Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 283, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 15, 2009 Page: 2 of 6
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PaRe 4 ■ Thursday, October 15, 2009
DEDICATED TO PROUDLY DELIVERING LOCAL NEWS SINCE 1881
-i—v Sweetwater 1
Reporter
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Sweetwater, Texas 79556
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EDITORIAL POLICY
The editorial section of the newspaper is a forum for
expression of a variety of viewpoints. All articles except
those labeled “Editorials” reflect the opinions of the writ-
ers and not those of the Sweetwater Reporter.
GUEST COLUMN
Weary of culinary
spectacle, spending
and sport
I must be the only "foodie" who didn't love "Julie
& Julia," the movie about Julia Child and the office
worker she inspired, Julie Powell. Am l allowed?
And even though I grow heirloom beans and patron-
ize local cheese makers, I remain dry-eyed over the
imminent closing of Gourmet magazine. Put bluntly,
I'm fed up with the transformation of the culinary'
arts into spectacle, spending and sport. For that,
Julia Child and Gourmet share some
! i |)lanK,
^H|^H The Julia Child fan back off.
l liked her and ha\e spent hours peel
ing pearl onions per het directions.
HP Every Julia recipe I’ve done has turned
H / AD out great. And l commend her for
bringing fine cooking into American
J homes when so many recipes started
with "Open a can of Campbell's cream
Frnma mushroom soup."
rfullRI "Julie & Julia" is the usual Nora
Harrop Ephron movie, which means it boings
the heartstrings with a much-trampled
plot in which romance only grows and
every good person's dreams come true. But the movie
did capture the hard-edged side of the Julia Child
enterprise.
There's that memorable scene at Le Cordon Bleu
cooking school in Paris, where she’s violently break-
ing eggs to compete with the male students. Cooking
is more marathon than muse, as reflected in young
Julie's determination to make everything in Child's
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking" within one
year.
As a professional Belgian chef told me, Child wasn't
really a culinary original. She basically copied the
classic French recipes and popularized them for an
American audience. Nothing wrong with the classic
French dishes. The standards in the Great American
Songbook are also wonderful creations. But the piano
instructor who teaches someone to play "Stardust"
didn't invent the song.
Julia Child's success on TV led to phenomena like j
the Food Network — a 24-hour loop of cooking shows j
where actual food preparation often takes a backseat
to celebrities and their antics. You end up with "Iron
Chef," where famous male chefs run around a sta-
dium, flashing their knives and employing a theme
ingredient as the clock ticks down. The scallops might
as well be hockey pucks.
Gourmet first appeared in January 1941, a year i
that ended with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The food
rationing of World War II had little impact on its reci-
pes. (Gourmet told readers to save the issues for when
rationing ended.)
Gourmet specialized in the high life, with it: lustrous
descriptions of cafe society and old-guard reverence
for French everything. Gourmet was about canapes, :
crown roasts and champagne dinners for two on New
Year's Eve. It was for epicures with money or do-it-
yourselfers who wanted to recreate their pleasures.
There was a charming feature called Gastronomic
sans argent, which means "fine eating without
money." These articles never stinted in their use of
fussy French phrases or mentioned anything's price
- they just had fancy-sounding recipes in which the
ingredients weren't expensive.
In recent years, Gastronomic sans argent disap-
peared, as had Gourmet's meal of the month, a fan-
tastical soup-to-nuts feast that nearly anyone with no
day job could do. Gourmet became less about cooking
and more about spending. It grew heavy with articles
on luxury travel and expensive ways to eat out.
People who wanted recipes but a little more panache
than Rachael Kay moved to Conde Nast's other food
magazine, Bon Appetit. I was part of that migration
along with other tired foodies, weary of celebrity chefs
and scavenger hunts for the world's best persimmon
pudding.
We just want to dine well in our own space. And we
want the bounty of the land to be treated with a cer-
tain amount of dignity. Are we allowedv
To find oat marc about Fromu llarrop, ami read
features by other Creators Syndicate writers and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
Sweetwater Reporter
TEXAS TIMES
The best prescription for health care reform
This week the Senate
Finance Committee held
a key vote on health care
reform, but more
work remains to be
done. Like most
Texans, I believe
that our health
care system needs
reform. Millions of
families have seen
the cost of their
private insurance
skyrocket. Many
are worried about
losing their cov-
erage altogether.
Seniors are con-
cerned about the
future of Medicare.
Texans have told me that
they want to keep the cov-
erage they have, and don't
want Washington to make
things even worse.
1 believe health care
reform should focus on
lowering costs, which have
more than doubled over
the past decade. We can
lower costs by realigning
incentives for providers, so
they focus on value instead
of volume. We can create
incentives for patients to
make healthier choices.
We can reform the pri-
vate insurance market in
every state to encourage
greater competition and
more choices, without
denying anyone coverage
because of a pre-existing
condition. We can lower
costs by cutting
waste, fraud, and
abuse in our cur-
rent entitlement
programs. And we
can reduce costly
defensive medi-
cine by reforming
our medical liabil-
ity laws like we’ve
done in Texas.
The bill we voted
out of the Finance
Committee, unfor-
tunately, will only
increase costs for
everyone. The
nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office said it will
cost $829 billion, but when
it’s fully implemented, the
Senate Budget Committee
estimates the real cost to
be $i.H trillion. Either
wav, it would still leave 25
million Americans unin-
sured, impose billions of
dollars in new taxes and
mandates, and cut more
than $400 billion from
Medicare. It would take
away Medicare Advantage
benefits from seniors,
and make Medicaid the
only option for 14 million
Americans.
The bill also imposes
hidden costs on states. The
Texas Health and Human
Services Commission esti-
mates that the bill would
cost Texas more than $20
billion over 10 years, and
add 2.5 million Texans
to Medicaid. That would
mean billions in new state
taxes, or draconian cuts
in education, law enforce-
ment, and other Texas
priorities. According to
one survey, 91 percent of
Texans who buy insurance
in the individual market
will see their premiums go
up, because Washington
will force them to buy
more expensive policies.
The debate on health
care reform will soon
move to the Senate floor,
where my colleagues and 1
will continue to offer bet-
ter alternatives. We will
fight to protect Medicare
Advantage, and eliminate
the Medicare panel that
would empower bureau-
cratstomakecoveragedeci
sions. We support reform-
ing Medicaid, before forc-
ing more Americans into
it. We want to lower costs
on small businesses, and
enact meaningful medical
liability reform. We want
to ensure that President
Obama keeps his promises
to the American people,
including those related to
keeping what you have,
taxes on the middle class,
federal funding of abor-
tions, and benefits to ille-
gal immigrants.
Republicans will also
continue working with
our colleagues to ensure a
more transparent process,
because Texans deserve to
know the details on what
health care reform will
mean for them. I cannot
support legislation rushed
through Congress without
giving our people a chance
to know what's in it.
Democracy demands that
government be account-
able to the people, and
government that is open
and honest can deliver
better solutions. I will
continue working toward
better solutions on health
care reform, and ensure
that your voice is heard.
Sen. Cornyn serves on
the Finance, Judiciary,
Agriculture, and Budget
Committees. He serves
as the top Republican on
the Judiciary Committee's
Immigration, Refugees
and Border Security sub-
committee. He served pre-
viously as Texas Attorney
General, Texas Supreme
Court.Justice, and Bexar
County District Judge.
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GUEST COLUMN
The promise of peace
OK, so President Barack
Obama hasn't accom-
plished enough to be
awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize under the conven-
tional approach.
There is, no doubt,
some courageous
political prisoner
somewhere in the
world who has been
in home confinement
for decades fighting
a repressive and dic-
tatorial regime and
deserves it more.
Granted.
The thing is, though,
I didn't hear too many
of the world's politi-
cal prisoners, or their
advocates, denouncing the
choice of Obama. What
I heard, l md and clear,
were the president's critics
- the people who disagree
with him on things like the
economy and health care
and whether he should
be president in the first
place — using the award of
the Nobel Prize as part of
their daily attack points.
The president handled
the unexpected award
with grace, saying that he
would accept it on behalf
of American values and
for everyone who strives
for dignity and justice.
The president's critics
handled the unexpected
award with no grace at all,
and not much patriotism,
either.
Nobel Prize purists
may take offense at the
idea that the committee
was trying to support the
president's efforts to pur
sue diplomacy as the path
to peace, but why should
conservative Americans
care?
For a change, the world
is on our side, rooting for
our president's success,
eager to bolster his stand-
ing in the world in the
hopes of fur-
thering his and
our mission.
For a change,
the American
president is
popularabroad;
foreign lead-
ers are eager to
be associated
with him. This
is bad? This is
something to
be suppressed?
Not in my
book.
My guess is that most
Americans don't care one
way or the other about
the president getting the
Peace Prize. With double-
digit unemployment, it's
hard to care about where
the Olympics will be held
in the next decade or
who stands on the stage
in Stockholm. Symbols
don't count for much in
tough times. A few points
of unemployment for the
Nobel Prize would be an
easy trade. The president
himself would probably
take that deal.
But it wouldn't satisfy
his critics. Nothing, it
appears, will. If they are
willing to attack the Nobel
Committee for having the
audacity to support our
president's agenda in the
world, who or what won't
they attack?
Free speech, open debate
and, yes, even vicious
criticism are essential ele-
ments in a democracy. I
will defend to the death
the right of the president's
critics to say whatever
they want about him, so
long as they do not incite
violence. But the fact that
you have a right to criti-
cize doesn't mean that's
what you should get up
and do every morning,
using whatever tinder you
can find to make the fire
bigger.
President Bush's sup-
porters used to complain,
with reason, that by the
end of his term, there was
nothing the president
could do that wouldn't
be ridiculed by bis critics.
Too many liberals-didn't
just disagree with the
president; they hated him.
t nd that hate got in the
way of the respect even
American should have for
our president, whoever it
is. My conservative read-
ers constantly remind me
of this. They are right. But
it's no excuse for doing the
same thing to President
Obama, and it's making
us look more than a little
foolish to a world com-
munity that is trying to
help us.
If you couldn't care
less about who gets the
Nobel Peace Prize, I
totally understand. II the
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dissident had won, most
of us would have forgot-
ten his or her name by
now. What's troubling
is not that many people
don't care a whit about the
Nobel Prize and even see
it as a distraction. What's
troubling is the loud and
vicious criticism from
those who seem to care
very much for reasons
that can only be explained
In their opposition to all
things Obama — even the
promise of peace.
To find out more
about Susan Estrieh and
read features by other
('reutors Syndicate writ-
ers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators Syndicate
website at www.creators.
com.
Correction Policy
Editorial;
As a matter of policy, the
Sweetwater Reporter will
publish corrections of errors
in fact that have been print-
ed in the newspaper.
The corrections will be
made as soon as possible
after the error has been
brought to the attention of
the newspaper’s editor at
236-6677.
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Rodriguez, Tatiana. Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 283, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 15, 2009, newspaper, October 15, 2009; Sweetwater, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth561843/m1/2/?q=%22~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sweetwater/Nolan County City-County Library.