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Thursday February 1, 2007

“A city-sponsored party at the Orange Bowl would annoy many Cubans on the island who once supported the Cuban dictatorship, and who — while critical of it now — have fears about their future. And a more subdued, official ‘‘public event’‘ without a clear focus would not be much better, since it would inevitably turn into a party. Instead, Cuban exiles should hold a prayer service for the victims of Castro’s military regime. In addition, they could use the occasion to expose Cuba’s disastrous economic policies by collecting food for the Cuban people, who — under their food rationing cards — do not have access to any red meat; only three quarters of a pound of soybean picadillo per person per month.” — Oppenheimer’s thoughts.

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  1. greentreehugearthguy    Thu Feb 1, 11:44 PM #  

    No humans should eat cows.



  2. alesh    Fri Feb 2, 06:42 AM #  

    Michael Polland distilled the wisdom of The Omnivore’s Dilemma into a NYTimes article which everyone should read (Actually everyone should still read the book . . .). He further distills his instructions into seven words which open the article:

    Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

    (He distinguishes “food” from “other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket.”)

    So yes, Oppenheimer’s using the steak as a tool to illustrate his point is vivid, but not the best example.



  3. Alex    Fri Feb 2, 07:37 AM #  

    It is actually the best example because of its symbolism. Vegetables are more or less available in Cuba. Meat, particularly steaks and ham, is very had to procure. The words for steak and ham have become part of the vernacular to designate prosperity, for example, when one’s life is not going well we say “esto no es jamón” (this is not ham) or the US is referred to as “la tierra del jamón” (land of ham). Sometimes when people leave Cuba for good we’ll simply say “se fué pal jamón” (he left for the ham).



  4. Babe    Fri Feb 2, 08:38 AM #  

    Alex, I resemble those remarks.



  5. Alex    Fri Feb 2, 09:05 AM #  

    You know, I didn’t even know ham was a part of pork. I tought it was processed meat, like spam. I’ve never seen a ham, just slices. When I had my first Thanksgiving and saw the bone, it was a total “ahhhhh” moment.



  6. alesh    Fri Feb 2, 01:58 PM #  

    Yeah, you’re right. BUT. From the article I link:

    in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.

    So while the symbolic value of a steak works very well for the example, well, you know.



  7. Alex    Fri Feb 2, 03:54 PM #  

    Believe me, Cubans in the island have a long way to go before consumption of red meat becomes a problem. BTW, a few years ago there was an epidemy in Cuba of toxic optic neuropathy (gradual blindness) caused by, among other things, nutritional deficiencies including lack of vitamin B due to absence of animal protein in the diet.



  8. mkh    Fri Feb 2, 04:35 PM #  

    That brings up an interesting idea. I wonder how things would work out if we enforced government rationing of meat again to make Americans healthier, and then subsidized the bloody end of agribusiness by shipping most of the meat overseas to our enemies where they could get fat and die of heart failure.

    Of course, given that most other nations are our enemies these days, we might have to step up production a bit….



  9. nonee moose    Sat Feb 3, 06:40 AM #  

    I like mine with lettuce and tomato…



  10. alesh    Sat Feb 3, 11:39 AM #  

    mkh~

    I wish I could laugh at that. But the trans-fats bans that are sweeping the nation now (they were talking about it for Florida on the JCooper show the other day!!) is some of the scariest fucking shit I’ve ever heard. It actually frightens me more then a lot of the absurd anti-terrorist paranoia security theater we’ve gotten caught up in.



  11. Manuel A. Tellechea    Sun Feb 4, 02:23 AM #  

    In Western civilization, the consumption of ham has always been viewed as an indicator of prosperity. This was so in Cuba and I am sure that it was also so in Alesh’s native Czech Republic. This is the meaning of the English expression “To live high on the hog.” Alex’s admission that in Cuba he didn’t even know that ham came from a pig demonstrates just how disconnected Cubans have become in the last 48 years from the food chain. It is not an apocryphal story but one that has happened thousands of times and to which all Cuban exiles can attest: the experience of finding themselves in an American supermarket after years of deprivation often causes the new refugees to break down in uncontrollable sobbing.



  12. Manuel A. Tellechea    Sun Feb 4, 02:34 AM #  

    Once Cuba is free, what an experience it will be for Cuban children (all Cuban “children&#822