Words fail me. I don’t even know what to say. On the one hand, I’m quite mystified that the person who wrote this story even felt that someone’s fucking BUILD is an important factor in selecting a president. Well there are certain situations that would matter. One is if he were too skinny, as in he were not healthy. That’s not the case. The other is if he were too fat, which is also not the case.
But what is Obama being pinned here with? He’s being accused of being too…HEALTHY!
CHRIST ON A FUCKING CRACKER!
The most annoying thing about all of this is that they want ot convey Obama’s health as something abnormal. And mabye it is, but it’s nothing that needs to be spread about like that.
Still it seems like a really weird, obscure crop for him to bring up instead of soybeans or corn. The main thing though is that in this case, he was talking about the idea of someone going to the store for the purpose of buying arugula. How many rural farmers would do that?
If Doctor J’s context is correct, I see nothing wrong with it. If it was in fact to say “hey, rich folks will pay a shitload for arugula - farmers should start growing it!” I can’t really complain about that.
Actually, no. I don’t know about the rest of the speech, but it makes a lot of sense for farmers to diversify where possible. There are a lot of disadvantages to growing just soybeans and corn, including being vulnerable to commodity price fluctuations and the environmental toll of monocrop culture.
I’m not sure that people in Iowa are quite as backwards as you’re implying. It’s hardly an exotic food these days.
Which pretty much has nothing to do with anything. He was under the impression that the audience could relate to going into a semi-ritzy store that doesn’t even exist in Iowa and buying the stuff. That’s what the quote is about.
Really, it’s okay to admit that Obama made a mistake. The world will not end.
I’d bet you that (at least before the Obama “controversy” about it) the number of people who aren’t into gourmet food and have ever even heard of the stuff is fairly small. I’ve somehow managed to go 30 years without anybody mentioning arugula in my presence and unless most Midwestern farmers spend their time associating with a far more urbane crowd than one would think, I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s not a frequent visitor to their dinner plates, either.
From the movie My Blue Heaven , starring Steve Martin and Richard Moranis, released in 1990. The lack of arugala was used as a example of how backwards and boring the the suburb Vinnie had been relocated to was. Clearly the writer expected the viewers to get the joke, but it was written by Nora Ephron, who may not have her finger on the pulse of the corn fed Iowans.
Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Antonelli: Arugula. I haven’t had arugula in six weeks.
Supermarket Manager: What’s that?
Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Antonelli: It’s a vegetable.
Whatever Obama’s intentions were, what he did would be the equivalent of giving a speech at a GM plant and saying, “you would not believe how smoothly my Maserati handles around the corners!” or telling a crowd of commercial fisherman about how fabulous the smoked Scottish salmon at Dean and Deluca’s is. It comes off as effete, even if it wasn’t his intention.
I agree with this. Not that it was some kind of major blunder on Obama’s part. These types of slip-ups are like when road-weary rock bands go onstage in Cleveland and scream “We love you, Detroit!”.
Hell, that quote’s over a year old. Meaningless. And without the context, even more meaningless. As for the rest, I kinda like the idea of my President being a better man than I am, at least by my standards. If Obama can stay fit during all this campaigning, that’s ok by me.
Farmers don’t buy vegetables in grocery stores, farmers sell vegetables in grocery stores. If arugula is expensive, the message isn’t “you’re all hicks,” it’s “go plant some arugula.”
So, let me get this straight. Obama assumed people in Iowa would know what he was talking about when he suggested they could make a profit planting arugala, because people pay through the nose for it in Whole Foods. You contend that they’re too backwater and ignorant to know what a Whole Foods is, and too stupid to figure it out from the context.
