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Hi-Ho, the Derry-O

By Dana Milbank
Friday, September 18, 2009



Let's say you're preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don't have any certified organic Tuscan kale. What to do?

Here's how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon:

The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station. They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks. Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.

Then, and only then, could Obama purchase her leafy greens. "Now it's time to buy some food," she told several hundred people who came to watch. "Let's shop!"

Cowbells were rung. Somebody put a lei of marigolds around Obama's neck. The first lady picked up a straw basket and headed for the "Farm at Sunnyside" tent, where she loaded up with organic Asian pears, cherry tomatoes, multicolored potatoes, free-range eggs and, yes, two bunches of Tuscan kale. She left the produce with an aide, who paid the cashier as Obama made her way back to the limousine.

There's nothing like the simple pleasures of a farm stand to return us to our agrarian roots.

The first lady had encouraged Freshfarm Markets, the group that runs popular farmers markets in Dupont Circle and elsewhere, to set up near the White House, and she helped get the approvals to shut down Vermont Avenue during rush hour on Thursdays. But the result was quite the opposite of a quaint farmers market. Considering all the logistics, each tomato she purchased had a carbon footprint of several tons.

The promotion of organic and locally grown food, though an admirable cause, is a risky one for the Obamas, because there's a fine line between promoting healthful eating and sounding like a snob. The president, when he was a candidate in 2007, got in trouble in Iowa when he asked a crowd, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" Iowans didn't have a Whole Foods.

For that reason, it's probably just as well that the first lady didn't stop by the Endless Summer Harvest tent yesterday. The Virginia farm had a sign offering "tender baby arugula" –– hydroponically grown, pesticide free –– and $5 for four ounces, which is $20 a pound.

Obama, in her brief speech to the vendors and patrons, handled the affordability issue by pointing out that people who pay with food stamps would get double the coupon value at the market. Even then, though, it's hard to imagine somebody using food stamps to buy what the market offered: $19 bison steak from Gunpowder Bison, organic dandelion greens for $12 per pound from Blueberry Hill Vegetables, the Piedmont Reserve cheese from Everson Dairy at $29 a pound. Rounding out the potential shopping cart: $4 for a piece of "walnut dacquoise" from the Praline Bakery, $9 for a jumbo crab cake at Chris's Marketplace, $8 for a loaf of cranberry-walnut bread and $32 for a bolt of yarn.

The first lady said the market would particularly appeal to federal employees in nearby buildings to "pick up some good stuff for dinner." Yet even they might think twice about spending $3 for a pint of potatoes when potatoes are on sale for 40 cents a pound at Giant. They could get nearly five dozen eggs at Giant for the $5 Obama spent for her dozen.

But whatever the socioeconomics, there can be no doubt that Obama brought some serious attention to her cause. Hundreds of people crowded the market entrance on I Street as police directed pedestrians to alternative subway entrances. Hundreds braved a light rain and gave a hearty cheer when Obama and her entourage took the stage. "I can't imagine there's been a day in the history of our country when people have been more excited about farmers markets," Mayor Adrian Fenty, Obama's warm-up act, told the crowd.

The first lady, in gray slacks and blue sweater, marveled that the people were "so pumped up" despite the rain. "I have never seen so many people so excited about fruits and vegetables!" she said. (Must be the tender baby arugula.)

She spoke of the global reach of her cause: "The first thing world leaders, prime ministers, kings, queens ask me about is the White House garden. And then they ask about Bo."

She spoke of the fuel fed to the world's most powerful man: "I've learned that when my family eats fresh food, healthy food, that it really affects how we feel, how we get through the day . . . whether there's a Cabinet meeting or whether we're just walking the dog."

And she spoke of her own culinary efforts: "There are times when putting together a healthy meal is harder than you might imagine."

Particularly when it involves a soundstage, an interpreter for the deaf, three TV satellite trucks and the closing of part of downtown Washington.

What a waste of money, why not send someone else to pick that shit up?

She's just ultra-high maintenance.  She couldn't stoop to eating common food.

LOL, the USDA certified organic frozen vegetables at the local supermarket were all grown in China.  The "organic" label means exactly dick.

I'm not gonna lie, our family drinks organic milk (Horizon), but other than that we don't care for other organic foods. With that said, if she feels it's good for her and her family, then who am I to complain?

This

and snobbery to answer to the OP

She does not want to be poisoned by whitey.Ask Van Jones-he'll tell you.

What happened to her garden?  Did she forget to grow anything other than her acre of ass?

This.  People who eat organic, organic, organic make me LOL



 

It was growing in lead-contaminated soil.  Seriously.

She just knows that whitey poisons most mass produced food in order to keep the brothers down.

It means she's ignorant.  Anyone who insists on "organic" food hasn't done their homework.

I do too.

My reasons aren't due to it being organic, but due to the milk lasting much longer than the plastic gallon stuff.

Chinese "organic fertilizer".

Hmmmmm...

Not a comforting thought.

This is what happens when you cross Chewie with Jar-Jar Binks!

Just think what could be done with the money this bunch of low lifes waste

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=929755

I have to wonder WHY she's shopping.

Seriously...doesn't the White House have a Chef and stewards to do the serving?

Yep:




Now...one article mentions that "Like previous presidents, the Obamas will pay their own grocery bill"....however, buying Organic Weeds and Free Range Chickens is all well and good....if the Chef calls the market and says "deliver 1 lb Kale and 2 Chickens" or sends someone to buy the stuff and the Obamas pay for that....but when they SHUT DOWN a street, send HUGE numbers of staff/security and then she picks the stuff out (and a member of her staff pays for it)...it is purely and simply a Photo Op.

AFARR

I'm sitting on an effing GOLD MINE, I tell you.

I may phone my resignation in tomorrow.

Prediction- the next "right". A free range chicken in every pot.

A snobbery?  

Michelle Antoinette.  

Fuck that cunt.

I hope she chokes to death on an organic carrot and takes her Kenyan husband with her.

If she is an example, I would guess organic food causes freakish abnormalities!

As all recent past Presidential families did.



Just a bit egotistic

Whole Foods is right down the road from me so it just so happens that about 75% of my pantry is organic.

+1

 

Shit is organic.

I was thinking the same thing- bitch thinks they're royalty now.

Dupe at least two times....


http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=929312



http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=929755

Umm.....they ARE royalty.

well, due to their own actions, anything they do is viewed as a publicity stunt

Does anyone see the humor in a smoker like BHO, enjoying an organic meal with his wife?

Part of the Bullshit! episode regarding organic foods.

Penn and Teller's Bullshit

You mean the fact that the Obamas are millionaires and the President pays for his and his own families' food out of pocket?

How about stupidity?  If the world was limited to "organic" foods more than half the population of the world would starve.

Organic = Buzzword to help sell shit to smug holier than thou types

I call all the Organic Food Stores around here, "Go Broke Food Stores".

Over priced food for little to no benefit.

Much like driving the Toyota Pious , it is more about FEELING superior to other people, rather then being a better person.

ENLIGHTENED ELITE SNOBBERY

You hit the nail on the head with that.  She and Marie are the two most prime examples I've seen of living large at the same time being totally out of connection with the people you're governing.



 

It's better than eating all of that fried food like the cig smoking fat asses in the south.  The South officially has the worst health/highest obesity around.  If someone wants to eat Organic food so be it...who cares which country the food comes from...I see nothing wrong with eating healthy and taking care of ones body.

He
was talking about the circus involved in shutting down the entire area
and showing up in a convoy of armored vehicles.  The tax payers spent several tens of thousands of dollars in order to get her to the market so she could buy ~$100 in groceries.



 

Same here, but you know the type- the orgnaic food snobs.  Really turned me off when I first started going there (b/c it's only a couple blocks and I don't have to drive).  But now, I just pretty much ignore those people.

...Not to mention all the business that the merchants in that area miss out on during the lockdown.

Maybe he smokes ORGANIC tobacco?

The kind that isn't fertilized with dangerous chemicals, but with fecal matter –– because doo-doo is organic!

eta –– Snobbery.  This thread needs more poll.

eta again ––- So, what's the opinion of the elite who insist upon only organic foods regarding hunting?  Since it involves harvesting meat that has eaten only foods grown in nature, surely they must be prolific hunters, yes?

+1

 

Organic food is no more healthy than non-organic. Additionally, much of organic branded food in the US comes from China.

I suggest you watch Penn & Teller's episode of Bullshit! on Organic Foods. LINK

Sasqautch

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Neither.  She's simply pandering to the leftist hippy types.



It just a way for her to stand up and say "Hey everybody, look at me, look at me.  I care about the environment and love mother earth, just like you."





Unfortunately, none of them will see that her "trip" to the organic market with a fleet of SS vehicles was worse for the environment than sending one person to buy dinner at the regular market.