The Sadness of Kale Hypocrisy Guilt

I found a column written by a food writer who someone perhaps accused of hypocrisy (although that last clause is a guess).

She wrote in sorrow about her role in making kale appear in unsuitable cuisine.

Apparently, about 40 years ago, she had written a pro-kale piece.  It espoused the good things about kale, e.g. nutritional value, flavor absorption; but did not sufficiently emphasize the bad things, e.g., bitterness when cooked dry, tough texture when uncooked.

Now she had this to say (on May 29, 2016),

I’m Sorry for Helping Make Kale Cool

The leafy green is tough, bitter, and completely unsuited for salads, brownies, pizza, and most else. It’s the triumph of cool over taste.

Color it green, black, brown, blue, purple, white, or red.

Call it braunkohl, cavolo nero or riccio, chou frisé, borecole, colewort, yuyi ganlan or brassica oleracea acephala.

In any color and by any name, I know and hate kale when I see it—and these days I see it everywhere: like scorched bits of burned paper atop pizzas, muffled into pesto as a dusty, bitter blanket over pasta and risotto, studded like flecks of parchment into brownies and cookies, muddying up the cool elegance of ice creams and sorbets."

Her column (which is available here) explains her article four decades earlier by saying that kale is good when cooked in oil or fat or a deep sauce (the first image is kale cooked in a sausage sauce, the second is kale cooked with white beans with oil). However, kale is bad when served raw or improperly cooked.

Of course changing your mind is not hypocrisy.

Being imprecise or leaving information out is also not hypocrisy.

But, as I mentioned above, the hypocrisy accusation may have been the cause. Also I like the fact that her column was educational.

Changing your mind vs hypocrisy

day, May 30, 2016

Changing Your Mind vs Hypocrisy 

Donald Trump has, for the past few months criticized Bill Clinton as an abuser of women.

Only a few years ago, Donald Trump was a friend to the Clintons. The first image is from Trump's third marriage to Melania (then Knauss) in 2005. The Clintons received an invitation to the wedding and they attended it. The second image is from 2008 at the Trump Golf Club.  Rudi Giulani is to  Trump's right. Michael Bloomberg is between Trump and Clinton. Clinton has a hand around Joe Torre and Billy Crystal is next to Torre. 

Trump's friendliness to the Clintons extended to at least 2012 as pointed out in an opinion piece by Dean Obeidallah in CNN on line. Obeidallah titles his piece "Trump's Jaw Dropping Hypocrisy over Bill Clinton" (Irwin sent me a link to the piece).  Obeidallah refers to a 2012 interview in which Trump praised both Clintons and predicted that Hillary Clinton would run for President in 2016, notwithstanding the fact that Hillary had recently stated that her then position as Secretary of State would be her last public position.  The Trump interview is available at this site. The Hillary 'last public position' statement is at this site. 

Obeidallah further notes that Trump gave the Clinton Global Initiative at least $100,000. 

A 2015 exchange (report by ABC here) with Senator Rand Paul at a debate went like this:

Paul said, "You've donated to several Democratic candidates. You explained away those donations saying you did that to get business-related affairs".

then Paul continued,  “And you said recently, quote, ‘when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.’” 

“You better believe it,” Trump responded. 

The fact that Trump changes his mind or contradicts himself is not in serious dispute. For example a few days ago, Trump contradicted himself in less than a single sentence (twitter capture is here). The sentence goes,So the Obeidallah point of "jaw dropping" isn't really jaw dropping at all, merely ordinary opinion changing or stream of consciousness muddle. Neither of those are hypocrisy.

More annoyingly, Trump's position on the Clintons may simply be a matter of bribery. His gifts to the Clinton Foundation are, in Trump's own view, something like bribery although legal. His invitation to the Clintons to Trump's wedding was also something like bribery.  Now that he wants the job of President, he can say what he wants. 

If this is going on, it is hypocrisy and is both understandable and awful.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 1:00 PM