Another ‘sour’ step for identity politics

Front page of the Enterprise-Record, two stories — one about sauerkraut, the other, reparations.

To the question of poverty-targeting kraut workshops and “food insecurity”: What we call food insecurity was once “hunger and starvation.” It might clear our minds to return to the latter terminology; food insecurity sounds like a DSM disorder.

Gandhian appeal notwithstanding, I wouldn’t attack “clothing insecurity” with a lesson in spinning. Acknowledging the complexities of kraut production — from napa cabbage sourcing to Mason jar wrangling —“let them eat kraut” captures the fatuousness in this latest SJW-foodieism fusion. Professor Stemen’s kraut mastery might land him a role on “Top Chef,” but only a satirical cameo on the Butte County deprivation derby program. (I can’t help imagining a pencil-thin Monty Python-esque homeless man, subsisting on zero calorie pickled brassicas, hauling a bulging bike trailer rigged for kimchi production. A sketch with a minimum wage single mom might be similarly comical.)

To the question of “reparations”: California is a state with hundreds of thousands of unhoused and millions in poverty — people of all colors. Let’s consider for a moment the possibility Oprah Winfrey is a resident, owning an estate near Santa Barbara. Winfrey’s net worth is over two billion, while Cali fever dreams have us dropping a few hundred grand in her Gucci handbag.

Given what the government of California might do for the rainbow-complected poor, with wealth and income the only honest criteria for action, I conclude identity politics has gone another step in turning our brains to kraut.

— Patrick Newman, Chico