quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

whatever else, this represents a quiddity of the ruling class (noting the author):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/dining/a-vegetarians-struggle-for-sustenance-in-the-midwest.html?_r=1

slight agony

midwestern folk, clinging to their meat and iceberg lettuce

http://www.vegkansascity.com/restaurants.html

a bold report coming back from one of our boys, in the field and suffering through local backwardness

haha

i am not a vegetarian, but one time i was in a tiny town in SE IA and i ordered a "vegetable burger" at the one restaurant in town. the waitress was nice enough to tell me, "you know that's just a regular burger with lettuce and tomato, right?"

i didn't know that, so i was glad she told me.

I don't know who Sulzberger is but he could learn to freaking cook. Otherwise he is otm, I'm afraid.

omg LL, a "vegetable" burger!!

he's the son of the nytimes publisher. long line of sulzbergers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ochs_Sulzberger,_Jr.

xp

http://www.city-data.com/ia-restaurants/DEANO-S-PLACE.html#ixzz1jAeMSOvA

deano's

sulzberger got no meat in it

In Nebraska, a place where cattle outnumber people, vegetarians are sometimes accused of undermining the state economy. The owner of what was billed as the lone vegetarian restaurant in Omaha said it had several pounds of ground beef thrown at its doors shortly after opening. After a short run, it closed last year.

this is kinda tragic tbh

“Being a vegetarian in Nebraska is like being a Republican in Brooklyn — less of an outcast than a novelty,” said David Rosen, who became a vegetarian as a teenager in Omaha and is now a writer in Brooklyn. “Except that you don’t have to prepare special meals for Republicans.”

brooklyn has two gop congresspeople but they probably mean 'brooklyn'

i've been vegetarian in a non-veggie-friendly city (richmond va) and yeah it kinda sucks but it's not really worth writing a newspaper article about, let alone for the NYT. like my problem with this article isn't that it's wrong but that the point is so obvious that the article is unnecessary.

Actually the author of that piece is A.O. Sulzberger Jr.'s son Arthur GREGG Sulzberger, 28:
http://www.observer.com/2009/media/2009-ag-arthur-gregg-sulzberger-era-begins

but that the point is so obvious that the article is unnecessary.
agree
high school journalism assignment

The beef throwing incident is ridiculous but other than that this dude is whiney and annoying. I've been a vegetarian for nearly (over?) half my life and while this can be a sort of shitty situation at times, I have rarely found this to be a huge issue. Even steakhouses have awesome veg sides for Christ's sake. Did this man really think this article needed to be written. He should probably just take Laurel's advice and learn to cook.

lol x-post - NA otm

To be fair, if you're in the middle of nowhere in NY you're probably going to have trouble eating vegetarian, too. But the "oh no I'm in KC and I can't get vegetarian food everywhere and people look at me funny" is more of a diversity issue, imo, than it is a locale issue.

tbf walking into Arthur Bryant’s if you're a vegetarian is probably a cardinal sin. I think I inhaled enough animal products just standing in there to count as a violation

the whole situation of sending out a sulzberger to a post stories from kansas city, just to write about difficulty finding veggie cuisine, is weird. It doesn't really need an ethnographic piece.

i am not a vegetarian, but one time i was in a tiny town in SE IA and i ordered a "vegetable burger" at the one restaurant in town. the waitress was nice enough to tell me, "you know that's just a regular burger with lettuce and tomato, right?"

this is hilarious

which town btw?

One of the best meals I've ever had out was an enormous platter of vegetables and sides at Spark's steakhouse in NYC. Sure the waiter sort of giggled when I told him I was vegetarian but I'm used to that. They were then more than happy to prepare something for me. In the rare even that I've found myself at a restaurant with absolutely nothing to eat on the menu I just ask if they can make something off the menu. I don't think I've ever been somewhere where the request was refused.

like this should be a letter to his dad, not an article
xpost

The thing is they don't have vegetarians in the midwest so A.G.'s reporting really sheds new light on the subject. It's as though an infidel managed to sneak inside mecca.

lol

To be fair, if you're in the middle of nowhere in NY you're probably going to have trouble eating vegetarian, too

eh not really

also weird that he's talking about "the midwest" when this is pretty much going to be a problem in most parts of the u.s. that aren't big cities - it's not really a regional thing so i'm not sure why he's phrasing it that way.

x-post - Maybe he means NY state and not NYC?

which town btw?
Rome, IA -- I linked to the restaurant above.

Yeah, that story is great.

I guess, but ny state is basically 'the midwest'

you are A.O. Sulzberger and I claim my $5

I don't carry bills under $100, sorry

(oh whoops)

Future dispatches from A.G. Sulzberger
"Public transit is not that good in the suburbs"
"Maids are hard to afford on minimum wage"
"This religion thing is really big in the south"

I imagine he got in a big fight with dad and got sent to the US equivalent of siberia

haha:

In truth, it is less satisfying to be a vegetarian here. Those on the coasts have it better.

ALL RIGHT I'M GONNA COME OUT AND SAY IT, IDGAF

(as a vegetarian from hawaii tho i can confirm that people are The Worst about this sometimes -- turn down spam and some people immediately get hostile and defensive cuz they're afraid you Think You're Better Than Them -- but whatever, yeah, learn to cook)

tbf I don't think a traveling reporter gets much in the way of a portable kitchen

pretty sure he has access to a heated surface and at least two things to put ingredients in

Spam! I just learned from a friend that grew up there that Spam is a p big thing in HI. I never knew. She was also telling me about some sort of "plate" where you have a meat and a side or something but it's called a __________ plate.

(i mean maybe he does not, idk! if he's eating out for literally every meal though then this really is thread-appropriate)

oh the life of the traveling reporter, riding the rails from town to town, his ipad and blackberry in a bindle tied to a stick, walking five miles to the nearest telegraph office to file his latest inane trend story

kindle in a bindle

lol @ this juxtaposition

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/ag-sulzberger-writes-note-to-dad.html
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/senator-tester-lugs-around-a-suitcase-of-meat.html

i know, i know, it's serious
xpost

enbb -- just a "plate lunch" maybe? which is one of our weirder special hawaii-specific phrases because i mean it is a lunch on a plate, i think even mainlanders eat lunch on plates.

we do love our spam tho. god knows why. i really miss it in fried rice. little cubes. or in musubi.

I heard it was cause of world war ii

lol I think it was a plate lunch, yes! Woah - Spam sushi. That's awesome.

xp yeah but even the english stopped eating everything out of tins eventually didn't they? whereas we have kept right on w/ the spam.