One more thing: We've watched the first two episodes of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Basically Jamie Oliver, celebrity chef, decided to come to America to save our most unhealthy city, some burg in West Virginia. Apparently everyone there is dying of obesity and diabetes and so forth including dogs, cats and goldfish. And Jamie will save them with his fantastic healthy food!

Honestly, I'm on both sides with this program. I don't happen to think changing your diet will help your obesity. As a middle-aged fat guy with diabetes, though, I'm clearly biased. However, I like real food made with real ingredients and I think a lot of Western industrial processed food is crap. So I appreciate what he's trying to do. For the first two episodes he's focused mainly on taking over the cafeteria of a grade school in attempt to show that he can give the kids good, healthy, school lunches (and breakfasts). On his first day there he witnesses the kids having pizza for breakfast, so, you know, Jamie's already looking pretty good.

Here's the thing I think makes the show interesting for readers of this blog, though: Jamie ends up going through the classic phases of liberal government meddling. He starts with the assumption that, given a choice between pizza, french fries and Day-Glo pink artificially flavored strawberry milk and his roast chicken, salad and fruit, the children will choose his meal. Of course they don't. So Jamie completely contradicts his earlier statements and says of course, given a side-by-side choice, his food can't win. Thus the next day he offers the kids no choice -- there's only his food. This time the kids simply don't eat anything and all his food is thrown away. So the next time Jamie serves the kids, he says of course they didn't eat the food, they had no idea how good it was! He therefore goes out into the dining room and cajoles the kids into eating and offers them a sticker if they simply try to eat some of this new wholesome food. Jamie even gets the principal and some teachers in on the act. Even this is something of a failure, though, so finally Jamie calls a meeting with the parents of the students and throws a big demonstration of all the bad food the kids will eat, including a dumpster full of raw animal fat to represent the fat content of an entire year's worth of school lunches. And, oh, the parents are upset!

It's a perfect liberal do-gooder arc. First, they're certain their reforms will be embraced by everyone. When they're not, make them compulsory, since clearly people don't know what's good for them. When that doesn't work, incentivize. When even that fails, roll out the scare tactics and the enforcers.

Also, by the end of the second episode the footage essentially admits that Jamie's failed: His food costs more than twice the allocated budget and requires significantly more preparation time. Double the materials cost, increased labor cost, and a product no one wants? Sounds like government!

It's a lovely little show. I feel for Jamie because, yes, school food is pretty nasty and it would be nice if it were better. I know from up close how bad school food bureaucracy can be -- my mother was a lunch lady for 15 years. I saw her paperwork and the notes from the school dietitian. It's hilarious and stupid. And Jamie comes across as a really committed, nice guy who sincerely wants to help people and make them great food. But his show is a perfect object lesson in the evils of being too much of a big-government liberal.

I would also recommend the "balcony scenes" at the end of Boston Legal episodes. The little vignettes between Spade and Shatner are usually priceless BUT DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WATCH ANY OF THE OTHER PARTS OF THE SHOW UNLESS YOU ARE KHABALOX OR JOEL or your head will asplode

I wish they would release a dvd of just the balcony scenes.