Clean Plate Club
Weigh-in
by Ben McGrath
May 28, 2007 Gioia, Eric; =E2=80=9CFood Stamp Challenge=E2=80=9D; Diets; Fo=
od Stamps;
Poverty; Poor People; City Councilmen Traditionally, dieting for a
cause can be as good for one=E2=80=99s figure as it is for the soul. Al
Sharpton, during his hunger strike over Vieques, in 2001, dropped
thirty pounds and several inches from his waistline. Marty Markowitz,
Brooklyn=E2=80=99s borough president, lost eleven pounds during his first
Lighten Up Brooklyn campaign against obesity, in 2002. (He gained it
all back.) The latest stunt-eating politico is Eric Gioia, a city
councilman from Queens. Last week, he concluded a Food Stamp
Challenge, during which he ate only what a New Yorker could typically
afford on a week=E2=80=99s worth of food stamps, or the equivalent of twent=
y-
eight dollars.
=E2=80=9CI did this to draw attention to the issue of how people are living=
in
New York City,=E2=80=9D Gioia said the other day, in his parents=E2=80=99 k=
itchen, in
Woodside. =E2=80=9CIt=E2=80=99s been terrible. I feel lousy. I=E2=80=99m ti=
red. I just don=E2=80=99t
feel like myself.=E2=80=9D After three days, Gioia weighed in at a hundred =
and
seventy-one pounds, up from his usual one-sixty-nine. In this respect,
he resembled his college roommate Morgan Spurlock, who, while making
his documentary =E2=80=9CSuper Size Me,=E2=80=9D ate nothing but McDonald=
=E2=80=99s food for
thirty days and acquired a soccer-ball gut.
Gioia=E2=80=99s diet consisted primarily of pasta, white bread, vegetables,
and tap water=E2=80=94the anti-Atkins. It followed a similar feat by the
governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, and coincided with attempts by
four members of Congress to meet the same thrifty standards=E2=80=94all in =
the
interest of raising awareness of the food-stamp program, which is up
for reauthorization this year. President Bush has threatened to cut
the program by hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several
years, even though food-stamp provisions have not been properly
adjusted for inflation since 1996.
Here are the groceries that Gioia brought home from a Food Dynasty in
Woodside: two loaves of white bread, six ears of corn, five oranges,
six bananas, three cucumbers, three cans of tuna, four packets of
ramen, five boxes of Ronzoni pasta, one jar of tomato sauce, one bag
of carrots (organic), one stick of butter, processed-cheese slices,
one tub of pre-mixed peanut butter and jelly (Smucker=E2=80=99s Goober). To=
tal
cost: $24.44. Feeling strong at the outset, he forgot to pace himself.
For his first breakfast, he ate six pieces of toast, and for lunch he
had three Goober sandwiches and a banana. After four days, he was out
of bread, fruit, and cheese, and was also suffering from headaches,
perhaps owing to caffeine withdrawal. (Governor Kulongoski spent four
of his twenty-one dollars on coffee.) On the fifth day, Gioia returned
to Food Dynasty to spend his final $3.56. =E2=80=9CI got a good deal on
English muffins,=E2=80=9D he said. He also found a three-for-a-dollar speci=
al
on yogurt.
Gioia did not look for loopholes. For instance, he didn=E2=80=99t scrounge
free condiments at fast-food restaurants, as Homer Simpson might do.
At the office, he drank water from the bathroom faucet rather than
from the cooler. But public life has its snares, and during a gala at
the Museum of Modern Art last Tuesday, after he waved away a plate of
veal Milanese and asked for a glass of tap water, he inadvertently
drank some Pellegrino=E2=80=94a violation he claims to have discovered only
when the bubbles tickled his throat. He was seated next to David
Childs, the architect, and gazed longingly at Childs=E2=80=99s raspberry
dessert. =E2=80=9CThese raspberries cost more than your whole week,=E2=80=
=9D Childs
told him.
On the seventh day, Gioia prepared dinner for himself at his parents=E2=80=
=99
house, using what provisions he had left: a sliver of butter, a bowl=E2=80=
=99s
worth of ziti, and six carrots. He peeled the carrots as his father,
Neil, a florist, stood by. =E2=80=9CI try to wait until he annoys me, and t=
hen
I pull out a cupcake,=E2=80=9D Neil said.
=E2=80=9CI=E2=80=99ve run out of tomato sauce,=E2=80=9D Councilman Gioia sa=
id as he mashed the
butter on top of the cooked pasta and sat down to eat. He confessed
that he=E2=80=99d scored some emergency bounty=E2=80=94granola bars, Ritz B=
its=E2=80=94during
a visit to a local soup kitchen the day before, and planned to save
some for a special breakfast the next day on his way to Washington,
where he was scheduled to meet with representatives of the Hunger
Caucus. His mother and sister had promised to cook him chicken cutlets
for dinner when he returned. =E2=99=A6
----------------------------------------
I have a difficult time understanding how the powers that be, those
who make
the decisions that really affect our country, can keep this idiot and
his crew of intellectual roadkill in office,
KNOWING he is utterly unqualified for the presidency of the free
world.
Why isn't impeachment being discussed, seriously? They KNOW how bad he
is, how bad his staff is,
how unqualified..his treason.
Road kill because they are so intellectually slow, they get run over
by the smart people,
who drive intellectually fast cars, they get in the way of the real
problem solvers,
those stupid treasonous trolls, winky, dinky and nod or whatever they
call themselves
these days...
So, Josh "road kill" Bartlett. Karl "road kill" Rove, David "road
kill" Addington, Steven "road kill" Hadley.
Tinky " road kill" Wink teletubbie, et al...you get the picture...
He's the center of the universe, troll boi, he can't grasp he isn't,
and his trolls don't work when people don't' play him. He cannot grasp
he was
deliberately played, he was conned, the abstract beyond his
intellectual reach, leading,
as with Bush, to a narcissistic rage he cannot resolve, boxed in,
nowhere to go.
Gail Sheely's article in Vanity Fair " The Accidental Candidate"
revealed Bush's proclivity to change the rules of the game until he
won.
He cannot do that in Iraq, so I would assume he's also enraged,
trapped, with all the psychological fallout.
First time he hasn't gotten his way, I would suppose, and what a
whopper...Poor Iraq, poor Israel, poor America.
Toxic, just toxic.
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