Ted Kennedy: Thank You

Apparently only something this sad could pull me from my temporary blog hibernation: the death of Senator Edward Kennedy.

From as far as I remember, I have defended and lauded Ted Kennedy. For the most part, I had little idea why. I knew that 1) Ted Kennedy was proud to be a liberal and 2) so was I. And that was pretty much all it took. Our shared pride in being Democrats was enough to bind us in some imaginary tie. Oh and his kick ass accent and fun boozy stories. That definitely helped.

But as I prepare to start school again in two weeks (thus the self-imposed blog break), the real reasons why I shed a tear or two for Ted Kennedy this morning poke, no stab at me. Perhaps I need to write a list of issues he and both care about: health care, education, poverty rights.....nah, boring. Perhaps a Devil's Advocate statement about where Teddy (and Clinton and Obama) have fallen short as proof that progressive politics need to be reenergized? Nah, too....righteous and angry. So how about this?

Words from the man himself.

Tribute to Senator Robert F. Kennedy

Senator Edward M. Kennedy
St. Patrick's Cathedral
New York City
June 8, 1968

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/EMK/

"...Through no virtues and accomplishments of our own, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the United States under the most comfortable conditions. We, therefore, have a responsibility to others who are less well off."

This is what Robert Kennedy was given. What he leaves us is what he said, what he did and what he stood for. A speech he made to the young people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 sums it up the best, and I would read it now:

"There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere...."

"Our answer is to rely on youth - not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease....Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society."

This is why I teach.

Rest in Peace, Teddy. And Thank You.

I heart Michael Pollan and his food education ways

My coffee companion this morning? Michael Pollan's most recent NYT article: "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=1&em

As someone who loves to think about food, look at food, (sometimes) cook food, and of course eat food, his article definitely struck a nerve. His central point: We are watching food on TV far more than we are actually cooking it. The paradox is unsettling. We watch people chop and braise fresh food on Top Chef AS we chow down on microwave popcorn and lean cuisine. Cooking has become something glamorous, something fast and trendy, something other people do. And I totally agree: I don't watch Top Chef to learn how to prepare a mise en place, I watch it to judge and sometimes salivate over the contestants' uber food creations. And I definitely don't watch any of the "dump and stir" programs on the Food Network Pollan talks about. When over half of the ingredients Ray Ray uses on 30 Minute Meals are from a box/can/jar, what is "real" about the cooking going on?

So, you ask, what does this rant/review have to do with teaching, which is supposed to be the purpose of this blog? This: Food = Learning. It teaches us about culture, about family, about corporate greed. It shows us that eating well has become a social justice issue. If I teach my students that humans are meant to eat carrots and not cheetos I could fundamentally change what my students eat, and in doing so, shed a small light onto other injustices in their life. Learning that you have the right to eat well is a fact I want them to embrace. To own. To become really, really angry about. That's why, no matter if I teach English, Theater, Playwriting, what have you, the information that Michael Pollan so powerfully puts out into the world will be shared with my students.

On that note, here are some of the Pollanisms I will be thinking about as I watch Anthony Bourdain shove various amounts of tubed pork product into his gord tonight:

"The Food Network has helped to transform cooking from something you do into something you watch — into yet another confection of spectacle and celebrity that keeps us pinned to the couch" (4).

"We seem to be well on our way to turning cooking into a form of weekend recreation, a backyard sport for which we outfit ourselves at Williams-Sonoma, or a televised spectator sport we watch from the couch....But to relegate the activity of cooking to a form of play, something that happens just on weekends or mostly on television, seems much more consequential. The fact is that not cooking may well be deleterious to our health, and there is reason to believe that the outsourcing of food preparation to corporations and 16-year-olds has already taken a toll on our physical and psychological well-being" (7).

"...when we don’t have to cook meals, we eat more of them: as the amount of time Americans spend cooking has dropped by about half, the number of meals Americans eat in a day has climbed; since 1977, we’ve added approximately half a meal to our daily intake" (7).

"The more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity. In fact, the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force or income. Other research supports the idea that cooking is a better predictor of a healthful diet than social class: a 1992 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that poor women who routinely cooked were more likely to eat a more healthful diet than well-to-do women who did not" (7).