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April 5, 2007Dick Meyer & the Scolds of Kabuki Life - UPDATEDGrab your knives and forks because the nattering nabobs of nagging are narrowing their negativity on a last nook of nicety: eating in restaurants. Self-appointed guardians of the public girth famously banned Satanic trans fats from being served in the People’s Republic of New York City. Nutrient nags also forced some restaurants to add nutritional information to the menus. Now Washington, D.C. and a host of other cities, states and penal colonies want to get into the nutritional nanny-state business. Please Dionysus, god of wine and pleasure, let them fail. If a wrestler, rapper or high school talent show gagster went public as the Hebrew Hercules, the soldiers of the professionally offended would storm the airwaves. We can’t take a joke anymore. We’ve been hit on the nose by the scolders too often. [...] These are just teasing little excerpts from a wicked good essay - packed with humor and substance - by CBS’ Dick Meyer. He has about had it with the Nanny State and those who seem to find deep meaning (or some personal satisfaction) in the dubiously effective “Kabuki theater” of Public Scolding. I don’t particularly have a problem with nutritional information in menus…they don’t hurt anyone and may help many, but I agree with Meyer that things are getting out of hand. My Auntie Lillie would have loved this piece. She once attended a ladies luncheon and found herself seated next to a woman who deplored my aunt’s polite inquiry as to whether one might order a glass of wine with her meal. “Well, really,” the woman said disapprovingly, “wine in the middle of the day!” “Aye,” said Auntie Lillie said to the waiter, “beer would be better, let’s have one of those, then.” Auntie said later that she made a point of drinking her beer with her pinky extended, “so Mrs. Gotrocks wouldn’t think me unmannered, the tiresome auld fool! And wasn’t it a trial, havin’ to look at her drooping jowls and sour puss over the rim every time I tipped the glass? Put me right off my feed, she did. It’s a happy thing that a good brew is nutritious!” I wonder what The Scolds would have thought of Auntie Lillie’s favorite treatment for my frequent bouts of childhood tonsillitis; she’d make me a hot toddy liberally dosed with a fine single malt whiskey and hand it to me with a fond chuck under the chin, “there now, throw that across yer chest, dearie, and you’ll sweat yerself right by mornin’.” Always worked, too. After you’ve read Meyer’s column, don’t forget to read the comments, in which we watch Meyer get fingers wagged at him by folks who don’t even seem to realize that The Scold has become their primary means of communication. It’s chock full of rich irony in a fairly anemic age. And what do you want to make a bet that the Hebrew Hercules (who lived to be 101, recall) lived and died his century while happily munching away on hot pastrami and chicken livers? UPDATE: All levity aside, this piece by the great Theodore Dalrymple gives you a good sense of where all of this Nanny Stating will lead, as per England, 2007. An excerpt: The latest mad - and extremely bad, vicious, totalitarian - proposal by Mr Blair is that every British child should be screened for criminal tendencies before they have developed. Once the statistical stigmata have been discovered, the child will be handed over to the experts who will carry out their ‘interventions’ to prevent further criminalisation. The state, in short, will repair the damage that the social structure that it has so assiduously fostered and encouraged over the last few decades has done. This would all be beyond satire if it were not for the fact that Mr Blair and his government takes it seriously. Mr Blair is always on the lookout, not for new worlds to conquer, but for new worlds to poke his nose into and to ruin, or ruin further. You have to start somewhere. Here in America, we started by telling you that no matter what sort of clientele your pub wished to cater to, you couldn’t cater to a smoker. We’re already busily moving forward. http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/04/05/dick-meyer-the-scolds-of-kabuki-life/trackback/ 9 Responses to “Dick Meyer & the Scolds of Kabuki Life - UPDATED” |
April 5th, 2007 at 11:36 am
“Scolding the scolds”…
I hate to see the US going in the direction of the UK, with government nannies all over the place telling us what to do and how to live. It is not dignified, for adult humans, to put up with such nonsense fro politicians, who are the last people on the…
April 5th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Aunt Lillie !!!
April 5th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
[...] Anchoress points us to an essay by CBS’s Dick Meyers about “the scolds” and discusses Terrorism on Ten Speeds in San Francisco. I am so glad this “ride” did [...]
April 5th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I found this elsewhere, but it’s pertinent:
After an exhaustive review of the research literature, here’s the final word on nutrition and health.:
1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
3. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
4. Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
5. Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
Conclusion: eat and drink what you like. Speaking english is apparently what kills you.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Aunt Lillie’s cure for tonsillitis sounds about the same as my German-American Grandma: hot water, honey, lemon juice, and a serious slug of (usually Christian Brothers) brandy.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
This is between you and me, Anchoress, but my husband and I always gave the wee bairns “weird” tea (and still do) and they’ve grown up to be strapping, healthy, beautiful, well adjusted adults.
I completely and totally believe that the reason we Americans have such a problem is that we have forgotten to give thanks for our food and drink and enjoy it as God intended.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Not necesarily true, anchoress- the fat cats still have their cigar bars;-). It’s only the cheap tobaccy for the masses that have been banned!
I’m with March Hare-I used to get honey, whiskey and lemon too. Now it’s all in the cough syrup! I mean, have you read the ingredients on the back of a bottle on Nyquil????
April 9th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I think this would give George Orwell pause! Yeesh!
Nothing like Socialists for believing they have all the answers.
June 4th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
[...] Helen on a book whose time has come. Somewhat related, why this nannystate-ism makes us less free. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Dept. of Anchoress Never Need Write on Faith Again: because this guy does it so well. Dept. of [...]