Fattening Up The Menu

In just about every city around the country, Tuesday was Election Day to one degree or another. It wasn't one of the big national elections, mostly just mayors and councilmen types with a few governors thrown in for good measure.

Like the good American I am, I went out and did my civic duty. Afterward, I joined all my fellow good Americans at the Chinese buffet restaurant, where we sat around in large groups and griped about the available candidates for office. At one point, an analogy was drawn between the paucity of qualified candidates and the scarcity of really good steamed dumplings at Chinese buffets. It was about then that I left. That's just one of my rules: when finger foods start cropping up in political discussions, it's time to go. All that is of import has been said, and further discourse is just inviting trouble.

I was fondly remembering the buffet Thursday at lunch, while enjoying a fine basket of fishlike objects fried to a golden brown obtained from my local Long John Silver's when I came across a news item that frightened me to such an extent that I was completely unable to finish the toasty goodness of my hush puppies.

It seems that our friends the Food Police, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, have gotten themselves a couple of pet legislators and, according to the news story, they're pushing for all chain restaurants to be forced to post nutritional information on their menus.

On the surface of it, this seems innocuous enough. In fact, every McDonald's and Burger King I've been in lately already has posters up with various levels of nutritional information.

However, give it the weight of law and the snowball begins to roll. Before long, the mom and pop burger joint down the street will have jackbooted nutrition shock troops kicking down the kitchen door and demanding the chicken fried steak recipe at gunpoint. OK, maybe at Salad Shooter-point, but you get the idea. These are not the kind of people we want writing laws, folks. Period.

Let the CSPI and their legislative shills, Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Tom Harkin, have their way this time and pretty soon you'll be paging through a 200-page menu at the Olive Garden trying to find a plate of spaghetti.

And into the fray, like a jowly buzzard floating over a particularly tasty roadkill, oozes John Banzhaf, a law professor who teaches a class nicknamed "Sue the Bastards." He's not terribly quick to the punch, as others of his ilk have already run through a couple of rounds of futile lawsuits agains the fast food companies, attempting to sue them for making weak-minded gobblers overweight.

Proclaiming that "fat suits" could be the next tobacco, Banzhaf's pushing the notion that fat is as addictive as nicotine ... that somehow Wendy's and Philip Morris occupy the same circle of hell. As a former smoker and a current person of sizable girth, I can speak to the utter fallacy of this notion.

When I was smoking, there was nothing in the world, save my marriage, more important to me than those lovely little cylinders full of menthol-flavored carcinogens. I would forgo a sack of my beloved Doritos with my sandwich at lunch so I'd have time for an extra cigarette. I'd pound down my breakfast to ensure I'd have time for one last cigarette before I started work for the day. Nicotine tweaked and plucked my brain strings like no Twinkie ever could. Only someone who's never been a smoker and quit could take such an idiotic stance as Banzhaf.

But enough of that. Let's see what other oddments are toddling about on the fringes of consciousness this week.

Vote Or Die

Tyrone Smith thought he had won a council seat in the small town of Ocilla, Ga., but a time-of-death determination on one of the 130 folks to cast a vote has forced a runoff.

The original vote count was 65-64, with one absentee ballot being rejected because the voter had gone to that great voting booth in the sky. However, when it was determined that she had not gone to her maker until after the polls had opened, her ballot was opened and counted, forcing the runoff.

I guess it beats Chicago, where my friends tell me dead folks have been voting for YEARS.

Burnt Wienie Truckwich

There were no buns, mustard or ketchup to be found when an impromptu wienie roast broke out on an Iowa freeway.

A tractor-trailer hauling 44,000 pounds of Oscar Mayer turkey franks caught fire, and by the time fire crews could get the flames tapped out, the dogs were just slightly well-done. Rumors that the face of Frank Zappa could be seen in the smoke over the conflagration have not been confirmed.

This is what happens when you take something wholesome and uniquely tasty like a hot dog and try to make it more healthy. Nature abhors a turkey dog, and so do all true 'dog devotees.

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