What's In That Tea?

This whole Tea Party thing is somewhat confusing. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that people who are upset about politics are participating in protests rather than being apathetic. However, some things that they're saying don't make sense to me. The big cry is, "Give me my country back." Where do they think their country went? Did they have a bad dream in which they wake up and suddenly can't find all of the states? "Oh, no! Didn't Delaware used to be over there? Whoever took it, should give it back." And who do they think took it? Was it some country with fewer problems than we have? Are they calling out in this dream, "Hey, Monaco, we know you took our country. That's not right. You don't even have room for it."

Many of us were surprised by the recent demographic statistics about the Tea Party. Tea Partiers say they don't want the government so involved in their lives, yet the majority of them are in favor of Social Security and Medicare. In other words, they are against the government spending money on programs to help people except for the programs that they like. The majority of Tea Partiers are wealthier than the average American, better educated, and own nicer homes. So they've achieved the American Dream. They just don't care if anyone else ever gets to have that dream.

Just what are they unhappy with? What do they think has changed too much? Do they yearn for a time when there was runaway spending by the Bush Administration? They shouldn't worry about that. We've still got runaway spending. Do they miss the days when we waged a senseless war in the Mideast? Cheer up. We're still waging that war. Are they afraid that since Obama was elected, Wall Street's traditional greed has been halted? There are two words that should get rid of this fear: "Goldman Sachs." So where's the "socialism?" What are the "radical" moves Obama has made?

Is it just about health care? Come on. Is there one American who either personally or through his or her family hasn't had a horrible experience with a doctor, a hospital, or an insurance company? I don't know any. Besides, if for some reason, you love your nice, caring insurance company, nobody's making you change to something else. That doesn't sound so radical to me.

So why are they upset with the Obama Administration? It goes beyond the Democrats who were upset with Bush becoming President. These are not the usual feelings that those among the political "outs" have for the political "ins." There are some things having to do with the anger that these people feel towards Obama that is over the top. I'm talking about the out and out disdain, the name-calling, the drawings of Obama looking like Hitler that are displayed at their rallies. This is not just the traditional American rhetoric of those who were disappointed that their people were voted out of office. This is unabashed hatred.

I'm thinking of forming my own political group and calling it the Cola Party. I want my country back, too, and not just the good old America in which Coke only cost a dime. I would love to see the old America in which people could disagree politically, but still respect each other's opinions -- and their right to have them. Give me back my America in which people could calmly discuss their differences without calling each other un-American.

Those who are actually spewing disgusting invective or bringing those Nazi posters to the rallies might very well be on the fringe of this fringe movement. I'm certainly not suggesting that everyone in the Tea Party is filled with this venom. But I worry that too many of them are.

So what makes these Obama opponents so much angrier, so much more threatened, and so much more involved in using violent images than Americans who haven't liked previous Presidents throughout our history? It's a mystery, isn't it? Lets see. What is it about President Obama that's different from all the other Presidents who've come before him? Maybe it's not really such a mystery after all.

So what makes these Obama opponents so much angrier, so much more threatened, and so much more involved in using violent images than Americans who haven't liked previous Presidents throughout our history? It's a mystery, isn't it? Lets see. What is it about President Obama that's different from all the other Presidents who've come before him? Maybe it's not really such a mystery after all.

Chicken Wallbanger?

It wouldn't shock anyone to learn that San Francisco recently passed a resolution to make Mondays "VegDays." Everyone in the city will be encouraged to eat vegetarian meals and to avoid eating meat every Monday. It sounds like the kind of thing that could easily happen in Santa Monica next. Don't worry. There will be no Vegetarian Police, clad in green outfits, barging into people's homes to make sure that they aren't having lamb chops on Monday night. This is not just a movement by people who want their fellow citizens to eat less meat to be healthier. The people behind this resolution point out, "If everyone in San Francisco eats a plant-based diet just one day a week for a year, we would save over 378,600,768 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. That is the equivalent of taking 123,822 cars off the streets of San Francisco." I wonder how many of those 123,822 cars are on their way to pick up a Big Mac.

Vegetarianism has, of course, increased over recent years. So it came as a big surprise to me to learn that some people are clinging onto meat. The weirdest way that they are consuming meat products is in their cocktails. They've given a whole new meaning to Beefeater gin.

Some hip,"in" bars are serving drinks like "Bring Home the Bacon." That's a concoction that contains beef bullion, vodka and a garnish of deep-fried bacon and a prosciutto-stuffed olive. Beef bullion doesn't sound all that over the top. However, would you want to drink a cocktail containing elk bullion? There is an elk based drink called, "Big Eye Bloody Bull." Sounds really appetizing, doesn't it? Where do you even buy elk bullion? I've never seen it on a grocery store shelf, have you? And I guess a sometimes Governor/sometimes candidate from Alaska might be drinking moose-tinis.

This infusion of meat into people's lives during the vegetarian revolution doesn't stop at the corner bar. According to "Time" magazine, more and more people are butchering their own meat. I'm not kidding. People are butchering their own meat in their kitchens, right next to that beautiful white tile that they spent all that money on. Now, I would never suggest that all this home butchering would save the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as VegDay. However, in one way this meat movement is "green." That's the color I'd turn if anyone ever did any butchering in my kitchen.

The last time I heard about a cleaver being in a home kitchen, she was named June. However, the author of "Julie and Julia," Julie Powell, has published a new book called, "Cleaving" about home butchering. I can hardly wait to see the movie in which Meryl Streep prepares a romantic dinner by chopping off a pig's snout.

So what's this culinary counterrevolution all about? Why are people bringing dead animals into their kitchens? Why are they excited about a dinner of braised hoof? I have a theory. In these difficult economic times, people want to hold onto something that they've always felt was special. Meat has traditionally been a symbol of wealth and good times. When people want to celebrate something, they have often celebrated with the most expensive meat they can find, not with an avocado and sprouts sandwich. So maybe the attitude is, "You can take away my raise. You can take away my fancy car, you can even take away the house I bought with ridiculous credit three years ago. But keep your hands off my meat."

Evidently, to some people, meat is an economic comfort food. Maybe when their finances are back up where they want them to be, they will look back and laugh at the time they moved yesterday's mail, the laptop, and their kid's relief map of South America off the kitchen counter so they could make oxtail soup from scratch.

So is it possible to reconcile these polar opposites of vegetarianism and meat-ism? I think it is. I think both sides can be happy. All the people who serve that elk bullion cocktail have to do is make sure that the menu states that the bullion is made from free range elk.