One sweet hour.

So how did you spend your extra hour Sunday? I read two stories that might have eluded me otherwise, the one about how the USDA is pushing cheese down our throats at the same time it’s fighting obesity, and the one about Courtney Love.

I enjoyed the latter. I guess ol’ Court is trying for a…whatever act this is. It’s not going 100 percent well. This is her after telling a New York Times reporter to wait for her in her hotel room and she’d be along directly:

Shortly after 8 p.m., Ms. Love burst into the room with the Marchesa dress slung on one arm and the noted German Neo-Expressionist artist Anselm Kiefer on the other. She was entirely naked and leaning on Mr. Kiefer for support. She made one lap around the room, walking in front of a photographer, an assistant, a hairstylist and me. She pulled over her head a transparent lace dress that covered up nothing, and demanded my assistance — “Not you,” she said to Mr. Kiefer, who was bent over trying to help her — to stuff her feet into a pair of black Givenchy heels that were zipped up the back and tied with delicate laces in the front. Then she applied a slash of red lipstick in the vicinity of her mouth.

After failing in music and acting, Courtney is finding the fashion world is still interested in her, and with shenanigans like this, you can see why. If there’s one thing fashion demands from a woman, it’s total coolness with being naked in a room full of clothed people, and obviously she has that part nailed.

As for the cheese story, I am reminded of the observation of Elaine Benis, after confronting the stuffed-crust pizza: “Will we never run out of places to conceal cheese on a pizza?” Nope, don’t think so. Speaking of which, if there’s such a surplus of cheese, whatever happened to the old five-pound blocks, i.e., guvvamint cheese? Back when the cheese distributions were going on, I knew several people who came into some who weren’t, shall we say, poor enough to qualify. (Easy explanation: Elderly relative who simply can’t eat five pounds of cheese before it dries out, molds or otherwise becomes inedible.) They all said it was the best American cheese they ever ate, creamy and rich and nothing at all like Kraft Singles. Why not make some more of that stuff? Beats paying Domino’s to come up with a new iteration of Heart Attack Lovers’ pizza.

What I didn’t read about: Keith Olbermann. Don’t care. Suspend him, don’t suspend him, makes me no never-mind, as Keith and I have sort of broken up. Of course the whole idea of finding him guilty of, what? Subjectivity? Is totally absurd. This has less to do with journalism than a tuna sandwich. Which makes me think this is about something else entirely. Like getting him to reconsider a contract demand, or something.

And now? I was going to ruminate for a bit on “Winter’s Bone,” an amazing film we caught this weekend, as well as “The Drummond Will,” which was that black-and-white English film at the film festival Friday, but a press release just fluttered over the transom. Police have made an arrest in a year-old home invasion and assault in Grosse Pointe Park, a pretty scary crime for these parts. It only took 11 months to get DNA evidence from the state crime lab. ELEVEN MONTHS. Remember that the next time you watch “CSI” and Marg Helgenberger tells some clown she’ll put a rush on it. So now I have to write a story.

“Winter’s Bone” can wait a day, I guess. But if you get a chance to see it today, take it. It’s that good. Bye.

Posted at 9:36 am in Current events, Media |
 

68 responses to “One sweet hour.”

  1. Deborah said on November 8, 2010 at 10:08 am

    My husband thinks the Olbermann deal is a scam deliberately done by them with KO in on it to try to differentiate MSNBC from Fox. They’re trying to be “better than thou” related to the Fox million dollar donation to Republicans. They didn’t think it through well enough though.

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  2. Linda said on November 8, 2010 at 10:12 am

    Saw Winter’s Bone already in Toledo (I can’t believe we were lucky enough to get it, and I caught it before it left). Bombtastic. Real-type people in real tough situations are scarier than any horror movie.

    Re: Courtney Love. She once said that Eminem was someone whose legitimacy was gotten entirely through his association with Dr. Dre, which is pretty good coming from someone whose legitimacy was pretty much through Kurt Cobain.

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  3. John said on November 8, 2010 at 10:15 am

    Spent my extra hour at work this morning. The only freaking clock in the house I forgot to set, was the alarm clock. Jeez Louise, I must be coming down with The Old Timers! I was too peeved at the sleet/snow this morning to notice any one of the dozens of clocks showing the correct time.

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  4. Deborah said on November 8, 2010 at 10:19 am

    I awoke Sunday early, early morning, my iPhone said it was 1:58, so I sat there and watched it go to 1:59, then 1:00. I was amazed that I actually saw it happen. At dinner last night we all broke into song, “hello darkness my old friend…”

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  5. MarkH said on November 8, 2010 at 10:22 am

    Can’t stand KO, so, don’t watch, don’t care. Deborah raises an interesting scenario, though. I wouldn’t put it past KO, but that would be something if Griffin, et.al. were in on a stunt like this. Anything to jab Fox. I don’t count any of the cable shoutfests as journalism, in any form.

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  6. coozledad said on November 8, 2010 at 10:32 am

    I guess part of Alex Cox’s genius is he could make a couple of movies with Courtney and it seemed like she almost had to be acting. Then everyone figured out she was just being herself on the sets of Straight to Hell and Sid and Nancy.
    Speaking of cheese, my wife was out Gladys Kravitzing Facebook a few nights ago, and found this post from a remote acquaintance of ours:
    “Ain’t nothing better than hot refried beans and cheese hot off a Mexican’s ass. It’s the shit!”
    Several hours later:
    “I don’t know what I was talking about. Guess I’ll shut up now.”

    At some point they’re going to have to start establishing some guidelines for drunk posting in English comp.

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  7. Judybusy said on November 8, 2010 at 10:41 am

    It’s early, but Cooze ftw today.

    My extra hour….hmmm, I’ll pick that I spent it going to the dog park. Basically, all I did Sunday was go to 2 different dog parks and have dim sum with my partner and friends. Lovely day! We’ve been having loads of sunny weather, in the high 50s. Every single Minnesotan is soooo happy with this. When winter comes, it will be long enough as is!

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  8. Joe Kobiela said on November 8, 2010 at 10:42 am

    Spent my extra hour flying back from Minniapolis,watched the gps change from 1:59 to 1:00am. K.O. biggest pompas ass on tv wouldn’t waist the time worrying about him.
    Pilot Joe

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  9. Dorothy said on November 8, 2010 at 10:50 am

    I finished a blue and purple batik shirt I started to sew in August, then abandoned due to the rehearsals and then performances of the play I directed. Now that our outdoor project is finally done I had time to get back to the sewing room. I did the collar, the button holes and attached the buttons yesterday, and this morning completed the hem before I went to work. It fits beautifully and now I’m daydreaming about what kind of fabric I want to use to make another with the same pattern.

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  10. adrianne said on November 8, 2010 at 11:02 am

    Nance, do you remember the poor bloke in Fort Wayne who lost his job over putting the wrong day for the cheese distribution? Ever after, whenever an editor would come floating around with “the cheese list” to be typed in, reporters would immediately feign phone calls with important sources to get out of the dreaded task!

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  11. Casey said on November 8, 2010 at 11:13 am

    Just watched the trailer for Bone. Looks terrific. Not a family film (rated R). We’ll have to find a time to see when my daughter is not around.

    Being in Canada, we haven’t watched much American news, even though it is available – like everywhere else in the world. Not that I watched Oberman other than on the occasional clips from friends. Haven’t seen any loud mouthed tv journalists here.

    What I have discovered here in absence of NPR is CBC radio. There are some terrific shows; yesterday I caught two on my MP3 while out and about. One was Vinyl Cafe, a lot like Prairie Home Companin, from the webpage: “the world’s smallest record store, where the motto is “We may not be big, but we’re small.”

    The other was Tapestry. What a delightful find it was:
    “The human heart refuses to believe in a universe without purpose.”

    — Immanuel Kant

    Governments change, economies tumble and soar, and headlines trumpet the scandal of the day. All the while, Tapestry deals with the more subtle news of life — a thoughtful consideration of what it means to be human.

    Tune in Sunday afternoons for an engaging, provocative and unexpected hour of radio: an hour in which rabbis and poets get equal time on the topic of faith … science-fiction writers and physicist-priests ponder the great creation myths … scholars and gardeners explore the garden as a spiritual metaphor … and architects examine the idea of space for the soul.

    Tapestry is hosted by Mary Hynes, and produced by Marieke Meyer and Susan Mahoney.”

    Yesterday’s program explored Jewish atheism and reason vs faith. Great to listen to as I walked on Nose Hill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_Hill_Park. views of city and mountains, and inspiring thought provoking radio, good antidote for missing Lake St. Clair.

    That was my extra hour. Now I’ll have to cut something else out to keep coming back to Tapestry at the very least.

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  12. Jeff Borden said on November 8, 2010 at 11:13 am

    There’s an item in Bill Zwecker’s gossip column in the Chicago Sun-Times today that says the staff at MSNBC was thrilled by K.O.’s suspension because he is loathed by all for his smugness, tartness and bullying of those around him. I guess I could kind of see that in his approach. . .

    I don’t watch him. I don’t enjoy the braying jackassery of El Rushbo, Glennda or Bill O, so why would I enjoy the same thing from Keith?

    Rachel Maddow is the class act of MSNBC and, I think, one of the smartest commentator/hosts on cable TV.

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  13. LAMary said on November 8, 2010 at 11:40 am

    I got up and made pumpkin bread and cranberry bread which astonished my sons. Not that I don’t bake. I just don’t usually bake at 6:30 in the morning.
    Courtney Love was actually good in The People Vs. Larry Flynt.

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  14. LAMary said on November 8, 2010 at 11:48 am

    When I clicked on the cheese story one of the ads on the right side was for Big John Toilet Seats…for the larger person. I guess if you’re eating all that cheese you are huge and constipated so you need a comfy seat. This is very depressing.
    Also, wasn’t cheese allowed on the dreaded Atkins diet or am I hallucinating?

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  15. alex said on November 8, 2010 at 12:12 pm

    Cheese was a staple of the Atkins diet, as was bacon. I know a woman who ruptured her bowel doing Atkins and watched her writhing in the hospital awaiting emergency surgery with a Morphine drip that was doing absolutely nothing to ease her misery.

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  16. nancy said on November 8, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    Courtney wasn’t in “Sid & Nancy,” Cooze. That was Chloe Webb playing the Nancy role, and spectacularly. Although I agree with Mary — Courtney was excellent in “The People vs. Larry Flynt.” Even people who hate her acknowledge she’s smart and shrewd, and could probably be a decent actor if she’d give up drugs. Alas, easier said than done.

    And yes, you can have all the cheese you want on Atkins. It’s very enticing, until you’re confronting your ninth bun-free bacon cheeseburger of the week, and then you want to kill someone.

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  17. Connie said on November 8, 2010 at 12:26 pm

    I think I am the only person who has actually seen the movie Man in the Moon, starring Jim Carrey as comedian Andy Kaufman. Courtney Love played Kaufman’s wife in an uncredited appearance, and I thought she was beautiful and luminous.

    According to imdb.com Courtney Love was in Sid and Nancy, playing a character named Gretchen.

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  18. LAMary said on November 8, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    She was in Sid and Nancy. I IMDB’d it.

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  19. Hattie said on November 8, 2010 at 12:43 pm

    Ms. Love. Don’t you just Love the NYT?

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  20. coozledad said on November 8, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    Yeah. it’s been awhile since I’ve seen any of those pictures, and I never associated Courtney with either of them until well after the fact. (I went to see Straight to Hell for the Pogues, Elvis Costello and Dick Rude).
    I ain’t seen “The People vs. Larry Flynt” either, but a friend’s mom put him under when he was having surgery at Duke, shortly after he was shot and paralyzed. She said he was “vulgar”. I didn’t bother to ask whether pre- or post sedation.

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  21. ROgirl said on November 8, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    If Marilyn Monroe had been born 30 years later, would she have become Courtney Love?

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  22. coozledad said on November 8, 2010 at 1:01 pm

    Alex Cox’s wiki says that at one time there was a rival production of Sid and Nancy being considered with Madonna as Nancy. Imagine the movies that could have been ruined by Madonna through the ages.

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  23. Dave said on November 8, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    Ah, the government cheese, my mother had a fit when her older sister told her that they were going to get some, it wasn’t like they were needy or anything, they thought it was free and it turned out to be good cheese, as someone noted above.

    I know I’m naive about a lot of things but how does someone turn into be someone like Courtney Love? Or, for that matter, Larry Flynt.

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  24. Peter said on November 8, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    LA Mary, I got the Big John catalog in my office for the times we need to specify bariatric items. The picture from the toilet bowl’s perspective comparing Big Johns support area vs. Kohler’s is forever seared onto my retinas.

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  25. prospero said on November 8, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    Ripping Cooks Source a new one.

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  26. LAMary said on November 8, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    Hmm. I wish I hadn’t read that, Peter.

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  27. MichaelG said on November 8, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    They must rotate ads. I didn’t see any Big John ad.

    I must have done something with that extra hour, but damned if I can remember what.

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  28. Dexter said on November 8, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    An elderly woman was murdered last year,a mile and a half from my house. DNA was collected, as I recall. And last time I heard, a few months ago, nothing.
    The local paper ran a story about the frustration the police department is feeling , waiting, waiting, for DNA evidence to be returned. To tell you the truth, I have lost track of the story, it’s been so long ago, news-wise.
    I either drive past this house or bike past it almost every day because it is on a street to the park. It stopped giving me the creeps months ago.
    http://www.10tv.com/live/content/onnnews/stories/2010/03/11/murder_mystery_in_bryan.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=102

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  29. basset said on November 8, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    when I worked for our local school district a few years ago, we used to get extended, as in half an hour or more, voicemail messages from some poor troubled woman who had made it her mission to stop schools from serving pizza at lunch… because pizza has cheese on top “an’ it jus’ binds them babies up.”

    finally had to get the police to make her stop, we were finding the voicemail full every few mornings with the same thing over and over and over.

    we ate some of the government cheese down in Martin County in the 60s and early 70s, my mother used to trade the neighbors for it. that and government canned chicken.

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  30. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 8, 2010 at 1:36 pm

    For the three people reading here who may care, I had a fascinating conversation after the end of a school based mediation this am. One unresolved issue between juvenile & parent was clothing choices on weekends, and the relative unreasonableness of a parental ban on ICP*-themed wear.

    The counselor started to ask a “whaaa?” when I said, “So, you consider yourself a Juggalette?” Said female juvenile beamed and agreed that she indeed is. “Had you heard about the guys’ statements over the summer about being stealth evangelical Christians, and what do you think about that?” (Mom looked something a bit more than stunned…)

    The young lady replied that she thought it was all good, because the ICP was all about following the guidance of God wherever it leads you, even if other people think it’s messed up, and what’s so bad about following divine teachings, anyhow? What about Christian non-violence, I asked? Well, that’s really just irony they’ve been playing with; it’s like what Jesus says about bringing a sword and having to walk away from your parents when it’s time, right?

    After a brief pause to bring the other two adults up to speed with *Insane Clown Posse, I asked one last question: did she think the Juggalos were all fine with this new spin? “They’re mostly all stoned, so they don’t have a clue. But I like that they’re searching for something. We all are, y’know.”

    Oh, and we informally agreed without amending the mediation agreement that daughter would not wear ICP items when she was going somewhere with her mother, which was stupid but OK.

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  31. Joe Kobiela said on November 8, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    If you use that goverment cheese melted over dog food it’s not to bad. Gets you thru until the next welfare check comes.
    Pilot Joe

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  32. Dexter said on November 8, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    Basset, we used to have a Pepsi bottling plant here. Pepsi wormed their way into the schools every chance they got…kid wins a contest? 2 liters of Pepsi.
    Good grades? A couple 2 liter bottles to cart home. And so on.
    I blew up, though, when Pepsi got into the schools and put vending machines in several locations. I know it’s common now, but then it was new for here, and I voiced my displeasure with a couple letter to the editor. I think I called Pepsi “sugary crap”, and it was printed. I was mad because I figured the principal was probably pocketing some coin, maybe sharing it with others, all the while tempting kids with icy cold cans of sugar fizz water and caramel coloring, plus 50 other ingredients.
    Besides, I am a Coca-Cola man. 🙂

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  33. Deborah said on November 8, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    My right wing sister accepted government help when her daughters were very little. Her husband was a Lutheran school teacher (still is only he’s principal now too) and they were poor as church mice. They received those giant hunks of cheese regularly, she said they couldn’t possibly eat all of it. She uses that story now to talk about how wasteful the government is, instead of how great it was that they were able to get assistance from the government when they really needed it.

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  34. Pam said on November 8, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    When Bill was still installing alarm systems, he had a job at a government housing project in central Dayton that was strictly for older citizens. They were Always trying to give him gov’mint cheese and boxes of macaroni. He took a cheese brick once and it was quite nice. It reminded me of the blocks of cheese Mom used to buy back in the 50s. She would make grilled cheeses in that sandwich maker thing that made round sandwiches. It sealed the edges so that when you bit into the sandwich your tongue or lips would burn with the piping hot cheese!

    I used to work with a guy from England and he believed that Americans were so fat because we eat too much cheese. ‘Course, he ate beans for breakfast. Bleah!

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  35. Scout said on November 8, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    I remember my grandpa bragging about the free cheese and my mom being totally pissed off because he didn’t need free anything, he was just being cheap. Memories.

    And no time change here in AZ, just the readjustment in figuring out what time it is elsewhere. I think we might be the only state that doesn’t.

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  36. brian stouder said on November 8, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    And no time change here in AZ, just the readjustment in figuring out what time it is elsewhere. I think we might be the only state that doesn’t.

    Scout – they didn’t trust us Hoosiers to fool with our clocks (say THAT 3 times, fast!), up ‘til a few years ago. When DST came to Indiana, our proprietress memorably referenced Hoosiers blinking and squinting as we walked out into the light of a new day. I gotta say – I didn’t think I’d like Daylight Savings Time, but I immediately fell in love with it, and wouldn’t go back. (I do believe, to mix metaphors a bit, that folks who weren’t sure about Obama in ’08 will have a similar experience, when they compare the lighter skinned alternative that faces him in two years)

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  37. Sue said on November 8, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    JoeK @ 31: what an unkind thing to say. Really, just awful.

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  38. 4dbirds said on November 8, 2010 at 3:27 pm

    When was this cheese giveaway? I don’t remember it. Maybe I was stationed in Germany.

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  39. alex said on November 8, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    Under that great socialist named Ronald Reagan, 4D.

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  40. nancy said on November 8, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    You must have been out of town for sure. Mid-’80s it was quite the event, giveaways of surplus government cheese to the poor, elderly and otherwise unfortunate. As Adrianne pointed out way upthread, the “cheese list” with locations was a big deal, and when a reporter at our newspaper transcribed it with a wrong date, leading to hundreds of poor people showing when they weren’t expected — it was well-nigh a firing offense.

    But it was a real cultural touchstone, too. I think there were several bands called Government Cheese. I remember seeing a cabaret act in Chicago with a song about it. It’s in the Urban Dictionary. And so on.

    The Wikipedia entry gets the details right, I think.

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  41. Rana said on November 8, 2010 at 4:13 pm

    I spent my extra hour sleeping. It’s a good thing that the switch happens on Sunday morning, I must say. And bless automatically changing clocks!

    We never qualified for government cheese, but growing up there was almost always a giant block of cheddar hanging out in the lower part of the fridge. It was about the size of a loaf of bread, if a bit longer and thinner. Do they still sell them that way?

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  42. Dexter said on November 8, 2010 at 4:22 pm

    I was laid off in 1982, September, during that bad Reagan recession. I remember checking in with the union in March, 1983, and the local president told me to look hard for another job because it looked really bad. I was looking for work and my wife was doing all she could, and I was getting $141 a week and the supplemental fund was long gone. Yeah, I did go get a brick of cheese and we ate grilled cheese for a couple days, no big deal. Here’s a good one: somebody told my wife we qualified for food stamps. I applied. I got a one time grant of $8 in stamps, and I remember buying a sack of corn meal and a bag of flour, and I never asked for another food stamp. Sounds like a pioneer going to town for supplies, I know. If I had thought of it I’d have bought a jug of sorghum.
    My nightmare ended on Flag Day, 1983, and I was one of the lucky ones…only laid off for eleven weeks more after that until I retired.
    By the way, Marilyn vos Savant, the mensa person who used to write a column answering peoples’ questions which were supposed to challenge her giant great big brain, once wrote that if she could only take one type of food to a barren island for an extended stay, she would take dog food. I am serious. Vitamins and roughage, I think were the reasons. Government cheese on top would be a nice touch, I guess.
    The sad part of Joe’s comment is that old people sometimes have to eat shit like Alpo because they can’t afford Mary Kitchen hash or Van Camp’s cheapo pork & beans.

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  43. velvet goldmine said on November 8, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    I love that Neil Gaiman has gotten involved in the Cook’s Source story, as has TNG’s Wil Wheaton (the latter if only because it’s making the original author so fangirlishly happy). The magazine’s name is now delightfully ironic, as I’m sure I’m the 3008th person to notice.

    I can’t believe that they have enough money to make suing them a worthy cause, but when everytime I read that letter from the editor it just makes me crave a smackdown. What is it about people who use your first name over and over?

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  44. Dexter said on November 8, 2010 at 4:29 pm

    Chilean miner Edison Pena finished the NYC Marathon in five hours and some minutes. He is now headed for Graceland. This guy has really got it goin’…ya can’t help but love him.
    http://www.parade.com/celebrity/hollywood-wire/2010/11/08/chilean-miner-finishes-nyc-marathon-despite-bad-knees.html

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  45. 4dbirds said on November 8, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    Yes, I was out of the country for most of Reagan’s term. I also find there are TV shows from the 80s that I never watched or never knew existed. If it wasn’t on Armed Forces Network, I didn’t see it.

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  46. prospero said on November 8, 2010 at 4:53 pm

    Republican gummint cheese.

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  47. Deborah said on November 8, 2010 at 5:16 pm

    Must have been very early 1980s when my right wing sister got the government cheese for her family, my nieces were born in 1976, 1978 and 1982 (I think, I should really know this). So she probably got it when Reagan was president because her youngest was born already. Good thing to know, when she starts in on Obama’s “socialism”.

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  48. LAMary said on November 8, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    Rana I have a loaf of Tillamook medium cheddar in my fridge as we speak. It’s got red wax on the outside. You can get it at Costco. I think it’s three pounds. It makes great melted cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese and omelettes and once I crack it open we will be eating those things to use it up before the mold wins. We eat vegetarian three times a week so it shouldn’t be a problem. Cauliflower and cheese? Broiled tomatoes with cheese?

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  49. Sue said on November 8, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    We have the Department of Agriculture pushing cheese, the Brits have Wallace and Gromit:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/5000965/Wallace-and-Gromits-favourite-Wensleydale-helps-British-food-exports-surge.html

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  50. Dave Kobiela said on November 8, 2010 at 5:42 pm

    Joe, how can I say this politely? I don’t think I can. I know you’ll say, “I was just kidding, to see how upset everyone would get…”. I just hope you haven’t really forgotten how it feels to be out of work through no fault of your own.

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  51. Bob said on November 8, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    Nance: I think that act in Chicago was Gary Trudeau’s musical about the Reagan milieu. If so, it included another toe-tapper called something like “The Unexamined Life is Fine by Me.”

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  52. Kirk said on November 8, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    “Rap Master Ronnie”

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  53. adrianne said on November 8, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    And in other news: The strange Michigan assistant AG who was tormenting the gay student class president at University of Michigan has been fired. His lawyer blames it on the liberal media: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/michigan_asst_ag_fired_for_attacking_gay_student_o.php?ref=fpb

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  54. coozledad said on November 8, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    It’s like I’ve been living in a cave or something. While I was waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store I read that Miley Cyrus’ paternity is in question. Which soul-patch wearing asshole, Bret Michaels or Billy Ray Cyrus, placed the order?
    That girl is doomed.

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  55. Harrison said on November 8, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    FYI, Coozledad, Miley Cyrus’ 18th birthday will be on Nov. 23. That’s two weeks from tomorrow.

    The day after she reaches her majority…oh God, I can just imagine! Party in the USA? Hell, party in the world!

    But that’s the week of Thanksgiving, and I hope she waits until Monday, the 29th, out of respect for the holidays and her family.

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  56. LAMary said on November 8, 2010 at 6:49 pm

    cooz, it can’t be. She has that same pie face her daddy Billy Ray has. She is doomed.

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  57. Joe Kobiela said on November 8, 2010 at 6:58 pm

    It was a joke for christ sake!
    pilot Joe
    Checking in from whilmington N.C.

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  58. crinoidgirl said on November 8, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    God, Joe – have you no decency?

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  59. moe99 said on November 8, 2010 at 7:33 pm

    I got that it was a joke, Joe. Kind of hard to have a sense of humor these days, isn’t it?

    OT: conjoined twins share a brain.

    http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/02/a-piece-of-their-mind/print/

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  60. Holly said on November 8, 2010 at 7:45 pm

    I will be a cheesehead soon. The only job my husband was able to find was in Wisconsin. Turned out very well for him. He is happy again. As soon as the house here in Arlington Heights can get sold I will be heading north. One thing. I will always be a Bear and Cub fan. It’s in my blood.

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  61. John said on November 8, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    Have to take issue with you on Winter’s Bone. I found Jennifer Lawrence’s performance stellar, and just about everything else unrewarding. Sparse cinematography, bleak atmosphere, truncated dialog, all very deliberate, but grim does not equal profound, as one critic wrote. It felt to me like a Cormac McCarthy short story tediously spun out to feature film length, lacking the clutch of McCarthy’s prosaic imagery. In these times, I don’t need to be reminded that hardscrabble poverty is too often imbued with inhumanity.

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  62. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 8, 2010 at 8:50 pm

    There’s too much rough humor around here for me to take anyone’s gibes too seriously, or I’d be back on the lisinopril.

    Made farm raised catfish fillets tonight, sat ’em in some milk a bit, then dredged them through a pie pan full of crushed Triscuit garden herb cracker crumbs mixed with some parmesan and ground mustard. 12 minutes on a side in 425 oven on a cookie sheet sprayed with some non-stick generic, and even my son liked it.

    No cheese other than the grated parm in the dredge.

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  63. Holly said on November 8, 2010 at 8:55 pm

    Triscuit garden herb as the cracker crumbs. Sounds so good. I will have to try this next time I make fish.

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  64. Rana said on November 8, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    Mmm, Tillamook cheddar. One of the things I miss from the West Coast.

    I have to admit that the giant loaf (more a brick, though, since the ones I remember were cheap cheddar, wrapped in plastic, and straight-sided) always makes me think of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland and my mother. There’s a section of the story in which the protagonist finds herself hiding out at a convent, and Pynchon’s describing the chores she does to pay for room and board, and there’s this wonderful image of giant blocks of fluorescent cheese in the storage room, which made both of us laugh.

    By the way, Googling “Thomas Pynchon cheese” produces entertaining results.

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  65. Dorothy said on November 8, 2010 at 10:36 pm

    Thanks for that tip, Chef Jeff. That idea is going into my recipe box tomorrow.

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  66. Denice said on November 8, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    Ah, I remember government cheese well. It was more like cheddar than Velveeta. My Grandfather got big blocks and would give us a huge chunk. We were in lean times, Brian in a lower paying job and I was going to nursing school. Money was tight. We made Au Gratin potatoes, sandwiches and even made our own pizza with hot dogs and cheese. It was good and it would have gone to waste. Grampa ate very little cheese, so we used it with gratitude.

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  67. basset said on November 9, 2010 at 12:30 am

    There was indeed a band called Government Cheese out of Bowling Green, Kentucky… even made it to MTV early on, believe they broke up about 1990.

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  68. Pam said on November 9, 2010 at 8:44 am

    Holly @60 – I spent a LOT of time in the Milwaukee area when I worked for the phone company. Training up there, one week a month for 8 months. Was not looking forward to it until I got there. It was a pleasant surprise. Lots to do, everyone friendly, but get a very warm coat. I had to buy a down filled, Michelin Man style, coat for up there. It was very cold. After the training was over, I gave the coat to Goodwill. It was too hot for OH. I think you’ll like it there as long as you don’t mind winter.

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