodities by feeding hungry kids. Over the years, it got caught up in a series of "wars"--first on poverty, hunger, and malnutrition and later on welfare and obesity.

The politics of school lunch, and of the CNA in particular, have always reflected the tension inherent in any welfare program, in this case feeding the poor vs. inducing dependency and overspending. In recent years, as obesity became much more of a public health problem than malnutrition, the politics came to reflect the tensions between commercial interests and those of nutrition reformers. Congress is always involved as it endlessly tinkers with the rules for "competitive foods"--the sodas and snacks sold in competition with federally supported school meals.

Competitive foods put schools in a dilemma and in conflict of interest. They make money from competitive foods to help support the school lunch program. But sodas and snacks undermine participation in school meals programs.

Poppendieck points out that the result is a mess that leaves financially strapped school districts with few choices. It's not that the "lunch ladies" (you have to love Jamie Oliver's term) don't know how to make decent meals. It's that they are up against inadequate funding and equipment, and impossible nutrition standards that can be met most easily by commercial products like Uncrustables that are designed to meet USDA standards. My favorite example contains 51 ingredients (my rule is "no more than five").*

Inadequate funding is a big consideration in the Child Nutrition Act. This act provides $4.5 billion over 10 years for school meals. Although this represents a 10-fold increase over previous (2004) funding, it works out to an additional measly six cents per meal--not nearly enough to solve school districts' financial problems.

But--and this is a huge step forward--the act gives USDA the authority to set nutrition standards not only for foods sold in the cafeteria but also in vending machines and a la carte lines.

And the bill does a few other Very Good Things. It provides:

• An estimated $1.2 billion over 10 years for meals at after-school programs, free meals to all students in schools with high poverty levels, and increased availability of meals during summer months.

• An estimated $3.2 billion for establishing nutrition standards, strengthening local wellness policies, and increasing reimbursement rates.

• Mandatory funding for schools to establish school gardens and buy foods from local sources.

• Increased training for local food service personnel.

• Automatic enrollment of foster children for free school meals.

As for the pesky nutrition standards: the bill expects the USDA to revise them according to the recent report of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), School Meals: Building Blocks for Health Children. This report recommended a conversion to food-based, rather than nutrient-based, standards along with increases in the amount and variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and limits on calories, saturated fat, and sodium.

All of this makes the CNA well worth supporting. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it is a good first step to making big improvements eventually. In the meantime, plenty of schools are already doing great work and more are joining the food revolution one meal at a time. These deserve all the help we can give them.

*NOTE: the label of this particular Uncrustable was sent to me by someone who works in an upstate New York school district:

BREAD; ENRICHED UNBLEACHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, YEAST, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: WHEAT GLUTEN, SALT, DOUGH CONDITIONERS (MAY CONTAIN ONE OR MORE OF: DIACETYL TARTARIC ACID ESTERS OF MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES [DATEM], MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, ETHOXYLATED MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CALCIUM PEROXIDE, ASCORBIC ACID, AZODICARBONAMIDE, L-CYSTEINE), YEAST NUTRIENTS (MAY CONTAIN ONE OR MORE OF: MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM SULFATE, AMMONIUM SULFATE), CALCIUM PROPIONATE (MAINTAIN FRESHNESS), CORNSTARCH, ENZYMES (WITH WHEAT). PASTEURIZED PROCESS CHEESE SPREAD: CULTURED MILK AND SKIM MILK, WATER, WHEY (FROM MILK), SODIUM PHOSPHATE, SALT, CREAM (FROM MILK), CORN SYRUP, LACTIC ACID, SORBIC ACID (PRESERVATIVE), GUAR GUM, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, ENZYMES. BUTTER FLAVORED OIL: PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, SALT, SOY LECITHIN, NATURAL AND ARTIFICAL FLAVORS (WITH MILK), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BETA CAROTENE ADDED FOR COLOR.

It can be lonely being a drinking club in the political world. While we all know politicos love to toast here and there, many elected officials are shy about being photographed with a pint in hand. And many of our more sober, elder colleague organizations, raise a wry eyebrow at our whistle-wetting antics.

But at last, we're not alone. As Lindsay Beyerstein has uncovered in Alternet, the RNC considers booze an official office supply.

Hey, we'll take our allies where we can find them. Congratulations, Michael Steele -- you've made the RNC resemble Drinking Liberally...at least in that one regard.

Do you know the truth about just how bad the good food movement really is? The boosters of biotech want you to know that our global food crisis will only be worsened by the sustainable ag advocates who oppose technological breakthroughs whose safety and efficacy have yet to be tested.

You thought maybe it had something to do with poverty and politics? Those are just red herrings (an oily fish that is, btw, oddly deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, but high in contaminants.)

No, it's us real food rabble rousers who are subjecting the poorer nations of the world to imminent starvation, because we refuse to embrace genetically modified crops, toxic pesticides, and petroleum-based fertilizers. We're also highly suspicious of those drought-tolerant, high yielding crops that thrive in the otherwise arid microclimate of Monsanto's boardrooms but have yet to flourish elsewhere.

We're not content to just gum things up globally, though. Here at home, we support the Dandelion Defense League (DDL), a grassroots anti-grass group that's lobbying to not only make it illegal for America's lawn lovers to douse their dandelions with Round-Up, but would in fact require all homeowners--and renters, too!--to harvest those bitter greens and eat them (a rider with recipes will be attached to the proposed bill.)

The suburban-based DDL is closely aligned with but not related to its urban counterpart, the Purslane Preservation Society (PPS), whose own pet cause is to pass legislation protecting this plump and plucky weed from being peed on, stepped on, or otherwise disrespected by canines, ferrets, or any other ambulatory animal, including pedestrians, who tread on those sidewalks through whose cracks purslane bravely rears its succulent little leaves.

Plants may, however, be harvested, provided that they are then donated to the soup kitchen or food pantry of your choice, where their zingy, citrus-y flavor can be used to add a piquant touch to soups and salads.

And then there are the militant anti-monocroppers, with their not-so-secret plot to loosen the Corn Belt's grip on the Beltway and redirect those ag subsidies for feed corn and GMO soy into some kind of affirmative action plan for a subversive minority that the USDA tellingly labels "specialty crops." You may know them as fruits and vegetables, but don't be fooled by their wholesome facade; they're just another special interest group looking for a handout.

Oh, and if we get our way, we're going to declare a Nanny State of Emergency, which will entail confiscating all cupcakes and putting a padlock on pantries that are overstocked with over processed foods. And now that Meatless Monday's gone mainstream, brace yourself for Tofu Tuesday, which aims to make those much-maligned slabs of soy mandatory in every public school cafeteria across the country.

But why stop at just two days of the week? Why not eight days a week? We're a bunch of modern day Benedict Arnolds, conspiring with the Brits--well, okay, maybe it's just one Brit, but what an arsenal of pr weapons he's got!--to launch a coup in our school cafeterias, proclaiming an end to the Reign of Beige and installing a rainbow coalition of aggressively colored produce on our children's plates.

And in keeping with Michelle Obama's plea to provide kids with greater physical activity, we want to make sure our kids are getting a workout, too--by weighing their backpacks down with Michael Pollan's entire oeuvre. Every aggy, eggheaded essay the man has ever written, as well as his lesser known but equally eloquent treatises on gardening and carpentry, will be required reading, barring an armed uprising from the Texas Board of Education.

When it comes to farmers, Pollan is enemy number one. Just look what he's done to poor Joel Salatin, the self-proclaimed "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist farmer" whose Polyface Farms became the poster child for sustainable farming in America after Pollan and the producers of Food, Inc. made him a star.

Now he's been plucked off his farm and found himself obliged to come to a big city he openly dislikes to lecture folks on how to feed the world sustainably. Presumably he'd rather be back home tending to his flocks, herds, and family, as he does so joyfully in Ana Joane's documentary FRESH.

Joanes, like Jamie Oliver, is a European; specifically, she hails from Switzerland. But she just couldn't remain neutral about the way we eat in America when she moved here as a student. With FRESH, Joanes gives real food rockstars like Pollan, Salatin, and the mighty Will Allen of Growing Power fame a platform from which to share their radical theories about how we grow, and consume, our food. It's coming to a theatre near you soon--don't say I didn't warn you.