You May Call RFK Jr. a Wingnut, But Coca Cola Will Offer an HFCS-free Version of Its Flagship Soda

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a Trump cabinet member whom progressives love to hate. He's been repeatedly branded as a "wingnut" and a "crackpot,' and his views on vaccines have often been maliciously misrepresented. Senator Elizabeth Warren darkly hinted that he was trying to enrich himself while in public service.

Let's give Bobby a break. Unlike his predecessors, he's called out Americans for our unhealthy eating habits and vowed to make us healthier. As Kennedy has repeatedly said, the U.S. spends more on health care than any nation in the world, yet our country is not the healthiest--far from it.

 Americans have high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and these ailments can be traced in significant part to our diet. The corporate food industry laces all kinds of processed food with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) because it is cheap, and it's cheap because our government subsidizes corn production.

Now, thanks partly to Secretary Kennedy, Americans are looking more closely at what they eat and have come to realize that ultra-processed food and high-fructose corn syrup are bad for us. Research has found a link between heavy consumption of HFCS and obesity, diabetes, and liver disease.

 And the corporate food industry is taking notice. Most notably, Coca-Cola announced that it will soon offer a version of its flagship soda containing cane sugar, not HFCS. The corporate giant isn't making the switch because the government forced it to take action. Instead, it's responding to the public's heightened concern about all kinds of food additives--including HFCS. 

Americans' belated interest in the food they're ingesting is partly due to Secretary Kennedy's focus on the nation's diet.  I'm grateful to him for trying to make us healthier and thankful he's in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.

If that makes me a wingnut, I'm happy to embrace that label.

Image credit: Patrick Fallon via Getty Images 

Mrs. Butterworth is Dead to Me: Zeeland Street Offers Steen's Cane Syrup with Its Pancakes

 In Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck wrote that he never ate a really good dinner at a roadside cafe or a really bad breakfast. I agree; most restaurants cook a pretty good breakfast if you stick to bacon and eggs.

Nevertheless, it is hard to find a restaurant that serves a really good breakfast--a place that serves perfectly prepared eggs, bacon, grits, and pancakes in a casual and friendly atmosphere.

Therefore, I count myself among the blessed to live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home of Zeeland Street Restaurant. Zeeland Street is a really good breakfast spot. Indeed, the New York Times listed this eatery among the 50 best restaurants in America. 

My wife and I ate breakfast at Zeeland Street a few weeks ago. We ordered the Zeeland Slam: bacon, eggs, grits, and pancakes. 

In the South, at least, a restaurant's breakfast can be judged by its grits, and Zeeland's grits were perfect--piping hot and lightly seasoned. I like to sprinkle a few drops of Tabasco sauce on my grits, which Zeeland provided on its condiment table.

However, what set this breakfast apart was the breakfast syrup on the pancakes. All across the nation, restaurants serve high-fructose corn syrup with their pancakes, the same stuff, in essence, that sweetens store-bought candy and soft drinks. And that syrup is generally laced with various additives.

Zeeland Street offers diners a second option: Steen's cane syrup. Steen's syrup is extracted from sugar cane, and nothing is added. Cane syrup is healthier than high fructose corn syrup, which has been linked with obesity, diabetes, and liver damage. 

Of course, eating small amounts of corn syrup won't kill you, which is reassuring, given the amount of the stuff that shows up in all kinds of processed food. If it were seriously harmful, we'd all be dead. 

Besides health considerations, cane syrup is preferable to corn syrup because it tastes better, and I'm grateful to Zeeland Street for serving it. 

Of course, excellent food is only one of the qualities that set Zeeland Street apart from other restaurants. What really makes this restaurant shine is the owner, Stephanie Phares. Stephanie is always cheerful, and her infectious laughter, which can be heard throughout the restaurant, always brightens my day.

As John Steinbeck wrote in a short story, "some element of great beauty" can be found in a hearty breakfast in the early morning. Baton Rouge can experience that great beauty at Zeeland Street Restaurant by eating the Zeeland Slam and hearing Stephanie Phares's joyous laughter. 

photo credit: Collin Richie & 225 Magazine

The Panhandler on Siegen Lane: The Student Loan Crisis and Reflections on Dorothy Day

I took the Siegen Lane exit off of Interstate 10 a few days ago and saw a panhandler standing at the end of the exit ramp. He held a sign that read: "Hungry, Need Food, Please Help." He was young, clean, and apparently well fed. Watching from my car, I saw him take a long, luxuriant drag from his cigarette.

I couldn't help but smile and think of my late mother. My mother hated panhandlers, and she especially hated panhandlers who smoked.

There are plenty of jobs available, she would say. That Siegen Lane panhandler could be working at McDonald's instead of standing on the street begging for money. And a smoking panhandler, she would point out, obviously has money for cigarettes--money he should be spending on food.

My mother was especially infuriated by panhandlers who promised to work for food. She often threatened to call their bluff by offering them a job raking leaves or some other menial chore. She didn't think anyone would accept her offer.

No--in my Mom's view--actually working is anathema to a panhandler. Panhandlers would rather loaf around on a street corner waiting for a handout than rake leaves for a meal.

I disagreed with my mother. Anyone who stands on a street corner on a hot Louisiana day is working--there's nothing easy about that.

Moreover, I discovered through experience that most panhandlers would thank me graciously if I gave them a couple of bucks, and many said, "God bless you." I think two bucks for a sincere "God bless you" is a fair transaction.

How about those smoking panhandlers? Should we boycott them?

Dorothy Day would say no. I recall reading that Dorothy once gave a homeless woman an expensive ring that had been donated to the Catholic Worker, and she was criticized for it. People said the homeless woman would pawn the ring and spend the money on drinks, and that it would have been better for Dorothy to sell the ring and use the proceeds to pay the woman's rent.

Dorothy replied that the woman could sell the ring and use the money however she liked. She might pay the rent or spend the money on a Caribbean vacation! That would be her choice.

If we insist on categorizing the needy into the deserving and the undeserving, we will wind up helping no one. Congress doesn't want to help overstressed student-loan debtors because some borrowed too much money to attend college, and some made poor choices in choosing their majors--art history instead of business, for example.

So what? Millions of former college students are burdened by crushing student loans they will never repay. Why not provide them with some assistance instead of stewing over whether or not they deserve help?

I confess, I don't always follow my own advice. I don't help every panhandler who approaches me. I definitely don't like being accosted at night by a panhandler in the Walgreens parking lot. But that guy standing on a hot street corner waiting for a motorist to roll down the car window and give him fifty cents--I say let's help him out a bit.

And so--when I saw that clean, young, and apparently well-fed panhandler standing at the roadside on Siegen Lane, I gave him two dollars.

I admit, however, that my mother's spirit came welling up within me as I handed over the money. "Those cigarettes," I chided, "will kill you."

***

 I first posted this essay in 2013.

A Retrospective Tribute to the Alaska Territorial Guard

When I was a young lawyer in Alaska many years ago, I took my young children to see the Fur Rondy Parade in Anchorage.  Conditions were not ideal on that winter day. The sky was overcast, and the temperature had dropped to 20 degrees below zero.  

The day was so cold that the marching bands sheltered inside moving school buses.  Band members would open the bus windows and stick their horns out into the frigid air just long enough to complete a tune. Then they would retract their instruments and slam the windows shut.

I judged the weather too harsh for my children to endure, so I parked the family car in an alley where we could view the parade without leaving our vehicle.

Parade participants were bundled up in arctic gear. I recall the beauty queens perched on the hoods of fancy automobiles. Their skirts were short, but their legs were encased in insulated survival pants.

About halfway through the parade, I saw a platoon of Alaska National Guard soldiers wheel around a corner, marching briskly with their M-1 rifles at port arms. They were all wearing camouflaged white jump suits, and they wore fur caps on their heads. They did not look like they were cold.

All the soldiers in that platoon were Alaska Natives, mostly Inuit, the best I could tell, and some Athabaskans.

I was suddenly moved by a burst of patriotism, and I admired these men who had sworn to defend Alaska with their lives. Did they have grievances against the white outsiders who took over their ancestral land and hauled away its natural resources--timber, gold, copper, and oil?

Perhaps they did, but on that cold day, their rugged, patriotic spirit was all I could see, and all that the soldiers wished to communicate.

Before Alaska achieved statehood in 1959, the Alaska National Guard was called the Alaska Territorial Guard. During World War II, the Inuit and Athabaskans were called up and armed to defend against the Japanese invaders who had gained a foothold in the Aleutian Islands.

I doubt that a single Alaska Territorial Guardsman held back or asked why he should risk his life in defense of the United States. Like young men all over America who enlisted in the military after Pearl Harbor, the Natives stepped up to do a dangerous job that had to be done.

President Trump will soon meet President Vladimir Putin at Elmendorf Air Force Base on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The two world leaders will search for a way to end the war in Ukraine.

It is a fitting place to meet, for American territory comes closest to Mother Russia in Alaska. Indeed, the nations are less than 3 miles apart in the Bering Straits, and the distance can be walked when the Bering Sea freezes over in winter.

Americans should pray for peace as Presidents Trump and Putin meet this week. They should also say a prayer of gratitude for the Alaska Territorial Guardsmen who rose to their duty during the Second World War.

 

Alan Dershowitz Should Leave Martha's Vineyard and Vacation in Mississippi: Fewer Soup Nazis and Better Food

Last month, Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law professor and famous conservative,  was refused service at Good Pierogi, an eatery on Martha's Vineyard. Reportedly, a vendor at the West Tisbury Farmers Market refused to sell Dershowitz a pierogi because of Dershowitz's political views. 

Indeed, according to a recent news report, Dershowitz was denied service a second time when he returned to the food vendor and again asked for a pierogi.

This is not the first time a conservative has been denied food service for political reasons. From time to time, Republicans have been ushered out of restaurants in Washington, D.C. because the staff disapproved of Republicans' political views. Thus, it is no surprise that a conservative is denied service on Martha's Vineyard--an exclusive playground of the liberal rich.

Professor Dershowitz should vacation elsewhere. He might try Florida, where a restaurateur has offered him free pierogis for life.

Liberal snobs have apparently forgotten that Black Americans were banned from white-owned restaurants and hotels in the South as late as the 1960s. Indeed, it was not until Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that racial discrimination in places of public accommodation was stopped.

Even then, some Southern restaurant owners refused to obey the law. Ollie McClung, owner of Ollie's Barbecue in Birmingham, Alabama, argued that the law did not apply to him because his barbecue joint wasn't engaged in interstate commerce.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court rejected McClung's argument. Race discrimination at Ollie's Barbecue imposed significant burdens on "the interstate flow of food," the Court ruled, and on African Americans who traveled from state to state.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn't prohibit a restaurant from refusing service based on a customer's political views. Given what happened toAlan Dershowitz on Martha's Vineyard,  the law should be amended to bar viewpoint discrimination in restaurants, hotels, and all places of public accommodation.

In the meantime, I speak for all Mississippians when I say that Alan Dershowitz is welcome at any eatery in the Magnolia State. He may not be able to find a pierogi, but we serve some damn good barbecue. 

Food vendors should not be allowed to deny service because of a customer's political views.

90-Second Book Review: You are My Sunshine by Robert Mann Reveals a Connection Between Country Music and Louisiana Politics

 You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis & the Biography of a Song is Robert Mann's insightful examination of Louisiana's official state song and the Louisiana politician who claimed to have composed it.  In addition, Mann's book explores the relationship between country music and Southern politics in the 1930s and 1940s.

Like most Americans, I had long assumed that Louisiana Governor Jimmie Davis wrote "You Are My Sunshine," but in fact, he did not. As Mann relates in his book's first chapter, Davis and Charles Mitchell purchase the song's copyright from Paul Rice in 1939, along with the right to list themselves as the song's authors. 

At the time of the transaction, Davis was an up-and-coming star in the world of country music, which in the 1930s was more commonly called hillbilly music. After Davis and Mitchell purchased the song, "You Are My Sunshine" became famous worldwide and was eventually recorded by over 200 artists, including Johnny Cash, Bing Crosby, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ray Charles.

Davis was also an aspiring Louisiana politician who would serve two terms as governor of Louisiana. As a singer and country music performer, Davis honed a folksy public speaking style and became a facile radio performer. Like Wilbert "Pappy" O'Daniel, who campaigned for the Texas Governorship with the Lightcrust Doughboys, Davis recruited his own country band to accompany him on the campaign trail.

As Mann explained, Louisiana politicians were split into two hostile camps in the 1930s and 1940s: the Long faction and the anti-Long forces. Neither group had a rigid political agenda beyond keeping the rival faction out of power. Davis was elected to the governorship in 1944, partly because both the Long and anti-Long parties found him palatable, and voters saw him as a unifier who could bring harmony to Louisiana's fractious political culture.

Davis was elected to a second term as governor in 1960. Unfortunately, his tenure was marred by his state's adamant opposition to school desegregation.  When a federal judge ordered the desegregation of the New Orleans public schools, Davis "sent a squad of State Police troopers to New Orleans to enforce a state-ordered school holiday."

As Mann pointed out, Davis was not branded as a virulent racist in the stamp of Alabama Governor George Wallace and other Southern governors of the time. Still, he was an implacable foe of integrated schools. Indeed, Davis allied himself with Leander Perez, the district attorney in Plaquemines Parish and a rabid racist whose opposition to the desegregation of Catholic schools was so strident that the Catholic Church excommunicated him.

Mann's book sketches the portrait of a flawed and complicated man. The son of a poor sharecropper in Quitman, LA, he discovered a way to advance himself through country music. He was among the first poor Southern boys who clawed their way off the farms to create a unique style of American music: Bob Wills of Kosse, TX; Elvis Presley of Tupelo, MS; Hank Williams of Mount Olive, AL; Johnny Cash of Kingsland, AR, and many others.

Louisianians should remember Jimmy Davis as a country music and gospel music star and forget his second term as Louisiana governor. He was a gifted country music artist who could not rise above the prejudices of his time.

Beto O'Rourke Can Take his West Coast Politics and Stick 'Em Where the Sun Don't Shine: The Texas Redistricting Battle

You can take your like and shove 'em on up the line.
People in Texas don't care if the sun don't shine.

Charlie Daniels

"Texas"

Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently called a special session of the state legislature to draw new boundaries for the Lone Star State's congressional districts. The legislature is controlled by Republicans, and the redistricting process is expected to conclude with more districts going to Republicans in the next election.

Democratic legislators cried foul and more than a dozen fled the state to prevent the legislature from raising a quorum. Many sought refuge in blue states--California and Illinois in particular. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker welcomed them with open arms, accusing Texas Republicans of unfairly gerrymandering district boundaries to benefit their party.

As several commentators have pointed out, the blue states are masters at gerrymandering, with Illinois being the gerrymander in chief. Illinois redrew congressional district boundaries in 2020, which resulted in fewer Republican victories in the 2022 congressional elections.

Wealthy West Coast progressives have poured millions of dollars into Texas election battles, hoping to make Texas as blue as California.  In 2018, Robert Francis O'Rourke, a totally unqualified progressive candidate, raised an astounding $80 million in his unsuccessful bid to unseat Senator Ted Cruz in the most expensive Senate campaign in history. Much of this money came from wealthy Californians.

O'Rourke recently formed a political organization called Powered By People to raise money to help absent Texas legislators pay their expenses during their out-of-state holiday. Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, sued O'Rourke and his organization, accusing them of illegal fundraising in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

A few days ago, a Texas judge issued a temporary restraining order barring O'Rourke and Powered By People from aiding the recalcitrant Texas legislators. Among other restrictions, the judge's order prohibited the defendants from:

Using political funds for the improper, unlawful, and non-political purposes of (1) funding out-of-state travel, hotel, or dining accommodations or services to unexcused Texas legislators during any special legislative session called by the Texas Governor, or (2) funding payments of fines provided by Texas House rules for unexcused legislative absences. 

Ultimately, I believe Governor Abbott and the Republicans in the Texas legislature will prevail. At the end of the day, congressional district lines will be redrawn to give Republicans a better chance of prevailing in upcoming elections. 

Texans are tired of out-of-state money pouring into their state to undermine traditional Texas values. If the wealthy West Coast progressives are unhappy with the new district boundaries, they can take their unhappiness and stick it where the sun don't shine.