iAddict

I have an addiction. Like any other addiction, this one began quite innocently, and was even exciting for the first few months. Yet now I’m starting to resent the dependency, and I’m ready to wean myself back into normal life. I’m addicted to my iPhone.

Tech writers frequently poke fun at “Crackberry Addicts,” Blackberry phone users who cannot stop their thumbs from involuntarily sending short, unnecessary text messages to each other. That’s sissy stuff; a Blackberry addiction is nothing compared to a bona-fide iPhone obsession. At least most Blackberry users stop with text messages. We iPhone fanatics have to deal with Applications—the thousands of single-purpose computer programs available for iPhones, all of which Apple advertises without mentioning how Applications (Apps) are electronic forms of crack. After you’ve used one App, you cannot stop downloading and using others, no matter how superfluous they may be.

“There’s an App for that!” has become one of the most integral parts of Apple’s iPhone advertising campaign; it is the foremost feature that distinguishes the iPhone from other smart phones. Want to check your flight status by touching one button? There’s an App for that. Can’t choose a restaurant in a foreign country? There’s an App for that. Did you hear a great song in an elevator and you want to find it? There’s an App for that. In fact, there seems to be an App for almost anything, including a virtual Zippo lighter for concerts and a touch-screen game that involves popping plastic bubbles. Each of these Applications drops a small, multicolored icon onto the iPhone menu, and soon scrolling through the menu is like visiting a candy store.

Now I know the Apps seem like innocent productivity tools, but that’s the diabolical scheme: once you start using them, you can’t stop. It doesn’t matter where you are; as soon as you encounter a situation that remotely relates to an App, you’ve pulled out your iPhone, and your thumbs are furiously pecking away at the oversensitive touch screen. You may use a reference App—even though you’re standing in a library. Perhaps you choose to pull up the Bible—even though you’re in a church. Physical details don’t interfere with the mysterious bond between an iPhone screen and its user’s eyes.

The iPhone has elevated multitasking to new extremes. Now, when I have to download a large file from the Internet, I pull up another web site on my iPhone to pass the time. I sometimes research movie facts on IMDB while I’m still watching the movie. Thanks to unlimited text messages, I find myself locked into strings of badly spelled short sentences with my friends instead of just calling them and having real conversations. Patience may be a virtue, but it’s unnecessary with an iPhone. As long as I have a decent cell or WiFi connection, I can check trivia, e-mail, Facebook statuses, and almost anything else as soon as I want. At least we still have doctor offices to remind us how to wait forever.

I vaguely remember life before my iPhone. There were tall things called trees. We cut them down to make heavy things called books. Conversations involved calling and speaking to people, and my brain cells responsible for spelling words still functioned correctly. Video games involved pushing buttons that worked instead of tapping on a screen that doesn’t necessarily function correctly.

Of course, I don’t need to toss my iPhone into a garbage can to regain my former composure. I could just turn it off in theaters. I could force myself to call people instead of relying on the full keyboard for text messages. I could choose to get up and walk away from my computer while downloading big files instead of checking my Facebook notifications for the hundredth time that day. I could do a lot of things; but with so much information available at my fingertips, why bother? Perhaps one day soon, we’ll all be in tech rehab together.

©2009 Timothy Samaha. First published in PoV Magazine.

 

The Sky Was Falling

It’s reassuring to know our country narrowly escaped the end of the world last month. The Swine Flu epidemic (or “H1N1,” as Obama calls it to avoid offending pigs) threatened our health, children, and fast-food supplies; nothing was safe. According to TV stations, a Porky-Pig pandemic would consume the earth with a plague unseen since ancient Egypt, rendering the human race extinct. Considering how the flu originated in Mexico and first crossed into the Texan border, it was as if the ghost of Santa Anna were getting revenge for his “Remember-the-Alamo” defeat at the Battle of San Jacinto.

But we’re here. We’re alive. No one mutated into a monster; we didn’t need Will Smith to develop a vaccine for us. Some government leaders are accepting credit for conquering the swine flu, but they didn’t really do anything except tell us to wash our hands. That’s excellent hygiene advice; too bad it doesn’t stop people from coughing into your face.

The swine flu obviously wasn’t any more an epidemic than the regular flu, but it was an excellent ratings booster for the news media. Ah, the poor TV stations—they had gone weeks without anything to sensationalize. Fox News was growing tired of whipping Obama’s butt, and MSNBC was almost (but not quite) weary of kissing it. Everyone needed a good, bona-fide, eyeball-grabbing headline to capture viewers who left for “Hee-Haw” reruns.

The swine flu was the industry’s saving grace. It was unusual; it was porcine; it was from Mexico and played into the illegal immigration stories. The media jumped on the story like a rooster in a Mexican cockfight. Headlines first terrified Americans with reports that 60 citizens caught the dreaded flu, as opposed to the millions who catch the regular one every winter. Even as more Americans contracted the disease and lived, and we realized the flu wasn’t as horrible as we feared, the media would not drop the story. One TV station advised viewers to develop a Swine Flu Emergency Kit. Stylishly contained in a black box clearly labeled “H1N1 Emergency,” the lifesaving gear comprised a spray can of Lysol, bottles of hand sanitizer and liquid soap, and a box of Kleenex. It was like preparing an emergency plan for the common cold. I was disappointed to see head-wound bandages, leg splints, and distress signal flares were omitted. At least swine flu survivors would have felt as if they were on a Boy Scout adventure.

I will concede that the swine flu will probably mutate into another strain in time for the winter flu season, and I guarantee the news stations will report when it happens. Next time, let’s make the whole ordeal more exciting. In addition to the H1N1 emergency kit and face masks, I’ll bring a few pitchforks; you can provide the torches. A katana or two wouldn’t hurt, either. Then we can all bunker down in a cave somewhere with canned beans and roast hot dogs and marshmallows until the epidemic is over. We’ll live off tree bark and berries when we run out of food, and we’ll eventually get our own television show on the Discovery Channel to show how we survived. Don’t forget the leg splints and distress flares.

©2009 Timothy Samaha

First Published in PoV Magazine

 

The Great Escape

The early 1930s are remembered for the Great Depression, but they also jump-started the Golden Age of Hollywood. Movies provided a cathartic release for people overwhelmed by economic and social instability, and moviegoers escaped reality by plunging into fantasy worlds of glitz, glamour, and gilded cages. In spite of the bread lines and soup kitchens, the film industry boomed with movie stars, “talkies,” and the beginnings of color photography. Americans couldn’t bear to give up their entertainment, and they found other ways to scrimp and save.

Does this sound familiar to you? It is happening all over again. The loose credit and greedy Wall Street policies of the 1920s initiated the Great Depression, and the loose credit and greedy Wall Street policies of the early 2000s—well, you get the idea. So now that we are in the middle of the Great Recession (or “Obama’s Magical Money Machine,” or whatever you want to call it), are we Americans being good little spendthrifts by cutting back on all unnecessary spending? No, of course not. Box office receipts prove we are still spending millions on the cinema; the only difference is that whereas the wise Depression crowd spent their money on movies like “Frankenstein” and “The Public Enemy,” we gave our money to a Tyler Perry movie. The Golden Age of Hollywood has indeed ended.

Now we are in May, the month for summer blockbusters. Once upon a time, summer blockbusters were, in fact, released in the corresponding season; but Hollywood moguls are too greedy to wait on Mother Nature, and began releasing their post-springtime films in May to beef up fall DVD sales. “Wolverine,” “Terminator Salvation,” and “Star Trek” are among this month’s highly anticipated films. These movies guarantee weird legions of twenty- and thirty-something fanboys dressed in Halloween costumes will descend upon theaters throughout America, absorbing every detail so they can later argue about the films on Internet message boards until their mommies make them go to sleep. The rest of us will definitely see these films too, because we want to escape the idiotic policies of our elected officials by watching fake mutants, cyborgs, and aliens. It sounds glorious.

I could lament how we are wasting money on frivolous entertainment. I could explain how nearly the entire industry we are supporting endorses economic policies detrimental to a free America. I could point out that as Americans are losing their jobs, we are providing enormous salaries to mediocre actors whose performances are upstaged by special effects. But doing so would make me a hypocrite, because I will be at the theater for all these movies, too. Shunning the movies in time of economic crisis would be distinctly un-American.

Sometimes a good dose of Hollywood magic is needed to jolt someone out of the doldrums. We saw this right after the 9/11 incidents, when certain films produced before the terrorist attacks took on special poignancy. To be fair, “Lord of the Rings” and “Spiderman” were great movies in the first place, but in late 2001 and mid-2002, the films’ messages of good of evil seemed especially appropriate. I doubt any of this year’s blockbusters will carry such significance, unless Wolverine battles overpaid CEOs and John Connor saves the world from mechanized politicians. But who knows? Maybe the crew of “Star Trek” will finally locate Nancy Pelosi’s home planet.

© 2009, Timothy Samaha

First published in PoV Magazine.

 

Image Is Everything

No matter how often we remind ourselves, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” and regardless of how many times we’ve told children, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” one thing is unfortunately true: image is everything. We know it shouldn’t be, and we enjoy ridiculing the Paris Hiltons of the world whose shallowness rivals a pitre dish, but we nevertheless consider outward appearances tremendously important. We use clothes, cars, hairstyles, and homes to define who we are. Yet our image-conscious culture has relied on a healthy economy, a part of life that has now been lost; and as our politicians use our tax money to bail out fiscally irresponsible companies, We the People—the normal folks who don’t fly private jets or depend on Hollywood heavyweights to get us elected—have had to reign back our spending and become—gasp and egad!—frugal. We have also developed a certain fondness for environmentally friendly lifestyles. Now, in direct rebellion to the conspicuous consumption that characterized the last twenty years, trendsetters have decided the best image is that of financial responsibility and being “green”; after all, green is the color of both money and plant life (unless, of course, those plants are dead).

The word “frugality” suffers from unfortunate connotations. People associate it with scraping for pennies, shopping at garage sales, darning the holes in one’s socks, and shunning steak in favor of red beans. Such opinions are untrue, but our culture has regarded frugality as a disease to be avoided, like polio or smallpox. Ever since our national recession didn’t officially begin—then it did—the old maxim “a penny saved is a penny earned” has seemed uncommonly wise. For decades, a penny was simply an object for scraping gum off one’s shoe. American citizens are pulling out their dictionaries to remind themselves how to spell and define “budget,” and calculators haven’t seen this much use since people tried to figure out Dolly Parton’s new measurements. Being budget-conscious has become fashionable. Times have officially changed.

But saving money is nothing compared to the popularity of saving Mother Earth. Once deemed only for hemp-happy hippies, environmental responsibility is now recognized as a necessity for future survival. It’s also one of the best ways to gain recognition. After losing the presidency, Al Gore elevated sensationalism to Oscar-winning material with his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”; meanwhile, real scientists have been debating various environmental issues. However, people should not use yellow journalism and scientific disputes as excuses to disregard the importance of good stewardship. Anyone who lives in south Louisiana has seen the results of faulty man-made engineering; we wouldn’t be losing our coastline if past politicians hadn’t redirected the Mississippi River, effectively dumping all the shore-building river sediments into the Gulf of Mexico. Coastal erosion is just one of the reasons the green movement has become popular, and people flaunt their environmental friendliness like they’re raising the stakes in a poker game: I see your recycle bin and raise you two solar panels and a Prius. Celebrities also rely on this image-building cause to help fix a ruined reputation. Who cares how many DWIs Lindsay Lohan gets as long as she saves a whale somewhere?

Image may be everything in the public spotlight, but one important factor separates the new image from the old. The unnecessary clothes, sportscars, and vacations of the past were shallow, meaningless exercises in frivolity. The only purpose was to collect more toys than one’s friends. The new emphases on frugality, which encourages thoughtful spending, and on environmental responsibility, which will leave long-lasting impacts on future generations, require us to look beyond ourselves and to others. For that reason alone, following the latest trendy image has suddenly become a good thing.

© Timothy Samaha

First published in PoV Magazine

 

Southern Hospitality

The South is renown for its hospitality; but when my sister’s friend recently visited from the state of Washington, I was struck by how different our culture really is.

Any further discussion requires a clear definition of the “South.” The Mason-Dixon line supposedly marks the boundary between the Yankee “North” and genteel “South,” but the true cultural line of demarcation occurs far below the legendary division. After all, Maryland and Virginia are both within the Southern half of the Mason-Dixon line, yet they both get snow; and as every good Southerner knows, any state that’s completely covered in snow each winter is not really part of the South. The real South—the Deep South—is not marked by imaginary geographic lines. Instead, its regions are bordered with fried chicken, yams, and pralines. Nutritional guidelines are shattered into a million tiny fragments, but everyone is too busy licking their fingers to care.

Even though each Southern state boasts its own culture, most behaviors are shared among Dixieland neighbors. Consider the distinctive way we address people. In the North, everybody is simply a homo sapiens who is called a name. You talk to John or Vicki. Southerners, on the other hand, are born with understood prefixes—Mr. John and Mrs. Vicki. Woe to the poor Southern child who fails to properly address his elders: his face has been slapped so many times he can’t even whistle “Dixie”! But these simple acts of courtesy go beyond mere politeness; the combination of title and name immediately announces your relationship to another person. For example, if someone is Mr. Claude Boudreaux, he is probably an authority figure who requires a certain level of respect. Mr. Claude denotes a closer level of familiarity—perhaps he is your friend’s dad. Claude is your best buddy who taught you how to suck crawfish heads.

Despite the South’s general reputation of friendliness, I consider Louisiana’s version of hospitality the most legitimate. Others seem to practice Southern Hospitality as a requirement: “Well, I’m a Southerner, so I guess I’ll be nice.” No accent, regardless of how thick and sweet it may be, can hide a bad attitude; anybody who has experienced an arrogant woman using her Southern Belle accent to cover the fact she thinks you’re a moron would agree with me that it is a weak deception. Cajuns, on the other hand, do not bother trying to hide their emotions: you know what they’re thinking because their voices, faces, hands, and eyes make it obvious. But the same personality that sends Louisiana children shrieking in terror from an angry momma provides the warmest, friendliest welcome guests can imagine—because the emotions are genuine.

I have observed groups of Louisiana natives in other states, and I’ve seen at least two hundred strangers shout the LSU chant while waiting in line at EPCOT Center. I’m from Texas, but I have never sung “Home on the Range” just because I met another Texan. Maybe the Louisiana bond comes from shared experiences. For instance, the city of New Orleans spends its Fat Tuesdays imbibing as much as possible, and its Ash Wednesdays doubled over toilets. Such a vast collective experience must surely unite groups of strangers in ways impossible for Northerners.

When my sister’s friend visited about a month ago, he was struck by everyone’s friendliness, but he was also practically knocked over with food. You see, the true litmus test for Southern hospitality is the amount of food dumped on a visitor. The food one gets is more or less proportional to people’s opinion of him: we’ll either welcome him with gumbo or send him back home with a stick of celery. Considering that the guy was acknowledged with several meals, two king cakes, cookies, and pralines (Trosclair family pralines, the best on earth), I can safely presume he experienced authentic Southern hospitality. Whether or not he has the Southern gut needed to process our rich foods is another matter entirely.

by Timothy Samaha
First Published in PoV Magazine

 

Because Apparently We’re Stupid…

Food Detectives, a Food Network show that tests various food products and tries to make its results seem scientific, recently jumped into the MSG debate. Its results were so skewed, you could almost say they were paid off to prove MSG is harmless. Now the only reason I care is that my mom is highly allergic to the food additive, and has strongly reacted to it in food she did not know contained the flavor enhancer. Many countries, including Canada and England, discourage its use, but food lobbyists in America have managed to produce studies “proving” the allergic reactions are purely psychological. Although it’s probably true that MSG is often a scapegoat for many different food allergies, the chemical does induce allergic reactions in people, and the Food Detectives “science” was just as offensive as if they told lactose-intolerant people they were imagining things.

Here’s the FD experiment: two groups consumed Chinese food and were told it might contain MSG. Of course, only one of the two groups actually had MSG in their food. Then the smug hosts asked who experienced a reaction, and about four people on the “No MSG” side claimed problems. Only one person who actually consumed the chemical had a reaction.

Food Network claimed this proves MSG is a purely psychological reaction, but the faultiness is ridiculously apparent to anybody who has taken a class in psych or scientific research. First, they served Chinese food, which is known to contain MSG. People who are legitimately allergic to the substance are already wary of Chinese food, and the chances of psychological reactions will inevitably increase. Second, the subjects were TOLD the food they were eating might contain MSG. It’s like the Food Detectives were trying to convince people they were going to have a reaction even before they actually consumed anything. Third, everybody consumed the food in the exact same room; while MSG itself is odorless, the enhanced smell it creates when combined with other foods often initiates allergic reactions. I have seen people with known MSG allergies walk into a dining room, and turn around and walk out because they smelled the MSG-laden food. Some people on the No-MSG side may very well have experienced reactions just by smelling the real MSG food. Finally, based on this one test, because a few people who did not consume MSG complained of symptoms,  the Food Detectives announced that MSG is safe. They completely ignored the one person who did consume and react to the chemical.

This is how the experiment should have been conducted. Each group should have eaten something that never contains MSG, like ice cream, in separate rooms. They should not have been told about MSG possibilities, or what the researchers were trying to find. The Food Detectives should have then asked if anybody felt any sort of reaction to the ice cream, instead of asking, “Who is experiencing MSG symptoms?” Of course, conducting an honest experiment like this probably wouldn’t have “proven” that MSG reactions are psychological, and wouldn’t have produced the result the TV show and its sponsors wanted.

I myself am not highly allergic to the flavor enhancer, and the most serious reactions I’ve witnessed took place in family members—some might accuse me of siting anecdotal evidence of MSG allergies. However, the Food Detectives “proof” was strictly anecdotal as well, and their argument was so weak and ill-constructed, I’m shocked that they tried to pass this off as science. In fact, that’s what infuriates me so much: regardless of what the researchers were trying to prove, the scientific “test” was ridiculously inadequate, and makes me wonder how many other studies are just as skewed.

 

Life Is a Blog

When the Internet’s popularity skyrocketed in the late 90s, social commentators announced that interpersonal relationships would soon die. They predicted people would become so obsessed with virtual online activities, nobody would actually communicate with each other face-to-face. Happily enough, the doomsayers have been proven wrong, much like the premature assertions in the 1980s that written words would become obsolete to explanatory illustrations and audio books. Even though people love their technology, they have also recognized that artificial intelligence is no substitute for real-life friends. Thus, instead of using the Internet only to download music illegally and watch Homestar Runner cartoons, nearly everybody started joining social networking sites like MySpace to share their lives with each other. Facebook, a less trashy and more professional version of MySpace, caught on in college campuses across America and spread to the rest of the world. Everybody’s life was suddenly more important than the technology itself.

The basic tenets of MySpace—blogs, picture sharing, and fan clubs—are staples in all forms of online communication now. Who could live without Rosy O’Donnell’s eloquent blog (apparently everybody, since her new TV show tanked with its first episode), or without the wonderful photos of your worst enemy belting karaoke? Some of the blogging is nothing short of OCD; take Twitter, for example, where members can post single-sentence “miniblogs” every waking second of the day: “Now I’m using the restroom. I’ve left the restroom and I’m going to the mall. I didn’t wash my hands LOL.”

Social sites have also made gift-giving extremely easy. In the past, I had to rely on my deep knowledge of a friend to know what to give him. Now I just have to look up his blog bio and preferences online to know whether he’s a thinking man who would appreciate Beethoven and Dumas, a wild guy who rocks to AC/DC, or a freak obsessed with Star Trek and Japanese vinyl toys.

After being asked (harassed) for my MySpace or Facebook information for years, I finally opened a Facebook account. I chose Facebook over MySpace because the MyStalker stories concerned me. Before the Internet, weirdos could only haunt you at bowling alleys, arcades, grocery stores, movie theaters, schools, libraries, shopping malls, and church functions. Now they can find you almost anywhere.

Anyway, before enjoying a trip to Walt Disney World, I created my Facebook account and started looking for friends. I found people I hadn’t spoken to since fourth grade, and they seemed just as eager to talk to me now as when we discussed the latest episode of Darkwing Duck at the lunch table. Forget that we haven’t acknowledged one another’s existence in over a decade; we’re friends again thanks to the Internet. I also found the Facebook application for my iPhone, and uploaded pictures and status updates every time I waited in line for a ride. Whether I was at Tower of Terror, Spaceship Earth, or Toy Story Midway Mania, my friends knew where I was and what I was doing throughout each day.

Since I was still relatively new to the social networking scene, my sister tried to help me curb my constant updates. “You know, Tim,” she said, “most people use Twitter for that, not Facebook.” What? Get a Twitter account and look like one of those miserably conceited people with nothing better to do than hang out all day on the Internet and post meaningless blurbs online? Why would I do that? Then I updated my status on Facebook to say I was about to ride Splash Mountain. I’d like to believe my friends cared, but they probably didn’t.

© 2009 Timothy Samaha | First published in PoV Magazine.

 

Santa’s Solution

The Presidential election ended a month ago, but it’s still too recent for many Americans to shift comfortably from politics to “Peace on Earth.” Christmas encourages us to extend warmth and kindness to those around us; perhaps kindness would be easier if we hadn’t experienced the most divisive political climate in decades. Furthermore, partisan attitudes can easily be transferred to Christmas: depending on one’s persuasion, Santa could be either a Republican who admonishes nice children to earn their presents, or a Democrat who collects the good children’s toys and redistributes them to the naughty kids. Libertarian Santa would tell everyone to smoke pot and let the states decide who gets presents. But the real Santa Claus—the one who lives at the North Pole and eats cookies without dying from clogged arteries—would present a very different plan. In fact, Santa’s policies would revolutionize the American political system, and since I happen to be very good friends with Mr. Claus, he has allowed me to share his vision for America with you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Proposal #1: Naughty Folks Get No Votes.
Santa hates the way Americans generally vote by party lines instead of according to the issues. As opposed to the spectrum of gray that characterizes our politicians, Santa sees the world in black and white—you’re either naughty or nice. Did this person accept campaign contributions from organizations that also support terrorist groups? If so, he’s naughty. What about prior relationships with hateful religious leaders? Naughty again. Adulterous affairs? Naughty. Stupid decisions based on incomplete information? Naughty! Santa Claus likes this system because it easily separates trustworthy persons from the average politician. The only problem is that nobody would be left in Congress, let alone the Louisiana state legislature.

Proposal # 2: Work Together, or Else.
Do you know why Santa is able to deliver millions of Christmas toys in one night? The answer is simple: everybody works together. Considering our present economical, political and ideological situations, Santa proposes that Americans work together to save their butts. This plan seems as good as any other. In accordance with Proposal #1, only our nice citizens will make important decisions. Meanwhile, all naughty people will be punished with unpleasant tasks; for example, naughty elves get reindeer scat duty.

Proposal #3: Quiet the Voices in Your Head.
A journalist recently asked Santa why he chose to live at the North Pole instead of a more pleasant climate. The writer supposed Santa would attribute his odd environmental preference to the reindeer, the elves or even Mrs. Claus; yet Santa’s response was completely unexpected. “Isolationism,” he replied. “If my elves had access to half your country’s nonsense media, we’d never get any work done.” As a member of the “nonsense media,” I disagree with Santa’s reasoning. Nevertheless, he proposes banning external influences as we work together on fixing America. He says we pay too much attention to opinions on CNN and Fox News instead of using our own brains. Santa also can’t understand why we allow entertainers, who generally aren’t known for being levelheaded, to influence our votes. Finally, he wants to know why we’re fascinated with “The View,” since listening to female dogs howl at each other is not generally considered entertaining.

Proposal #4: Have a Very Merry Christmas.
Christmas is the only holiday that encourages people around the world to show love toward each other, give selflessly, and appreciate friends and family. Whether or not people actually do this is another matter. Unfortunately, many people get so caught up in the commercialized chaos of the holiday season, they miss its true meaning. Santa believes that if more people lived in the spirit of Christmas, America would be a better place, and we wouldn’t need to pretend that charity could be mandated by the government. Mr. Claus is disgusted at the commercial usage of his personal charity project, and he wants to remind everybody that we’re not celebrating his toys or his own birth. He recommends watching “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown,” singing carols and having a good night.

© 2008 Timothy Samaha (First published in PoV Magazine in Houma, LA)

 

Thank Goodness It’s Over

As you gather with obscure relatives this Thanksgiving to stuff your faces and watch football, take a moment to express your gratitude to God that the election is finally over. The 2008 Presidential Election was a fantastic piece of entertainment, a thrilling ride with more loops, turns, and drops than the average roller coaster; and like a coaster, it has left us with a funny feeling in our stomachs. But as of November 4, the ordeal is over. I wasn’t thrilled with either candidate, and I still think Obama was more talk than substance. But I’m grateful nevertheless.

When the election process began, everyone knew the Democratic nominee would be Hillary Clinton. Commentators told us it was Hillary’s race and they are always right. Yet the experts forgot one minor detail: the American public doesn’t like her. Sure, she had some supporters, but most Democrats were more eager to support a young senator with no substantial platform over a puppet master who cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Thus, Obama got the Democratic nomination, and he won the endorsement of Hollywood’s elite—you know, those fine minds like Lindsay Lohan and Tom Cruise. The media promptly ignored Hillary and portrayed Obama as a god worthy of Mount Olympus. And don’t forget Oprah, whose blessing was supposed to matter because she is Oprah.

On the other side of the fence, the Republicans gave the nomination to John McCain, who looked exactly like a Republican is supposed to look—old and white. Okay, I’m exaggerating; but despite his fascinating past, experience, and displeasure with Bush, poor McCain was always portrayed as just another old man. Obama, on the other hand, seemed to be an audience-pleasing magician who conjured happy images of a socialist state while chanting, “Change.” Our Presidential roller coaster slowed to a lull.

Yet the sluggish period was just another lift hill; right before we plunged into more loops and corkscrews, the Vice-Presidential candidates were announced. Obama picked a boring man named Biden. McCain chose a Tina-Fey lookalike from Alaska, a woman named Palin who could see Russia from her backyard. In addition to trumping Hillary as the only female in the election, Palin was a heck of lot easier on the eyes. The media flocked to her and compared her to Obama, as if she were running for President. In other news, the sun continued to shine and the earth’s orbit was undisturbed.

Obama’s win is historical in itself; but regardless of who gained the White House, little of what the candidate promised would have mattered, because Congress always screws it up anyway. With that knowledge, let us take time to thank the Lord we can relax and enjoy a day void of political ads, sound bites, and hyper TV news anchors. The office of President of the United States is the most important position in the world, but the candidates behaved like turkeys, and the television media sounded like a group of old hens. Along with the elephants and donkeys, the whole affair was like an insane zoo. I wonder if anybody tried putting lipstick on a pig.

© 2008 Timothy Samaha | First published in PoV Magazine

 

Nutritional Nightmare

My kitchen is overrun with organic, gluten-free, unprocessed items that would pass for food if they had any flavor. Like many other Americans, I have decided that nutrition is important, because eating a million vegetables a day will help me avoid an untimely death from clogged arteries, clogged heart valves and clogged drain pipes. I remember learning about this in kindergarten, but I was too busy playing with my food to care. Now that I’m older, I have conceded it is time to eat the food God gave us.

The problem is that the “food God gave us” does not tickle my taste buds like a slice of devil’s food cake. Even nutrition experts who dogmatically preach salvation by vitamins and minerals cannot deny that carrots covered in butter taste much better than those served raw. But I have resisted the temptation to leave the straight and narrow rows of cabbage, and I am joining my fellow healthy brethren at the river Jordan for bottled water. I have given up the deadly sin of gluttony, and I am determined to live a virtuous life of lentils, vegetables, and hormone-free meat.

Alas, that is where healthy eating becomes more complicated than a string of polysaturated fats. Being nutritious is not good enough—everything must be the right kind of nutritious. For example, some health gurus claim produce cannot come from an average supermarket because the fruits and vegetables are contaminated with pesticides and growth hormones. Organic foods are held as the highest echelon of nutritious eating, because everyone knows vegetables grown in cow poop are better than those grown in controlled environments. A few weeks ago, another healthy eater panicked when she discovered I was eating normal wheat bread. “No, no,” she exclaimed, “it must be GLUTEN-FREE wheat bread!” Who cares? Don’t I score points for rejecting white bread?

Yet the switch to a healthy diet has not been extremely difficult; it is almost a return to my childhood. I grew up in a relatively nutrition-savvy house. My mom has been into the “health food thing” as long as I can remember, and I was one of the few children that could recite various vitamins and their benefits. Junk food and soft drinks were almost nonexistent in the Samaha household. If I was hungry, I ate a banana. If I was still hungry, I ate an apple. When I did get a candy bar, I had to divide it in half and split it over two days. My sister and I enjoyed accompanying my dad to the grocery store because we could talk him into buying sugary cereal. It was in this way I developed my addiction to Lucky Charms: for years, it was the only guilty pleasure I had.

Once I hit college, I discovered the wonders of carbohydrates and junk food. I purposely ate fast food hamburgers because they gave me a stomachache and kept me awake. In fact, I spent an entire semester eating fast food twice a day, and celebrated this with a visit to a hospital when I collapsed from malnutrition. My parents, especially my mom, could not believe I left the healthy lifestyle of my youth for the wild food abandonment of college. This incident prompted me to eat properly, but I sneaked in as much sugar as I could.

But this food prodigal has returned. Since I started exercising regularly again (another casualty from college), I find myself craving healthy snacks. Junk food I purchased two months ago is still sitting untouched in the back of my pantry; my refrigerator is full of the glorified plants and seed distributors we call vegetables and fruit. I generally don’t eat candy anymore, and I drink enough water to live in a bathroom. My incredible willpower has enabled me to shun processed trash; I feel better, look better, and live better. I would tell you more, but my ice cream sundae is melting all over my desk, and I need to clean it.

©2008 Timothy Samaha | First published in PoV Magazine