What would Coriolanus eat at the Iowa State Fair? Caprese Salad On-a-Stick?

The ultimate reality show has begun: Who wants to be America's next president?  It is one heck of a freak show in the early stages, until it comes down to something like a semi-final.  This being the dog days of summer, the reality show was recently hosted at the Iowa State Fair.

The internationally-acclaimed Iowa State Fair is the single largest event in the state of Iowa and one of the oldest and largest agricultural and industrial expositions in the country. Annually attracting more than a million people from all over the world, the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines is Iowa’s great celebration, a salute to the state’s best in agriculture, industry, entertainment and achievement.

And well known for the political reality show where the presidential wannabes show up in their summer, casual, regular-person, attires.  It is like how beauty pageants have swimsuit competitions ;)

It is all a part of the pretense that the regular Joe and Jane matter to those patricians.  They need to put on a jolly good show that they defer to us, the plebians.  And they want to make sure that they don't make the mistake that Coriolanus did:

Coriolanus is a patrician warrior who serves Rome with unequalled military prowess and bravery, but he is devilishly proud and utterly disdainful of the lower orders. He even blames them for smelling: which brings to mind a German saying, ‘It smells of poor people here,’ and George Orwell’s observation that to accuse people of smelling is the most hurtful insult that you can direct at them.
Unfortunately, after his great victory at Corioli (hence his honorific title), Coriolanus stands for the office of Consul, one of the most important political offices in Rome. To be elected he needs the approbation of the plebeians: and, rather as in a general election in a western democracy, to obtain it he has to abase himself before them for a short time.
He has difficulty in doing even this because he is so haughty; for although the plebeians know full well he has fought many battles and been wounded many times, they want him to expose his scars to them in person. This, of course, is much beneath his dignity, but Coriolanus manages to come to some kind of accommodation with the plebeians, until their own representatives, the tribunes, inflame them against him by telling outright lies about him. They do this because they see it as a way to increase their own power, to which Coriolanus is an obstacle. They succeed in having Coriolanus exiled from Rome. 

Shakespeare does a masterful job, as he always does.  Oh, incidentally, the story does not end with the exile--watch the play; it is phenomenal.

One of ways that the patricians, er, the presidential wannabes abase themselves before us plebes is by going to the Iowa State Fair and eating crap, er, food that they would normally run away from.  Not merely eating but making sure that the photos and the videos are transmitted all around, even to the plebes in other countries who cannot vote here anyway!  Apparently most of them chose to eat pork chops on a stick:

Source

There are, count 'em, 75 foods that one could eat while holding them on sticks!  Seventy-five!  I could not imagine how they get to serve fried butter on a stick; so, I checked it out on YouTube and I am grossed out already ;)

I suppose a modern day haughty Coriolanus would not care about the regular folk who eat all things fatty and rich in cholesterol.  He would not be a wimp like that other patrician who wisely walked away from his arugula comment.  Instead, Coriolanus would arrogantly order a Caprese Salad On-a-Stick and tell the people to go to hell, or even deliver that awful Dick Cheney line! ;)

A final note: are you also wondering how they make a Caprese on a stick?

Get ready for a year-long GOP rendition of the Mahabharata

I usually stay away from wasting spending my time blogging about the presidential election issues.  But, sometimes, like in this one, I yield to the temptation ;)

Next week, the Grand Old-People Party debates begin.  It is going to be wonderful theatre from the first minute of the first debate of the primaries next week all the way to the convention in mid-July next year.  Not that we have not been entertained until now; the Donald has pretty much made himself the entertainer-in-chief.

All the theatrics aside,on a substantive level, I am disappointed that Rand Paul has faded away already.  He contributed a great deal to the national (and international) discussions on the unconstitutional and secretive security apparatus, the presidential wars without Congressional approval, and a lot more which most other wimps senators did not want to address.

Even as his campaign struggles, many of his issues are doing surprisingly well—in fact, that’s a big part of the reason why Paul has struggled to define himself. The formerly indomitable Ex-Im bank has been vanquished, though perhaps it will return in another form; the N.S.A. has been reformed, though lightly; a “diplomatic solution” seems imminent in Iran, though of course people disagree about its effectiveness; criminal-justice reform has bipartisan momentum, though it may yet meet with resistance; politicians wishing to hamper companies like Uber are meeting stiff resistance, though they will keep trying. These are all tentative, partial, and temporary victories—but then, politics rarely offers any other kind. Rand Paul is struggling in the polls, but Paulism looks pretty healthy.

Paul could/should have easily convinced many in the GOP that he is a man of ideas and principles.  Yet, he has already fizzled away.  What gives?

The presidency is the Mahabharata of politics, an epic piece of theater for which serious stamina is required.

You have to love a sentence phrased that well, right?

That essay argues that the likes of Rand Paul never can make it:

what voters truly want are candidates with permanent front-stage personalities — people with a polished public persona, who actually believe their performing selves, to the point that they play those people even in private. Bill Clinton, for instance. He believes himself at all times, even when he’s lying, and he’s the same fellow in a stadium of 40,000 and a private card game of four. Reagan was the same way (indeed, his private self was so elusive that poor Edmund Morris had to fictionalize the biography he ultimately wrote of him, even though he’d gained unprecedented access to Reagan’s aides and diaries). Even Obama fits this definition. He's just as measured in private as in public, and just as professorial. He didn't earn the nickname "no drama Obama" for nothing. ...
If front-stage characters are whom we elect, Rand Paul, the polar opposite, would inevitably have to go.

My favorite Libertarian-Democrat public-intellectual, Camille Paglia sums it up well:

As a libertarian, I find myself agreeing with Rand Paul on so many different social and political issues. Unfortunately, however, Paul lacks gravitas as a physical presence. The U.S. presidency has a highly ceremonial aspect.  The president isn’t merely a prime minister, a political leader–he’s the symbolic embodiment of the nation. Therefore, physical attributes and vocal style are very important.  Despite the cartoons that caricature and ridicule him as a befuddled boy with big ears, Obama has always known how to handle himself as a candidate and then president. He projects a sober, unflappable confidence and presents himself with elegance and grace–all of which produced his success early on, when Hillary was the frontrunner in 2008.  Many Americans were so sick of Bush, with that lumbering cowboy stance of his.  And remember that terrible moment at a European summit when Bush came up behind the seated Angela Merkel and grabbed her by the shoulders?  She jumped out of her skin.  What an embarrassment to the nation! 

Exactly!

I am with Paglia about the Republican candidate that the liberals are not worrying enough about: Scott Walker.  Let us see if he will have the gravitas to brush off the rest.

Quote of the day, on the GOP presidential candidates

Compared with past commanders-in-chief, the motto of the current Republican candidates is simple: don’t know, don’t care.  

The "don't know, don't care" is a play, I presume, on that old joke, "what is the difference between ignorance and apathy?"

Anyway, that quote is from Daniel Drezner, who, in his own words is "a Republican in Name Only."

What an atrocious joke on the American and world population most of the current GOP candidates are.  Well, perhaps with the exception of John "no chance of winning anything" Huntsman.

Drezner again:

The Grand Old Party candidates’ current thinking on foreign affairs is a noxious mixture of cowardice, belligerence, ignorance — and, unfortunately, political savvy. 

Yep.

Ethanol producer files for bankruptcy

If Iowa were not the first state in the presidential primary process, then there is a very strong possibility that corn-based ethanol would be a non-story here in the US. If this Wikipedia entry is correct, then we have the Democrats to thank for making Iowa so doggone important at the expense of pretty much every other state in the union!

Iowa is the largest grower of corn; the Iowa Corn Promotion Board points out that "Iowa has produced the largest corn crop of any state for each of the past 14 years. In an average year, Iowa produces more corn than most whole countries." Funny how there is no mention of government subsidies among the reasons for one of the FAQ: Why is corn Iowa's leading crop?

So, it is a no-brainer that the largest corn producing state, which is also the first in the presidential primary process, will then have politicians lining up one after another to sing the virtues of corn-based ethanol. Even a couple of years ago, Slate, one of my favorite go-to-sites, had a fantastic piece on the godawful ethanol subsidies. Slate is no right-wing nut case site, and in fact its people consistently are pro-Democratic presidential candidates. (This year, almost everybody there, but two, is pro-Obama.) BTW, right-wing nutcases also hate the subsidies, and Cato is one such example.

Well, one of the ethanol producers is bankrupt, despite all the subsidies! The NY Times reports that:

The VeraSun Energy Corporation, which accounts for roughly 7 percent of ethanol production capacity in the United States, announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Friday.

Want more on how corn and ethanol feature(d) in this 2008 elections? Click here for details.