This is what a Democrat sounds like:

This is not just picking on the President or playing petty partisan politics. This is a matter of profound truth. We’ve lost thousands of lives, and we stand to lose many more yet in a war that the President refuses to tell the Congress what his plans are for getting out of Iraq. He wouldn’t tell us he was going into Iraq, and now he won’t tell us how he plans to get out of Iraq. Something’s wrong here, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it no matter how much of our time and energy it takes.

And this is what a temporizing, mealy-mouthed jackass sounds like [via]:

Obama told reporters gathered at the Rock the Vote awards dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., that Dean needs to tone down his rhetoric.  ... "As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don’t like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat," Obama said. "I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us," Obama explained.

I know that it's early in his Senate career, and I know that patience is required ... But I also remember how elated we all were when Obama won his seat, and Jesus it hasn't taken long for all that emotion to leak away, has it? Between his vote to confirm Rice for State, his miserably uninformed (not to say callous) constituent letter on torture, and now his Joementum-style leap onto the Dean pile-on: remind me what exactly progressives were hoping for with this guy?

posted by michael  8:11:04 PM  
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Scallions. Suddenly, last weekend, all the scallions disappeared from the Jewel where I shop. (In Chicago, it's always either a Jewel or a Dominick's, unless you live within range of an independent grocer. This is a city built in neighborhoods: most anywhere you are, you're within walking distance of a major grocery store and a major pharmacy. I go to the Jewel on an almost daily basis, which allows for serendipity and spares me having to plan my food purchases by the week; if I need to bring home anything big, I trundle my handy fold-up cart behind me. I'd feel ridiculous driving the four blocks from my house, so I never do.) This was an annoyance, since I wanted to whip up my favorite scrambled egg recipe and it really doesn't work without scallions (onions are too heavy for the job, and shallots would work but they're sold at such a ridiculous price I won't buy them on principle).

Today, they're back, and I can't tell you how much more annoyed I am. I can no longer buy a simple bunch of scallions: you know, the common, small, rubber-banded bunch that suffices for one or maybe two recipes. What we've got instead, now, is a heavy, sealed plastic bag containing the equivalent of two bunches, the bag designed so that it's impossible even to visually inspect the scallions. (The business end is concealed under an opaque area of the package, and don't tell me that's not deliberate. Not to mention, why is it exactly that I need goddamn scallions to be sold to me with branding all over them?)

As simple a produce item as there is, and all of a sudden I have to deal with environmentally stupid packaging (I could reuse the old rubber bands), a wasteful change of unit size (I can't use as much as I'm forced to buy now without some of the amount going bad), compounded by the insult that eliminates my ability to actually see and choose what I'm buying—oh, and they've upped the price by about ten percent. (Which I'm not supposed to notice, since for the first week or so they're being offered at just a buck a bag.) Sure, in most respects this is a small thing: it's a great deal less small, though, when you multiply it across a Chicago's worth of Jewel produce sections, and then add the constant encroachment of plastic wrapping and item-bulking generally in supermarket produce, and I'm left to wonder just what the fuck these people are thinking. (It's at the point where I can't buy a head of lettuce that isn't sealed in cellophane, or as esoteric an item as a single carrot.) They're sure as hell not thinking about their customers, that much I'm sure of.

Since we're talking about a chain grocery, the local produce manager is of course no help at all. I've emailed; no doubt I'll get some mealy-mouthed bullshit in reply, and my protest will have done nothing except raise my blood pressure a bit. After all, why should anybody care about how scallions are sold?

posted by michael  12:35:10 PM  
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