Los Angeles City Council endorses 'meatless Mondays'

[Just Me]

As more and more smokers quit due to the exorbitant taxes, governments will look for new ways to make up the the tax revenue they are used to getting. Do not be surprised when more taxes are put on "junk" food. All in the guise of public health. I can't say I disagree with the taxes because education is surely not working.

 

[Rose]

As more and more smokers quit due to the exorbitant taxes, governments will look for new ways to make up the the tax revenue they are used to getting. Do not be surprised when more taxes are put on "junk" food. All in the guise of public health. I can't say I disagree with the taxes because education is surely not working.

Actually for the first time in a long time, salads are cheaper at Kroger than Pringles are. Pringles are usually $2+ a can and the store brand semi decent pre-made salads were usually $3+ each. The new 'permanent' price for salads was down to $1.50 a bag and Pringles were $1.99 on sale. If they're taxing junk foods, I say all for it. Maybe it will make my favorite fruits and veggies go on sale more and I'd be pretty damn happy about that.

 

[AmberCutie]

I vaguely remember a place in LA, California that had a 54 inch square pizza pie. I never understood the Ranch dressing thing either, especially on hot wings. If you don't want hot, hot wings, don't order them spicy hot.

Governments have run out of things to tax, so they say they're doing it for your own good. BS!

France is trying to impose a fatty tax.

I think it may be Big Mammas & Papas Pizza. They're all over LA and have HUGE pizzas.

 

[Jupiter551]

France is trying to impose a fatty tax.

The amount of anti-French crap posted after that article makes me feel queasy. Personally I've liked every French person I've ever met. Is this seriously all because they wouldn't go to war in Iraq, even though most Americans now even consider that a huge blunder? Do those guys not realise that France actually gave troops, money, naval assets etc to America in 1776? lol
I'm just shocked I've been noticing lately how much the American media hates France and talks about them in a way that, if it was related to skin colour, would be called flat-out racist.

 

[Shaun__]

France is trying to impose a fatty tax.

The amount of anti-French crap posted after that article makes me feel queasy. Personally I've liked every French person I've ever met. Is this seriously all because they wouldn't go to war in Iraq, even though most Americans now even consider that a huge blunder? Do those guys not realise that France actually gave troops, money, naval assets etc to America in 1776? lol
I'm just shocked I've been noticing lately how much the American media hates France and talks about them in a way that, if it was related to skin colour, would be called flat-out racist.

They represent the European socialist lifestyle that has been demonized in this country. Plus they are often considered to be rude to tourists. My grandmother came from France after WWII, and all the French people I have met have been relatives visiting the US on vacation. They all seemed to be very nice people.

 

[Red7227]

France is trying to impose a fatty tax.

The amount of anti-French crap posted after that article makes me feel queasy. Personally I've liked every French person I've ever met. Is this seriously all because they wouldn't go to war in Iraq, even though most Americans now even consider that a huge blunder? Do those guys not realise that France actually gave troops, money, naval assets etc to America in 1776? lol
I'm just shocked I've been noticing lately how much the American media hates France and talks about them in a way that, if it was related to skin colour, would be called flat-out racist.

They represent the European socialist lifestyle that has been demonized in this country. Plus they are often considered to be rude to tourists. My grandmother came from France after WWII, and all the French people I have met have been relatives visiting the US on vacation. They all seemed to be very nice people.

I've been told that asking "do you speak Australian?" rather than "do you speak English?" will save you from a lot of it as an Australian tourist.

 

[Bocefish]

France is trying to impose a fatty tax.

The amount of anti-French crap posted after that article makes me feel queasy. Personally I've liked every French person I've ever met. Is this seriously all because they wouldn't go to war in Iraq

Some of it comes from the British. From the first years of the French Republic, Americans depicted France as everything the United States was not and did not wish to become. Alexander Hamilton said, “There is no real resemblance between what was the cause of America and what is the cause of France.” (He identified the former as liberty and the latter as licentiousness.) Still, much of our anti-French bias can be traced back to merry England, which had been fighting its cross-channel rival for centuries. Today, when American critics link a politician to France, they are exploiting a variety of long-held stereotypes, some of which are no longer accurate, and many of which were unfair to begin with. Nevertheless, the perceptions seem unshakeable.

Here are five of the most common anti-French sentiments, with a brief history of each:

The French are effeminate and cowardly. Americans inherited this stereotype from their British forebears. In the late 16th century, one Englishman derided the French language as “delicate but ouer nice, as a woman scarce daring to open her lipps for feare of marring her countenaunce.”

The caricature solidified during World War II, after German forces swept across the Maginot line and into Paris in a matter of weeks, and saw a resurgence when Jacques Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Colin Powell accused the French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine of “getting the vapors,” and John McCain said, “They remind me of an aging movie actress in the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it.” The most famous modern expression of this stereotype may come from The Simpsons’ Groundskeeper Willie, who in a 1995 episode called the French “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.”

The French are corrupt and lack idealism. Shortly after our independence, Americans were shocked by the XYZ affair, in which French diplomats tried to sell their influence to American envoys. Over time, Americans became so convinced of French corruption that they would believe even the most outrageous myths. During World War II, Hearst newspapers reported that the French government charged American soldiers rent for their battle trenches. Returning U.S. forces complained that French hoteliers and merchants had cheated them. Proponents of the 2003 Iraq invasion played heavily on this perception, arguing that Saddam Hussein had bought Chirac off with oil vouchers.

The French are too theoretical. There’s an old joke (PDF) in Washington about an international committee watching a new invention at work. While everyone else is impressed, the French commissioner worries, “It obviously works in practice, but will it work in theory?” The stereotype of the chin-scratching, navel-gazing Frenchman seems to have come over from Britain. In his 1793 book The Example of France as a Warning to Britain, Englishman Arthur Young celebrated the British “constitutional abhorrence of theory, of all trust in abstract reasoning.” It’s one of several similar statements, some of which date back to the mid-17th century.

France is elitist. The image of a snobbish ruling elite is most famously located in Marie Antoinette’s suggestion that the poor could ameliorate a bread shortage by consuming pastries. There’s also the apocryphal pronouncement by Louis XIV: “L'Etat, c'est moi (“I am the state”). Today, many senior government officials in France graduate from a single school, the École Nationale d'Administration. When American politicians accuse their opponents of having French sympathies, it’s usually code for elitism. John Kerry declined to give interviews in French during his 2004 campaign, and George H.W. Bush also avoided speaking French. Although both men are thought to speak the language relatively well, they were also dogged by the allegations of elitism.

France is collectivist, and doesn’t respect liberty. There’s a pointed contrast between the American ideal of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and the French motto “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” The French project has always put a strong emphasis on togetherness and a coherent political, social, and economic culture. Often, in policy debates, accusing a proposal of French-ness is a way of calling it socialist. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... ench_.html

 

[AmberCutie]

And this is how you turn "meatless Mondays" discussion into "anti-French people" discussion.

 

[Jupiter551]

Sorry, I know it was OT