Brightest Young Things

It’s been a short week, and what with forecasting a national election and closely following results well into Wednesday (more on this below), I didn’t find time to launch the full-scale assault on Potbelly’s that I had been plotting with renewed vigor ever since seeing a sign in the window at the Van Ness location advertising Potbelly’s designation as home of Washington’s “Best Sandwich” by Washingtonian magazine.

But that will have to wait, because there are a few shorter yet very important items in the peanut butter world that require immediate attention.

First, as William Alberque dutifully pointed out, this week Americans elected as the next leader of the Free World a man who used the peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a central rhetorical device in rebutting a campaign attack by his opponent.

Now, there have been conflicting interpretations of Obama’s remark. On the one hand, it was suggested that his willingness to divvy up his PB+J means that the young Barack Obama really wasn’t all that crazy about peanut butter.

In the second theory that William offered, Obama’s reference to his childhood peanut butter-sandwich-sharing as an analogy for “sharing the nation’s wealth” via progressive taxation implies that Obama in fact views peanut butter as a precious national commodity. In this reading, the sharing of a PB+J entails a great sacrifice.

As much as I would like to believe that Obama cares that much about peanut butter, I’m not entirely convinced that it’s an accurate characterization of Obama’s statement. Obama’s comments were essentially dismissive. He was trying to underscore the inherent ridiculousness of McCain’s labeling him a socialist. Viewed in this light, the childhood sharing of the PB+J anecdote is stripped of any deeper significance. The overarching tone here is “yeah, and so what?” It thus serves not to establish a personal connection between Obama and peanut butter but rather, by generalizing the childhood-PB+J-sharing experience to the point of the hypothetical, actually severs any such connection. “Yeah, I probably ate PB+J as a kid,” Obama seems to be saying. “Who didn’t? And sure, I probably shared a sandwich or two; I was a decent kid, I knew sharing was important. That doesn’t make me a socialist.”

Perhaps not. But it does make me question your commitment to peanut butter, sir.

Sticking with politics here, there is all manner of political intrigue afoot in Georgia right now, a state with huge implications for peanut butter. While Obama Nation was dancing in the streets by midnight Tuesday, Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent was locked in a fierce battle with challenger Jim Martin. By mid-morning Wednesday it was still too close to call, with Chambliss hovering just below 50 percent and facing the possibility of a December run-off.

This was big news. Chambliss has been a reliable and influential supporter of the state’s peanut farmers, serving as he does as Ranking Member of the Senate’s Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. In that capacity, he helped push through the 2007 Farm Bill that peanut farmers nationwide strongly lobbied for. But on issues ranging from Iraq to the economic bail-out package, he has sided again and again with the Bush administration.

So what gives? Has peanut butter started to define its political interests more broadly, so as to weaken its traditionally close alliance with Georgia’s peanut farmers? Only time will tell. Needless to say, I’ll be following the run-off campaign closely.

Finally, I feel a moral obligation to call attention to the utter travesty that is the Wikipedia entry for peanut butter. Honestly, what the fuck is that? Is that really what “the greatest effort in collaborative knowledge gathering the world has ever known” (italics mine, so back the fuck off) has come up with? Bunk!

Here are three things that are terribly wrong with this entry, just off the top of my head:

• “Peanut butter is a food paste made primarily from ground roasted peanuts, with or without added oil.”
  This is the opening sentence. Is that any way to introduce the world to peanut butter? No mention of deliciousness? Not even the slightest indication of how awesome it is?
• “It is popular throughout the world and is also manufactured in some emerging markets.”
  First of all, I would debate “popular throughout the world.” But far more importantly, let me point out this is the second sentence. How did anyone possibly get the idea that the third most relevant thing to say about peanut butter is that it is also manufactured in some emerging markets?
• “Many people derive amusement from feeding peanut butter to their dog. While most dogs appear to like the taste of peanut butter, they appear to lack the ability to eat it with anything resembling traditional social grace.”
  This is just downright bizarre. As much as I would enjoy dedicating an entire essay to ripping the proverbial head off of this paragraph and then tearing it apart word by word like a sadistic child dissecting an insect or small mammal, leaving it’s remains to writhe pathetically on the screen, I really think its total, abject inanity speaks for itself.

Now at this point you might be thinking the following: If you’re such an expert on peanut butter and you take such offense at its paltry Wikipedia entry, then why don’t you take matters into your own hands and make some edits? After all, isn’t that the whole point of Wikipedia?

I will and I won’t. I will take matters into my own hands, but I won’t be making any edits to the Wikipedia peanut butter page. Actually taking the time to re-work the trash that is currently on the page into a half-way decent encyclopedic article would a) take up too much of my clearly valuable time, and more importantly b) exonerate the very system that has allowed such slander to exist in the first place. By fixing the entry, I would essentially be saying to Wikipedia “it’s okay to propagate lies about peanut butter, because eventually some handsome and charming Knight in Shining Armor will come along and make everything better, like Barack Obama does.” But how many people will have been woefully misinformed about peanut butter in the interim?

No. That doesn’t fly. Instead, I’m hereby calling for a universal boycott of Wikipedia. Let’s start with the peanut butter page. The next time someone asks you to recommend a good source of general information about peanut butter, direct them here instead.

Previously in Misc/Awesome:

• 12/28: Terrible Boyfriend/ Girlfriend Generator.
• 12/1: The John Waters Advent Calendar-it starts today
• 11/28: It Chooses You: All I Want for Christmas is Everything from Miranda July's Pop-Up Shop
• 11/3: Things I'd Move to Minnesota For
• 9/6: PHOTOS: Maloof $$ Money Cup
• 9/2: PHOTOS: Chantilly Model Train Show
• 9/1: Libby's List: 5 Things I Want Right Now...
• 8/22: PHOTOS: Best Friends Day
• 8/10: PHOTOS: Lawn Mover Racing, Eastern Seaboard Regionals @ Bowles Farm
• 7/26: Special List: Things the BYGays Want Now That We Can Marry In DC (and NY!)