The Fries Thing

In WWI and WWII, when France was conquered (and conquered again) by Germany, US restaurants renamed sauerkraut to "Freedom cabbage", hamburger to "Freedom steak" and "German Toast" to "French Toast". There's some myth wrapped in there; this is also the time that Frankfurters were said to be renamed "Hot Dogs", which apparently isn't the case. Also, the toast in question in the Middle Ages was known as Roman Toast, as they seem to have popularized it. In the 1800s, it was known as "German Toast" "French Toast" "Spanish Toast" and even "American Toast" until "German Toast" seemed to win out in the US...temporarily.

French Fries. Historically it's actually an accurate term in one of those roundabout ways. The idea of cut fried potatoes came to the US from French immigrants, and may have even been invented in Paris by street vendors. We called them French fried-potatoes while everyone else on the planet, including France, snubbed the French part and called them the local equivalent of "fried potatoes". Americans shortened the name in a unique manner (as Americans are wont to do, a habit only exceeded by the Australians) and the name French Fries stuck.

Some über-patriot owner of a diner in Beaufort, North Carolina confused Saddam Hussein and Jacques Chirac with Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler and renamed French fries to "Freedom Fries" last February. He got some press, and a lot of people came to his diner, which was probably the main reason he did it in the first place. Someone in Congress caught on and now it's "Freedom Fries" in the Capitol, as well as yet another step away from Rome for the newly dubbed "Freedom Toast". Why change? Because the story will get back to France, straight to the junk-food loving Jacques Chirac, and slap him in the face with a sizzling potato strip. It's the modern equivalent of a velvet glove to the cheek, with American goofball style.

Personally, I'd rather have Congress interested in the congressional menu than have them pass more unpatriotic acts such as Homeland Security. What's for dessert, Congressmen? Are those crepes on your place? Nah, they must be "Freedom Fritters".

Babble, babble, babble -- what's a Libertarian to do?

I'm going to jump the gun a little bit. I'll probably regret this in the morning.

It's abso-fuckin-lutely amazing that the Smart girl was found alive. Whether or not she was playing along, or was brainwashed, or whether there was any other extenuating circumstances remains to be seen, but for now it looks like miraculous odds that she's alive and well when almost every other girl abducted under similar circumstances is tragically found in a shallow grave.

That's not what I'm jumping the gun about. It's the press that's bugging me. 2002 may grow to be known as the year in which it was shown that intense media scrutiny of a case may conclusively hinder an investigation, rather than aid it. First the sniper and the witch hunt for the non-existent white van, and now the probable lack of involvement of Richard Ricci, the habitual criminal who died in prison of a brain hemorrhage as an all-but-media-convicted suspect. Reading old stories about this is like reading the press coverage of Richard Jewel after the Olympic park bombing. Here's one from September: http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/02/missing.girl/index.html

The problem is, there is no easy way to fix this. In many countries, such as Australia, it is illegal for the press to name a suspect before he/she is convicted. This sits badly with the Libertarian in me, as I believe in unrestricted free speech. If the police are interested in you enough to arrest you, perhaps that should be public knowledge. Similarly, the US has John Peter Zenger v. the New York Times, in which the Supreme Court had ruled that there is no libel or defamation if the press reports the truth. This isn't the case in England -- if Ted Bundy were in the UK (and still alive) and a reporter described his crimes in detail, Bundy could successfully sue for character defamation. Which, in all seriousness, explains why Madonna lives in the UK these days -- a good lawyer/barrister there is a backstop against tabloids.

I don't know. I'm a moderate. I think there are as many problems with the press as there are with government. The old boy's network and self-protection are just as strong in the press as in lawmaking entities. However, limiting the government is constitutional, limiting the press isn't. Much of the problem with the press is the money-making aspect of it. So, half of me thinks that perhaps the major media outlets should be limited to non-profit organizations...which bugs the other half of me. What about people like Drudge? He's not a major media outlet, he ran on a shoestring up until recently, yet he has had his scoops (and his blunders) just like the media and had a global audience. Where is the line between the press and public free speech? Registering media outlets sits just as bad with me as national ID databases.

So, I grumble and babble, and day after day, I trust any journalist less and less.